Family Book Club: The Day The Crayons Quit

On Thursday morning, we had our first Family Book Club. Following Andrea at Momfessionals blog, we copied her exact set of reading and activities. It was great because 1) I didn't have to dream up any ideas and 2) the kids liked it and it took 3 hours of our day! Here is what we did:

First, we ate donuts with sprinkles and read our book. Grace just ate the sprinkles.

Then, we watched a you tube video on how crayons are made in factories. Side note: I love mass production and love videos like this. The kids were not that impressed. We were supposed to take duplo legos and build a factory after this, but since they didn't care for the video, I decided to move on.

Next, we took white card stock and drew pictures with a white crayon. It was kind of hard for them because Atticus kept telling me he couldn't see the white. ha! But, I drew some pictures too. Then, we water colored over the paper and the white pictures showed up! Atticus liked this, but Grace REALLY liked this. This girl loves to paint.

Then, while Grace continued to work on her water coloring, Atticus and I drew giant crayons and colored them to prepare for our next activity. When we were done, the three of us went through our stock of stickers and matched the stickers to the right color on our poster. This was a hit.

 

 

Then, we went through our large bags of crayons and sorted through them to separate the broken crayons from the good ones. First, we took the wrappers off the broken ones and the kids kept telling me their crayons were naked and laughing hysterically. Oh my. And, surprisingly, they didn't get bored with this part until we were almost done. And, it took awhile. I didn't realize the glue on the crayon papers was so tough to get off. But, they both concentrated and worked on them for a long time. I think I was tired of doing it before they were! Then, we put liners in a mini muffin pan, broke up our crayons into smaller pieces and filled our muffin pan. We cooked them at 250 degrees for 10 minutes and they melted into multi-colored, muffin shaped crayons! We haven't gotten a chance to color with them yet, but they look cool!

 

 

Then, we ate lunch because our next activity included skittles and M&M's. After lunch, we opened a bag of skittles and a bag of M&M's and split them up between both kids. They could eat some and then they had to sort the rest by color and count them and color in their graph to match. I bought skittles also for the color purple since M&M's don't have purple, but the purple ones really look brown. So, next time I would just buy M&M's. Anyways, Grace only wanted her ponies to play and eat the candy and while she liked sorting and counting them, she was not interested in coloring in the rectangles. Atticus only wanted to eat them, ha! So, when I told him he could eat them after he counted and graphed them, then he got busy.

 

 

So, overall this was a great day and idea! I already have 4 other books to do Family Book Club activities and the blogger I follow is going to do some more of these this summer. So, I'm looking forward to it! Oh and the main reason this was probably such a success was because this girl decided to sleep all morning!

Friday Favorites: Weather, Recipe, Gymnastics, Conversations, and more!

Here are some of my favorite things from this past week:

ONE

After an afternoon of thunderstorms and tornadoes and watching the news constantly on the computer, Atticus and Grace decided to make a shelter for their legos and princesses and ponies. The next day:

Atticus: "Daddy are the storms over yet?"
Vic: "I think so, why?"
Atticus: "I need to know if my legos can go back to legoland or if they need to stay in their shelter."

During the storm, out of the blue, I hear:

Atticus: "Mommy, we have two options: we can take shelter or we can panic. I choose panic!" and then he runs around like a crazy 5 year old.

And a couple other funny, non-weather related statements:

Atticus (talking about Everly): "She's just so cute I can't keep my eye off her." (note that it is a singular eye; not both. Every time, he says it this way.)

Atticus talking to Everly from a few feet away: "Oh Everly; look over here." (as Everly bobbles her head around and doesn't look at him)
Me: "Everly probably can't see you very well. Babies can't see very far away when they are little."
Atticus: "Yeah, but they do have their instincts."
**um...what?"
 

TWO

These kids are really into using their imaginations lately. They will play so well together or apart and I haven't heard too many phrases of "What can I do? I don't know what to do." The funny thing is that sometimes they are SO proud of how well they are using their imaginations and will tell me. And Grace will say "ima-ination". And sometimes when they know is having fun, the other will tell me so sadly that they do not have ANY imaginations and the other one does...as if it's a tangible object.

