Visitors from Idaho

 My parents came out for the week and brought a trailer full of our things from Idaho so that we can live in our new apartment. We spent one evening moving everything but during the days while Nate was at work Paige and I went with my parents to do a little bit of sight seeing.

One day we went to Saltwater State Park. We packed a lunch and enjoyed the Sound for a couple of hours.

As soon as we got on the beach Paige had to draw in the sand.

Paige found this shell with a hand in it.

 We spent a lot of the time flipping over rocks and watching all the little crabs scurry away and looked at all the shells and little sea creatures.

 If you look close you can see all the little crabs.

 Paige even got brave enough to flip some rocks over herself.

 Then we had our lunch and then Paige and my mom built a sand castle.

 The next day Dale and my dad went to the Museum of Flight so the ladies went and walked around Soos Creek Botanical Gardens.

 There was lots of beautiful flowers which meant lots of pictures of Paige with the flowers. Pretty much every pretty flower she saw she wanted a picture with so there are lots of pictures of pretty flowers and a pretty girl.

The last day trip that we went on was to Flaming Geyser State Park.

 It was a good thing we brought some matched to light it because it went out a few times because of the rain. 

 Then we did the little hike up to the bubbling geyser.

 Then we went over to the river for a little bit to throw some rocks into the water.

 Paige loved all the time she got to spend with her grandparents. The night before they left she was crying when she was in bed because she wanted them to stay. It was a great week!

Letter F

 The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy so this is what we did last week for the letter F. I had a busy week with a mother/daughter activity days so some of our crafts/activities we did in the evening and on Saturday and Sunday. There was lots of fun things for the letter F. 

We started the week off with having some fairy toast for breakfast. Fairy toast is toast with butter and the colorful sugar sprinkles. Paige has it quite often with her breakfast or as a snack.

Then she did some finger painting. She started with four colors and ended with lots of different colors because she loved to mix all sorts of different colors together.

 The next day we went outside and picked some flowers and pressed them.

 And she drew a picture of our family.

 Then another day she made a fancy, feather fan. She loves it so much!

 Another day we had a fish day. She painted scales on a fish using celery.

 Then she went "fishing". I printed off different pictures of fish. Half of them started with F and the other half started with the other letters she has already learned. I put a paper clip of each of them and I made a fishing pole with a magnet on the end. She caught them all and separated them into two piles- ones that start with F and the other pile was the fish that started with other letters. She thought this activity was pretty fun and we did it a few times.

 The last day she made this paper bag frog. The frog turned out really cute and Paige wanted the frog's tongue to come out the side and for the picture she wanted her tongue out just like her frog.

 Then we got our pressed flowers and glued them on the letter F.

Even with the craziness of life it is always good to take a few minutes with Paige and see her learn and watch her imagination at work. We didn't do a letter with week because my parents came to bring us our things for our new apartment. We had such a fun time with them that we wanted to focus on that so we will start with the letter G next week.

Letter E

 This week was very simple. I couldn't think of a lot of things that started with the letter E that we could do crafts and activities and I was busy throughout the week but we had some simple E fun.

Monday- some coloring and tracing

And make Elmo out of uppercase E.

 Tuesday she made this elephant mask.

 Wednesday we had a fun E day. It was our egg day.

It started with eggs for breakfast.

 She made this egg craft out of the lowercase e while I hard boiled some eggs and let them cool.

 After lunch Paige helped me make some dye.

 We did four eggs since Paige is four and I helped her do each one a different way. One we used white crayon on it, one we put lots of little rubber bands on it, one with a large rubber band on it, and the last she put some stickers on it.

The finished product- the crayon didn't show up really at all and the stickers didn't really come off good but the rubber bands worked out good.

Thursday was our eye day- she helped pick out lots of different eyes on Google and I printed them off and she glued them on the letter e and did some more coloring.

 Then we played eye spy with an Eye-spy wand.

 Friday and Saturday were busy with other things but it was a fun and simple week of preschool activities.

Papa's Birthday/Retirement Party

 Most all the Smith family came last weekend for a big party. Papa turned 66 and he retired on Friday so we made it one big party.

We started the day off with some bowling. The kids loved it and we had fun watching and helping.

 This photo is a bit blurry but so cute. Every time it was Carly's turn she would jump all the way up and jump around as the ball headed down the lane.

 What a cute little beauty with her beautiful locks.

 And this was the smile after she got a spare.

 Then I took some pictures of the other two lanes that had the older kids on it and the photos were fun to look at to see all their different forms.

 All those kids with their Papa. They all love him lots!

 Then we headed back to the house for lunch. All the adult men went out to eat and the girls and the kids stayed home and had fun visiting and playing. Most of the time all the boys were in the forest playing around with sticks and building things so Lily and Paige made them some "soup". I loved watching Paige's imagination go into making the soup and I made lots of pretend food with whatever was around when I was a kid too.

 Most of the older kids went over to the park. All the little girls stayed home. Carly was sleeping but Paige helped us take some cute photos of the two youngest Smiths who are only two days apart. They are so cute and lovable!

 Then when Carly got up Paige and her spent quite awhile "reading" to each other.

 Then we had a nice barbecue and then it was time for the birthday party. There was lots of candles for Papa to blow out but that meant lots of candles to be licked off too.

 Aaron and Rachel left on Saturday night but everyone else that was still around had a nice little dinner after church before Mike and Christy headed home.

So of course it led to cute pictures of the cute girls.

 What a cute little girl that is my entire world!

 And there is the face when she sees a bee. It is so cute and sad at the same time.

 The line up ready to see Mike and Christy off.

 And they were off. It was such a fun weekend and we are all so grateful for everything that Papa has done for us!