Glittery Day

The girls had their doctor appointment early this morning to get their flu vaccinations. Claire got the mist for the first time and was a bit nervous until we got there. She sat on my lap and did a great job and she said it was easy. Kellyn got the shot and it was the easiest shot ever. The nurse was awesome. She had Kellyn sit on my lap, she kind of blocked her view and gave her the shot. Kellyn didn't cry or anything. They got a sticker and we were on our way. I treated them to lunch at Burgerville and we looked at the pets at Petsmart and got Jake some more dog food. We got home just in time for nap time and I needed some coffee.

Kellyn got in bed and Claire wanted to do a project together. I took our project drawer out to see what we could find. She always goes for the glitter. I organized our drawer while she had fun mixing all the colors together.

After a little while of mixing glitter I pulled out the glue and some of our glitter pages. We had fun tracing out certain parts with glue and then covering the pages in glitter. It was a fun, messy project.

Our neighbor friends joined us for lunch. Once Sophia's older sisters were home from school they came over to play for a while. They had a lot of fun as always. They colored, played blocks, pretended to be horses and watched some toons.

I also made some pretzels for a snack. It's from the link I posted a few days back. These are seriously so good. One batch only makes 6 large pretzels and it's actually kind of tiring to roll out the dough for each pretzel. I made 2 batches so maybe that's why it seemed like a lot. 

The Christmas toy catalog from Target came in the mail today. The girls have had fun (and have fought) over looking through it. No surprise the main things they like are anything horse related, Barbie related or Frozen related. Claire does want dragons too from How To Train Your Dragon 2. Both girls are loving those movies.

Overall, it's been a pretty good day. I'm looking forward to bath time and story time this evening with the girls!

Spooky Babies

This first picture doesn't have any filter on it! Absolutely beautiful fall trees at our library!!

This second picture I altered slightly because the lighting was darker. I brought out more of the color! I love the fall colors!

The girls and I made it to the library for the Spooky Babies Dance Party. They each got a glow stick and got to color a pumpkin to tape on the wall for the library pumpkin patch. Claire dressed up in her Elsa dress and Kellyn decided she didn't want to dress up in her Sophia dress. I brought it just in case but she wasn't interested.

I think the amount of people was a bit overwhelming for Kellyn. She stayed by me the whole time and didn't want to dance. In fact, she thought lying on the floor was a good idea.

Claire was a bit overwhelmed too. She said she didn't want to dance with all of these people. She did find a couple other girls dressed as princesses and they played together for a bit and talked.

We didn't stay too long. It was a huge surprise to say we did NOT see another Elsa there. I couldn't even believe it! The girls picked out some movies and books. We read some books while we were there too.

They also played with some of the puzzles and hung out in the play area.

Claire asked to play on the computer. She couldn't quite figure it out but she seemed to enjoy it.

Kellyn listened to a Sesame Street game and mostly pounded on the keyboard.

While they were on the computers the dance party had a parade around the library. We joined in and Claire had a lot of fun. She found the other princesses she met earlier and walked with them.

On the drive home Claire kind of turned into her funky mood. She told me she doesn't want to do preschool ever again, meaning abcmouse.com. I told her I was ok with that. I won't force her to do something she doesn't want to do. I asked her why she felt so upset about it. She told me it's boring. I asked her what she would like to do instead of abcmouse.com. She said all she wants to do is sit and snuggle with me. I told her we could do that today. We got home, made some lunch and we all snuggled on the couch while we watched a movie.

Kellyn took a nap and I asked Claire why it's boring her. She said she didn't know. I asked her if it's too easy for her. She said yes. I asked her if she'd like to try something a little harder or if she'd like to just snuggle and read. She got a big smile on her face and said she wants something harder. I checked the settings on abcmouse.com and bumped her up two levels. She was eager to try it. The first lessons start with learning how to read. I think I will still take a break from it unless she asks to play it and we will try other things that interest her. I have some fun things planned this Halloween week.

