Halloween 2012- Not So Great!

Halloween 2012 was not our best our Halloween yet, to say the least! The stomach bug hit our family this week and it hit us hard! On Monday night, CA got sick at 10:45pm. He was sick all night long. My hubby and I took shifts through the night to sit with him while he was sick. Then on Tuesday, he was still not feeling well all day. My sweet hubby took the day off to be home with us and help me. He knew that with a nursing baby, I would need help! Oh how I am so thankful for this man! Thankfully, I was able to take JP to his preschool Fall festival where I was able to take this snapshot of these cuties! They had a fun trunk or treat, a hayride,a bounce house, and other fun festivities. I didn't get to stay as long as I had hoped as I needed to get Gatorade for CA. :)

Then just when I thought we were in the clear and doing ok, CA got sick again at dinner on Tuesday night. Which meant no Bible study for this mama on Wednesday morning. I do love my ladies Bible study! I love the fellowship, studying God's word, and everything about it! So bummer for Mommy, although I am so ever grateful to be a SAHM when my babies are sick! There is just something about knowing them so well and being with them to give them the comfort and TLC they need when they are sick! There were numerous times during the past 48 hours that I was able to see the explosion coming and react fast. Sorry, a little too much information, I suppose, but mostly mommies are reading this anyways! :)

Today we just hung out at home and snuggled and played. CA slept a lot! I could tell he still wasn't feeling well. Then later in the afternoon, I thought we were doing ok and then around 3:30pm I saw that look in JP's eyes and said, "Go fast, to the bathroom!" Where he then got sick too! Poor baby! Then my sweet hubby texted me to say he wasn't feeling well either! So on Halloween night we put a sign on the front door that read, "Stomach Bug in Progress. Sorry Trick or Treaters!" I didn't want my sick family to have to hear the doorbell all night.

So all in all 3 out of the 5 of us have the stomach bug/virus! I am praying that this mama and sweet baby boy don't get it next.

Through all of this God has shown me a few blessings:
-I am so blessed to be home with my boys!
-I am blessed to have a loving husband and Daddy who took a day off to help us.
-We were blessed with costumes for Halloween as a birthday present and hand me downs, so next extra cost was lost at the expense of not using them tonight. :) Those costumes can be costly!!
-I am blessed with family and friends who texted, called, or messaged me to check on us!

I do hope all of you had a wonderful Halloween! Hope you and yours are healthy!

Virtual Book Club- Amy Krouse Rosenthal

As you may remember we are participating in a Virtual Book Club for Kids this year where many awesome bloggers host a blog hop each month. You can choose a book by the featured author of the month, then do an activity related to the book and then blog all about it.  This month's author is Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Here are a few of her books:

I was only familiar with one of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's books: Duck! Rabbit! I quickly adored her writing and illustrations. She is a witty author who likes to put a fun spin on topics in her books. We really enjoyed reading so many of her books that we checked out from the library. I tried to think of an activity to correlate and just kept coming up empty until I saw this awesome post titled 10 Extension Activities for Spoon at Reading Confetti. I immediately felt inspired by all of these awesome ideas. Thanks, Lori!


"Meet Spoon.  He’s always been a happy little utensil.  But lately, he feels like life as a spoon just isn’t cutting it.  He thinks Fork, Knife, and The Chopsticks all have it so much better than him.  But do they?  And what do they think about Spoon?  A book for all ages, Spoon serves as a gentle reminder to celebrate what makes us each special."

First I took out all of the silverware out of the trays and showed the boys how to sort the silverware.Thankfully, they both help with this project in the kitchen, but it was fun to pull out both sets and allow them to sort them all. We are blessed to have two sets of silverware, one that is real silver as a gift from my husband's grandmother. :)

It is not uncommon to find at least one boy in costume at our house. :)

Next, we created spoon families with plastic cutlery, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and markers. The boys really enjoyed this activity!

JP had the idea to act out the story with our silverware. I did not think of this idea and I loved that he did! His creativity amazes me many days. I tried videoing him and then uploading it here but it isn't working. Bummer! Just imagine him acting out the book!

Check out all the other amazing ideas for Amy Krouse Rosenthal's books here:

 

Pumpkin Patch!

I LOVE Fall! I love so many things about this season: the colors, the decorations, the leaves changing colors, the cooler crisp weather(well eventually in TX!), pumpkin spice lattes, wearing a sweater (ok, again eventually I'll do this), and a pumpkin patch! Each year we try to attend a pumpkin patch together as a family.This year we were able to go on a week day as the Daddy had a Monday off. We were so grateful and took the opportunity to make it a fun, family day! I had heard awesome things about this pumpkin patch in our area and I really wanted to check it out. I'm so glad we did. We all really enjoyed it! The boys loved all of the character cut outs! I took a ton of pictures, but didn't want to bombard you with them all, so here is a snapshot of our day.

 So grateful for days like these to enjoy God's biggest blessing to me: my precious family!

