Valentine Treats

Since Corbin and I are enjoying our third snow day, I thought today was the day to be productive.  Enough laying in bed, playing games, building with blocks…it’s time to get busy!

With making Valentine treats for his little buddies at Ms. Erika’s.  So of course I turned to my trusty little Pinterest board and gave Corbin three choices.  Out of those he picked these (http://www.iheartnaptime.net/bag-kisses-valentine/):

because he is now a fan of chocolate.

So, we made a quick run to Target, got our Hershey's Kisses and began the process.

I did like that learning opportunities were built into this experience.  Corbin had to count ten Kisses into each bag.  We talked about different ways to make tens and how we could group them.  But let’s be real, by the third bag he was a little over it.  However, I said he had to stick with it.  So, with the help of some music Corbin powered through the difficult task

As he was doing that I printed off the labels, wrote his name, and cut them out.  (I too powered through this difficult job!)

Then instead of stapling the tags to the bags, we got Valentine stickers and adhered the tag with those. 

Here’s our final result.

They were easy and kid friendly to put together.  What did we do before Pinterest?

Random Tidbits

**Last week I hosted a literacy café for my 4th graders.  This was a way to introduce my students to three specific genres (science fiction, mystery, and realistic fiction) as well as engage them in books they may not have looked at otherwise.

One of my main goals as an elementary librarian is to develop and inspire a love for reading.  This activity certainly peeked some interest! 

Before they even came into the library I told them they had reservations for the literacy café and they had no clue what I was talking about.  Some of the expressions were priceless.

After explaining the concept the kids chose a table and previewed a variety of books, from the three specific genres, recording  books that they felt they would be interested in checking out.  They had an opportunity to share out to a partner and the class different books they liked and why they thought it might be a good check out.

During this time I also served some chocolate chip cookie as dessert to sweeten their main meal of books.

It was a fun morning with my 4th graders! 

 

**Corbin had a birthday party to attend and he created his own birthday card.  I love this age because he had a specific idea in mind and a “design” concept he wanted to carry out.  So cute to watch!

**We finally had a our first snow day of the year!  Unfortunately, I’m still recovering from the stomach bug and Corbin has a cold.

All this being said, on this our first snow day I also had another first.  Corbin CHOSE to lay on the couch during his quiet time.  In fact, he even brought out his pillow and blanket.  He told me he would not be closing his eyes and that he just wanted to lay on the couch.  No problem, I assured him.  Well 10 minutes later here’s what I find…

Precious!

**Finally, what’s a snow day without cuddling up in bed.

Stay warm and enjoy your snow day (if you got one)!  Let’s hope for another one tomorrow!

Monday Monday

This cold Monday morning, after Chris and I worked out, I hopped back into my big comfy bed with Corbin.  We snuggled while Daddy got ready for work.  How I LOVE my Monday’s off!

We did decide to crawl out of bed to send Chris off and have some breakfast.  But then, who could resist, it was back into bed for a marathon puzzle session.  We did about 100 puzzles give or take some 

After that mind bending puzzle work out we got ready and bundled up to run some errands and go visit Chris at work to have lunch with him. 

It’s always a huge thrill for Corbin to see where Daddy works and eat at his office cafeteria.

Here are two great minds hard at work!  (Don’t they look like little carbon copies…love this picture.)

After a stop at the library it was time to head home for some cocoa and fun by the fire.

We did some “sewing” and “feeding” of the animals to make sure they were well taken care of in this cold weather.

I had a great Monday spending time with my little guy!

Ahrrr Matey!

We are blessed to have a dear friend watching Corbin for a day and half that he is not at preschool.  She was a teacher and does AMAZING activities with the kids.

I always love hearing about all he has done at Ms.Erika’s and having him tell me all the new information he has acquired.

This last week it was pirates and pizza!  Corbin learned how pizzas were made and had some pirate adventures. 

One day the kids dressed up as pirates and went on a treasure hunt.  Corbin thought this was awesome.  They followed a treasure map and at the end they got a piece of candy…what a treat!

The kiddos even had pirate names.  Corbin was “Squidlips Bone ThreeGates”

Love our little pirate!

Random

I have been horrible about taking pictures so when I finally set down to blog today I do not have pictures of anything I wanted to talk about.  So, instead it will be random pictures that I do have

Corbin LOVES to build.  He builds something at least once a day.  And if Daddy isn’t home to see it, then a picture must be taken before we pick it up so he can see it later.

We got barstools for our kitchen island.  Corbin was a great help in matching up the different screws and bolts to help Chris when he was putting them together.

I hosted a baby shower a few weeks ago.  The whole theme for the shower was “decorate the nursery”.  Everyone brought nursery décor (gray and yellow colored) and then someone made a bow hanger and we all made hair bows that night.  Again I lacked on taking pictures, but I loved the nursery décor idea and making the hair bows was such a fun activity!

Corbin has always loved letters, but now with the introduction of dry erase markers he loves writing them.  That would be my “teaching” tip of the day; if you have a child who is reluctant to write, spell, do math, etc get a dry erase board and markers and I bet they will do a little bit more then they did before.  Those things are like magic!

DIY

I’m not really a DIY kinda of gal.  But, I took the plunge and decided to restain our entry table.  Well, I guess I shouldn’t say I did it because it was really Chris who did the work  But I spear headed the project and that counts for something, right?

In our new house we have dark wood floors and this entry table is a lighter wood.  It just needed to be darkened up to flow better with our floors. 

So Chris brought out the sander, we picked out some stain, and we (or really just Chris) went to work (and I supervised).

After Chris started sanding a small section I think we both started doubting ourselves.  He asked me if I was sure that this was what I wanted, but at that point it seemed a little too late to turn back.  So, we forged ahead.

And this is the final outcome.  After it was done we decided that it probably needs a protective coat, so we’ll be doing that, but overall it looks much better with a darker stain.

Yea for our DIY project success!

New Year’s Eve and Day

Our New Year’s Eve was spent hosting an early bird party.  We had some families over, all with younger kids, and had a gourmet dinner of mac and cheese, fruit, little smokies, and brownies.  Then the kids played, the adults talked and at around 9:30 everyone was headed out to put the kiddos to bed.

I think that this may be how we spend our next few New Year’s Eves.  It was fun, we got to hang out with friends, we did not have to find a babysitter, and I had a mostly happy kid the next day because he wasn’t up terribly late.  I call that an overall win.

As for New Year’s Day, our little of family of three, decided early on in December that this day would be a PJ stay at home day.  So even if plans came our way we declined because out of our 2 week Christmas break this was the only day that we did not have plans.

So our day was spent in PJs, watching the parade and football, playing blocks, reading books, and just trying to be as lazy as a 3 year old will let Chris and I be

Happy 2014 all!  Let’s see if this blog survives the year