Budding Artist?

Upon arriving home from work the other day, I found Sunshine hard at work drawing on her easel.  She really loves to draw using chalk! I can hardly wait until we have a permanent place to keep this set up all the time for her!

I was astonished at the person she drew! It is her first one and I am so proud of her!!!  Look at all those body parts: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, arms, and legs! WOW!!!

O' Christmas Tree

Our tree is step up and awaiting the arrival of baby Jesus and Santa.

As I pulled all of the ornament boxes out of the basement, Sunshine was like a kid in a candy store! So cute and excited to place them on the tree!  She kept grabbing ornaments and asking if they were glass or not. She was so careful as she placed them on the tree.  Of course, several were dropped, but thankfully none broke.  

Bright Nights

We (DH, Sunshine, my parents, and myself) took the VERY long drive to go see Bright Nights on Dec 4.  It was a lovely evening that included the singing of Christmas carols and the noshing of popcorn.  It is about a 2 hour drive for us so we stopped on the way down for dinner. On the way home we set up a Christmas movie for Sunshine to watch with Nunny and Papa; I had made a couple of bags of microwave popcorn before we left for them to enjoy while watching the movie.

Bright Nights was AMAZING and well worth the drive. Sunshine oohed and ahhed from the back seat as we drove through the park.  We saw many sights, including dinosaurs, snowmen, the Cat in the Hat, Santa, and many others!!

Here are a few of the pictures:

Christmas Fun Fair!

Our good friends Evan and Sheryl told us about a Christmas Fair that was happening this past Friday at the school Sheryl teaches at. It was REALLY cute! There was one room that you could go shopping in and another room for games/crafts.  The crafts and games were all on a ticket system; each ticket was .25 or 5 for $1.00.  She chose to decorate a ginger bread cookie and make two crafts.  One of the crafts was a penguin thermometer and the other a foam snowman.  

Book Exchange

We recently took part in a Christmas Book Exchange hosted by The Activity Mom.   Sunshine's book arrived Dec 1, which tied right in with our Advent Calendar! Here is Sunshine opening her book!  

As you can see, she was quite excited about her new book!!!  

Thank you to our partner!!!!

Thanksgiving 2010

Here is my little turkey on turkey day! When did she get so BIG?


We had a couple of firsts this year too! For one, she sat at the kids table with all of her cousins!! Second, she ATE! LOL! I know that seems silly, but she is a very finikey eater. She ate turkey, stuffing, and a roll!! WOAH! Way to go, Sunshine!

Sorting Candy

Yep, we still have candy left from Halloween. Are we the only ones? I sure hope not! Anyways, Sunshine took it upon herself to sort it the other night! All of her own accord! I was busy cooking cookies that we have made for Thanksgiving and I look over and there she is! What a smart cookie she is!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Myspace Graphics

Hoping you all enjoy your day with your family and friends!!! Bless you all from my family to yours!

Bed Time Woes

Here's a little background before I go into the woes:  Sunshine is 3.4 years old.  DH and I work opposite shifts.  I am on first and he is on second, so I get the luxury of putting her to bed every night.


She is a bear at bed time.  We have a very consistent routine:
1. Go potty
2. Brush teeth
3. Put on night time diaper and jammies
4. Read a book or two or three
5. Call daddy at work to say good night
6. Put on bedtime CD / Lights out
7. Get into bed and sing our good night song
8. Rub her back for a bit and then hugs/kisses
It's a STRUGGLE to get her to get going into her routine. I ALWAYS give her a five minute warning before we are about to begin the routine.  She always says no, no, NO! about some or many parts of the routine.  I get so frustrated that I usually end up yelling and/or put her in time out for not listening/disobeying.  Once we finally get through the routine and I am ready to leave her room for the evening so whines and cries and screams.  I tell her I love her and I will see her tomorrow.  I walk out and she continues to yell and scream about one thing or another.  As things stand right now she is yelling about wanting me to come back in there and doesn't want to wear the jammies she has on (even though she PICKED THEM OUT HERSELF!).  It can take her up to an hour before she falls asleep at night most nights.  Its not a matter of her sleeping to long at nap either; she didn't have a nap today!  I am at my wits end and I HATE putting her to bed.

Any ideas?  Anyone?  Bueller????

Trick-or-Treat: The Monkey & the Southern Belle

We have an outlet mall about 40 minutes away from our home and one of my preschoolers parents told me there was a Trick-or-Treat event being held at the outlets on Friday evening.  We already had plans with friends that evening so we changed our plans and went T-or-T!!!  It was such fun!

We had a cute monkey and a southern belle to escort for the evening.

Most all of the 40 or so stores were offering either candy, stickers, or temp tattoos for all the kiddos.  

Everyone from tiny infants to grown moms and dads were dressed in costume!  I think my favorite costumes of the evening were WALL-E and EVA; I believe it was a brother and sister. Both costumes were homemade and just lovely!  WALL-E was constructed of a couple of cardboard boxes and lots of colored duct tape and the EVA was made out of a trash can and some mesh!  So cute!

Countdown to Trick-or-Treat

Sunshine has been super excited about Trick-or-Treat!  She is going to dress up as a Southern Belle, but tells everyone she is a princess.  I keep showing her on the calendar when Halloween is, but of course only being 3, this is something that she can not fully grasp.  I had the brainy idea tonight, now that we are just a few days away from the day, to make a count down for her.  I cut out a spider web and 7 spiders.

I drew eyes on each spider and wrote a number on each one, numbers 1-7.  Then I attached each of them to a ribbon and then the ribbon to the spider web and attached the whole thing to our door at a height that Sunshine can reach.

Each night she will take one spider off the web, in reverse numerical order until Halloween!  

She is so excited to do this each day!!! 

(Plus it stops her from asking me 1001 times a day when 

Halloween is or when she gets to be a princess?!)

Pumpkin Picking

We took Sunshine pumpkin picking this weekend! Here is just a preview of the fun we had!

Personal Flannel Boards

Lately on many blogs I have noticed there have been a lot of posts about flannel / felt boards usage in preschool classrooms.  I love using them in my preschool classroom and wanted to share something I made for the kiddos.  I made personal sized flannel boards so that I can have a center set up with that more then one child can use at a time. Here is how I made them:

*Materials Needed*
8.5 x 11 sized pieces of felt (these can be purchased at Michaels or AC Moore)
cheap 8 x 10 sized frames (I got mine at the dollar store)
hot glue gun / glue
scissors

*Step 1*

Remove the backing from the frame and put the glass aside.

*Step 2*
Using the hot glue, make a thin line of glue on the outside edges; do ONE edge at a time.


*Step 3*
Adhere the felt to the lines of glue; when you start adhering the felt, start by lining up the corners of the frame back and the felt.

*Step 4*
Once you have the felt adhered to the frame backing cut off the excess felt using your scissors.

*Step 5* 

Once the felt is adhere and the excess has been cut off, you should have a felt board!  

But wait, there's MORE!

*Step 6*
Using your glue gun, create a thin line of glue on the backside of the frame on the lip.
Do all four edges at once.

*Step 7*

Take the back of the frame with the felt and press it into the front of the frame to glue the two pieces together.    Use the tabs on the back of the frame to help keep the frame together.  

TA-DA! Here are the completed flannel boards!! Enjoy! I can't wait to use these with my students this week!