Celebrating this week

Snowbirds- My friend Karen took this photo.

Mother Nature was quite uncooperative with us last week and many of the "outdoor" activites we had planned never quite happened.  For example, on International picnic day (which happened to be our airshow day as well) it was grey and drizzly with intermettient downpours.  We had a picnic lunch inside- at an exciting but undisclosable location for now ;) and watched the airshow from a greater than anticipated distance thanks to some spectacular windows at said undisclosable location.  There was also no kite flying and our night of vegetables for dinner didn't happen when gran-gran and grandpa brought home Mc Donalds after a very long day.

Thank goodness for the start of a new week.    On June 20th celebrate ice cream soda day!  We are either going to go with "orangeous" ice cream sodas (made with orange crush and vanilla ice cream- add an orange liqueur such as grand marnier, cointreau, curaçao or triple sec if you are wanting a more "adult" soda) or "cotton candy cream" ice cream sodas (made with Crush cream soda- I don't know what to suggest to make this more "adult" maybe vodka or champagne). 

June 21st is the first day of summer and we are off to the farm to start our CSA hours- if Mother Nature will allow.  Here are a couple of cool ideas to do to celebrate the begining of summer:  Summer Sun, make sidewalk chalk and glow bug necklace. 

Wednesday might be a library day for us or we might go to the 2nd to last cooking kitchen, plus I'm off to the hairdressers!

Thursday is National Pecan Sandies Day, National Pink Day and Soap Opera Day!  We are having our carpets steam cleaned that day, so hopefully it is a nice day and we can be out exploring some parks before our relatives arrive late Friday.  If not, we may have to hit story time at the library (if that is still happening) or go to the parent link in both the morning and the afternoon just for something fun to do out of the house. 

Friday, June 24th, is UFO day.  If we didn't have relatives arriving that day, it would be a perfect day to make a trip to St Paul, AB.  Maybe we will go while they are here. 

 On Saturday, we plan (weather permitting I think...although maybe not) to be at a local campground visiting with many different relatives.  We might make the kiddies put on a variety show to entertain us.  You could celebrate Eric Carle's birthday (he wrote many GREAT children's books) or LEON day.  LEON is Noel backwards and marks 6 months to/from Christmas. 

Sunday, June 26th is National Chocolate Pudding Day.  A super fun thing to do with chocolate pudding is to have a no heat/fire required chocolate fondue.  Use chocolate pudding and dip bite sized peices of fruit and such into the pudding- strawberries, banana's, apples, orange segments, marshmellows, pretzels, licorice, ect.  And of course, there is always finger painting with pudding.  A fun and delicious activity for the young at heart. 

Have fun this week.   It's finally summer!  Get out and enjoy.

Celebrating in June

Ok- so I've missed almost half the month already but here are some of the things we are going to celebrate over the next few days.  Here is a link to June celebrations and some pages where I am getting some of my inspiration.

June 15th- Go Fly a Kite Day
                  Power of a Smile Day
June 16th- National Fudge Day
June 17th- Eat Your Vegetables Day
June 18th- International Picnic Day
June 19th- Father's Day

I dare you not to smile when you look at this picture.

If the weather cooperates, we just might go fly a kite on June 15th (although it is calling for rain).  If we don't get the chance to fly a kite on this day, hopefully we will have the chance when our family is here to fly a bunch of kites all together. 

On Thursday, I think we are going to the library and maybe we will make some brownies.  I hope to have some library bags made for the boys by then too, but that might be a little too ambitious and it might need to wait a week or two more. 



Our starvin' marvin has blossomed into a chunky monkey

For eat your vegetables day I plan on making a dinner with many veggies- raw veggies as this is how my boys like their veggies the best.  And maybe I'll share a little about our tiny little garden (which we sampled three luscious strawberries from today).   

International Picnic Day happens to coincide with our local airshow and a picnic sounds like a great way to eat at the airshow.  I am not sure how exactly we will take in the airshow.  I don't know if my parents will be able to join us and if not, what will be the best way to try to contain and yet be mobile with my three little boys.   

