Play Date at Gateway Park

The kiddos and I had a fun morning at Gateway Park.  I’m not sure how long it’s been there, but it seems fairly new.  They have a small splash pad and two playgrounds.  There is partial cover over the playgrounds and a nearby ramada with two picnic tables.  Yes it’s in El Mirage, but I felt perfectly safe.

I had to get some pictures of Myanna in her swimsuit before we left:

The swimsuit and hat were a gift from my sister’s friend Tiffany.  I didn’t think she’d get to wear it before she outgrew it since we don’t have a pool. 

Here are the boy’s and their friends at the splash pad:

Here is my little monkey climbing on the big kids playground:

And what is Myanna doing?

Just chilling in her carseat.

We are looking forward to the next play date.  :)

Letter of the Week – Bumble “B”

I’m still playing catch-up, I think we did this one last week.  We already had a couple of Bee books at home so no trip to the library for us:

This is a cute book about a grandfather and his granddaughter who go chasing after bees to find their hive in a tree.  Along the way others from the town join in the chase.  I stumbled over quite a few names – I never did figure out the nationality.  It has a nice moral at the end – reading a book is just as good of an adventure as running around outside.

This book was a gift from Grammy for Jacob’s last birthday.  It has moving pictures so you can see the bee’s wings flapping, the dog running, etc.  It’s a cute simple story that teaches us that bees help the flowers and trees grow so we shouldn’t be afraid of them.  The last couple of pages list a bunch of bee facts.

Here are the boy’s making their Bumble “B”s from No Time for Flashcards:

Johnny working away.

Jacob loves the glue.

Our little observer.

Johnny is at the perfect age for these crafts 3 1/2.  Jacob usually gets frustrated at some point and has to go to his room to cool down for a little while. 

Our Newest Family Addition

Zoe is a one year-old Chihuahua.

Letter of the Week – A is for Alligator

 

I was inspired by my friend Monica to start doing  “Letter of the Week” crafts with my boys.  She led me to a wonderful site, No Time for Flashcards, which is full of craft ideas, book suggestions, songs, and so much more.  A couple of weeks ago we made an Alligator A:

 

To go along with the Letter of the Week theme we read two books about Alligators:

We loved this book so much that I ordered it for our home library.  It’s about an alligator who comes creeping, creeping, creeping up the stairs and into the children’s apartment.  The children are scared at first, (Who wouldn’t be if they were faced with a real live alligator?), but in the end they pluck up their courage and tell the alligator to GET OUT!  Now whose scared?  I love books like this where you can really put a lot of drama into the reading and the boys loved running away from the alligator.

 

The boys loved this book.  After we took it back to the library Johnny still asked to read it.  I didn’t care for the ending.  In the book Kristen’s parents accidentally bring home a baby alligator instead of her baby brother.  Then they bring home a baby seal.  Then a baby gorilla.  Finally Kristen has to go and get her brother.  I realize that soon enough my kids will think that they are smarter than me, but I don’t care to read a book to them over and over right now that promotes that.  So that’s why we won’t be adding this to our collection.  Oh and it’s not available new from Amazon anyways.  :)

We also read through this alphabet book:

There is a different animal for each letter of the alphabet.  Even xoona moth for x.  The illustrations were beautiful, but I read or heard somewhere this week that it’s better to save books where the letters aren’t in a clear typeface for when they are older.  This book incorporates each letter into the illustrations.

Also I discovered that we own a toddler ABC Bible:

We read about the angels appearing before the shepherds for the letter A.  They have a short 4 line story for each letter along with hand motions.  Then there is a short poem.

The following weekend we took a field trip to see an alligator.  Sort of.  We decided to drive out to Tempe that Saturday and have lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  The boys got to see the mechanical alligator biting at the coins out front.  They thought it was neat.  I had forgotten how it feels like you are eating inside of a Disneyland ride at that restaurant.

 

Bowling

Yep that's what we did today. We went with our Moms of Faith group and had a blast! Johnny did not want to leave. I had to promise him that we would go again when we visit Aunt T in Vegas.

All ready to bowl!

Johnny got a spare!

Jacob's ball got stuck halfway down the lane.

Myanna slept through all the fun.

My Princess

Friday Morning.......

........Johnny and Jacob decided to get up at 4:30 and Myanna got up at 5:00. Here is everyone at 7:00:

3 cups of coffee later we went to Berean for storytime at 10:30. The boys laid on me the whole time. They perked up after lunch at McDonald's and didn't want to go home. :) It's now Sunday and I can't remember if we got a nap that day or not.