This Week: September 21-26

It has been a busy week! It is hard to believe it is Thursday already.  It has been absolutely gorgeous out, so we have been spending as much time going to the park, eating picnic lunches, going for runs, etc as we possibly can, because I know in a few short weeks it will be too cold to get out!  I stole this picture from Joy (my neighbor) but it really encompasses a lot of our week--eating lunch and playing at the park with these lovely ladies!  We are so blessed to have them as our neighbors!

Colton, Noelle, Faith, Summer

 When we are inside, MOST ALL of Colton's time is spent playing with his cars.  He totes them all over and we play in Summer's room, Colton's room, Mommy's room while I'm folding laundry, and downstairs while I am cooking, etc.  I didn't capture a very good video (sorry the sun is really glaring from Colton's window) but I did post a video because I want to remember this guys' favorite thing to do at this age.  It is adorable watching him carry his big bin of cars all over the house or watching his face light up if you ask him if he wants to play cars!

 Miss Summer's favorite thing to do is read books.  We have also been enjoying playing games such as Trouble, Chutes and Ladders, Cootie, Barnyard Bingo, and a Dora Explorer game.

In "preschool" this week we experimented with two things I picked up at the consignment sale last week....

Alphabet Stencils and Math Puzzles

She LOVES the stencils.  She keeps wanting to do them over and over, and it is fun because she really can do them all by herself.  It is the best way so far I have found to help her make an "S", and she kept exclaiming, "Mommy, watch me make a ___(fill in a letter)"  or "Mommy, look what I did!"

She also liked tracing the pictures that came with the stencils...

Colton and I spelled out his name with the punch-out letters from the stencils (We had to use a Q for his second O!) and talked about/repeated the name of the letters.

Most of the time, though, he loved just playing with the box and the pieces!

We tried the math puzzles a few times this week (they match up the pictures to complete the puzzle), and Summer was really good at "reading" the math problem at the bottom (i.e. 2 + 3 = 5) but I am not fond of the way it doesn't require counting/solving to come up with the answer in order to complete the puzzle.  It was fun for a few times, but all in all, not my favorite find.

One special thing we got to do this week was tour Elko Speedway Racetrack with Mom's Club.

Ready for the tour!

The track.  No cars were racing today, but we got to see police cars zoom around practicing chases with their sirens on!!!

Summer driving a racecar

Waving to the crowd ;)

In heaven :-)

Little trouble seeing the road.....!

Running around looking at the racecar

Colton in pit crew...changing the tire....

Summer up in the booth where they announce/scoreboard/etc

Picture in front of the board  where the winners stand

Summer taking a picture of the "smashed car"  She was pretty excited about this one for some reason!

Whew.  All that touring makes sitting on the couch reading a good book feel GREAT!