Spring Preschool

The second topic for preschool this week was Spring! What a fun topic. I found lots of great books at the library.

I have to say that my favorites were Un-Brella by Scott E. Franson; My Garden, by Kevin Henkes; and Hurray for Spring! by Patricia Hubbell. We also enjoyed One Rainy Day by M. Christina Butler; The Yellow Umbrella by Jae Soo Liu; and Ella, Of Course! by Sarah Weeks.

This time we did not get to read quite as many books because the kids were a bit restless, but that's how it goes sometimes!

For our craft we made umbrellas out of paper plates, which was perfect since the letter of the day was U! I actually let the kids use water colors, and I think the umbrellas turned out really well. Here is Ephraim's:

As you can see, we used a candy cane for the handle. I actually cut the scallops off the other half of the paper plate and glued the sides together to make a little pocket. Then we put a poem about april showers bringing may flowers inside the pocket with a packet of seeds. The kids thought that was pretty cool.

They also really liked the treat that I made:

Sprout cupcakes! How cute are these! They were really easy to make and the kids loved them. The funny thing is many of them preferred the plain cupcakes, over the ones that were sprinkled with chocolate cookie crumbs to make it look like dirt. Silly kids! But that's why I made both kinds.

They all loved the worms, of course!

Another fun thing I did for class was to grow a bean seed in a jar. I just wet a paper towel and put the seeds up against the glass. That way they can see what is going on in there. Cool, huh?

The boys have had a lot of fun watching the seeds grow roots and then start to sprout! I guess we should decide if we are going to put them in the dirt once they have sprouted.

It was a fun week at preschool. I enjoy teaching, but it is nice to have it done so I can get other stuff done around the house too!

Dinosaur Preschool

It has been a fun and busy week at the Devereaux House. Once again it was my turn to teach preschool as part of our little cooperative. This time the subject was dinosaurs, and I was so excited about it!

There are so many great dinosaur books. I love all the "How Do Dinosaurs..." books by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. I also found two new favorites in "When Dinosaurs Came with Everything" and "Brontorina".  They are great. Here is my table all set up:

I had tons of books, plastic dinosaurs, and I even made dinosaur feet out of cereal boxes for the kids. At the end of class they all giggled while stomping around in their big dinosaur feet!

Of course I even had to make a pair of dinosaur feet for Jacob to play with when he got home!

The dinosaur feet were a big hit, and so were the dinosaur eggs! I used the recipe and tutorial that I found at Projects for Preschoolers. It was really easy to make the clay mixture and put the little plastic dinosaurs in the eggs. I cannot tell you how much fun the kids had breaking open their dinosaur eggs!

The only problem I had was that the weather was wet and stormy, so I knew the eggs would not have time to dry out. So I ended up baking them in the oven for a little while. It worked just fine, as you can see.

I did another preschool lesson today, but that is a post for another day! Thank goodness my busy week is winding down. I am ready for the weekend!

Ephraim asleep

I got another picture of Ephraim napping that I just had to share.

I love this picture of my four-year-old. He just looks so beautiful and angelic. What a sweetheart.

Amelia's Birthday

Happy Birthday Amelia!

What a cutie pie! Daddy went to work late so he could see his little girl and wish her happy birthday, and that just warmed my heart and made my day. I am sure that Amelia loved it too.

Amelia loves playing in the water, so when I was in the shower she was at the curtain begging me to let her in. Since it was her birthday, I indulged her!

What a cutie! On her birthday, in her birthday suit! Hehe.

We spend the day at home, just hanging out and playing together. I managed to finish the cute little skirt (thanks Melinda!), applique shirt, and hair flowers for Amelia. She is our little sunshine, so I figured it was perfect. I think they look so cute on her!

I also gave her the shoes, which she wanted to wear the entire day. Apparently this girl likes shoes!

She did not want to wear the skirt all day, so I didn't make her. After all, it is hard to crawl around in a skirt!
 

So she mostly wore the skirt for the brief time I was trying to take some pictures of her. We didn't work too hard at getting perfect portraits because that's no fun for Amelia, and it was her birthday after all!

I did manage some cute pictures of her though. I have a hard time getting her to look at me when I am pointing my camera at her. I can make strange noises and do whatever and she still won't look at me. Little stinker.

After dinner Amelia got to open her presents. Of course Daddy helped her out (so I could take pictures).

She didn't quite get what the big deal about opening presents was, but she was excited to play with what was inside! She especially loved the push chime that we got for her. She is really close to walking, and I know she will enjoy it a lot in the next year or so.

Amelia's cake was a little easier for me than Ephraim's was. I made her a sunshine cake.

After the presents, we put Amelia in her high chair and let her have cake! She thought it was fun to wear this hat and have us sing to her!

Of course she ended up wearing about as much of her cake as she ate, but isn't that just part of the fun?

