September Doings

We started the month off celebrating 17 years of marriage! Marrying Nate was the best decision I ever made. We had a fun little date and went to Family Fun Center and played mini golf, raced go-karts, and played some air hockey. We came home to spotless house with a table filled with cards from the sweetest girls! It was a great day filled with love, and I am so grateful for this little family that we have created together.

Labor Day was a fun filled day that started with a parade in Black Diamond with lots of family. The girls got lots of candy and had fun with cousins.

Then after lunch we went to explore a new place. We walked the Sequalitchew Trail and it was amazing! It had a nice path to walk on, lush trees to walk through, an old rail tunnel to explore, and then the most gorgeous view right on the Sound at the end of trail.

I mean, look at that view! The water was so clear and so beautiful!

We have loved all our after school bike rides and playing with neighborhood friends. McCall learned how to ride a bike without training wheels! Baylor and McCall love to ride bikes all evening. It is one of my favorite things that they just love playing outside every day.

Nate loves to mow different patterns into the front lawn. It looks so good!

We have been enjoying all sorts of produce from our garden! Lots of strawberries, salsa, jalapeno poppers, green peppers in different dinners, and roasted potatoes. I also got a big project done in the backyard. I sifted all the dirt in a section of our backyard with trying to simplify it. We planted some ferns and lots of tulip. In the spring we will add some bark and I'm excited to see how it all turns out.

We had high 70s one evening so Baylor wanted to go out on the boat with Keene's one more time for the year. It was a lot of fun even though the water was freezing cold. I actually stood up on the water skies which was a cool feeling for me. And we jumped off the boat and swam in the lake for a bit. There was also the most amazing view of Mount Rainier and there are moments that amaze me that I live in such an incredible place and have such an amazing life.

I have been painting almost every afternoon to get ready for the trunk or treat. I am loving this new calling and I'm super excited to for this vision to come to life.

McCall had her official first dentist appointment. The dental hygienist was amazing! She walked her through the whole process, let her hold the different tools, and made it so fun. McCall did so good!

I love having my little sidekick during the day! She is so good at playing by herself. We love doing preschool and she is just so silly and fun!

One Saturday, we used our Get Out Pass and went to Old McDebbie's Farm. We went for the first time last year and loved it and this year was no different. We had so much fun and it was a gorgeous day to be outside. The girls loved feeding the animals and McCall was braver this year and actually pet and fed quite a few animals.

I love this walk! It has a scavenger hunt that the girls love, and it keeps them entertained and it is such a peaceful walk.

 

It was a wonderful afternoon spent with my little family!

Baylor and McCall ended the month with a Stake Primary Activity. I went and helped with one of the stations, and it was fun to see them. They both had lots of fun!

Another great month, filled with moments and memories!

Preschool: Apples

Who knew you could fill a whole week of preschool activities with just the theme of apples. McCall loved it and we did so many fun things.

• We listened to a story about apples on the computer.
• We cut an apple in half and got all the seeds out of one apple and counted them. Our one apple had 9 seeds!
• We had lots of apples for a snack throughout the week.
• McCall used a half of an apple to do some paint stamping.
• She torn up little pieces of paper to make a red, yellow, and green apple.
• She sorted uppercase A apples and lowercase a apples into baskets. Then she counted how many apples of each color she had.
• I created an apple obstacle course with chalk. First, she had to jump on and count the different colors of apples. Then she had to hop on the letters to spell apple and say each letter as she jumped on them.
• We learned about the life cycle of an apple, and she did the sequence by herself.
• She colored an apple tree and used red paint and her finger to put lots of apples in her tree.
• We measured around apples to see how big they were.
• We walked to Nona and Pop's house to see their apple tree.
• She traced the word apple in uppercase and lowercase letters.
• She looked at patterns of different colored apples to try and figure out what color apple came next in the pattern.
• She painted with apple slices.
• She glued on apple jacks to make apple jack apples.
• We taste tested a green, yellow, and red apple.
• Then to end our fun week, we made an apple pie!

Preschool: Five Senses

 Another great week of preschool exploring our 5 senses:

• Sight: We talked about how our eyes see. We read a book all about colors. McCall blended primary colors together to make secondary colors and painted with a Q-tip. She did a Skittle science experiment to see the colors bleed out to make a rainbow. She went on a color hunt. And she sorted Legos by color into a bar graph and counted how many Legos were of each color.
• Hearing: We talked about how our ears hear. We read some books with sounds especially those of animals sounds. She drew some things that she hears when she goes outside. We took turns closing our eyes and listening to how many times the other person would clap their hands. We played musical instruments.
• Smell: We talked about how our noses smell. We did an art YouTube tutorial of an ice cream cone and used Smelly markers to color with. Then I had her close her eyes and smell different things to see if she could guess what they were. She was disgusted with the smell of apple cider vinegar and had no idea what lemon juice was. She knew the smell of vanilla but couldn't remember what it was called. She called cocoa powder chocolate and knew immediately the smell of peanut butter. She also smelled some playdough before playing with it.
• Feel: We talked about how our hands, and our feet help us feel. She did fingerpainting. We read a big stack of touch and feel books. We both found things in our sensory bin to touch and feel and describe what everything it in felt like. Was it smooth? Rough? Fuzzy? And then she felt and played with slime.
• Taste: We talked about how our mouths, particularly our tongues, help us taste. We first played with pretend food and counted what we cut up. We read a food book. She drew some of her favorite foods. We tasted some sour, salty, and sweet things. Then we picked some things from the garden.
• We ended with a fun walk around our neighborhood and talked about what we saw (trees, flowers, squirrels, flowers, cars, and houses), hear (cars, birds, and a helicopter), what we could smell (some flower and some smoke), what we could feel (we touched grass, plants, and walnuts), and she even got a treat from Pops and got to taste an otter pop.