Happy Halloween!

Well the girlies are full of chocolate and snug in their beds! Halloween is over and I'm pooped! It's been a fun few days. Festivities kicked off on Friday with our play group costume party. Finley was a clown, Rowynn a bag of candy, I was a cotton candy vendor and Kyle(who was at work) was a lion tamer/ringleader. It was such a fun morning spent with friends. There were so many cuties in costumes!!

After the girls' naps we got ready and headed to Kyle's workplace for their annual family Halloween bash. It was awesome! All the different departments had different themes and passed out candy, there were tons of games, music and so much more! We are so blessed for Kyle to work at such an amazing, family friendly place.

 

Saturday afternoon our church hosted a fall festival and we really enjoyed going. The girls love bounce houses and between two visits to the pumpkin patch and all these fall festivals they've gotten to do a lot of bouncing! Rowynn has been standing by herself for a while now, and as of 10-19, she can take a couple of steps. She loves to dance and was grooving to the music at the festival! And if you notice, Finley in the bounce house with all the big kids, that's my independent girlie! At one point she was in there with three big boys and they were so sweet to her. One of them said, "Wow, she's tough!" Yep. Totally.

Tonight we went to First Baptist's Fall Festival at The Fields. A.maz.ing. Seriously, they had a rock climbing wall, a petting zoo, about 20 bounce houses/slides, a live band, games, candy, FREE POPCORN, FREE COTTON CANDY, FREE SNOW CONES, and they had Chic-fil-a, Pizza Inn, & Macallister's set-up selling food. And the best part? Everything except food from the restaurants, everything was FREE!!!! WHAT?!? It was so much fun! We met up with several other friends and the weather was perfect!

After we left The Fields we headed to our favorite pizza place to eat with some friends. By the time we got home it was a little late, and I debated on whether or not to let Finley trick-or-treat, but since there were still porch lights on, we went to a few houses on our street and I'm so glad we did, because she had a BLAST! She loved knocking on the doors and loved that everyone was giving her candy! She kept saying, "I go trick-or-treating again!" She came home and dumped her pink pumpkin out and dug in!

Happy Halloween!!!

Day 5

Day 5: God made fish and birds alive!

We did a lot for day 5 so it gets a solo post!

Stickers on paper--simple but she loves stickers!

Stirring the jello

Yummy snack! We made blue jello and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours and then while it was still somewhat sloshy she added a sweedish gummy fish and then put it back in the fridge.

Our jello fish. Let me just say that Rowynn LOVED the jello. I mean like, really! She ate it up and pitched a fit when it was all gone!

Dada helped with the stickers while Bob the fish looks on.

Oh, and this is Bob. I wanted to get the girls a pet and Dada thought that adding dog (like I wanted) to the mix with a one & two year old might be a bit much! So we got a fish. Finley was excited...well until we got to the pet store and the ferret stole the girls' attention. They were smitten with the farret...but um, no, that ain't happening!! So we came home with Bob the Beta. Finley loves feeding him and telling him Hello.

We went on an walk and collected things for our "nest." She colored a paper plate blue and glued the straw and twigs to make a nest. I then cut out a bird from a piece of purple foam and she told me where she wanted the eye (kudos for getting it right kiddo). Then she "painted" with glue, added glitter, and a jewel on the tail.

The finished product.

Feeding the birds. She loves to do this now!

We had these that evening for dessert. They are so yummy! I made them for Ro's party and they were easy peasy. Basically I put shredded wheat in a bag and crushed it and set it aside. Then I melted chocolate, added honey, and poured over the shredded wheat and mixed. Then I pressed a spoon full or so into a muffin tin and popped them in the fridge for a couple hours. Then popped them out and added raspberries. And let me just say, chocolate + raspberries= yummy goodness!

20 Then God said, "Let the water swarm with [d] living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the large sea-creatures [e] and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. [He also created] every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 So God blessed them, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." 23 Evening came, and then morning: the fifth day.

 

Day 3 & Day 4

Day 3: God made flowers, plants & trees!
Day 4: God made sun, moon, stars galore!

Day 3: I traced both of the girls arms (from elbow to fingers) onto brown construction paper and glued them to blue paper to make tree trunks. Then Finley placed green dot stickers to make leaves and she added flower stickers on the bottom

Day 4: I drew a white circle onto black paper and asked Finley to color in the circle--good practice at following directions! Then we added some glow in the dark starts. For the sun she painted a paper plate, I folded it in half and stapled it and she attached yellow clothespins--great fine motor practice.

For day three she planted some seeds. She loved pouring the soil in and watering her plants!



I got this book at Mardels the other day and it's a fun little puzzle book. Each page is a different day and you add a different puzzle piece.

 For day three we just talked about different trees and flowers and every time she would stop to smell a flower (a favorite of hers) I would tell her that God made the pretty flowers. For day four we did some late night star gazing and she loved it! Every other night she'll ask if she can go outside and look at the stars. We also added some glow in the dark stars in her room; they work okay, not the best, but still slightly glow. We talked about how the sun was so big and so bright and so hot! We talked about how the sun comes out during the day and the moon at night. We also talked about different things we do during the day, and things we do at night.

 ⁹ Then  God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land "earth," and He called the gathering of the water "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds." And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 Evening came, and then morning: the third day.

14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years. 15 They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth, 18 to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 Evening came, and then morning: the fourth day.