Amelia seemed to enjoy the cake, but she wasn't too sure about the sticky hands. She would rub her nose with them and ended up with cake up her nose. I was surprised we didn't end up with more of it in her hair!

We ended our fun and fabulous day with another bath! Since Amelia got new bath toys for her birthday it was a great way to end her special day.

Soccer practice and Amelia

This week we started up soccer practice again. Can you believe it? Jacob has been so excited to start soccer again.

I have a feeling that soccer practice will be more of an adventure now than it used to be!

Somebody did not want to hang out with mommy, and decided to go exploring instead.

She was having such a great time! Silly girl.

As you can see, the weather was a little chilly. But that didn't stop the boys from running around and having a great time!

We have our first soccer game at the end of the month. Then soccer season will really be in full swing. I love watching Jacob play, and I am looking forward to our spring season of soccer!

Ephraim's Birthday

Ephraim was counting down the days until his birthday, so it's a good thing he had a fantastic birthday. He was SO EXCITED about everything! It made his birthday really fun for me too.

First thing in the morning Ephraim woke up to find a birthday banner up in the living room. We also had some light sabers made out of pool noodles that he thought were pretty awesome. Isn't this photo just epic?

I don't think he was very excited about the lightsaber and his banner! (hehe)

As you can tell we were going with a Lego Star Wars theme for Ephraim's birthday. He has never seen the Star Wars movies because I think they are too scary for him. However Jacob and Ephraim beg Daddy to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii so they can watch him play. They also get to play with him sometimes.

Ephraim got to open one present right away because I knew he would want to wear it all day:

Isn't this a great shirt? I could not resist it when I saw it at Target. Do you think he liked it?! What a grin.

My first order of business in the morning was to get Ephraim's cake finished and the balloon banner up.


Grandma Heiner helped me out with the balloons, so I got to work on the cake.

Ephraim insisted that he wanted a red R2D2 cake. What do you think?

I actually made the cake the night before and had it in the refrigerator, so all I had to do was make the fondant and get it on the cake.

I was actually pretty proud of the way the cake turned out. I used two six inch round cakes, and then made the dome part using a glass Pyrex bow. I made fondant and did my best approximation of a red R2D2. I think he turned out pretty well! Ephraim LOVED his cake, so that was good enough for me!

I got it done just in time to have lunch and get the party started. Ephraim only wanted to have three people come to his party; Clara, Ty and Grandma Heiner! How fun

First we played a fun game with the pool noodle lightsabers.

Each little Jedi had a cracker tied on a string around his neck that represented his "life force". The object of the game was to keep your cracker safe and break everyone else's cracker. I may even have had a little fun with this game!

The funny thing is that none of the kids actually broke each other's crackers. They really spent more time running away from each other. It was a crack-up!

After they got tired of running around, they asked to play in the sandbox. That was fine by me!

Next we played a game where the goal was to traverse the lava pit (red table cloth) using the rocks (grey felt) without falling in. The kids thought this game was great and played it over and over again. I got some really fun action shots too!

I love this action shot of Ty jumping from the "rock" to safety on the other side of the lava pit.

They all had to take turns being the Jedi in front who laid down the stones for everyone else. It was really hilarious! Amelia was a good girl and had fun hanging out with Grandma Heiner during the party.

Soon enough it was time for opening presents. Ephraim really loved the gifts his friends got him. They even got a little carried away and opened the present that Aunt Emily sent. It was a pair of purple courdoroy pants that Ephraim loved! He actually took his pants of right them and put on his purple pants. Then he told me that he loved them and he would never pee in those pants! (hehe!). When I told Joe about this later, he said maybe we should put Ephraim to bed in those pants so he wouldn't have to wear a diaper at night!

After the purple pants, it was time for cake and ice cream!

I was a little sad to carve into my droid cake, but at least it tasted good!

When we finished with the ice cream it was time for Ephraim's friends to go home... but the fun didn't end there. After Daddy got home from work it was time for Ephraim to open his presents.

Ephraim was excited to get to open his presents. He got several lego sets. He got the Star Wars ship that he wanted, and was excited that it came with a droid (R2Q2).

As you can see, he was also excited by the other Lego set that he got from Grandma and Grandpa Devereaux.

What can I say, he was excited about all his presents. It was really fun.

Amelia got to ope a present too. Since Grandma Heiner would not be here for Amelia's birthday, we let her open the weebles playset that Grandma got her. She really had fun playing with it!

And of course for Daddy, Lego birthday presents mean "some assembly required". Joe managed to get Ephraim's Lego Star Wars ship done so Ephraim had time to play with it before bed. What a good Daddy!

Ephraim had a great birthday. I really enjoyed watching him have so much fun. I can hardly believe that my little boy is already four! What a big boy!

We love our Ephraim and we are so glad he is part of our family. He is such a fun and energetic kid! He makes our lives so much more exciting and fun! We love you Ephraim!