Birthday Fun

Paige turned 9! How in the world do I have a 9 year old!?! Time truly goes by too fast but I have loved being her mom and watching her grow and develop into the beautiful young lady that she is. She truly partied it up and had a party the Saturday before her birthday with friends and then one with family on her actual birthday. This year she decided on the theme of arts and crafts and that is exactly what she is all about these days so it was perfect for her.

For her friend party, the girls first started off making bead bracelets while we waited for everyone to arrive and wait for Nate to get the pizzas for lunch. Then after they ate, they did a lilac painting. I showed them step by step pictures that I found on a website. They first painted a greyish background, then used skewer sticks to paint the stems, and Q-tips to paint the flower part.

They then played a fun dice game with candy.

And last they decorated cupcakes for dessert. While they were decorating since we were running out of time, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Paige and they got to see her open up the presents they got her.

Paige is sure lucky to have such great friends and she had so much fun with them. She hasn't been with friends that often with online school so it was fun to have a social event.

What a cute and fun group of girls!

Then we had fun celebrating Paige again on her birthday. Anna and Scott's family came over along with Nona and Pops and we had egg salad sandwiches (one of Paige's favorites) for dinner. Then we did a sunset canvas painting with palm trees. I printed out a picture of the end result and then we all kind of did our own thing. It was fun to see everyone's creativity. 

These two had more fun with the water and painting their plates but they sure had fun making a mess. :)

Then we played the dice game that she played with her friends.

Then it was cake time! She asked for a chocolate cake from Costco this year which I was absolutely fine with. It is one of my favorite cakes and I didn't have to make it. The only candles we had were sparkler candles and they kept up scaring her which is the face in the picture on the top and they were pretty hard to blow out but she finally did it.

She then got to open presents and was even kind enough to let Baylor open the first one. After that though Baylor had a hard time with the fact that her sister was getting on these presents and she didn't have any.

Baylor got Paige a big bag of her favorite candy- watermelon sour patch and the top three pictures are a series of the sweetest interaction between the two. She got so many fun things and she is truly so loved.

I have loved every minute with this sweet birthday girl! She is so incredible and so close to heaven. I love seeing her sweet testimony grow with experiences, learning, and her just asking questions. She has already had answers to prayers and that has helped her relationship with Heavenly Father grow. She loves to learn new things and excels at school. She truly is a great student and a great example. She is the most incredible big sister. She constantly helps me with Baylor and is always doing things with Baylor and making her little gifts or creating some activity that Baylor can do. She has probably taught Baylor more things than I have. She loves to do anything crafty and loves to create. She has the most incredible, creative mind and can create anything she wants to. She is determined and likes to take lead but can also be shy and timid in new situations. She loves to dance and do gymnastics and would love to take classes if they weren't so expensive. She loves to explore new places and I always come home with rocks and shells that she has collected on all of our outdoor adventures. She is my little bookworm and once she starts a book she has to finish it in one sitting. She wants to know how it ends and just can't put it down even when it is bedtime and I tell her to just read until the end of a chapter but she sneakily keeps going until I ask her to stop. She is very detail oriented and likes to organize things on her own terms. She is very helpful. She loves to cook and one week did all the cooking of the meals for dinner. She especially loves to cook anything chocolate (I don't know where she got that from..) She has also recently started to take an interest in playing the piano and loves to figure out the notes in a song and plays it over and over until she can do it. Once she starts something, she is going to finish it. She truly is a joy to parent and I love her with my whole heart! Happy birthday sweet girl!

 

Preschool: Music

We started our preschool week off with Baylor washing her dishes. There is something about water and playing in it that she absolutely loves like most kids her age.

Since our theme for the week was music, for art we listened to Beethoven while we did some water color painting.

Then for music time I had printed off some big flowers to lay on the floor in a circle. I played a song on my phone and when I stopped the music, she had to pick up the flower she was on. On the back of the flowers was doing some sort of movement or singing a song. She enjoyed this though it took some reminding to listen to the music for when it stops. She was happy jumping from flower to flower and it was even more of a challenge in her mind when flowers were taken away to be able to jump to the next flower if there was a big gap.

Then for learning time I started with a cup and a pitcher of water. I poured a little bit of water in the cup and had to gently hit it with a spoon. Then I would slowly add water and she would hit the cup after each time to see if the sound was different and if it was higher or lower. Then we got four different cups that were filled at different levels. I let her color the water with food coloring and then let her hit the cups to hear the different sounds and to make songs with it. We sang a couple of songs while she played the cups. This week afterwards I would read her a small pile of books and then let her read. I didn't really have any structured outside time this week but after Paige was done with school, they would play together and often it was outside if it was nice.

Wednesday she started her preschool day off with puzzles.

Then for art we created a shaker. We used a paper towel roll and I let her color it with markers and decorated with washi tape and stickers. Then she helped me staple one end and she filled it with popcorn seeds before stapling the other end. She made quite the mess with the seeds on the floor and was happy to sweep up and help clean up her mess.

For music we sang songs while she used the shaker. She got bored quickly with just singing so I ended up singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" and I would tell her different things to do with the shaker- shake it up high, down long, spin, dance, and jump with it.

