2011 Enchanted Princess Ball

My mother-in-law treated Morgan and I to the Enchanted Princess Ball this last weekend.

We were welcomed with this pretty little sign.

We expected for there to be a hairdresser, but for some reason they weren't there this year, so Morgan got a new scepter instead and grandma did her hair :-)

When they finally let us take our seats, Morgan looked around and waited patiently for the show to start.

We were able to see some new favorites.

Rapunzel from "Tangled"

Gizelle from "Enchanted"

As well as some old favorites.

Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

Belle

All the little princesses got to rock out for a while...

....and play with streamers...

...toss a coin into the wishing well...

... and enjoy some cookies and pink lemonade.

Of course hanging out with Grandma is always a bonus to the day!

If you have a little girl and there is something like this in your area, you should totally check it out! (For those in MI, go here to see about taking your little princess!) It's a really neat experience! :-)

'B' is for Butterflies, Bears and a Boatload of things!

To keep my head from spinning too much with ideas, I'm keeping learning about each letter to the words mentioned in the wheels that are sent home from school with Morgan (plus something from the Bible when it works out)....

These are the kids' Butterfly wheels. The wheels have words/pictures of a Bear, Butterfly, Book and Boat

Their Bear puppets.

I used a Bear mold to make these Bear Buddies.

Blake Biting into his Bear.

Morgan too!

We read about Butterflies...

(I couldn't get this picture to upload properly.)

...and Bears...


...and in the Bible we read about a Big Boat.
(This pic also wouldn't upload right.)
I think you can see we tried reading a lot of Books, since Book was one of our words too. :-)

Besides all that we also sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Arky Arky"...which is about that Big Boat in the Bible ;-)

Morgan also spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with words that start with 'B'. It was neat to see her so interested, but she seemed to get the 'b' sound confused with the 'p' sound...something to work on I guess! :-)

St. Patrick's Day 2011

What's St. Patrick's Day without some Irish inspired food. These were made for Morgan's class.

This is a big chocolate chip cookie that was made for the neighbor who cleared out our driveway last weekend after the snow storm.

Irish Soda Bread-YUM! :-)

Of course we had to do a few crafts too!

The kids' uncle sent them candy bars so they used the wrappers to make pots of gold...

...as seen on the Frugal Family Fun blog.

We also melted down some styrofoam cups....

...painted them....

...and made some mini leprechaun hats.

We also saw fingerprint shamrocks on Frugal Family Fun blog and each made one of those as well.

We also attended a parade in the neighboring town. They had Irish names on all the lamp posts and this one happens to be a family name :-)

These girls are walking in the parade for a place that I actually used to work for :-)

The kiddos waiting for candy (which wasn't allowed to be thrown for the kids' safety???) They enjoyed it anyway :-)

Some very festive dogs riding in a remote control cart-cute! :-)

On St. Patrick's Day the kids woke up to a fun little task. They used some special binoculars...

....to look for clues....

....that we pieced together (using the numbers on the backs)...

...so we could go to the mudroom...

...and find this little guy with his pot of gold! Sneaky little guy anyway!

Then the kiddos got dressed in green (to keep from being pinched throughout the day) and posed for a picture with their new little friend.

I don't know how much I've heard about what St. Patrick's Day is really about. I'm sure I've heard bits and pieces before, but never really remembered any of it. Anyway, I got an e-mail from Focus on the Family with a little history that I thought was really interesting. Go HERE to read it. (It will only take a minute if you're interested.) It seems strange that something so good was turned it into something totally different....maybe next year we can find some way to celebrate the real reason for St. Patrick's Day!

'A' is for Apple...and other things.

Morgan's teachers send activities to do at home on occasion and yesterday they sent home a couple activities working with the letter 'A'. Well Morgan couldn't wait to do them, so I made a copy (so Blake wouldn't feel left out) and we expanded on their learning the letter 'A' a bit....

We started by making some apple wheels. When the kids turn the wheel behind, they see 4 different things that start with the letter 'A'-Apple, Alligator, Apron and Ant.

Then they made some Apple puppets.

After that it was time for a snack, so we had Apples!

Then we put on our Aprons...

...and mixed up some Jello to make...

...Apple-shaped Jello Jigglers!

We did a little reading about Alligators.

Then sang a song about Ants. (The Ants Go Marching.)

Of course we are trying to focus more on God and reading the Bible (and sticking to it!), so we also read about Abraham.

And sang "Father Abraham" to add some more fun to it all! ;-)