Climbing

Now the real concern is her climbing habit.  She's been able to get up on our chairs for awhile now.  I wasn't too worried, as long as I stayed near her, and she would just sit.  That has changed.  She now stands on the chair, bounces on it, crawls all over it, and even tried to climb back down.  The climbing down really makes me nervous.  She has made it safely a couple times, but quite often she gets stuck.

oh yes, she is thoroughly enjoying herself. 

See mom, I can sit like a big girl!

HELP!  Climbing down would be so easy if she could just figure out how to turn that leg and get it down.

This next picture beware.  She climbed on this all her own.  Lucky she was having enough loud fun that I checked on her before anything tragic happened - like trying to climb off this!

That's right, that's a two step stool.  Having fun in the kitchen sink.  After taking these pictures, I got her down, and pulled out the baby gate.  Oh that's right, it broke yesterday trying to keep her out of the bathroom.  Well, thankfully enough of the latch was still attached that it was long enough for the kitchen entry.  I think I need to figure something a little more permanent out though.

J is for Japan

This week we worked on the Letter J.  We spent a few days practicing writing upper and lower case j's.  Then yesterday we had a mini lesson on Japan.  Why Japan? Because Grandma and Grandpa live there of course!  With some help from Grandma (thanks!) this is the lesson we had.  We drew each main island on a separate piece of paper.  We labeled them all, and talked about islands.  Since Grandma and Grandpa live in the southern most island, Kyushu, we started at the northern most, Hokkaido.

why yes Princess R that is where Grandma and Grandpa live!

  We jumped, jiggled, and jived our way from Hokkaido, to Honshu, to Shikoku, and finally to Kyushu to see Grandma and Grandpa.  At this point Princess V asked if we could go to Grandma and Grandpa's.  I told her it would take a whole day and we'd have to get on a plane.  Her response was we'd better bring lots of books.

Princess V laying across Japan.

Where are they?

Today was cleaning day.  I needed to get all the general cleaning done, so I could focus on our lessons next week.  After our St George trip things got a little (ok a lot) behind.  I send the Princess' to their room to play (actually they just didn't want to help so they went to their room).  Princess R loves playing in their room too, I think it makes her feel like a Big Girl.  So I finished up the kitchen and took some toys to the Princess' bedroom and wanted to check on them.  I could see Princess V, but wasn't sure where Princess R was.  I found her, and couldn't resist a picture.

Awe!  Does it get any cuter? Of course when I first went in all I could see were her eyes poking out, but once she saw me she started clawing her way out.

Insects

Letter I 

lesson 3 - Insects

We finished off last week talking about Insects and Imagination.  Princess V and C really enjoyed painting their very own bugs.

I is for ice and instruments

Letter I week

Lesson 1 - Ice

We had lots of fun playing with ice this last week.  It was only supposed to be a day thing but with our vacation we spread it out a bit.  We'll be doing more letter I lessons throughout the rest of this week.

For awhile the only I word I seemed to come up with was ice (sad I know).  So we worked on science.

I gave both the Princess' an ice cube tray to fill with water.  While they did that we talked about how we make ice.  I started with probing questions "How do we make ice?" "What happens to the water?", things like that.  Princess V is so smart and sneaky, her answer was that we put juice in the tray and a stick, put it in the fridge and make popsicles.  I told her that was a great idea, but we were going to start with ice cubes. 

 Once they had their trays filled, I asked them where we put them.  

Princess C "In the oven!"

Me: .......

Princess V: "In the Refridgerator"

Me: "Will it freeze in the oven or fridge?"

Princess V: "yes"

Princess C: "no"

Me: "So where should we put the water?"...."How about the freezer?"

Princess':"YES"

So we put our trays in the freezer and then waited.  A couple hours later, we pulled them out to see what was happening.  They weren't completely frozen yet, so we could see some water bubbles under the top layer of ice.  

A couple days later, we finally got back around to playing with our ice....making Igloos!  As Princess C said though "It's cold!"  So igloos didn't turn out too well, but they had fun playing with their dolls in the melting ice, and then watching the cubes stick together as they melted together.

