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Hand Drawn Joy Religious Christmas Card

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Out of the mouth of... chicks

L: Mom, may I please have the kitty plate?
M: No, it is Evie's turn today. You had it yesterday.
L: But she had it tomorrow!


E: Mom, how many years has Krisanna been on this earth?
M: About 22.
E. Wow! That's hundreds!


E: (as we are driving home) How do you get to Brianna's house?
M: (pointing) You just keep going this way a while and then turn that way a while and you'll run right into it.
E: (aghast and pointing) You mean if we go this way and this way we will BONK INTO HER HOUSE!


M: Evie what color are you going to make that frog.
E: Whole Green.
M: Whole Green?
E: Yeah, you know, whole green?
(Apparently this is what she thinks we are saying when we say "whole grain".)

Game On

We are playing this game today. I laminated the pieces instead of using cardstock. I didn't have a fastener like they used so I made one out of twist ties. I just bent two twist ties in half and linked them together where they bent in the middle. Then, I poked a hole through the middle of the spinner and put the free ends of one twist tie through the hole. I then cut off the other twist tie's free ends and wrapped what remained around the part where the twist ties joined to form a knob to keep the twist ties from going through the hole. Then I put a paper clip under the knob. Works great if you're not picky.



 If you are anything like me, you just read all that and have no idea how it ended up like this at the end. It's rough to be us in the age of tutorials. Especially when I am the one writing them.


 Now, it is really against my grain to play this type of game where "we all win", but I will make an exception... this time.

7 Up Biscuits

I found this great recipe here.

These are really good, though they require a little extra Bisquick and a little less butter. Also, the fresher the 7up, the better. As the 7up loses its carbonation, the biscuits become more like drop biscuits.
We tried and loved them three ways:
1. Plain
2. Brushed with Butter and Garlic Salt
3. With Cinnamon, Raw Sugar and Craisins drizzled with icing.

What in the world are U doing?

I am guessing that question was running through the minds of some of our neighbors a few nights ago as they watched the girls and I pass by on a little bike ride ~ at about 9:30 at night. If only they had known we were on an educational excursion. You see, we have been learning about the letter U this week and our little development just happens to be shaped like a U. I couldn't resist taking our tracing activities large scale and it was WAY too hot to do it during the day. The girls thought it was fantastic, though I am not sure it had a profound impact on their educational development.

Perhaps some of these activities were slightly more formative...

Letter U word pasting
I cut out pictures of the letter U, the United States, a unicorn, an umbrella and utensils and put them in little styrofoam cups (which were leftover packing material). Then the girls glued the pictures onto the big letter U. We then wrote "We miss" above the U and sent it to Daddy at camp. :)

Styrofoam Poke Tracing
We flipped over the little styrofoam cups that held the U word pictures and I had drawn a U on the bottom. The girls then used little toothpick umbrellas to poke and trace the letter U. This activity seems to particularly delight Lily because most of her poking endeavors are swiftly squashed.

Pudding Drawing
I whipped up a batch of instant butterscotch pudding and put it in deep and wide containers to help minimize the mess. Evie drew a U a few times and then they both decided to go all hands in. So, we adapted and decided we were now going to make handprints on paper towels. :)

Our U words also popped up throughout our daily activities. We had umbrellas in our sandwiches for lunch and watched Singin' in the Rain to continue our umbrella theme before naptime.

Maybe now that Daddy is back our educational endeavors will be a little bit more mainstream. :)

I want to remember...

They grow up too quickly, hard to believe I will have a 4 year old soon! Inspired by the book LET ME HOLD YOU LONGER and my overly-active Roth sentimental gene I have decided to try to jot down things I want to remember from time to time. Because someday Ev won't come out of her bed repeatedly asking for hippo hugs & butterfly kisses and Lil won't tell me that she "don't can't hear it" when the music is quiet and I want to remember:
How Lily prays..."Jesus, thank you Fader for our sins..." (her theology needs some work)

How Lily cuts her hair (maybe I do want to forget) and puts everything in her mouth

How Evie "cuts coupons" and tells me what is free and on sale.

