Free Conference Preschool Age Journal

I made this journal for conference and I put it up on my sharing blog.  Hopefully some of you can use it this conference!

Real Simple Mag Cover

I hope you all had a great St. Patty's Day.. We sure did!  I'll post all about our adventures on my sharing blog (with a link here) later, but I'm so excited about something else I wanted to share now.

I just finished a photography course in San Francisco, which I have been LOVING!!!  I have lots to share about it, but I couldn't wait to share this one.  This was one of our last assignments, and I LOVE how it turned out.  I styled & took the picture, added the text, etc.  It was a fun assignment, and a challenge, and I learned a lot.

You like?

St. Patrick's Day Ideas

Last year, we had a 'super-fun' St. Patrick's Day.  I re-posted the blog post I wrote about it on my sharing blog.  I started this blog to give back ideas to the WWW... because of the many, many years I've been taking ideas from it.  Hopefully you can take a look and find something fun to do with your family.

http://crystalshares.blogspot.com/

Christmas in March (part 1)

Okay, so I’ve been busy, busy, busy (as always) and blogging has been a lower priority, but I still wanted to share some pictures from December.  There are a lot… but I’m tired of not posting what I want to post, in fear of boring you, so look at what you want and skip what you want.  I’ll never know!  :)  I’m just happy to finally be getting some up here!  AND, since my online journal is about to be integrated with blogger, I’m super motivated to blog more… now I don’t necessarily have to blog, and journal the same events!  How cool is that!?

Beautiful Haylee:

Picking out a Christmas tree:

Mmmm… Christmas pancakes.

Excuse the finger gouges in the gingerbread man pancake (ahem, McKay…)

Decorating the Christmas tree:

Daddy helping McKay decorate:

 

Just love this picture – Christmas tree lights - long exposure, hand held, motion intentional:

IT SNOWED IN CALIFORNIA!!!!  It really, truly snowed.  I didn’t get up early enough to see it really snowy… it was pretty icy by the time I got up.  But way too cool just the same.

Random picture from December: I found Haylee like this, talking on the phone.  She’s definetely going to need her own ‘line’ (I guess that would be cell phone these days) when she’s a teenager.  Can’t you just see her as a teenager talking on the phone, from this picture?  Too cute.

A fun little story: This is what happens if I don’t pay attention to my children for about ten minutes at a time.

I turn around and Haylee’s got the painting smocks on her and McKay… how adorable.

 

They had gotten into the paints.  Oh my.

But adorable just the same.

And this was (sadly) the very next day: McKay got into my stamping ink!!  What a (cute) mess!!!

Another sweet story: Haylee likes to ‘help’ McKay eat his food.  She is so sweet to him.  I love watching it.  They giggle and laugh together.. It’s the best sound.

 

Some of my favorite ornaments.  Aren't they beautiful?  I love them. 

Thanks for looking at our Christmas in March.  There will be more to come.

Happy Valentine's Day!

(click to enlarge)

Haylee’s Room Make-Over

We had a great time re-decorating Haylee’s room yesterday.  I wrote all about it on my new ‘creative adventures’ blog:

http://crystalscreativecourtyard.blogspot.com/

More about that later, but for now, go take a look at Haylee’s new room!

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Happy Groundhog's Day!

I love holidays. (If you haven't been able to tell before now.) I just love the opportunity they give to do some extra fun things, and do a little learning around a theme. I thought I'd share what we did today for Groundhog's day. I had fun with this day when I was teaching... reading books about groundhogs, making books, learning about shadows, doing shadow activities with manipulatives on the overhead, writing about fears (because the groundhog is 'afraid of his shadow', which is why he goes back in his hole if he sees his shadow.)

Today, is February 2... Groundhog's Day. In case finding out whether Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow or not, wasn't on your top ten list of things to do today, I'll tell you. He DID see his shadow, which means 6 more weeks winter is on the way.

Here are some pictures of the fun things we did to celebrate the day:

By the way, I've started a new blog sharing my teaching ideas etc.  I've taken a lot from the internet through the years, so I thought I would give back and put back out there some of the ideas I've gathered/compiled/come up with through the last few years.  So to see more information on these activities, including links & instructions, and for additional activities, go HERE.

Every good 'unit' starts with BOOKS! I love books! I use them to introduce every topic I teach. Today, we read these two that I made (actually, my aide's helped) when I was teaching. The first one is a class book we made where each student made a page and we bound them all together in a book.
Haylee & McKay made grounds hogs that popped up out of their holes, with a poem in the grass.
And Haylee worked (VERY hard, I might add...) on a coloring page. We talked about the letters she was coloring as she was coloring them and she learned the letter 'P' during the activity!
This is actually the first picture I've really seen her spend so much time on. Until now its been mostly scribbles. But I was VERY proud of her for spending so much time and working so hard on this one. She was so proud of her 'rainbow.' And I can't believe how well she stayed in the lines! I'm so proud of my not-so-little girl!Happy Groundhog's Day!!

November

I have sooo much blogging catching up to do!!

Here's a little bit.

Some of my favorite November moments/pictures:

Homemade apple pie Haylee helped Auntie Janeal make

Preschool Thanksgiving Party:

Wow......

Love this picture - it was during our huge 5 family garage sale... McKay loved all the stuffed animals.

This was so sweet... McKay was downstairs taking a nap and Haylee had been playing down there, but after awhile I realized it had gotten really quiet. I went down to check on things and there she was, curled up next to her brother, asleep on the couch. So sweet!

This was pretty cute too... Haylee and McKay came in the room like this... Haylee had put them on them both. Adorable.

Bunco!!

We had our second annual Bunco Christmas Party last week. I've been in this fabulous Bunco group for two years now and I LOVE IT!! It is so much fun hanging out with these awesome ladies. I am so lucky to have such great friends and to be surrounded by such amazing women. We play Bunco once a month and I totally look forward to it every month. There are very few things that can make me miss Bunco. (Having a baby was one of them. Besides that, birthdays and sickness are the only things I think I've missed it for.) Its such a good time for me to have kid-less, girl time. Brandon's so awesome to support me in going and to take such good care of our kidos while I'm gone. Love you babe! Thanks for all of the good times Bunco friends! I look forward to another year of great Bunco times!

I'm in love with my dentist!

I realized the other day, that I had never mentioned on my blog anything about Brandon's Dental Practice. So here's a shameless plug... it is our livelyhood afterall right? :) Besides, Brandon's extremely casual about telling people about himself or his work. He's just too modest and doesn't like the attention, and doesn't like soliciting, especially to church friends. So I'll do it. :) He's such an incredible dentist. He's patient, and so gentle. He's kind, friendly, and totally honest. You can totally trust him to be honest with you about what you need, and you can completely trust him to do what is best for you and your teeth. I may be biased, but his patients aren't and they all love him.

Here's the phone number for the practice, and I've added it on the side of my blog for future reference.

Summer Hills Family Dental
Dr. Brandon Dever, DDS
(916) 723-3368

So there you go. Shameless plug about my fabulous dentist, I'm madly in love with. :)

How I spent my morning…

What does 18 + 15 =?

All of this by one 18 month old boy, and 15 minutes.

Ahh well…

Add a little of this… (or a LOT actually)

Another 30 minutes and a TON of elbow grease, and FINALLY….

You get this:

Ahhhhh….

But, alas, who could be mad at this face?

Nah… I don’t have time for that.  I have too much lovin’ on it to do. 

I do adore being a mom.

And I adore you McKay.  It is going to be a wild ride…