Change My Heart

This is just a cute story that I had to at the very least document for myself, but I thought you might enjoy it as well.

A few nights ago while I was praying with the kids, Caleb prayed his usual prayer,

"Father, give Daddy and Granny another good day at work tomorrow. Love you, Jesus. Amen."

Hannah prayed her usual prayer which includes thanking God for anything she can look around the room and see at the moment.

Then I prayed, "Dear God, change me."

Caleb said, "That's all?"

I said, "Yes, that is what Mommy needs. I need God to change me."

Caleb, "Why do you want God to change your head?"

Me, "I want God to change my heart."

Caleb, "Why? You don't like it red anymore? What color do you want, green or blue?"

He was very serious. What more do you say?

The Night Before the ToothFairy - Feb 15-19

BOOKS

Our Itty Bitty Bookworm Theme Book this week was:

The Night Before the ToothFairy by Natasha Wing

Other books we read along with this theme were:

Rotten Teeth by Laura Simms

Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth by Lucy Bate

LETTER OF THE WEEK

Tt

Dot Paint Pictures:

Mommy: Tt is for Toothfairy

Caleb: Tt is for T-Rex

Hannah: Tt is for Tuck the Turtle

Obviously all of our "tooth" activities this week fit in well with the letter "T".

BIBLE LESSON

Jesus Walks on Water

We still haven't gotten back into a good rhythm with our Bible time. I can't seem to find planning time right now.

Itty Bitty Bookworm Activities

Smiley/Toothy Apple Snack

Painting the letter T with a toothbrush

Experiment

We soaked hard boiled eggs in water, grape, Kool-Aid, Coke, and Coffee. We let them soak overnight them checked them the next morning to see how drinks can stain our teeth. Then they brushed the eggs to try to remove the stains and then for fun they cracked and peeled the eggs.

Interview with Hannah- Feb. 18, 2010

I posted baby pictures with their interviews just because I have enjoyed looking at them lately and don't have any other reason to post them.

What is your name: Hannah

When is your birthday: June

Who is your Mama: You

Who is your Daddy: He's at work and he's my dada

What does your Daddy do: works

What is your favorite color: purple, blue and green and all the colors of the rainbow

What is your favorite song: All the Colors of the Rainbow

What do you want to do when your grow up: A mommy

Where do you want to live when you grow up: at a new house with my baby

What is your favorite food: apples and orange juice

What is your least favorite food: broccoli, green beans, carrots

What is your favorite animal: Giraffe

What do Mom and Dad do after you go to bed: check email

What is your favorite movie: Princess

What is your favorite Ice Cream Flavor: all the colors of the rainbow (neapolitan)

Where do you like to eat: Pizza Hut

Who is your favorite person: Granny (I'm a little jealous!)

Who is your best friend? Hannah (a neighbor)

What is your favorite book? Princess

What is your favorite thing to do? Bouncing on my Ball hopper

Interview with Caleb Feb. 18, 2010

A friend, neighbor, and fellow blogger posted this interview and I just had to see how my kids would answer.

What is your name: Caleb

When is your birthday: January 3

Who is your Mama: Debbie Davis

Who is your Daddy: Ron Davis

What does your Daddy do: Works and Works and Goes on a Trip

What is your favorite color: Pink, Orange, Black

What is your favorite song: Who Let the Dogs Out- He has only heard this one line from the song because his Dad sings this line, but Caleb thinks it is hilarious.

What do you want to do when your grow up: Not sure

Where do you want to live when you grow up: here at mom's house

What is your favorite food: Cupcakes

What is your least favorite food: Broccoli and Peas

What is your favorite animal: Monkey

What do Mom and Dad do after you go to bed: go to bed

What is your favorite movie: Larry Boy and the Fib from Outerspace and Larry Boy and the Rumor Weed

What is your favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Chocolate

Where do you like to eat: Chili's (can't believe he didn't say McDonald's!)

Who is your favorite person: Kaitlin (a neighbor who he hardly ever sees, this answer REALLY surprised me!)