Going along with the popcorn theme, for learning time we talked more about sound by popping some popcorn. We did it on the stovetop instead of the microwave so she could see the process of the seeds becoming the popcorn. We listened to the sound of the popping and she helped when she could and then we had a delicious treat of popcorn before reading some books.

Thursday we started off doing stamps. Since it was Nona's birthday I had her stamp a birthday card for her.

Then for art we created a bean tambourine. She put some pinto beans in between two paper plates and then we stapled and taped around the edges. She then decorated her tambourine with some dot markers.

Then we combined our learning and music time for the day. I got two dice. One dice was the song and the other was how we would sing the song. She enjoyed having her kitty roll the dices for her. I included using the shaker and tambourine in a way to sing one of the songs. It was a fun way to end our music week.

Preschool: Spring

We are loving our spring weather especially the warm days. This week in preschool we learned all about spring and the signs of spring.

Tuesday we started off with some cutting practice. I drew some lines on some notecards and she had to cut along the lines. I was pretty impressed with her cutting skills.

Then for art we made a spring collage. We walked outside and Baylor gathering spring treasures to glue on her collage. She drew a tree on her pictures before gluing her find on it.

We sang a few songs for music. We are making sure to do Popcorn Popping lots of times this week. Then for learning time we watched a YouTube Video about spring, then we went back outside and I pointed out all the things that we learned about in the video and that tell us spring is here. Then we planted a daffodil. 

For our outdoor time today we waited to do until after dinner and took some bread over and fed the ducks. All the baby dolls even got to tag along. :)

Wednesday we started off with playdough and used spring cookie cutters. The first picture she was flattening her playdough with her elbows. She thought she was pretty funny. She liked "decorating" the things we cut out with a toothpick. 

For art we talked about the "popcorn" trees that we can see outside and then we popped some popcorn and she made her own popcorn tree.

For learning time I printed off matches of spring time things and made a memory game out of it. First we talked about the pictures and I asked what was on each picture and we talked about how they are things we see in the spring time and then we played memory.

For our outdoor time we took advantage of the nicest day of the week and went and explored Lake Wilderness after lunch.

Thursday we started off with doing perler beads. She didn't have the patience to finish an entire one and I knew that she wouldn't going into it so we just did it until she was ready to move onto the next thing.

For art we created a pussy willow branch. I first had her try and blow some brown paint with a straw to create the branches but the paint was a little thick so it was kind of hard to made it spread. So then I encouraged her to just use the straw to move the paint around and then she glued cotton balls on for the soft fuzzy parts of her pussy willow.

For learning time we talked more about how we plant gardens and we talked about things we like to eat from the garden. Then we planted some pea seeds in a cup and we will watch to see if they grow.

For outdoor/active time we first did thing spring move game. I wrote ways that Baylor could move on flowers and she picked up and did what it said.

It was kind of a rainy day but in the afternoon the girls had created some kites and the rain had stopped for a little bit so they had fun with their makeshift kites in the front yard to end our day.

Sunny Days

We had gorgeous weather last week. We absolutely enjoyed and took advantage of the 60 degree days. We spent as much time outside as we could. Baylor was in heaven and is definitely my outside girl though it is a constant battle to have her wear shoes and a jacket. She is ready for summer and it takes convincing that it's not quite that warm. 😀

On Tuesday we went to a nearby park that we haven't been to in a least a year or more. The girls loved it and there was hardly any people there. Baylor has no fear with climbing and Paige was super excited about the monkey bars.

On Thursday after lunch the girls and I walked around at Clark Lake. It was so peaceful and the girls did awesome walking and exploring. We stopped on the boardwalk and the girls both loved putting their hands in the water and Paige even found a little tadpole in the water. 

On Friday after Nate got home from work, we packed a picnic and drove to Tacoma. We made a stop at the thrift store before going to Chambers Bay (a place that has been on my bucket list for awhile). We ate our lunch before heading down to explore the beach. There is this really cool bridge that takes you over the train tracks that has locks on it. It is a gorgeous view of the Sound and of the golf course. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. I was afraid that it would be chilly since most of the time you get a breeze off the water but it was simply wonderful. Baylor of course wanted her jacket and shoes and socks off right away. She loved digging and playing in the sand and walking in the water. Paige and Nate were happy to explore and find rocks and shells. I just sat back and took the beauty in and enjoyed every minute of it.

There was quite a few trains that drove by while we were exploring. When we were ready to go, we heard a train coming so Paige and I walked quickly to the bridge so that we could be on top of the train as it drove under us.

Then Saturday we took Nona with us and drove to Seahurst Bay (another new place for me). We packed a picnic and enjoyed that near the car before walking down to the water. There was definitely a breeze off the water this time and I'm glad I had my jacket. We found a nice spot for some sand castle making. We found some good rocks to take home and paint and we found a few seashells.

We then walked down to the end of the beach property and there was this cool tree that was down that we had fun climbing and exploring on.

I loved all this time outside and am looking forward to more outdoor adventures this year!