Preschool Part 2

In my last preschool post I wrote about letters A-L which you can read about here.
 Now here is the rest of the alphabet.

M-Followed the map to make maracas and shake them to the macarena, then to the Magnet table then to eat muffins and milk.

N-Matching the N to the N picture, then make a Noodle N, then use the noodles to make a necklace. Apple nachos.

O- Ocean, fish book in the ocean, create an octopus with CheeriOs. Bagels, Apple-Os



P-Pumpkin Patch game, Pumpkin name Puzzle, and pizza making!

Q-We made a Quilt fort, decorated a Q with Quaker oats, and did some fall Q-tip art!

R-Writing R on the white board. Rainbow sorting with froot loops, Rocket races and then running races. Raw veggies with ranch and Ritz cracker sandwiches (with meat and cheese) and raspberries, also, they got to sort skittle rainbows.

S-Science! Soap in milk project, Sweet and Sour taste test, Slime, Sandwiches, strawberries, smoothies and spaghettios

T-Tape the Ts, teddy bear song, and a teddy bear tea party! You can read about that here
U-Combined with Charlie and Lacey's Birthday Umbrella stained glass, Up and Under with balloons and that post is here
V- Veterinarian The blog post for that is here
W-Walk with the worms, cheerio worm, water beads,  waffles, and worm treat

X-X marks the spot...hunt for the X, make an X, xylophone,  x-ray machine then qtips, Chex Mix

Y, Yarn Y, All about You, Yummy yucky taste test, (my phone went berserk so not many photos for Y.

Z, Zig zag the Z zipper, decorate zoo binoculars then sort zoo animals back into their cage. Ziploc ice cream, Ziploc bag lunches, ice cream on zucchini brownies, play in the miniature zoo

ABC party! After finishing the alphabet we had an ABC party with ABC games, alphabet soup, a the following slideshow to commemorate a year of learning the alphabet. It was a fun time. 

And we had cupcakes of course, to celebrate the alphabet and Tali's birthday

So, we love preschool and I can't say it enough that I love being able to do this with my children and my good friends. We have made the decision that Charlie will join a pre-k class this fall to help him prepare for kindergarten but we will still continue with our home-preschool for as long as we want. Miles is really getting into it and participating and once all our big kids are off at school we still have our little kids to teach and play with.

February beach day!

It's always annoying when you are writing a blog post and then in disappears, but here I am, at it again.

SO, Last week Marissa brought up the wild idea of going to the beach the following Monday. All the weather reports said it was going to be about 66 degrees and sunny skies. Richard was going to take a day off work and we were hoping our families could go together. I told Marissa that I would see if Max could go but that I would probably just go anyway if he couldn't. The boys have been asking to go to the beach pretty regularly, And I've been craving a beach trip since summer ended. It turned out that even though Max has a more flexible schedule these days, he still had an important meeting to go to that he couldn't miss. He sent us off with his blessing and we only felt a little bad that we were going to spend a day playing at the beach while he worked. (Good thing he is loving what he is doing) I have never attempted an outing like this on my own with the boys but I was feeling brave and anxious for the sea, so we went for it. The drive went pretty smoothly, we had to listen to Where the Wild Things Are about 20 times, so the boys can quote most of the book now. Miles got a little restless the last twenty minutes and Charlie had endless comments about the beach being really far away. 

When we arrived, I climbed out of the car and felt heat that I hadn't felt in months. I couldn't believe it. I've been to the Oregon Coast may times, usually in the Spring and Summer and the majority of those visits have been overcast and cold. But here we were IN FEBRUARY, It is still blowing my mind!

Richard and Marissa and their family met me at our car. They took Miles while I took Charlie to the bathroom. We then met them on the warm beach.

Of course they wanted to play in the sand immediately. But eventually I got them to eat their little picnic lunch!

 

Richard and Marissa and family set off to hike up the dunes and out onto the cape. We stayed back eating lunch and soaking in the sun. It didn't take long before we shed the coats and long pants. 

It makes me so happy that my boys have this is their playground, and they love it. It's great that their favorite toys just happen to be sand, sticks, and water.

 

I alternated a lot between my camera and my phone for photos since Miles kept throwing sand and I was paranoid that he would ruin my camera and lens, which would be devastating weeks before I leave for Armenia.  

After burying the boys legs in the sand, Charlie made a video to send to Max saying that a Shark bit off his legs. We thought we were so funny!

I feel like my kids are at a magical age right now. I don't have a baby that needs to cling to me. Charlie is getting old enough to be a better listener and Miles still is so innocent before we hit the dreaded terrible twos. I feel like I need to make the most of this time.

And then there was the cute thing Miles did, you know, filling our lunch bag with sand.

 

 

When Richard and Marissa got back we took the kids to feel the ocean, Charlie only briefly touched it then ran back to fly a kite with Richard and Lacey. William loved it. Miles had an awkward whine followed by laughter whenever the little waves hit him. He got happier with each wave. 

 

Then there was this great sand wall which led to hours of fun. Charlie liked to climb down it then use his stick to climb back up. When Lacey went down the wall, Charlie would hold out his stick to help her back up the wall. What a gentleman! Miles liked to go down like a slide. He could have done this forever. Too bad I got tired of lifting him back up on the wall. 

 

 

Another perk about going on a warm February day (which I really don't expect to happen much in my lifetime)  is that you can stay for the sunset and still not be up too late with the kids. We didn't stay until it was completely set but it was nice watching it sink in the sky.

At one point they were all sitting on this log, pretending it was a train. It was precious but I wasn't quick enough to get a photograph.

And it was beautiful!

We decided to leave  shortly after five and go to a restaurant to fill our bellies before the drive home. We went to a great little and inexpensive Mexican restaurant, chowed down some good food then got in the car to head home. The boys both fell asleep but about halfway through the drive they woke up and were crying for most of the remaining part of the trip. We got home shortly after eight so the boys got showers and still got to bed at a somewhat decent time. It was a wonderful day that could have only been made better if Max was able to come. I'm so glad that we still ended up going.