Lagoon - 2012

A couple of weeks ago we finally made it to Lagoon for our annual visit.  We usually go on our Stake Lagoon Day because of the discount, but Nat was busy with work that day, so we waited.  I’m glad we did!  Other than the astronomical cost, the September weather was fabulous!  Totally better than July.

Abby loved the first two rides…..the boats and the fighter airplanes.

And then Nat took her on the rollercoaster.  I was so proud of Adam for being brave and riding alone in the seat in front of Nat and Abby.  But Abby did not enjoy the ride.  After that, she refused to go on anything.

The train, however, was acceptable.

Me and my 3 babies.  Love them!
Look at Caleb the Chunk!!

Even if Abby was being a party pooper, Adam had a blast!  He would blow kisses to me as he went around on the rides.  What a sweet Mama’s Boy!

I am in love with this picture!
Adam deemed the space ships his very favorite ride.  I think he’s pretending to be a fighting space pilot….or something else aggressive, hence the angry face.

Caleb was an angel!  He’s really a very good baby.  Except when we’re driving.  He does not like being in the car where he can’t see any of us.
 

Look at those cheeks!

We were there for about 6 hours and by the end, Abby was just done.  We were able to convince her to ride the carousel one more time, (she was a little scared the first time), and Nat waited an extra turn just so she could get her coveted pink pig.  Yay for the pink pig!  We were able to end our day with smiles and giggles!

I can’t resist posting this picture….although it’s probably not ethical to post a picture of someone without their consent.  Oh well.
Of course I took this picture while making it appear as though I were aiming the camera towards my own kids….


While the carousel was loading, there was this young mom, (or perhaps big sister…..but the obvious grandparents of this little baby were standing by me, so I’m going with young mom), anyway, this mom was right in front of where I was standing with my camera poised to capture pictures of my adorable children.  She had her baby sitting up on some animal or another.  He was SCREAMING!  I mean, come on, this baby is probably 3 months old.  Definitely younger than Caleb.  He was arching his back and flailing, because really, what 3 month old likes to sit up like that with minimal support?  I kept thinking that surely she would take him off before the carousel started.  Surely she wasn’t going to subject her tiny little baby to this??  Nope.  The carousel started.  He momentarily stopped crying.  But then he startled, flailed, and wailed again.  Every time they came around I thought, surely, she would scoop up that baby and hold him and calm his obvious state of total distress.  Nope.  Around and around they went.  Grandparents filming away on their phones and this mom/girl/whatever was just smiling away.  I felt so bad for this little guy.  What’s the point of riding a carousel when you can’t even sit up by yourself?? Now I feel bad for being judgmental.

Back to my own business….
We had a great time at Lagoon this year!  We’ve been the past 3 summers and it just keeps getting more and more fun as the kids grow up!  See you in 2013 Lagoon….if we’re still here.

Homeschool–A is for Apple

- Abigail is 2.5 years old (30 months) -

- Adam is 4.75 years old -

 

A is for Apple

This week, (ok, the past TWO weeks), we used Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Letter of the Week curriculum and did A is for Apple!  We read several library books about apples over the week.  Each day, (that we did school), we read the “Abby the Alligator” AlphaTales book, and the “Amazing Active Astronauts” poem from the Scholastic Teacher Express ABC Poem of the Week e-book.  The kids love the repetition of reading these each day.  We thought it was fun that our very first AlphaTales book was about an Abby!

Abby’s ‘A’ Activities

A/a Apple Sorting

Color Puzzles


Apple Seed Counting

Shape Matching Puzzles

‘APPLE’ and ‘apple’ Letter Matching

Aa Do-a-Dot Page

 

Tot School Activities

Shape Wheel
She needed my help to open the clothespins and was done after just 4 pins.

While Adam was working on Math one day, Abby did stickers in her special Tinker Bell notebook that only comes out when Adam is working in one of his workbooks.


Another time she colored in a “workbook”.  I thought it was so cute to see her color in little details like Ariel’s lips.  She colors a few details and then moves on to another page.