Day 1 & 2

For the past couple of weeks we've been learning about the Days of Creation. We were going strong and then the nasty stomach bug struck so we took a few days off to do some snuggling, and I have to say, I HATE when my girls are sick but I sure did eat up those sweet cuddles!

Day One: God Made Light!

Most of my ideas came from here. She has great ideas and an adorable song for each day!

Finley learned this song for day one:

Day one, day one
God made light when there was none
Day one, day one
God made light when there was none!

We talked about how everything was dark-there was no noise, no people, no light, nothing!! We closed our eyes and I asked her what she saw and then we would open them and say "Light!" We went into the bathroom and closed the door and turned off all the lights and played with a flashlight

Here she is in the dark looking at the flashlight!

I put black construction paper in a shoe box and put a hole in each side. She looked in one of the holes and I asked her what she saw. She said, "It's black. It's dark!" Then I shined the flashlight in the other end and she peeked in and got very excited to see the bright light.

Glo sticks in the bathtub--very cool way to demonstrate light and dark!



I broke a glo stick and put it in a jar. She loved it! Sweet little night light.

Day One Craft: She glued a piece of white paper to a piece of black.
Day Two Craft: She glued cotton balls for the clouds and a dark piece of blue paper on the bottom.

Day Two: God made clouds and the sky.

Day Two Song:

Day two, day two

God made clouds and skies so blue.

Day two, day two

God made clouds and skies so blue.

Day one & two were pretty simple. We read out of my Bible and her story book bible. We talked about clouds and whether or not it was day or night time. We talked about things we do during the day and things we do at night.



Genesis 1

The Creation

 ¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

    ² Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. ³ Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and He called the darkness "night." Evening came, and then morning: the first day.
    ⁶ Then God said, "Let there be an expanse ^[b] between the waters, separating water from water." ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse "sky." ^[c] Evening came, and then morning: the second day.

Apples & More

I love fall and am so happy to have started some fun fall crafts with the kiddos.

We spent a couple of days learning about apples; talking about the color, the shape, the stem, etc. We cut a few open so she could see what it looked like on the inside and so she could dig out the seeds.

I hid apples around the playroom and she skipped around and put them in her basket.

Apple stamping

I saw this on my friends Maile's blog a while back. Finley was doing some major concentrating as she put the noodles in the salt shaker.

Rowynn loves finding shapes and matching them and this cute little basket is perfect for that! She got it for her birthday and loves it! Thanks Taylor family!

We were playing with the Aquadoodle the other day and I gave her some letter sponges and a small bowl of water and we "stamped" letters on the mat and watched them disappear.





RoRo is very much in the 'fill and dump" stage and this was great practice for her. I put several clothespins in a jar and she practiced dumping them out and putting them back in.



I don't know if you can tell in this pic, but Finley has a sponge in her hand and is "washing" her car. My genius friend Maile came up with this brilliant idea!



I set up this fall sensory area in their sand and water table; dried beans, rice, felt owls, felt leaves, silk leaves, and miniature pumpkins.

And I leave you with two pictures of my precious girls...who are growing up way too fast!!!

 





HAPPY FALL!!!

The one with all the videos

We are in the midst of a stomach bug. I thought we were done, but alas, it came back to rear it's ugly head today. Just as we were about to head out the door for Rowynn's one year check-up Finley got sick again. Lovely. My poor Finley Rose is so sick. She has just laid around all day, cuddled and slept. I'm ready to have my high energy, loud, sassy girl back! And this is the only time I'm hoping she doesn't share with the rest of us. So we've been taking it easy, but I wanted to post some videos.

Finley LOVES to sing. I mean like really loves to sing. She has several songs that she constantly sings. It's so stinkin' cute!!! I love hearing her sweet little voice.

These are the songs that she loves to sing:

1. You Are My Sunshine
2. Jesus Loves Me
3. Rolling in the Deep (Adele)
4. Hush Little Baby
5. 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
6. Welcome to Funky Town---(don't judge. she has a turtle that sings the chorus-given to her by her mimi & papaw....lol)

Here are a couple videos of her singing:



You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll never know dear how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.


I have no idea what she is singing here. She just started playing her guitar and I looked over there and she had her eyes closed and was getting into it! I was rolling! I guess she may have inherited her Papaw's talent for making up random songs--thanks dad! All I can catch is, "Playroom, kitchen, momma's room." Silly monkey



Also, I wanted to jot down some funny things the girls do, I don't want to forget anything!

When Finley wants you to hold her, she says, "I hold you?" And when she wants to show you something she'll say, "I show you!" She calls herself "Fin" and when you tell her it's time for bed she very cheerfully exclaims, "I awake!" She also loves telling us, "Awe, you so pretty!" She's so sweet at night time, after her story, song, and prayer she wants me and sometimes both of us to lay down with her and she wraps her little arm around my neck and says, "Momma sleep in Fin's bed...momma lay down, under blankets."

And sweet little Rowynn has been in the best mood ever. She's so happy and really discovering her voice. She is babbling more and more and can say "momma" and "dada." She loves "talking" on her phone, brushing her teeth, music, and bananas. She is trying so hard to walk.

Here's a short video from the other day. Finley had THREE sippy cups that she kept carrying around like they were precious gold. A sippy of milk, pink drink (smoothie) and water.




We were playing with her play food and she kept taking a bite and saying, "Mmmmmm, delicious!"