Who is your best friend? friend Hannah (a neighbor, not sister)

What is your favorite book? Arthur

What is your favorite thing to do? Play with my new truck (he just got a new construction set today so that is where his mind was, otherwise I am sure it would have been playing on the computer)

Well, I think he is old enough now that his answers weren't so comical, but it was still fun!

Valentine's/Winter Weather- Feb 7-13

BOOKS

The book we were suppose to focus on this week did not arrive at our library in time for our week, so we enjoyed The Valentine Bears by Eve Bunting. We also enjoyed reading The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond and Kiss Kiss by Selma Mandine. Of course we read lots of other books throughout the week, but these were the ones that related to our Valentine's Day theme.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

Ss

Dot Paint Pictures:

Mommy: Ss is for Scarecrow

Caleb: Ss is for Spaceship

Hannah: Ss is for School

Hannah also picked out a letter S book from the library.

BIBLE LESSON

Jaurius's Daughter

We haven't been doing as much with our Bible time and haven't done a memory verse in several weeks. I miss it. Hopefully I will get more planning done this weekend to get back on track next week.

Itty Bitty Bookworm Activities

I gave each of them a cup full of conversation hearts and the paper above. They had to sort them by color matching the color word on the heart (of course I helped Hannah identify the color word). Then they counted the candies for each heart and wrote the number in the box. This is actually Caleb's, but Hannah also did well writing her numbers. This activity involved so many skills: sorting, counting, number identification, number writing, and we also talked about "more, less, fewer, equal". And then of course they ate the hearts.

They also used hearts to measure how tall and how wide these hearts are. Neither of them enjoyed this activity.

I had to include this picture just so you could enjoy Hannah's hair and outfit. The activity was to count the number of hearts on the page, count out that many conversation hearts from the cup, and find the paper heart from the green tray with the correct number on it.

I gave each of them several pieces of paper, red paint, heart sponges, and glitter paint and let them create whatever they wanted. Caleb did three pages which is a lot for him. Hannah never wanted to stop. I think she completed about 7 pages before I just insisted that the activity was over, otherwise she would just just paint until there was absolutely not a drop of paint left in the house!

OTHER VALENTINE'S DAY ACTIVITIES

They prepared Valentine's for the other kids on the street. I let them pick out which Valentine they wanted to give each person. I wrote a list of names on the easel and they copied the names onto their cards. Even Hannah is doing well writing. Then we divided candy into piles and filled treat bags. Finally we bundled up and went on a cold walk to deliver.

We made strawberry cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

We were ALL very excited to post snow as the weather of the day on our calendar. Actually it was about 3:00 and I knew we hadn't changed the calendar yet so I told the kids, "Maybe we will get to put "snowy" up on our calendar today." I looked outside and screamed, "LOOK, it IS snowing!" At that point you had to look really close, but it wasn't long before it was coing down hard!

Caleb and Hannah doing their happy snow dance while trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Caleb said he was having snow for dinner.

I love this picture of them, they were SO excited!

When Ron got home from work I greeted him at his truck with a hat, extra coat, and gloves. He jumped out and started making a snowman.

Nice hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm up.

Mmmm!

About 3:00 PM on Friday, Feb 12

About 6:00PM

Saturday morning

Saturday morning again

It was all perfect timing, the weekend, Ron was home, no one was sick...

Saturday morning we went out for more sledding and round two of snowball fights with the neighbors.

Silly Girl!

Snow Angels

Sledding

Mouse Paint: Feb. 1-5

Our focus book this week was Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. We read this book earlier this year and the kids loved it so they were delighted to see it return. Mostly they were excited because they knew painting would be on the agenda for the week.

Enough time has past that I seem to have forgotten much of what we did last week. Our letter for the week was Rr. We printed off "R" pictures to dot paint. Hannah painted a rainbow, Caleb painted a racecar, and I painted a raccoon.

