3:41 AM

Our boys are pretty good at sleeping through the night.  They’re usually in bed between 8 – 8:30 PM, and we don’t hear a peep out of them until 7 AM.  Jensyn…well, we’re getting there.

Last night, I stayed up late to finish up a good book I was reading.  I shut down the Kindle at 1 AM.  I should know better than to stay up that late when I have three little ones!

At 2 AM, Jensyn was awake to nurse.  Once I went back to bed, I figured I’d be good ‘til 7 AM.

Nope.  Alex, who NEVER gets us up in the night, wandered into our room at 3:41 AM.  I figured he’d had a bad dream, he didn’t feel well, he was scared…

Not quite.

You know why he woke me up?  He stood next to my bed, looked at me, and said, “Mom, can you wake me up when my clock says 7?”

REALLY?!  Alex, you get up at 7 AM every day without any help from mommy.  Why on EARTH did you need to ask me that in the middle of the night?

I sleepily replied, “Honey, you’re always up when the clock says 7.  It’ll be fine.  Now go back to bed.”

And he did.

After Alex left the room, Keith started chuckling.  I couldn’t help but giggle, too.  Of all the reasons to wake your parents…

Kiddo, it’s a GOOD THING you are cute and loveable because waking Mommy at 3:41 AM for THAT isn’t really a good idea. :)

Easter Blessings FREE preschool pack

Click the image to download this pack for FREE from Teacher’s Notebook.

 

The updated Easter Blessings pack is ready to go.  Honestly, I think it’s the HARDEST theme to work with.  It’s a struggle for me to make activity pages about death and resurrection without feeling as if it is making light of a serious subject. 

 

These pages are not designed to TEACH the Easter story.  There are so many great teaching resources available online and in Christian bookstores.  You could also use a Children’s Bible, sharing just a section of the story each day.  A few worth mentioning:

 

Resurrection Eggs – CLICK HERE for a slightly different, free DIY version from
Imperfect Homemaking that I just adore! 

 

Click on the picture below to link to the traditional resurrection eggs.

 
Benjamin’s Box (This beautiful picture book works well with resurrection eggs.)

ENJOY this week with your child(ren)!  To me, there’s NOTHING more important than teaching your children about the wonder of the death and resurrection of their Savior, Jesus Christ!

On My Kitchen Counter

It’s the little “signs of life” that make me smile :)

 compliments of Alex

Easter Fun WINNERS

Congratulations to the winners of the Easter Fun Preschool Pack! 

1 - Gina

4 - Bookgirl

6 - Amy

11 - Carly

20 - SamDIBO

23 – Kelly M

28 – Heart4TheHome

30 – Jen @ Happy Little Homemakers

35 – Mrs. Montgomery

38 – WLRN99

You should be receiving an e-mail with the .pdf file as an attachment.  If you are one of the winners listed above and you already purchased the pack through Teacher’s Notebook, please response with your Paypal address and I will refund your money.

Winners were chosen at random:

Jensyn’s “Pacifier”

Jensyn used a pacifier when she was tiny.  One day, when she was a few months old, she spit it out and popped her thumb into her mouth.  Just like that, she became a thumb sucker.  I really don’t mind.  It’s cute, she can’t lose it, and (eventually…) she’ll grow out of it.

She still loves to have things in her mouth, though, and we often find a dog toy (eww!), a plastic tool from her big brothers, or some other strange object in her mouth.  Lately, it’s been this plastic mushroom:

It’s shaped a lot like a paci.  Can you blame her for wanting it?

   

What happens when the mushroom falls out?
(That’d be the mushroom in front of her chest, falling to the ground…)

Poor baby! 

St. Patricks Day Tot/Pre School

Oh, last week.  I’m kind of glad it’s OVER!

Alex had a stomach bug on Wednesday, so Grace didn’t come to play.

Since he’d been sick, we didn’t have friends over to make shamrock cookies on Thursday, which was in the plans.

I was sick on Friday.

Jensyn had a really runny nose that turned into an ear infection, and I spend almost 5 hours taking her to immediate care and the pharmacy on Sunday afternoon/evening.

That changed the plans of making those shamrock cookies as a family project on Sunday evening.

So, we did what could…which was definitely not as much as we’d planned.  Oh well! 

We managed to do school time with JUST ALEX on Thursday afternoon while the little ones were napping.

