Wordless Wednesday

leaf prints

Here is a quick fall activity that you can do.  There's really no prep... just get some leaves from your yard...

and some paper and crayons without the wrappings(which won't be hard because I think every kid takes the wrapping off of the crayons!)

Tape your leaves on the paper with the vein sides down.

Turn the paper over and rub your crayon over the leaves

And you are done!

Wordless Wednesday

shaving cream fun

 Want to have some messy, but really good smelling, fun with your kids???  Try shaving cream "painting!"  I've heard about doing this from several people.  I finally remembered to get some cheap shaving cream and we did it!

Here's a tip: cover the surface with plastic wrap before you start:

They may start out a bit shy....

but trust me, they will get into it!

Oh yes!

"Oh my!  Look what we did!"

"Yea!!!!"

Remember that tip I gave you??  Well I had a mental block and took the plastic wrap off before I cleaned the children.  Oops!

Wordless Wednesday

(well, words this time... there was suppose to be a picture here when I posted it Wednesday... I used the what-I-thought-was-cool-but-apparently-doesn't-really-work upload to blogger button in Picasa and the picture didn't show up when it was posted.)

In September our family participated in the "Memory Walk" which is a walk to help end Alzheimer's.  I blogged about this a week before we walked.  Three of my relatives, including my grandma, have passed away with Dementia.  This was the first walk I had been a part of and it really was a good time. 

Here's the start

If my aunt and cousin are reading my blog, I'm sure they will be so happy I put this picture on!

Here's most of our family group

They had a little "memory garden" you could walk through as well.  The purple flowers represent someone who has passed away from Alzheimer's/Dementia, the blue flowers represent someone who has Alzheimer's who attended the walk, and the yellow ones represent caretakers of someone with Alzheimer's.  There was another color, orange, for people who were there as supporters.

It was a good day, even if both children were sick and James and I had sinus infections. :)  Uncle Josh always makes things better!

cider fest

A few weekends ago we went to an area apple cider mill.  The kids loved the "pumpkin patch"

We saw the apples and how they made the cider



We ate apple cider donuts and drank apple cider.  O and I shared and James and S shared.  O thought it was really funny that she drank most of the apple cider when I left to go buy some to take home.

birthday party!

It's birthday party day!!  Ok, not today, like 2 weekends ago...  I'm blaming blogger for part of this delay... uploading pictures is so slow lately!  And then strange things were happening... like the picture would disappear if I made it bigger than "medium" size!  Anyway,

We had S's birthday party a couple weekends ago.  Warning... lots of pictures in this post.

S always wants pancakes in the morning.  I think he has eaten more pancakes in his 2 years then most people have in 10!  And he likes to help cook them!

(pay no attention to the unshowered, pj'ed mommy in the background)

S decided he wanted a duck cake for his birthday.  He talked about it for weeks!  And I went through several ideas before I ran out of time and cake space and decided on doing this.  It's really quite easy, just find a simple picture you like, copy it, cut it out, lay it on the cake, and cut around it with a sharp knife.  I read a good hint that it works best if the cake is in the freezer for an hour(or longer).

For S's cake I made the duck out of an 8x8 cake and put the duck on the "pond" which was a 9x13 cake that I frosted blue. (side note...want a really easy cake recipe that has so little calories... take any cake mix and add one can of Sprite Zero-or any diet pop- and mix together.  Bake as directed... no eggs, oil, water needed and the only calories that are in the cake are in the cake mix!  end side note).

I frosted the duck and added some small rubber duckies James found at Hobby Lobby and it's done!

S was excited! :)

He also was good at helping "decorate"

We played some fun games like duck, duck goose, and hide/find the duck

We ate lunch

And had cake!

Opened presents!(thanks Uncle Josh for helping!)

And thanks to Uncle John and Uncle Josh for putting the toys together...

Lots of fun!

It seems it's become a tradition that Grandpa reads the story before naptime...

Good times!