Ocean Animals

We spent the week learning all about the animals in the ocean! This is always one of my favorite themes to teach... because the ocean is such a foreign place to the kids in Minnesota-- it's always fun, new and exciting! We sang ocean animal songs, put together a giant 100 piece ocean floor puzzle, made a blue jello ocean snack, added the corresponding number "suckers" to the numbered octopus legs, made sea snails using shells, play doh, pipe cleaners and google eyes, filled the sensory table with blue water and plastic ocean animals and tons of other ocean crafts! On Friday, we went swimming and pretended to be every animal in the ocean we could imagine!

Happy Birthday Rachael

We all know that Rachael's Birthday is always a big deal! We love helping her celebrate her favorite holiday. This year she went out on the town Friday night dancing and Saturday morning with some of her college friends... I was invited to join along but decided that Sunday dinner with her family was more up my alley. We made sure to send cards so she would get them on her birthday and sing for her too...

Puzzle Queen!

Avery is becoming quite the master at puzzles! She is now able to complete 12 piece puzzles almost completely on her own and loves the challenge of 24 piece puzzles and can do them with a little help!

Good Job Ry Ry!

Avery and her cousin Ryann are going to be the best of friends! They love playing together and are always talking about one another! We got word that Ryann was starting to use the potty and Avery just had to send her a video message! She took about 15 little video clips before she was satisfied with the results! Its just too cute not to save! 

Drawing

Avery is all about drawing lately! She has been making tons of H's and upside down A's on her paper. A few nights ago, she was doodling on some junk mail while I was making dinner and she shouts "Look, it's Daddy!" Looking out the window to see his truck, and seeing nothing, I glance over and see that she was talking about her drawing! And sure enough... it looks just like him! Then I asked her to draw a photo of me... she was so excited to do that too... and she even added hair! I am going to bed a proud Mommy tonight!

The Wild Rumpus

I took the kiddos over to one of my favorite book stores today, The Wild Rumpus! It is a neat little, family owned, book store with roaming animals and tons of cozy spots to cozy up and read! We got there right when it opened and stayed for story time. Then each of the kids found one book to buy and headed for home! It was a fun morning outing for all of us - and the kids all LOVE their new books!

Valentine's Day

On Friday, we had our Valentine celebration with the kids at The Murray's! It started out with sprinkle donuts and pink milk. I planned a ton of Valentine activities for the girls throughout the week -- we made pink cookies, made a batch of pink play-doh and used heart cookie cutters with it, we played Valentine Bingo,made some valentine crafts, made Valentine cards to mail to all of our friends and family, painted our nails pink and all kinds of other fun things!

 

Avery's Valentines to her friends and family!

 Making pink sprinkle cookies...

BINGO!!!

 Pink Play-doh!

  

On Friday night Brandon and I decorated a little bit and got out everything for our pink pancake breakfast so in the morning when she came out to the kitchen, it would be a fun surprise! We had so much fun making all kind of shaped pancakes and Avery had fun topping hers with whipped cream and sprinkles! We opened our Valentines and spent the day together playing and hanging out. Then we headed over to Bob & Becky's for a heart-shaped pizza lunch!

 

My gifts from Avery...

 Pancakes for breakfast!

Heart-shaped pizza for lunch!

That evening, Brandon made us a nice steak dinner after Avery went to bed! I don't think we ate until 10:00 pm -- but it was still WAY better than going to any restaurant! Happy Valentine's Day!