I'm not sure what we have planned yet for this afternoon. Claire is currently playing with her horses so I wanted to blog about our morning. I may just treat myself to a third cup of coffee which is a rare treat. The cloudy day is making me feel a bit sleepy!

It's a better week!

It's the start of a new week and so far it's going well. Last week was rough. I don't know if it was just the change in weather or what was going on but we were in kind of a funk. Thursday evening I started to feel like I had a sore throat but I wasn't really sure if it was a cold or possibly nothing. Woke up Friday and just us girls were sick. My sore throat was worse and the girls were congested and had runny noses. I'm thankful for pajamas, our humidifier, medicine and netflix!

I watched Netflix on my phone quite a bit while the girls snuggled in bed watching cartoons. I'm hooked on Gilmore Girls!

Claire picked The Magic Schoolbus and wanted to watch the episode when Ralphie is sick. She's watched it many times!

Kellyn eventually moved to the couch to watch Barbie Dreamhouse. She's Barbie obsessed.

They played quite a bit and found a couple toys bins in the closet from the spare room.

It was a much needed break. Claire didn't show much interest in getting on abcmouse.com but we still learned. She asked about horseshoes so we watched some youtube videos about how they are made and learned about farriers.

Some great news is that I got a call from the Sande School of Horsemanship last week. There is an opening for Claire to start riding lessons each week! She will be so excited. We haven't told her yet only because she doesn't start for two more weeks. She will ask to go every single day until then. I can't wait to take her! Some more great news is Kellyn was picked to be 1 of 4 two year olds to try a Twinkle Babies dance class for November. It's every Saturday morning for the month and it's free! I hope she will enjoy it. She doesn't seem to be our shy one as much anymore. She's our little hopper. She hops around the house like a pogo stick so maybe she will get a kick out of dance class. It's the same studio we took Claire to when she was 3. She was so shy so it didn't work out after trying for 2 weeks. Dancing may not be her thing and that's ok. 

I'm still not 100% feeling better but the girls seem to be. They are tired of being cooped up in the house so I took them to the park. They ran and played and got some fresh air. It was nice. The sun was out for a bit earlier today so we sat out front to soak up some vitamin D. It was much needed. Claire never has a problem finding a new friend to play with. She found two friends to run around with and they happened to find mushrooms growing in the grass. They picked quite a few of them and had fun hunting for mushrooms.

Kellyn mostly wandered around instead of helping with the mushroom hunt.

Claire and I watched a quick video about how mushrooms grow. Let me warn you it's terribly boring, all we really wanted to see was just what it looks like while they grow. I'll keep searching around for a time laps video possibly. Here is the link if you'd like to be bored to death:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n99zZ4nbunE

We were out for about an hour before I started to feel tired again. I keep getting bursts of energy like I'm feeling better but then my body starts to feel tired. This cold is kind of kicking my butt. The girls and I played a color game this morning and read some books. I tried a new recipe for a snack and made soft, fluffy pretzels with salt! They are too good and easy to make. They would be amazing with some nacho cheese! Mmmm. The link is below.

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/12/25/30-minute-whole-wheat-pretzels/

So far it's been a great start to our week. We will be heading to the library in the morning for a Spooky Babies dance party at the library. Their little dance parties are usually pretty fun, the girls will have fun!

Slow Week

School for the week has been slow. We are going to be focusing on letter R but haven't really jumped into it fully just yet. Yesterday it was rainy so the girls and I talked about rain and rain clouds. I found this neat little science project and Claire thought it was so neat. It was simple to make a cloud and she wasn't quite patient enough for the warm water to evaporate to condense into little rain drops but we talked about rain in the clouds. Here is a link to what I'm talking about:

http://science-mattersblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/modeling-water-cycle.html

I found another website that says if you spray some hair spray into the jar and replace it and hold up black paper behind it you can make your own cloud. We did that and the black paper made zero difference on visibility. Claire thought it was so cool when we took the lid off and the cloud came out. I didn't take any pictures though. Maybe I'll try it again tonight and get Chris to snap some pics.