Lesson 2 - Instruments

We couldn't think of any specific instrument that started with the letter I, so we just talked about instruments in general.  And we didn't really talk about it past the fact that instrument starts with the letter I.  Instead I gave them hands on experience.  After cleaning their room up, we had music time, and pulled down our bag of Instruments.  Princess V had a blast!

Princess V's dream

For about 2 weeks now Princess V has been waking up with the same dream.  Almost every morning she wakes up and tells me she had a dream about a haircut.  Apparently she got a haircut and it was like mine.  I got my hair cut just before thanksgiving last year, and I guess she really likes it.  Who knew a 4yo could give such subtle hints to what they wanted?  We caved today (or should I say King Dad caved?), and we gave her a home haircut today after church.  King Dad took charge here, and did a really good job.  She loves her new haircut that's just like mine.

Before

After

St George - Day 2

Saturday morning we hung out at the hotel until we had to check out.  Since we didn't want the Princess' in the car all day we even got a late check out of 1pm.  We started our adventures at Burger King for lunch, yummy right, lol.  We ate in a church parking lot across from the LDS temple.  We had to cut lunch short for a bathroom run.  Thankfully we were right there by the visitors center and didn't have to go in search of one.  While we were already inside, we decided to go ahead and enjoy the visitors center and the temple grounds before getting back to our lunches

I love this one!  Sisters a awesome!!

After finishing up our lunches we decided to drive down Main st and see what there was.  A friend told me about an art museum and I decided we'd go ahead and find it.  It was so beautiful.  The outside had this fun little stream and bridge the girls really loved. 

After playing in the water we went inside and looked at some art.  Awhile ago we had created our own art museum (you can read about it here).  So this was a great reinforcement of that lesson to the Princess'.  We sat on benches, admired the art, and chose our favorite pieces.  Then they had this fun little kids center where the Princess' made their own art.  

On our way out, we went around a different area and found this cool musical statue.  The Princess' are pretending to play the flute and trumpet here.

We finished up here and went to pick up King Dad from his conference.  We got there a little early so I let the Princess' burn off some more energy before our car ride home.

St George Day 1

We took a family vacation this weekend.  King Dad had the UMEA (utah music educators association) Conference he wanted to go to, and well who wouldn't tag along to sunny St George if they were able to?  So it's just what we did.  We left Thursday afternoon, and stopped at Nana and Opah's for dinner, and the first night.  It was really nice to shave that hour off our car trip.  We got up early Friday morning, packed the sleeping kids in the car and took off.  We made it almost halfway before they woke up and we had to find a rest stop. We made it to our hotel before 10am though, and to my surprise we were able to check in that early.  King Dad took off to the conference (just next door), and the Princess' and I hung around the hotel until lunch.

At lunch time we called King Dad, but he was just headed into a class, so we took off and had our own fun.  It started at Sonic with some grilled cheese's.  Then we went to a pretty cool Dinosaur Track Museum.  These people were digging the site for development when they pulled out a large rock covered in fossilized dinosaur tracks.  So they preserved the site instead and are still making finds there. I think Princess C and V enjoyed making their own dinosaur rubbings the best though, while Princess R just hung out.

When we first got to the museum I noticed a park across the street, so once we were finished up here, I took the girls across the street.  I didn't think we'd get to go to a park with the weather being so cold every where.  I was even told that St George was cold.  But not yesterday.  It was a beautiful day with just a slight wind.

After having lots of fun at Slick Rock Park we headed back to the hotel for some baths (the red dirt was a bit messy, though fun), and relaxation until dinner with King Dad at Olive Garden.  {rincess R really loved getting splashed

Princess C always has so much energy but today must have really worn her out.  After the bath this is what we found.  We had to wake her up for dinner, and to make sure she would actually sleep at night.  OH and the green lips are from a ring pop or as the Princess' call them "thumb thuckers"

BIG GIRL

Princess C has done it!  She's all grown up now.  She is fully potty trained.  She has still has accidents periodically, and still needs help getting on the potty, but she knows when she has to go, and tells me so we can "run run as fast we can".  She really enjoys sitting on the potty and reading a book.  She does suffer from a bit of constipation so we've learned to let her sit there with a cup of prune juice and some books, and eventually she'll go.  The first attempt ended pretty hilarious though, and yes she'll probably not find this as funny as me for a long time but here's the pic I snapped