July 2012 Last Month in Namibia

Our last month in Namibia was one of preparing for the move and enjoying some of our favorite activities for the last times.

Of course Ryan decides to really focus on swimming lessons right before it is time to leave.  He came a long way over the course of his instruction, thanks to the fabulous instructor, Estelle.

He could even jump from the starting block into the deep end.

Our last time at the pool Justin and Ryan spent some time just playing and racing each other.

It was hard to say good-bye to the animals at the petting zoo.  We have many fond memories of the time we spent there over the years.

We will even miss the rascal goats.

Last play date with our friends in Namibia.

For our last play date we had games, special snacks, and even presents.  We were very fortunate to have a nice group to get together with.  I know we will miss the children and their moms!

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.

June Happenings

June is the middle of winter here.  It is weird not to be doing "summer" stuff.  I don't like that the days are shorter, but I do appreciate the warm, bright sun.

Justin looking at the frosting on his knife.  We decorated star cookies with yellow frosting and sprinkles to celebrate him being able to read 100 words from the Dolch Word List.

Ryan couldn't read the words, but he got to decorate a cookie too.  He knows his alphabet, so I guess that should count.

We made Flubber.

The verdict was that Flubber wasn't as much fun as play-doh.

Our chain to count down the days until we go to the US to visit family.  Justin helped me staple the chain pattern. Ryan was excited that the chain made an "M" for Mommy.

Ryan with a rabbit at the petting zoo.

One of our favorite playgrounds here.  Now you see why we are so excited to go to the US to visit.  I wouldn't let them play on something like this there.  Here, despite missing bolts, broken boards, etc., it is a real gem.

The boys are using monkey finger puppets to play Angry Monkeys.  Very similar to the Angry Birds game, but they do much better with their version than they do on the ipod.

An obstacle course for the monkeys.  It includes sballs with spikes, giant spiders, fence with spikes, and several other challenges.  Justin loves to take ideas from videos or games and make them his own.

The boys made this for Rob for Father's Day.  Wooden box from JoAnns plus tissue paper and glue equals a box for Daddy to put his keys in at work.  Ryan did the lid and Justin did the rest of the box.

Since it is winter here, we read the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  We laced a paper mitten and put the animals inside it to retell the story.

Here are Justin's animals and part of his mitten.  He chose a pink mitten since pink is still his favorite color.

I laid out clothes for the boys to wear, but they got the wrong piles.  Two years apart and they still get their clothes confused.

Fathers Day 2011

Justin playing on the wii with Nickelodeon wii fit game.

Ryan LOVES typing on the computer.  He likes hearing each letter name as he hits it on the keyboard.  He also really enjoys the alphabet part of starfall.com.

Justin uses a picture dictionary I made with my kindergarten class.  It saves me from having to spell the same words for him over and over as he types them in.

Justin wanted to pretend it was winter and have some hot chocolate.  I told him that it was winter. Just because it isn't snowing and we aren't wearing coats doesn't mean it isn't winter.

Justin likes his hot chocolate to 'warm down' a little bit so it is cold.

We played a game with instruments.  We laid several out on the floor.  Two of us would cover our heads with a blanket while the third person would play one of the instruments.  The blanket would come off and they would have to guess which instrument they heard.

I made an overlay for the intellikeys so Ryan and Justin could retell the story of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by typing simple sentences on the computer and hearing them read back.

We missed a couple of weeks of swimming lessons because the heat pump was broken and they had trouble getting it fixed and back up to temp. Once that problem was solved, we started making up lessons, meaning three times a week instead of only two!

Justin is getting better about getting out of the pool on his own.  It took him a long time to learn.

Tuesday, October 19th and Wednesday, October 20th

Tuesday's activities included making a counting book of Halloween creatures.  Just a color, cut, and paste activity.  Justin is getting better with glue.  Ryan wants to use the glue too.  He is not getting better yet.

 We sang a spooky song that goes to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" and both boys enjoyed that.  Justin quickly completed a Halloween counting worksheet.

 We did the "Five Little Pumpkins" poem yet again.  Justin has it down.  Ryan doesn't, but he enjoys it.

 We added three new books to our Halloween/Fall collection.  They were big hits and we read them multiple times.

 I was impressed that Justin could do this worksheet by himself.  He was even able to tell me why he put the pictures in the order that he did.  Yay, Justin!

Wednesday was field trip day and we went to the petting zoo.  I think it will be a Wednesday kind of thing.  We are out for about an hour and a half.  We get to feed animals and play on the little play structure that they have.  It gets us out of the house while Mathilda is cleaning plus the boys enjoy feeding the animals.