We talked a lot about making new colors by mixing two colors. They colored Venn Diagrams that showed the new color that would be created when mixing two colors. We talked about the use of the words mouse/mice. Their favorite activity was painting a mouse color book. Each page had a mouse on it and they painted each page a different color. Enjoy the video below of Hannah painting the cover page. I had stepped out of the room to start washing paint brushes and while I was out of the room Hannah decided she would rather finger paint than use a brush.

The kids also enjoyed show and tell at the library.

Caleb is still doing really well with his math. I really pushed him this week asking him to complete 4 pages each day to try to catch up a bit, but he still did great. He is also continuing to read quite well. I am amazed by some of the sentences he can read during his computer work.

Hannah seems to be suddenly grasping concepts we have been working on for a long time. I have been doing lots of worksheets with her just because she loves doing it. She is also spending more time on a few computer activities and has gotten much better using the mouse.

The highlight of the week was "Kid Date" weekend. Daddy took Caleb out Friday night. He got to pick where he wanted to eat, he chose Logan's, then Daddy surprised him by taking him to a Monster Truck Rally. Caleb had never been to a Monster Truck show before and he loved it and loved his alone time with Daddy. Hannah spent the evening out with Mommy. She chose to eat at Chop House (she calls it the Chomp House). She had never been there before but that has become Mommy and Daddy's date place so she thought it must be special. She thought it was very funny that the waiter kept calling us "ladies". She asked to go to Chuck E. Cheese's after dinner. I only take the kids there during the week when everyone else is at school. I knew it would be busy on a Friday night, but I wasn't prepared for what we encountered. They were having FIVE birthday parties simultaneously!!! It was horrible. We couldn't move in there, kept getting knocked around, and had to wait in line to do anything. We didn't stay long, but Hannah still enjoyed her special time with Mommy and Mommy really enjoyed her time alone with her little girl...rare moments!

Caleb and Hannah decided to try out some photography skills this week. They took turns taking pictures with Daddy's camera. Caleb took this one of Hannah and really makes me laugh. They actually took a few good ones. Of course I have about 30 crazy pictures of the tv, floor, and other random pictures to delete and I immediately deleted all the LOVELY photos of Mommy!

The Boy and the Quilt- Jan. 25-29

We got a little bit of school in at the beginning of the week, but then school went on the back burning for a few days. We did a few pages of math, introduced our new Bible Story, and readour book for the week, THE BOY AND THE QUILT, and dot painted a Q is for Quilt page. The rest of our week was busy with Tuesday morning Bible Study, a Tuesday trip to the barber shop, storytime at the library, Wednesday night classes at church, preparation for lots of weekend company, and a Friday morning 5-year-old check-up for Caleb.

Caleb and Hannah really love having family around so they were very excited to have Granny plus Daddy's cousin's family here for the weekend to help with a kitchen remodel. The picture below shows the kids enjoying their part of the job, picking up the spacers.

It was a busy weekend, but we are back to school and regular routine now with the exception of the house being a little out of order: the refrigerator is in the dining room, and the stove, dishwasher, washer and dryer are in the garage. We are all learning to be a little creative this week.

Stranger in the Woods Jan. 18-22

This week we read lots of stories about snowy weather. All of our crafts and activities were about snow and snowmen but our weather outside was beautiful most of the week so we weren't much in the mood for snowmen. We spent much of our school time this week playing outside.

Our Bible story this week was Jesus Turns Water into Wine. Daddy got to join us this week for our family coloring time. I decided just to enjoy the time together and not worry about pictures so no shots of that.

We have starting milling week more again. The kids LOVE the bread this time. They really enjoy helping with the milling, measuring and mixing. Caleb helped me make a pizza with our fresh bread dough.

We did a science experiment to watch how salt melts ice.

Hannah loves these letter tracing cards. She even loves wiping them all off when she is finished.

I traced this letter A as an example, Hannah's lines aren't quite that straight yet!

We made baker's clay, rolled it out, used a snowman cookie cutter, and makes some cute snowmen to paint. While painting we got into a lesson on mixing colors to make new colors.