This Week: September 28th - October 3

Wow!  It's Friday already.  I used to be better about blogging more often, but my goal now is to combine the week's happening in one post at the end of the week.  I have two goals as a blogger.  First, it is how I keep a photo album/scrapbook/journal for our family so that we can look back (in an organized fashion) and remember what the kids looked like/sounded like/enjoyed doing/etc.  Secondly, we have so many out of town family members that it is a great way for us to stay connected.

Anyway, on to a few snapshots from this week....

Big Slide
At the beginning of the week we spent a lot of time at the park.  Gorgeous, sunny, summer-y feeling days!  I think it is so good for the kids to get exercise daily, and both kids climb and run all over at the park.  This week marked a "first" for both kids.  Colton decided he was ready to go down the "big" slide all by himself (he is my adventurous one).  He loved it!  Summer (my cautious one) has refused to go down this slide ever since I can remember, but suddenly, after Colton did it, Summer came whizzing down all by herself!  (A little sibling competition?!?)  Now that the fear of the "big" slide is gone, that is practically all they did at the park this week!

Performance
Summer is my little performer.  She will turn anything into a stage and sing her little heart out.  She loves when everyone watches!  Colton will do anything his big sister does, so he climbed up on her "stage" at the park and sang right along with her.  Hilarious.  Here is a little video:



BSF
Summer is loving her BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) class, and her teachers Ms. Carol and Ms. Roxy.  One of my favorite parts is that I get a handout in my class about what she is learning in her class, specifically what Scripture she has read (the read to the kids right out of the "big" Bible.  I then read the same passage later with her at home so we could discuss it together.  When I pick her up, they have a whiteboard outside the room that tells what they learned and what songs they sang. They also gave us parents a song packet with words and music to all the songs they sing.  So Summer and I had fun playing the piano and singing her BSF songs!  (We also snuck in a mini music lesson about how the keys on the piano have letter names :) )

Tot School/Preschool
Right now, we are still practicing our shapes and colors with Colton.  We did his shape puzzle this week and he is starting to identify shapes outside of his shape puzzle.  We also talk about colors all the time-- what color his water bottle is, his plate is, his cup is, his Popsicle is, his shirt is, etc.  We also are talking about the letters in his name.  Summer has been teaching Colton his letters and asking him to repeat them after she says the name, and he does!  Little teacher Summer.  Colton is different from Summer at this age in that Summer LOVED to do flashcards, read books, do puzzles, and learn, learn, learn from each of these.  Colton loves to move!  So we do a lot of action learning.  I have a few ideas up my sleeve that I am excited to try with him next week (we didn't get to it this week) but we did make a masking tape road for him to drive his cars on, and some of the roads just happened to spell his name ;).

This week with Summer we focused on reading and writing, with a little math thrown in for fun!  She now has mastered all her "at" words (she can read all of them quite quickly now), and so we moved onto "ad" words.  We also tried a new game where we laid all her words on the table, I would say a word, and she would find it.

 Summer wanted to make flashcards for me, so I thought up words I that would be easy for her to make either because they were filled with letters she was good at, or because they were words that interested her.  She wrote HI, LITTLE, LOVE, and ZOO.  Then she had me fun making me "sound" them out :-).

For math, she is loving matching worksheets like this one, where she counts the candy and connects it to the correct number.  We did several of these.

For the first time this week, she put "legs" on her smiley faces.  Her artistic talent has now officially surpassed mine ;).  Here is her picture, entitled, "Mommy and Baby"

(The Mommy is the big face with the orange legs, and the baby is the small face by the big face's nose)

In the Kitchen
It is mutual--both Summer and I enjoy working together in the kitchen.  This week we made a dessert and she made her first PBJ "almost" by herself.  She was pretty excited!

I have been trying a bunch of new recipes in the past few months or so since I discovered how to utilize the combination of Pinterest and my recently acquired smart phone.  Pinterest is my favorite cooking tool because it is so easy to use (especially with kids!).  I search through all the recipes on my phone when I get random moments throughout the week, pin my favorites to my board, and then right before I go shopping all of the recipes are right in the same place (with no cutting, recopying, etc involved) so it is really easy to make my shopping list while the kids are eating breakfast.

Here are of our favorites from the past couple of weeks....

Crockpot Cheesy Chicken and Rice
Crockpot No Boil Manicotti
Crockpot Cheese Tortellini 
Crispy Chicken Roll-Ups
Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken
Chicken Roll-ups
Ginger Veggie Stir Fry
Pan-Roasted Chicken with Lemon-Garlic Green Beans 
Pizza Bites
Chinese Beef and Broccoli


Tonight we are having a SUPER easy crockpot soup-: can of rotel, can of corn, can of black beans (drained & rinsed), 2 frozen chicken breasts, 8 oz cream cheese, 1 packet dry ranch dressing, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon chili powder. Put all ingredients in crock pot and cook 6-8 hours. Shred chicken, and enjoy!  Perfect for a cold, rainy, fall day!

Looking forward to a Friday night "in" tonight. :)