Earth Day Celebration

I love any excuse to have a "party," (Saturday is "Pig in a Blanket" day if you are interested, and yes we will be celebrating :) For earth day this year a had a whole bunch of things planned. I am a pretty conscientious person, not perfect, but I try. I go crazy if the boys let the water run, try to recycle when I can and reuse things if at all possible. Earth day I thought was a great chance to teach them a few things. I saw these cute earth pops here and decided to make them.

Didn't those turn out cute? I was worried...

The "earth pops" were a hit. The rest of the night the kids kept saying "can we have those again?"

After the treats I gave the kids a recycling maze, and an earth to color. While they were coloring we talked about what it means to "save the planet," and what we could do to keep things clean and nice.

I thought these pictures would be pretty simple to color, but they drew rockets, bridges, lakes and a whole lot of other things on their earths.

After the "fun" activities, I gave each of the boys their own garbage bag (that was key to this activity) and we went around the neighborhood and to the park to clean up trash.

I wasn't sure what the boys were going to do...I mean, cleaning up the neighborhood isn't the most fun a kid can have in an afternoon. I think it helped that we made it a competition. They were so excited to pick up trash!

We had still had lots of fun even though we were cleaning. The boys really liked it. I think they like each having their own garbage bags. I think my kids like to feel like big helpers too.

The perfect day...a bit cold, but the light was perfect for pictures.

The kids tried to convince me that there was trash all over the toys at the park...I wasn't buying it.

McKay is such a good sport to get dragged around to all of the things that our families does.

Hunter had to run for all he was worth each time he saw some garbage, because his brothers usually got to it first.

Our garbage hunt was just perfect for the boys. They all helped the whole time and got quite a bit of garbage. After it was all over they were so excited to go and play at the newly cleaned park.

We also read "The Lorax," by Dr. Seuss. I love this book. It is so cute with such fun pictures, but really teaches a great message in a creative way. We actually read this book a few times today. My boys do not get sick of books easily.

How cute is Josh reading to his boys? I hope that our efforts to teach our boys about the environment, recycling, reusing, etc. will not make them fanatics, but will teach them that we need to take care of things, we need to be wise and most of all be grateful for what we have.

A Great Help

Today Palmer set the table for breakfast, complete with place mats. He asked each of the other boys what kind of cereal they would like to eat and poured it into their bowls. Then he poured their milk and got their spoons. I was very impressed. He is the best helper!

Car Seat Free!

Oh my special boy. McKay has graduated from sleeping in his car seat (condoned by our Dr.). We couldn't get him to sleep unless he was in the car seat and I was DESPERATE for sleep so I was okay with it. We finally got brave and felt like he was getting a little big for the car seat so we bit the bullet and moved him to the bed. He struggled a little bit the first night, but he is doing great! I am so glad for the milestone as much as I am not thrilled about the rest of em. Doesn't he look like a cute little burrito in this pic?

Way to Go Lincoln!

At preschool the kids have a goal to learn their phone number and address. This has been something that Lincoln has been working very hard to do. He learned his phone number a while ago, but the address was much harder. We have been working on it for quite a while now. He has been a little shy to pass it off as well. He wanted me there when he did it. He finally did it today and I was so proud of him. He also stood in front of the class for his "community workers" report. As you may know, standing in front of people isn't his favorite thing. I was so amazed though, he did it and came home from preschool on could 9. This is one of the reasons I go so crazy over this preschool. It has given Lincoln a lot of confidence and he has grown leaps and bounds this year. I just hope that Kindergarten is as pleasant :)

It may not look like much, but this badge has been coveted by little Lincoln all year. I am so proud of him.

Now doesn't that seem like a happy kid?

My Flannel Board

I had some left over BBQ chicken from Sunday's dinner and so I made this with the leftovers. Seriously delicious and is there a better feeling than reinventing leftovers? Okay I am a nerd because I thought it was great.

I also made this flannel board for F.H.E. which was so easy and so fun. I have wanted to make one forever. My mom had a cute one growing up and I always wanted to have one for my kids. They aren't hard to make (once again, if I did it...) I just took 1 yard of flannel and covered foam board I bought at Walmart. To get the pictures to stick you just put flannel on the back of it (apparently flannel sticks to flannel). I used the glue gun to attach it to the back, and then white duct tape so that all of the "love" it will be getting won't make it fall off. The boys LOVED it. They totally paid attention to the lesson. There are flannel board stories on this blog you can download.

This was my tiny little lesson. I need to find some much bigger pictures for my flannel board stories.

I got a great idea for F.H.E. treat-I bought some Italian Sodas from Target and made "floats" from it. The boys thought it was so great!

Now doesn't that look delicious?

Hooray for F.H.E. treats!

Josh was trying to make it look like he was giving his to McKay...does it?

Hunter and his silly faces.

Spring Has Sprung

The Spring activities have finally have begun. The boys have been playing with chalk since I picked them each up a $1 bucket from the dollar section of Target. It has been so much fun and our entire house is surrounded in chalk grafitti.

Hunter is Hilarious!

Hunter is so hilarious. This is what he looks like after he plays with the chalk. I wanted to get one picture because he was literally COVERED with chalk...and I couldn't stop. He is so funny. He kept pulling funny faces at me.