What is your favorite thing about Fall?!  Thanks for reading!
Trina

L and Yellow Muffin Tin Meal

The boys love muffin tin meals! And I love to make them! What is a muffin tin meal you might ask?!? It is a simple  and fun way to serve food to kids.The small size of the muffin cups make perfect portion sizes for little mouths. 

This week we focused on the color yellow and the letter L. I tried to think of yellow and L foods and came up empty, so I improvised and added magnets to the boys' tins. JP didn't care for it and took them off immediately and I laughed. Oh well, I tried. :)

This muffin tin meal consists of: cut up stick cheese, a peanut butter and honey sandwich, apple slices, carrots, and pretzels. 
 

Nursery Rhymes Theme and Scissor Skill Update

We worked on nursery rhymes recently and really enjoyed it. I love aligning our preschool work at home with what JP is learning at his preschool 2 days a week. We read many nursery rhymes from library books and books we own. I was able to use amazing, free printables from Beth @ Living Life Intentionally. Thanks, Beth! We love your stuff!

Here the boys are working on a Baa Baa Black Sheep colors printable.

 

I love when JP is concentrating his little tongue comes out! So cute! 

CA has been working very hard on his scissor skills.  We used brown paper sacks, construction paper, and cutting printables from Cheerios and Lattes to help him. I saw BIG improvement in a sort amount of time with him! Yea!

How was your week? Thanks for reading!
Trina

Banana Bread in the Steamer

I love to teach my blessings in the kitchen with me! This week we made banana bread together. Thankfully they love to help!

One of my favorite gifts we received when my husband and I got married 16 years ago was a Sunbeam Food Steamer. I love this item in my kitchen! It has been a wonderful tool to have for so long. I can steam vegetables, chicken, fish, fruit, rice and so many more things in it. It can even bake banana bread. Yes, you read that correctly, banana bread in the steamer! It makes the most moist banana bread you will ever taste! Thankfully this handy appliance came with an instructional manual and recipes. In the back of the book is the recipe on how to make banana bread. Keep reading for the recipe at the end of the post.

Here is a picture of my steamer:


After reading this awesome post by Allison Tate titled The Mom Stays in the Picture, I am making a concentrated effort to be in the picture more and more with my blessings. If you haven't read the article, please do. It moved me to tears when I read it!

So here is my oldest baker ready to help! Please excuse the no make-up look, but also in an effort to be real that is the look I sport most days! I typically wear make up on Sundays. :) Just keepin' it real!

First we mixed the dry ingredients.

Then we mashed the bananas while CA had a turn at mixing the dry ingredients.

Both working so hard! Love his silly face!

We then mixed the wet ingredients together. Then we mixed the dry and wet ingredients together. Next we poured the banana bread batter into the greased "rice bowl".

Here is my steamer, instruction manual/recipe, and the banana bread mixture ready to steam.

Here is our finished product ready to be sliced! Delicious!

Banana Bread Recipe From Sunbeam:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 ripe bananas mashed (1 cup)
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 cup milk
1 egg

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add bananas, margarine, milk and egg. Pour into greased and floured Rice Bowl. Cover Rice Bowl with aluminum foil to prevent water from entering.  Be sure the foil creates a tight seal around the Rice Bowl. Fill the water reservior to Max level. Place Rice Bowl in Steaming Bowl. Steam 60 minutes.
Enjoy!

Linking up to some of these great sites!

Cutting Practice

 I am participating in new writing series perfect for JP and CA at a new blog I found called Cheerios and Lattes. The series is called Play to Write-Write to Read where the blog author shares a writing activity and a writing best practice. I have been reminded of so many skills necessary for teaching writing. It is amazing to me how many fundamental skills are necessary for teaching writing. My "teacher brain" knows so many of these skills, but my "mommy brain" tends to forget. It must have something to do with being home for 5+ years now, managing our home and keeping up with our amazing three blessings! That is why I am so thankful for other like minded mommies who blog all of their great ideas and then I can implement them with JP and CA.

So far we have worked on name writing, journal writing, line mazes, and this week scissor skills. I remember when I first taught JP how to use scissors last year I thought I was going to pull my hair out!! Oh my! Thankfully it wasn't so frustrating this week with CA. Although he got frustrated and threw the scissors across the room. Bummer!

I made cutting strips for the boys. I instructed them how to hold the scissors and stayed close while they were cutting. I love their focused, concentrated faces!

This is a new skill for CA. He is 3 1/2 and I really didn't allow him to use scissors much last year during our learning time. But I think now he is ready. We will continue to practice a lot. He had a hard time holding the paper that he was cutting and got frustrated twice to which then he threw the scissors across the room. To be honest and transparent, I got really mad at that point. Unfortunately I yelled and got pretty upset, :( Sad day! I will work on that too. There are some great printables at Cheerios and Lattes that I plan to print to help with this important skill.

Want to learn more writing strategies? Feel free to click on this button to join the series. I'm linking up there!