How Evie doesn't want to wear leggings, anything that is "scratchy" or has "belts", and the list goes on...

How they LOVE animals and people and the little things. They soak up everything.

How Ev is so easily broken and how anything entrusted to Lily is also.

How I found them when I went in to check on them tonight; Evie curled up in a ball with no covers and Lily perpendicular to the bed with both legs through one leghole in her pajamas.

Homemade Caramel Latte - YUM!

We actually calculated the calories in this tonight. Not as bad as I feared, but certainly not a health food drink. Unless you mean mental/emotional health.  :)

Progress Report

Evie's seed sprouted today - fun to teach her about the reward.waiting for the patient farmer.

L is for Learning

If you happen to have a preschooler and you happen to do Letter of the Week with him/her, then you probably have noticed that we are on letter L and you are probably on X or Y or Z, or perhaps you have started on the Hebrew alphabet. Yes, we are behind. We do more like letter of the month-ish, but we have SO much fun doing it!

Today we learned about lilies (very fun for Lily, but Evie wanted to know when we would learn about Evie flowers)and made these lilies out of our handprints.

Since we were on the topic of flowers, we planted some seeds so we could watch them grow. When we came home from church tonight Evie seemed a little disappointed that they hadn't grown any yet. We are going to keep a picture diary of their progress so she can see the growth over time. Here is what they look like today. :) Evie took this picture herself!

We also embarked on a scavenger hunt for pictures of words that begin with L. I had 7 pictures that I showed them first and then I sent them away with their baskets so I could "hide" the pictures. This turned out to be a hit. The teacher in me isn't so sure what objective, standard or benchmark this really satisfied, but they LOVED it. We played this over and over again. The best part was when they "hid" them for me. Evie gave me the BIG basket and then walked me right up to each L picture so I could "find" it.

We also did a worksheet where Evie was supposed to practice identifying and tracing the letter L. She skipped the identifying (circling) completely and turned every L into an E. I didn't take a picture of that - not exactly something that will boost her portfolio. :)

Mad Money

Evie calls everything pennies so we are working on identifying coins. The fun part is that the "big pennies", aka quarters, make the carousel go so we get pretty excited to find those! Lily, as usual, redefined the objective and worked steadily at dismantling the carton piece by piece and then pushing all her coins off the table into her cupped hand, which lacked both the surface area and the position to prevent all but 1 coin from being redistributed to the dining room floor.

J is for Jellyfish

J is for Japan

We are learning about letter J this week so we are learning a little about Japan and some missionaries we know there. So, it only seemed fitting that we dig our hands into some rice!

No Name Steak - $2 after rebate

Store: Menards
Item: No Name Sirloin Steak, 12 oz pkg (2- 6oz steaks)
Price: $6.99
Rebate: $5 Mail-In Rebate (Merchandise Voucher only good at Menards)
Final Cost: $1.99

Conditions: Limit 10 pkgs per household, Limit 1 rebate submission per household

Cheep Talk: We had these for lunch on Tuesday and they were really tender.We are going to use the leftovers for fajitas. Very much worth the $1/steak - if you shop at Menards and will use the merchandise . Not worth it if you think you can take the voucher (which looks a little like a check) to the bank where your husband is employed and try to cash it and have them look at you like you are crazy and really embarrass said husband. Not that I know from experience...

Hy-Vee Two Day Sale (3/10 & 3/11)

Red Grapes - .99/lb
Skippy Peanut Butter (not the recalled kind) - .99
Colgate Toothpaste - .88 (It seems like there are always coupons for this out there for .75/1 so this could be very cheap)
Tostitos Tortilla Chips - 1.99 (Ad says select varieties - hope that means the black bean and garlic)

Find more items on sale here