Weekly Wrap Up (1/24)

 Last week started out with trying to take some pictures with my mom and dad's cat.  I'm not sure she was too into it!

 One day the kids got to have lunch with their cousin, who was out of school.

 Friday we went to see my grandma and took her out to lunch.

 We helped her with her laundry and the kids worked on their school stuff while we waited.

 There was also all the usual stuff, like dance...

 ...PE...

 ...dog walking...

 ...swimming...

 ...game playing (I hope to post more about this soon{ish}!)...

 ...and trying to see who could get to the beanbag first.

 We had some beautiful weather, so there was also a lot of time outside.

We wrapped up the week with a birthday party--this was part of the photo scavenger hunt, which both of my kids thought was so much fun.

This week we have some special things planned!

Weekly Wrap Up (1/17)

 I didn't take a ton of pictures last week, but here are a few of the fun we had!  Monday we made dog treats for Hobo.

 He liked them!

 Boris is still loving the beanbag Santa brought for Alice.  He loves it so much that he will not let the fact that someone is already on it deter him from getting a cozy spot.

 I found Alice a shirt that matches her glasses!

 The kids made Great-Gran a tied fleece blanket and we took it to her new apartment.

 On Thursday night we went to hear James Warhola speak at Philbrook.  He is an artist and Andy Warhol's nephew and he wrote two books that we used in our Andy Warhol artist study.

 He was a really good speaker--and he did great signatures in the kids' books!

There was also swimming, movies (Paddington), and a house showing thrown in the week, but I don't have any pictures of those.  Hopefully this week I will remember the camera!

Smell With Your Tongue

 Friday morning we left bright and early for zoo class in Oklahoma City.  It was a little chilly!

 We were supposed to have it the week before, but it had been rescheduled because of weather.  We weren't going to be able to make it originally because of a showing, so I was glad it all worked out!

 Jack went to a class called Dinners and Diners on predators and prey and Alice went to a class on the five senses called Smell With Your Tongue.  She got to pet a chinchilla!

 They did a neat activity where they had string attached to a metal hanger.  They held the strings up by their ears and then hit the hanger against something metal so they could feel the sound.

 Using the feely box!

They also got to see an armadillo!  They colored the little bunnies with scented markers and he loved them!

Now that we're back into the normal swing of things I am going to try to get back to weekly posts!

Artist Study: Grant Wood

 We just finished up an artist study on Grant Wood.

 Of course we used the Getting to Know... biography!

 This is another good detailed biography that's divided into short chapters.

 We made our own landscapes with a project from Pinterest.  First we drew in the lines and patterns and then traced them with Sharpie.

 Then we colored them in with watercolor pencils.

 This was my picture after using the pencils.

 Then we painted over the pencil with water.

If you use two colors of pencil it gives it a neat effect.

Jack used a lot of different colors.

Alice used a lot of different patterns.

We also did a fun project from Great American Artists for Kids.  The kids drew other people/creatures in the style of American Gothic--this is supposed to be Lea, our lizard, and Hobo, our dog.  Then we cut the figures out and glued them onto a picture of the house from the original painting.

 I think it turned out really cute!

Bobey Day

 Thirteen years ago tonight we brought home this tiny cat.  By bedtime I was pretty sure we were never going to have any peace and quiet again (much like the first nights at home with both babies), but now I can't imagine not having him around.

We didn't do anything special to celebrate, but he did get to sit on Alice's beanbag in front of the heater for most of the day, and I'm pretty sure that's his current favorite thing.

Happy Bobey Day, Boris!  We love you!

Happy 2015!

 It's taken me a while to get them together, but here are all of our New Year's Eve pictures!  We had a lot of fun this year!

 After spending the morning at the Noon Year's Eve party, we came home and (kind of) rested a bit before starting our bags at 5:00.

 We started with silly string again.

 This picture cracks me up.  I don't think any of the ones I took were clear because they never stopped moving!

 At 6:00 we tried out our new spin art maker.

 Even Jay made some!

 Dinner was finger foods, and then we went through the memory jar together.

 7:00 was photo booth fun!  I got a sparkly door curtain and hung it over the shower rod in the guest room bathroom.  The props are from Hobby Lobby, too, but there are all kinds of free ones you can print on Pinterest.

 Alice made Jay a hat!

 8:00 was Minute to Win It games, which Jack was really hoping we'd do again this year.  I got all the ideas from different places on Pinterest--you can look on my New Year's Eve board for details.  First they raced to see who could get ping pong balls in the cups the fastest.

 Junk in the Trunk--they had a kleenex box full of ping pong balls strapped to their waists and they had to try to get all of the balls out of the box.  They thought this was hysterical.

 Trying to get a penny out of the foot of the hose.  You want Sister on your team for these kinds of games.  She's surprisingly good.

 Suck It Up:  They had to use a straw to move Smarties from one plate to the other.

 The object of this one was to try and remove the index card so that the cup would fall into a stack.  It was hard!

 Face the Cookie:  They had a cookie on their foreheads and had to try to get it to their mouths without touching it with their hands.

 Alice kept trying to yank her head back really fast to make the cookie fall into her mouth, but Jack got the closest by wiggling it down.

 9:00 was cupcake decorating time!

 10:00 was Glow Games.  They did a glow in the dark ring toss.

 We also found some glow in the dark balloons at Hobby Lobby and used them to try to keep them in the air while trying to knock down the other balloons.

 11:00 was Tenzi time!  This was fun because it was something we could all play.

 The 12:00 bag had confetti poppers!  Watching for the countdown...

 12:00!

 This is the first year they both made it to midnight!  Alice was excited!

Another advantage of them getting older is that they actually slept in until about 8:30, which is fairly late for them.  I had to get up early to take care of the dog, but I climbed right back in bed when I was done!  When we finally got up, we had funny face pancakes (which accidentally had a colonial flair to them).

Happy New Year!