And of course, Father's Day is coming up on Sunday. I know we are BBQing.  I am sure there will be lemon meringue pie too.  I have some cute little things for my husband from the boys, and a couple of things for my dad and my fil (father in law). 

I've added two items to the sidebar where I am keeping track of our reading minutes and the books we have read over the summer. 

Getting back into the swing of things

Wow!  Things got really busy for a while.  Hopefully though, now that "school" (preschool for little man) is done until the fall, we will find some time to get back into the swing of things here and at home.  Just because it is summer though, we don't stop the learning or the fun or even the busy. 

I stocked up on books through scholastic plus we have a pretty great library in our area full of books.  I am thinking of setting aside one afternoon a week as "library day" and I am going to get the two older boys their own library bag and they will be able to pick their own books this summer (5 for littler man and 7 for little man).  I am also going to start a reading log starting this week.

As part of my preparations for family that will be visiting this summer, we are going to take the next two weeks and check out every.single.park. in our area.  I am going to take pictures and notes and decided if this is a good park for visiting later and what it is good  or not so good for (ie has picnic tables , has lots of "little kid friendly" equipment, is buggy, has good sand, has bathrooms, ect).  We've also stocked up on bubbles, tattoes and glowsticks already and there are some kites calling our names.  I want to get some sparklers still for Canada Day.

We have some kid friendly cooking and recipes to test, plus I would like to get some baking (cookies, muffins, squares) done and into the freezer awaiting our holiday travelers.  I'd also like to try to get a couple of meals made and put in the freezer for that time too (maybe a baked pasta and a shepards pie).  I'm thinking we will bbq a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers at that time too and I have taco salad and some chinese chicken on my possible meal plan too for that time.  I'll also make sure to have lots of fruit and veggies ready to go daily plus hopefully I'll get a potatoe and a pasta salad ready too. 

We've planted a small garden that is about ready to transplant plus I've agreed to a working share at a CSA which should be starting anytime now. After all the rain last year during CSA (especially at the end)- I'm very glad I bought myself some rainboots this year.

April 3rd-5th

April 3rd
Today is National Find a Rainbow day.  Here is hoping for some showers to bring out a rainbow.  But if all else fails, we can use crystals or water, mirrors and light to make rainbows.  We are going to read Minnie's Rainbow which explains how rainbows are formed.  Then we will try to make our own rainbows.  If all else fails we can color some with crayons or paint, or maybe with chalk on our new chalkboard from Christmas.

April 4th
Little boy R is off from preschool this week.  I think we'll work on our letter book series- starting with N today.  For little boy A- I have a Sesame Street Alphabet book from scholastic. 

April 5th
It's National Read a Road Map day!  I remember my first real road trip was in the spring of '89 when I went with my Aunt and Uncle to Florida and Disneyworld.  I remember kind of looking at maps then my older cousin Jimmy helping to explain them to me.  Later that summer, we started our move across country from Labrador to Alberta and by the time we hit Ontario I was bothering my parents so much with "where are we now, show me on the map!" that they bought me my own road map atlas of North America for the rest of the trip.

My boys might be too young for those types of road maps just yet, but I am going to make a map of the backyard for them to help label (to learn about the concepts of maps) and then maybe they can make their own "maps"- be it of something imaginary or real.

April 1st & 2nd

April 1

Happy April's Fools Day 

Do you partake in any little silliness or pranks?  Swapping out salt and sugar is always fun.  I remember covering some toilets with saran wrap when I lived in university residence.  And then there was the hallway full of glasses of water.  I don't know if I'll try any pranks with the kids- my oldest would probably understand, my middle wouldn't and well the littlest one isn't even walking or talking yet so let's not get him involved.  I am however, going to read The Emperor's New Clothes to the boys.  It's a funny little prank the tailor plays and it also fits well with the fact that April 2nd is Hans Christian Andersen's birthday. 

April 1st is also one cent day.  Celebrate the penny!  First off, we pick up a penny when we see it because we believe it will bring us good luck.  Some other ideas of activities to do with pennies:

1) How many pennies make...? 