Alex and Mommy used Skittles to play the Pot of Gold Roll & Cover game from 2 Teaching Mommies.  Later, Alex used dot markers to stamp the page.

The rest of our pages are from my St. Patrick’s Day freebie pack. 

Alex did the count and color sheet.  This was not creative coloring, as he only used blue crayon.  He did it, though…he counted and colored correctly!

circling what’s different

 

circling the beginning sound…he’s getting way too good at this!

gluing together his four-part puzzles

prewriting page

He was WILLING to do the spin & graph page…
…for about 5 spins, and then he was done with it.

He did his letter L handwriting page

He did the maze.

He followed directions on this Ordinal Numbers counting page.

   

On Friday…even though I felt yucky, my kids still needed entertaining.  We played a WHOLE LOT of the Easter game.  We also played a bunch of Candyland.

Everyone was feeling well on Saturday.  We started our day with a shamrock treasure hunt that led to a jar of gold coins and Skittles. 

If you didn’t see this, HANG ON TO IT for next year!  It’s SUPER easy to print out the pages, slap them up around the house, and hide a quick treasure at the end.  Even when you’ve had a crazy week of sick days, you can pull this off and your kids will love it!  It took less than 10 minutes total to print it, cut out the shamrocks, hang them, and stick a treasure in the vacuum closet! :)

Here’s the link…please GO HERE if you’re going to “pin” this.  I’d rather the link on Pinterest go to the blog that it comes from…

 

How was your St. Patrick’s Day week?  There are SO MANY creative ideas out there! I’m sure that some of you did pretty amazing things with your kiddos!  Check out Tot School or Preschool Corner to see what others little ones did this week!

Easter Fun giveaway

Let’s make this giveaway nice and easy…leave a comment on this post, *make sure to include your e-mail address*, and you’re entered to win one of TEN free copies of the Easter Fun Preschool Pack! 

You can earn a second entry by either adding my Teacher’s Notebook shop as a favorite or sharing about this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page.  Just leave an extra comment letting me know that you’ve done one of these things! :)

Remember, if you’ve already purchased the Easter pack, I’ll refund your money or you may choose a different paid pack as your freebie.

Winners will be chosen on Friday, March 23rd. 

A Gold Balloon

I’m probably the only one who will smile at this one, but I wanted to remember it:

This morning, only minutes after finishing his breakfast, Alex came running up to me with mischievous, hopeful eyes.  He said, “Mommy, can I have a gold balloon?”

It took me a minute to figure out what he meant.  He was really trying to say, “Mommy, can I have a gold doubloon?”

The boys have recently started watching “Jake and the Neverland Pirates”.  They love to count the gold doubloons.  (Even Max can count them correctly, which impresses me.)

For St. Patrick’s Day, we sent the boys on a little scavenger hunt around the house.  It led to a jar of gold (chocolate) coins and Skittles candies.

Yep, Alex thought that the leprechauns brought him some pirate’s gold ;)

So, for making his mommy smile at 8:30 AM, he earned himself some early morning chocolate!

As long as I’m on the subject, I might as well share this one, too.  Yesterday at church, Alex told everyone that his name is Cubby and his mommy’s name is Captain Hook.  Yep.  Thanks, Alex.

“Easter Fun” Preschool Pack

This pack contains the traditional bunnies, chicks, eggs, and baskets that many children love at this time of year.  Most pages are suitable for use in a public preschool classroom, but the pack also contains a Bible verse page and a mini-book with a “new life in Christ” theme.

This pack is available for $1.25 at Teacher’s Notebook.  
(…but I’m holding a St. Patrick’s Day weekend sale of 20% off!)

 

I’ll be giving away TEN free copies of this pack next week.  If you want to purchase it now, you will be reimbursed if you are a winner of the giveaway.  (You may choose to receive a refund or receive another of my paid packs for free.)

Additional Page Samples

View Full Album

Graphics in this pack are designed by Pixel Paper Prints and Tainted Sweets. They are used with permission, and you may find these graphics at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/pixelpaperprints http://www.etsy.com/shop/danger0usangel03

CLICK HERE to see the Easter Pinterest board.

BOOK IDEAS
For The Christian Family

 

For All Families

*The book links shown here are affiliate links; I appreciate when you click through, but I recommend always checking your local library first!