March 2013

March was a busy month!  The weather was still not warm, but we managed to get outside quite a bit. We got to go to Portland to visit cousins.  That was a lot of fun and we spent time in museums and around the house with them.  From Oregon we flew to DC to visit Dad.

The month started off with snow!  There wasn't enough to do much in it, but the boys took advantage of the last snowfall before getting ready for spring.  It's just fun to play in I guess.

The boys made a little "house" on the corner of the deck.  They have fun playing with random things they can find in and around the yard.

Transporting snow in the truck.

A variety of pictures the boys made one morning.  They enjoy paint.

Patterns!  If Justin does it, Ryan wants to do it too.

Once again, Ryan must do what Justin does.  :)

Justin has trouble with these words for some reason.  Maybe a bit of glitter glue will help glue them in his head.

I would explain this picture, but I don't know that I can.  Justin has made up some sort of game.  He loves using dice, spinners, game boards, and random toys to make all sorts of games to play.  Creativity can be a bit of a mess sometimes.

At Justin's school the boys participated in a balloon race.  Note: do NOT overinflate the balloons.  When they pop, it can scare everyone!

Ryan, Justin, and I went with my mom to the Mobius Science Museum in Spokane.  We had gone there with Rob in January.

St Patrick's Day is as exciting as other holidays.  The boys spent days working on their leprechaun traps.  This was our second year trying to catch a leprechaun.  We were still unsuccessful. :(

One of many leprechaun traps.

Yet another trap.

A simple trap with a note promising treasure.

Justin sorted 3-D shapes by color and shape.  He then multiplied to find out how many there were all together.  Ryan, Justin, and I looked for 2D and 3D shapes in the environment and they took pictures of some they found around the house.

Tinkertoys are always fun to build with.

Justin sequenced the "I have, who has" cards using his math skills.

We went to Oregon to visit our cousins.  They played a little ball in the backyard.

Justin found that he likes marshmallows beter straight out of the bag.  It's nice to sit by the fire though.

We made paper rockets and shot them off of a pvc pipe launcher attached to an air compressor.

June Happenings!

In addition to selling things, donating things, or throwing them away we have done a few activities this month. :)  The boys are still VERY much into Super Mario Brothers and like to watch people play it on the wii, play it on the wii themselves, play with their Mario figures, watch Mario videos, hear Mario bedtime stories...

We made our own liquid watercolor using markers that were too dried out to use as markers anymore.  I got the idea from this blog: http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/2011/04/liquid-watercolors.html

Here are pictures we made using the blue liquid watercolor.  We sprayed it from a spray bottle onto paper and then used green glitter glue for seaweed and sea shapes macaroni (THANKS, ALICIA!) to make an ocean picture.  It is not gorgeous, but they had fun. 

We went to the earth science (or whatever they call it) museum.

Dino from the earth science museum.  This is actually one of the most museum looking museums in Windhoek. It was a pleasant surprise. :)

Duplo legos!  We aren't taking them with us to Armenia so we got a lot of good play time with them before we sold them.  We are moving on to the "big kid" legos. :)

Justin has developed a love for Scrabble.  He plays it his own way, basically just creating a crossword of words.  He is very excited about the point aspect as well.  Good for practicing spelling AND math skills.

Magnets!  Cut up pipe cleaners and magnet wands.  They loved scattering them and cleaning them up again.

Playing with trains is fun too.  Somehow they managed to incorporate their Mario figures and dinosaurs into the trains as well.

Went to what my boys call the "Gingerbread Church" to take a picture.  This is a major Windhoek landmark and we were doing a Flat Stanley project for a friend of mine.

Practicing right and left with Twister.

Also practicing our balance skills with Twister.

Aren't we attractive?  We played Ring a Round the Nosey.

Pick up the rings with your trunks.



We made funny cloud pictures after reading "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" together.

June 19th was probably the coldest day of the year, but we had fun playing at the playground with our friend Leah.

And, of course, eating with Leah was good too.  Any wonder why Ryan outweighs his older brother?



Justin is having a great time on the trampoline.

Ryan loves the slide.

May 2012

Where has the time gone?  We are almost halfway through June so I suppose it is time to post May's happenings.

Rob and I went to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and left the boys behind.  They had a wonderful time on their first sleepover at someone's house WITHOUT Mommy or Daddy there.  They missed us a little, but are still talking about how much fun it was.  Over a month after the trip they still have no idea where Rob and I were.  They assume we just sat around bored I guess.

We made pictures with lemons.  I put paper in shallow boxes and then put globs of paint on the paper.  The boys rolled the lemons around and created the designs you see here.

Justin loves cutting up paper and gluing it.  This is one of many creations he has made.   I would love a project that looks cute or at least looks like something, but I guess if I don't let him do his own thing he isn't expressing his creativity.

We read the book One Drowsy Dragon and looked for all of the words that described how that poor drowsy dragon was feeling.

We filled an inflatable bouncer with blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals.  A perfect little nest for the boys to play in.  They thought it was a great place to curl up and watch TV too.

We went to the Farmer's Market and the boys played with some friends on the school playground.

Ryan walking up the steps to the art museum.

Justin on his way up to the art museum.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum.

We put some paper in the window to see how the sunlight would fade it.  The red didn't fade nearly as much as the dark blue did.  We did this because they didn't understand in a book we read why Amelia Bedilia had to draw the drapes.

We did One, Two, Buckle My Shoe and practiced counting and writing our numbers.

Nice stairs at the Alte Feste Museum, huh?  Going up wasn't so bad, but I was a bit worried about the boys on the way down. 

The boys running around on the front steps by Alte Feste Museum.  I realize now that there wasn't anything inside the museum that I wanted to take a picture of.  Hard to get a good picture of the boys with the sun's location, but they wanted one.

Statue in front of Alte Feste Museum.

I found some kindergarten math vocabulary cards from my teaching days.  Ryan and Justin enjoyed going through them.  They know quite a few of them.

I have no idea, but he loves it.

We also spent a lot of time this month getting ready for the second big yard sale held by the Embassy.  Great timing since we will be moving soon.