Find your change jar and shake out the pennies and a quarter, a dime and a nickel.  Ask your child how many pennies makes a quarter?  a dime?  a nickel?  Since I want to work on numbers to 100 with my oldest, I will also be adding a loonie coin and we'll count out 100 pennies and then group them into 5's, 10's and 25's.

2) Penny rubbings

Use sticky tack, tape or glue to attach a couple of pennies in a random order on a thick piece of paper or cardboard.  Next, cover the pennies with a thinner sheet of paper and use a crayon to rub across the faces of the pennies under the paper.  It works best if you take the wrapper off the crayon and put it long side down across the paper.  Try to make sure you put some of the pennies face up and face down on the paper so you can make rubbings of both sides.

3) Make your own penny
Using orange or brown construction paper have the child draw a circle like a penny.  It doesn't have to be to scale.  Have them cut it out and decorate it if they want.

4) Penny Drop

You will need some pennies, a jar and a chair.  Place a jar on the floor behind the back of the chair.  Let your child stand on the chair and drop pennies from that height and see how many of their pennies will end up in the jar. 

5) Find the Penny

Hide pennies throughout your home or room.  Please be careful if there are young children in your home or in your care, do not hide them where these children may find them and put them in their mouths.

April 2nd

Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen!  It is also International Children's Book day.  Celebrate by reading a favorite book from your childhood to your children.  I plan on combining the two by sharing the story of Thumbellina with my boys.  It was a favorite story of mine as a young girl and it is one of Hans Christian Andersen's.

Edited to add pictures.  Enjoy!

April- a month at a glance

With April just a couple of days away, I thought I would share some of my plans for April.  There are many things happening in April.  April is Autism Awareness month.  It is also National Frog month, National Garden month, National Humour month and National Volunteer month in the US.  It is Stress Awareness month and National Poetry month.  I am hoping to include some activities to celebrate this with my boys this month.  Another noteworthy occurance in April is Week of the Young Child which is the third week of the month- just before Easter this year. 

We are going to celebrate Spring, Easter, Earth Day and Farms & Gardens with some special activities this month.  My older two boys enjoy working with the alphabet and within my "yearly" plan, April is the month to focus on the letters N, M, H and B.  They have also developed some interest drawing lately and in the spirit of leanring, I am working on shapes with them- how to draw them, what their names are, what they can make with that shape and how to cut it out.  April's shape is an oval and maybe we can learn how to draw people-especially their faces.  My oldest has been learning to count (even in different languages) and can now count up to 60 something more or less unassisted.  So in April I hope to help him reach 100 more or less unassisted.

April is also a busy month in our household because the breastfeeding support group in this area (to which I belong) is putting on their bi-annual consignment sale.  I'll be getting my own items ready to consign and getting other various tasks taken care of before the sale.  It's happening the weekend of April 15th- so don't be surprised if there are no new blogs for a couple of days around then.  (Thanks to my husband who made this little ad for our sale so it could be put up on the electronic sign where he works).

Some of the observances during the first week of April include: April Fools Day(1), one cent day (1), Hans Christan Anderson's birthday (2), National Children's book day (2),  Find a Rainbow day (3) and  National Read a Road Map day (5).   I'll post some activities and ideas for these days later this week so you can join in on our fun and adventures too.  Some of the activities and booklets that I have deisgned for use with my boys will be available for purchase .  I'll post a picture of it and then you can paypal me a small fee and I will send you the pdf files.  Or you can make your own.  Sometimes I'll just share the name of a book or a resource I use and you can look it up.  Or I'll explain an activity you can do with your little ones at home or in a preschool/daycare setting.  

Welcome to my new blog!

This blog will be ideas of things I would like to do with my boys. I have tried to outline a rough idea of a whole year starting in September like a typical school and in a perfect world I would have started this blog in September...or I would wait until next September. But I can't. If there is one thing I have learned over the last 4 1/2 yrs of mommyhood, time with little ones is fleeting. Try not to put off until tomorrow, experiences that you could have today. So welcome to April 2011 and some of the things I hope to do with my boys who are 4 1/2 years old, 3 years old and just turned 1 years old. We hope you'll join us and try some of our activities too. We'd also love to hear about your adventures.