Making a zoo with animal magnets

Both kids had fun with our stacking bowls.

She loves to use her “Doggie” as a picnic blanket for tea parties.  She sets up any little figurines or toys and has tea parties with them.  Here she was using the bowls as not just tea party guests, but conveniently, as tea cups as well!

 

Adam’s ‘A’ Activities

Aa Do-a-Dot Page

Aa Poke Page
He used a jumbo push pin to poke holes along the letters.  He thought it was really cool to be able to poke right on the carpet!

Apple Seed Counting
While Abby was counting the 1-5 numbers, I gave Adam the 6-10 ones.  He figured out really quickly that they went in order and therefore, he didn’t need to bother counting.  That’s what I get for giving him easy stuff!
This is him saying, “Look, I’m done!”, about 5 seconds after he started.

Letter Hunt
He circled all the Aa’s on the page.  At first he circled the entire word ‘an’, and then crossed out the ‘a’ and re-circled the ‘a’.  Cute.  He’s obsessed with writing his name so it goes on pretty much everything he does!

Pre-writing Practice Pages

 

Preschool Activities

Adam did a few pages in his Math-U-See Primer workbook.  He’s having fun with it!  There is a lot of repetition, so I told him he could skip some of the pages and move on if he wanted to.  He wants to finish all the pages!  I don’t know where he gets his Type A tendencies from….

He loves his “Kumon: Let’s Cut” book!  We went through several different kinds of scissors and finally found these and they are awesome!  It has made learning to cut paper so much easier for Adam!

He’s finally done with the coloring pages in his Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K workbook, so it’s on to using the wooden pieces.  Here we are singing along to some songs that teach the names for each piece, (i.e. big line, little line, big curve, little curve).  Abby had fun tagging along.

 

Combined ‘A’ Activities

Our art project this week was Handprint Apple Trees.  We made trees with their handprints, then used their fingers to make leaves and grass, and finally a pencil eraser to make red apples.

Finished paintings

 

For science we did an apple tasting!  I bought 7 different kinds of apples and we talked about the different characteristics of how they looked and tasted.

Adam’s favorite looking apple was the Red Delicious.  Abby’s was the Cripps Pink, aka Pink Lady.  Can you guess why??

We ran out of time to taste all the apples, so we did it over two days.  Adam was great and tasted each one.  Abby, who is entirely too picky, had one bite and was done.

Here is our Apple Tasting log.  Both Adam’s and my favorite tasting apple was the Cripps Pink/Pink Lady.  It’s the closest to my real favorite, Honeycrisp.  Sadly, I haven’t been able to find Honeycrisps lately, but now I know that Pink Ladies are close!
Is that right?  The plural form of Pink Lady apples is Pink Ladies?  It seems weird.

The carnage.
The kids had fun cutting open the apples to find the star/flower shape inside and then picking out seeds.

With those seeds, we did a Letter A Collage.
Adam’s is on the right, Abby’s is on the left.

Each of our Letter of the Week themes has a Cut and Paste activity.  Right now, I’m pre-cutting it for them and then they get to pick a piece of cardstock and glue it on.  Hopefully, in a few months, Adam’s scissors skills will enable him to cut out some of it himself.

Adam           and             Abby

In a spur of the moment trip to the zoo with their Nana, I was pleased to be able to weave “Animals” into our A week!

Trip to the Zoo

Last week, we went to the zoo with Nana, Aunt HayLee and cousin Harrison.  It has been years since we went and we had lots of fun!

Monkeys…..although all you can really see are my two monkeys!

Gorilla Measuring

Baby on the loose!

Nana took them on the carousel while I sat and fed Caleb.

Riding the rhino statue

Cute picture of HayLee and Harrison!

Watching the sea lions


Baby Caleb was a trooper




Nana with her 4 grandkids….soon to be 5!  Heath and HayLee are expecting Baby Shurtleff #2 in April!!

Funny how few pictures of the animals I took….I was too busy watching out for 2 little kids and keeping the baby in the stroller happy!