Wow

Wow! It has been a really long time since I've posted anything. We've been traveling and just really busy this season- and still have more to do and more places to go. I'll update after the new year begins. =)

Gatlinburg Trip

Daddy Driving

Beautiful Mountains

Visit from Grandpa at the hotel.

Big Bears

The highlight of our trip, feeding the bears

Ripley's Believe it or not.

Pumpkin Work

We carved our pumpkin the week before Halloween.

 

 

We're still enjoying pumpkins on the shelf work!

Family Pictures

 

 

End of October work.

 

 

It's been awhile since I've  shared K's work on here, so here is this weeks work. Starting at the top (on the shelf, blogger is being weird and I can't see which pic is where below,) we have today's craft. It goes with her favorite pumpkin finger play "Five Little Pumpkins". It includes a dark night (black paper), a disassembled fence (craft sticks), 5 pumpkins, a moon, two stars, and a glue stick. The rest of the week we'll use the felt board to use while we read the story.

 

Next, she has "The Story of Pumpkin" by Frank Fiorello. We picked this up at Curtis Orchard in Champaign, IL, and K has really been enjoying it. We are going to cut the top off the pumpkin and have a gooey fun time removing it's guts.

 

On the second shelf is the math work. We're using the last of our Halloween foam stickers from last year to do this. She counts with no problem, and she can count items, now it's working on recognizing numbers. Pretty simple, we use this format a lot- put the right number of stickers next to the number. This work has a control sheet, but I'm hoping by Wednesday she'll be able to complete it without it. The book for this work is "Happy Halloween, Curious George"

 

Next to that is K's name work. She has been leaving off the K-A when she spells her name for some reason, so we're revisiting it. There is a wooden puzzle with her name spelled out that we picked up at the Covered Bridge Festival two years ago, and glittery foam letters to spell it. each day there will be more letters for her to search through to spell her name correctly. The book with this work is Curious George "ABC's" We'll also use the big dry erase board for practice writing, and the book (with CD) at this station is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

 

The bottom shelf is our fun shelf! The weather has been GREAT recently, so we'll be outside until it's dark- but then we will do this work. The basket has food (foam Halloween shapes), a hungry ghost (door hanger), and a straw. This work involves exactly what you're thinking...using the straw to suck up the foam pieces and drop them in the ghosts mouth. The book with this one is "My Pumpkin," by Lily Karr.

 

The bucket has clothes pins in it and she'll stand on a chair (or other safe place with supervision) and drop them into the bucket. We started doing this at a tumbleweeds class and she still enjoys it. We like to mix it up by doing our own version of the classic Bozo game, too. (Just, you know, with clothes pin instead of balls.) The book with this work is Fun with Dick and Jane.

 

 

Miss K and Miss D

D (and her amazing momma) made K her own "age 3" club shirt.

K likes Fall

K is in love with all things Fall. She just had to have a scarecrow to scare the birds from the yard, and she loves seeing pumpkins everywhere.

Farm play

Has fun with daddy and grandma West at the farm last weekend. K got a mini-pumpkin to put on the porch, too.

Too Smart.

K's favorite story at night has been The Three Little Pigs with Ashely Pig, Rachel Pig, and Katelyn Pig. I was telling it to her last night, and when the wolf came to Ashley Pig's house I accidently said, "Little Pigs, Little Pigs" and she corrected me, "No, just one pig- not pigs." Ohhh, she's just too smart for me.

Royal treatment

My girl wanted breakfast in bed this morning, and she thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Fire treat

Making necklaces for the firefighters for sept. 11.

Miss M's bday

Stopped to say hi...

To Aunt Judy, Grandpa, Baby Jessica, and Steve.

4-wheeling w/ gma

Chilling with Jersey

K and J hanging out. I promised Chris I wouldn't post the pic of him breaking into the office, but I'm sure this one is much more enjoyable. :)

My Favorite Place

Picnic freak

Everyday we have a picnic. She loves, loves, loves them.

Sugar, Sugar

She loves making sugar cookies!

New House

 

If it's not an early 1900's house then we like them to be ranches apparently. We tried to find the perfect house, but it was almost impossible with our deadline (and budget - even this one forced us to go a little higher,) and the early 1900's one we did find was further away from Mom and Dad West than we wanted to be. (Plus, there was no cell signals within 2 miles of the home.)

 

 This property is a bit more narrow than we'd like, but it met all of our requirements (except garage, but it has a shed) and is within walking distance to some conveniences. I'll get more photos when we get down there next week.

 

We looked at a lot of houses. There was a 1920's home that was PERFECT for us...well, except that it was only .35 acres of land and had brand new subdivision homes built on either side  and behind it...??? (Who does that!?!?)

Most entertaining game we've played!

SO...every time she does this, she talks real loud and describes all the steps...until you get the camera out, and then she's like...crickets....It starts with 1) a little jump, jump, jump, 2) Spin around 3) Touch the ground 4) Roar like a dinosaur 5) Fly like a bee. She had mommy and daddy both doing it... and she filmed daddy, but it's on his camera.

Ninja Turtles

We have crossed 5 turtles on the road this month...any superstituons for that?

Playdate

Love watermelon.

Little Engineer at work

Rock Climber

A Happy Beginning

When Chris hear that several employees would be loosing their jobs, he volunteered to create and teach a class that would teach them enough of the compressor that they would be able to apply for jobs with distributors and customers in the area. Several of the employees took him up on the offer and attended the class after work, unpaid.

Chris is a happy guy today because he was just informed that one of the guys let go was able to get a job with a different company working on the portable compressors. =D

Recent Reads

 

Writing a short for an upcoming competition, and needed some details of the life that followed the survivors. I originally was just going to skim through this, but it was so amazing and interesting that I took my time getting through it instead.

 

 

Another for the project. This book is hands down an enjoyable and engaging read. Really helped bring certain aspects of the story to life.

 

 

I know I dogged the last few Sookie's terribly, but I just can't stop myself from giving once favorite authors another try. Not a terrible story, but not really exciting or thrilling. It took me almost a month to finish this one. It was mostly boring with one storyline that kind of hooked me, but I would have been fine closing it and never finishing it. (But I'm loyal like that.) =/

Almost Homeless ;)

The only thing we know for sure is that the movers will be here on the 25th, and we hand over the keys to the house on the 26th. We're busy weeding through the basement in an attempt to reduce the amount of junk we're paying to have hauled away. We figure we've been out of the Sharpsville house for seven years and in this one for four...any box that is still sealed from the last move (and is not memorabilia I'm too attached to to get rid of) is a good candidate for tossing out. ;)

Singing in the rain

Photo Blast

At the Farmer's Market with all the kiddos!

 

Ferris Wheel - A hit or miss favorite. Must depend on her level of tiredness.

Grandma hates being stuck at the top, and guess where we stopped....bwahaha...

If she's going to win, she's going to lug it all around....hahaha!

Sharing her favorite...There is no good place to put this thing, it is MASSIVE!

Family Fun!

Chocolate Tea Party with daddy.