Kids In The Kitchen – Pumpkin Fun!

 

I’d like to say that the craziness was only for the camera, but this was my Monday.  From 8 AM – 2 PM, I had three VERY EXUBERANT kids in my house.  By 10 AM, I knew we’d need a project or I’d go insane.  Why I chose a messy, crazy, sugary project…well, I might never know.  It did keep the kids busy, though!

In the morning, we worked together to make my favorite chocolate cut-out cookie dough.  YUM ~ everything’s better with chocolate!  (These cookies are soft and taste a lot like a brownie.)  Everybody took turns measuring and stirring.  We left the dough in the fridge to chill until after lunch.

Once it was chilled, we rolled it, cut it into pumpkins, and baked it.  Once the cookies cooled, we “painted” them with orange icing.  Then we decorated with green sprinkles and mini chocolate chips.

 

To be honest, Alex & Grace decorated their cookies.  Max just broke his cookie in half, ate the frosting from a spoon, and then ate his cookie.  No pumpkins for him! ;)

There was one three-eyed pumpkin, but the rest turned out pretty cute!  The craziness never left our house, but at least we contained the chaos to the kitchen counter for quite a while! ;)

I Gave Up ;) (repost, with editing)

Last week Thursday, my sister Deb & I took the kids for Max's 2 year pictures and for pictures of the 3 kiddos together.  Max completely panicked, cried, and was a wreck. We walked away with no pictures. (But - since I've worn maternity clothes the past 2 fall seasons and had NO long sleeve clothes - we went to Kohl's and got my fall/winter wardrobe instead. Thanks, Deb, for helping me shop!)

 

Today my mom & I tried again. We practiced last night with an old Viewmaster (remember those?) as a camera. We got to the studio early today so Max could play and feel comfortable before we did the pictures. He giggled with the photographers, and he was having a good old time. He stopped, though, as soon as he was supposed to sit down & smile.

 

Although he was slightly more cooperative, we still didn't get great pictures. I gave up on torturing my kids. We'll take what we got, and we'll call it good.

 

So, with LOTS of balls (since Max loves them and the balls kept him on the backdrop...) and a Viewmaster in the pictures, here's what we got. Feel free to giggle. We did!

 

Happy big brother, little brother having a tantrum…it’s a regular day in my life! ;)

 

It took THREE photographers helping in various ways to get decent pictures today.  Oh, my…when you have three children ages 3 and under, don’t ever expect great photos or an easy experience.  THANK GOODNESS for a studio we love and patient, friendly photographers!

 

 

I’m using the proof CD, so I might not have the correct image, but this one (or one very similar) is my favorite…

 

Because I typically dress my boys in polo shirts & nice shoes to have their pictures taken with random soccer balls ;)

This melts my heart.  I only wish she was smiling…

 

It won’t let me rotate the picture, but this is the best close-up of all 3 together…with a soccer ball.

Can you see Alex tugging on Max’s shirt to keep him from escaping…

and can you tell that Max is on the verge of screaming at his brother?

The ONLY shot of Max with a smile on his face.  His hair was a complete wreck by this point, but a wise mama doesn’t mess with the hair of a cooperating child!   So, his hair i a mess in his 2 year portraits!

 

Since we were there, and since I think the photographers would all run & hide if we tried to set foot in their studio any time soon, we decided to just call this Alex’s 4 year portrait…3 months early.

And there you have it…the last time we’re setting foot in a studio until my children learn how to cooperate and behave in public!  Ha! ;)

The Greatest Show On Earth

Okay, so it wasn’t Ringling Brothers…and while it was enjoyable, it probably wasn’t THE greatest.  It was most definitely the hottest, though!

The Kelly Miller travelling circus came to town a few weeks ago, and we thought the boys would really enjoy a chance to go to the circus.  It was less than 5 minutes from our house!  (That was a really nice bonus, as there’s almost nothing exciting within 30 minutes of our house…)

Well, it turns out that it was almost 100 degrees on this day…in a circus tent…with no air circulation..and seats in the second row from the top.  Wow, it was HOT in there!

My camera didn’t do so well with the lighting inside the tent, so the pictures aren’t great.  The boys really enjoyed it!  Alex loved the clowns best…although his first-ever cotton candy is a close second place!  Max wasn’t able to tell us a favorite part, but he sure seemed to enjoy himself.

Both boys loved watching!

The pictures are really rather random, and I didn’t feel like sorting through. 
I’m just posting every picture that’s on the camera.  Sorry!

Waiting for the show to start…

 

Max trying his first cotton candy…

  

Alex’s first cotton candy…

    

We brought the boys’ water bottles because there’s NO WAY you could sit in that hot tent for 1.5 hours without a drink.

 

A few show pictures…

 

Jensyn and I stayed with Keith and the boys for the first half of the show, but it was just too hot in there for a baby to stay any longer than that.  I took Jensyn out to the car to cool off in the a/c for the last 30 minutes.  Missing the show wasn’t a big deal for me, but I was sad to miss the boys’ reaction to {what Keith said was…} the best part of the show.

Our afternoon at the circus is the reason we started tot school with a circus unit this year.  The boys were both excited about monkeys, tigers, clowns, and cotton candy.  I don’t think anything we do for tot school this year will top our circus week!

My friend Michelle from Musings of Me just shared a free copy of her preK circus unit with me, so we might just have to do another circus week sometime soon!  (Not to turn a family post into an advertisement, but Michelle is selling this pack for $5, and it’s chock full of FUN stuff!  I was actually planning to buy it, but when I sat down to purchase it, I had a message from Michelle with the free pack.  Thanks, Michelle!)

Tot School ~ T and Tools

(Alex is 3.5 years and Max is 24 months.)

This week, we worked on Raising Rock Stars Preschool letter T.  We also did a Tools theme using these printables. 

The boys had FOUR playdates this week and Alex wasn’t in the mood to do tot school one day.  As a result, we’re not quite finished with the letter T! 

On our first day, Alex was VERY excited to do his “Getting Ready for T” page.
(Max was playing with paintbrushes…and no paint.)

 

Alex sequenced the hammers by size.
(Max went down the slide.)

 

With no help at all, he did his pre-writing page almost flawlessly!

Usually, he wants me to literally hold his hand as he works.  Today, he did it independently.  I think he did a great job.  Alex was quite proud of himself, too!

I thought Alex would be tired of this letter-matching game, but he LOVED it!  We took turns picking a letter tile, naming it, and placing it on the page. 

Alex read the “What Color…” book to me.   (No, he can’t read, but the text is entirely predictable…) Max LOVES matching games.  That’s my discovery in the past few weeks.  This week, he had a great time doing the shadow matching cards and learning the names of these tools.

He also matched the shapes on this shape mat.  You can see he’s pretty proud of himself.  He knows circle, star, and heart.  We’re working on the names of the other ones, but he can still match the pictures correctly. 

 

With TWO hands, Alex worked on his T practice page.  I was annoyed that he wouldn’t even attempt to hold the marker correctly, but didn’t force the issue.

 

We worked on count & clip cards.  I can tell we didn’t practice one-to-one correspondence much through the summer, as he needed a lot of reminders to count correctly!

(See?  He got that much-needed haircut!  Yay!)

Alex worked on shadow matching and 4-part puzzle cards.

We did a few other little things, but not nearly everything.  I was planning to take this coming week entirely off for some special family time, but I think we’ll fit in at least 30 minutes to finish up the letter T in the coming week.

You can learn more about RRSP, Preschool Corner, or Tot School by clicking on the links below.  You’ll also see what other moms are doing with their tots and preschoolers!