This morning Claire asked me about the North Pole and where Santa lives. I found a website called Santa Claus Office. We looked at some pictures of Santa, his elves and reindeer. I asked if she would want to make reindeer ornaments out of popsicle sticks to go with our letter R and Claire kindly said no.

Here is the link to his office:

http://santaclauslive.com/

Claire's friend, Sophia, came over to play for a bit this morning and we all had lunch together. It was almost Kellyn's nap time and Claire went to play over at Sophia's for a while. I relaxed, folded laundry, drank some coffee, watched Gilmore Girls and took a shower.

Kellyn woke up from her nap, we picked up Claire, and headed to the post office for some stamps. That was interesting with Kellyn laying on the dirty floor but it was either that or hold a kicking, screaming toddler. I just needed stamps so the other people can just deal with a 2 year old on the dirty floor.

On our drive home Claire asked me what houses are made out of. I told her they are made of wood mostly but can be made out of other things. She says she thought they were made of breaks. I couldn't figure out what she was saying. I thought she said legs at first and then she mentioned something about rectangles. Bricks! I'm not a great listener apparently. It was last minute so please excuse the crappy links that I have posted but I hope to find something better sooner then later. Claire did think the time lapse of the house being built was fun to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVoLH7DLqaI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3iI6S7TuCA

Apparently we will be having some rain and wind storms coming our way so we will see if we make it to the library tomorrow or maybe even the dollar store to pick up some more craft supplies. I have a feeling we will be turning on the heater sooner then later as well. I'm happy the rainy, fall weather is really here!

Baking, Balloon Juggling & Fort Building!

Today has been a better day thankfully, still some attitude from Claire but not nearly as terrible as yesterday. Another chilly, rainy day. We watched TV, ate some breakfast, got dressed and headed to the grocery store. I bought lots in the bulk section because it's awesome!! I'm going to be baking a lot over the next couple weeks, it's time to try to make our own snacks instead of buying them. Plus I have so many ingredients in my pantry I think it's time to use them up before they go bad!

First snack on the list is granola bars. Granola bars are always easy to grab and they don't get squished in the diaper bag like nutrigrain bars do. The girls do not like eating smashed nutrigrain bars. I did this recipe on my own while the girls played. Also instead of buying 7 cups worth of oats I just bought 7 cups worth of vanilla granola and skipped the first three ingredients. There wasn't a huge price difference between the granola and the rolled oats so that's why I did it. I skipped right to dissolving the brown sugar in the honey and adding it to the granola. Here is a link to the recipe so this all makes more sense:

http://delectablymine.blogspot.com/2012/03/crunchy-granola-bars.html

Claire and I snacked on one while Kellyn napped. She said she liked them! They are pretty messy but I think all crunchy granola bars are messy to eat. I made 24 granola bars which is awesome. I usually buy 2 boxes of the Honey & Oats bars and this made way more. Claire asked for chocolate chip granola bars so we bought mini chips. I'll look for a yummy recipe and save them as treats.

The girls wanted to have fun juggling balloons. Goobs!

Jake literally stood there the whole time they ran around chasing their balloons.

After some intense balloon juggling the girls helped me with the second snack. We made homemade cheese crackers. I have no clue why I haven't made these sooner. They are delicious and so easy it's ridiculous. You mix shredded cheese, flour, butter, a tiny bit of salt, and some water. That's it! You mix it all in the food processor and you get a big ball of cheese cracker dough. Chill it, roll it out and make some shapes. Since I don't have tiny cookie cutters I just used a pizza cutter and made squares like cheese its. I didn't make the dough super thin so they were a bit chewy which the girls loved! Here is the link to the recipe:

http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2011/09/homemade-goldfish-crackers/

So yummy!!

It didn't make as much as I thought it would but now I know that I should double or even triple the recipe. I'm not sure how long they last before going bad so I guess one batch at a time is good. I won't be as tempted to eat them all since I know I'll have to make more.

After the crackers were done and everything was cleaned up Claire asked to make a fort. Why not, that's what rainy days are for and it's keeping them occupied while I blog this!

TGIF! I'm looking forward to the weekend and my date night with Chris on Sunday.