THREE

This week, we started gymnastics for the kids at Power Sports in College Station. Or as Atticus sometimes calls it "Nim-gastics" and Grace calls it "Nim-Nastics". I get it; it's a tough word. So, we attend at 4:15 for 50 minutes every Wednesday for 6 weeks. They start out stretching together and then they break up each year (2 thru 5) into groups. This week they rotated and did trampolines, balance beams, somersaults, and hopscotch. The kids had a great time! And while Atticus isn't very limber, I was SO proud of him for trying something new, although at the end he told me "Balance beams aren't really my thing." ha! But, he really liked the trampoline. The only bad part...we were soaked through with rain when we arrived. It started POURING a few minutes before we left our house and even after trying to wait it out in the parking lot, the rain didn't stop. And, Grace fell asleep on the way over. So, after I get Atticus out and have him holding an umbrella, I get sleepy Grace out. And keep in mind it is not just raining, but POURING! Then, I tell them to start walking the long sidewalk to the covered area. I grab Everly in her carseat and thankfully have a carseat cover that kept her completely dry. So, I start walking and the kids have barely moved. Grace is getting wet and doesn't want to walk and when I do get them walking, they must think that you have to walk slower under an umbrella. Oh my goodness! I was getting drenched because I didn't have an umbrella and thought "oh I don't mind getting a little wet as long as the kids stay dry". I didn't think we would ever get to that covered area and door. Then, we get inside the door, dry off and I ask where we are supposed to go and they tell me it's the second building for their classes. Oh my. So, back under the umbrella, walking slowly, with carseat in hand, we head to the second building. At this point, I'm nervous Grace is so overwhelmed because she just woke up and is wet and cold and confused, that she may not easily go into the gym class. But, thankfully, she and Atticus were together and Atticus put his little hand on her back and led her in there. By that point, he was excited, so she was fine too. And, then the class was great! The building is two story so you have lots of windows to look through to see them in each area of the class and even on a TV monitor upstairs. So, when Atticus spotted me, he smiled and waved. But, when Grace spotted me, she smiled really big and then put her fingers in her mouth and gave me her "token silly face". It was so funny because the other kids were doing their thing and she is looking like a crazy kid! Hopefully there will be no rain next week because this week was really fun for the kids!

 Here they are stretching in their class.

 Here is Atticus on the trampoline.

 Here is Grace on the balance beam; we could watch her on the TV screen.

FOUR

We started Family Book Club this week. We read the book The Day The Crayons Quit and did a bunch of activities associated with it. I copied this exact idea and every activity from a blog I follow. I plan to do some more this summer and just copy her ideas. I have these grand ideas to get on pinterest and dream these up on my own, but let's be honest here....3 kids. Anyways, I am going to blog about Family Book Club in a separate post. But, it took 3 hours of our day and was a success!

FIVE

One of my favorite things this week involved conversations with Grace. She is hilarious. The other day, while she and Atticus were playing, I heard them calling each other "Sweetie" and "honey". And, yesterday while I went to check on Everly, who was crying and up from her nap, Grace followed me in there and said "Evva-wee, sweetie, what's wrong?"  

Everything she can try lately is said with pride: "I do it myseff!"

She also knows what a selfie is. And yesterday she brought me her toy makeup mirror and said "Mom, wetts take a seffie". 

SIX

The kids have been playing outside a lot lately with neighborhood friends. So, yesterday, I took a photo of Vic in front of our house. Check out the difference in both trees. The tree on the bottom is the same tree as in the top picture on the right. We moved into our house 7 years ago in July and this is how much it has grown. Vic loves his trees and really does a great job trimming them each year and helping them grow!

SEVEN

Meals. We had 13 people bring us food after we had Everly. I was shocked. We got evening meals, breakfast muffins, desserts, and some even brought Atticus and Grace gifts as well. And, it was amazing! Knowing that dinner was coming or having a sweet or treat for the kids was just so fun. If you know someone who is having a baby, do something for them. They will appreciate it so much! Anyways, this recipe is my favorite this week. Someone brought it to us as one of our evening meals and it was so tasty. I even made it for a friend this week who had a baby. It's easy and still filling for an evening meal...especially if you eat as many in one sitting as Vic and I can eat. Plus, the kids liked it! Here it is:

Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Sliders

Ingredients:

1 large packages Hawaiian Sweet Dinner Rolls 

1 package deli sandwich ham (or about 3/4 pound)

12 Swiss cheese slices (we also have used provolone)

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 Tbsp. poppy seeds

1 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp. brown or dijon mustard

1 tsp. onion powder

Slice tops from rolls and place bottoms in baking pan. Layer ham and cheese on rolls. Replace tops. Combine butter, poppy seeds, Worcestershire, mustard and onion powder and mix well. Drizzle over rolls. Refrigerate until butter is firm or overnight. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook 2 additional minutes. Serve warm or cold. 

EIGHT

And, finally, my last favorite of the week is this little 7 week old girl, who by the way, has slept 12 to 13 hours in a row starting at about midnight to about 1 the next day and only waking for about an hour and a half in the middle to nurse. Amazing! The other two did NOT do this. Fingers crossed that it will last! However, the not so easy side...from about 6 to midnight, she is only happy when held, eating or asleep in your arms and if she's awake, she prefers that you are walking her around. She knows it's the end of the day and we have two other kids, right?