2012 LRAFB Air Show

Two years ago during the LRAFB Air Show, I was 38 weeks pregnant with Rebekah and the temperature was in the high 90s with humidity to match, in short, it was miserable!  This year, however, there was a nice thunderstorm on Friday night that brought the temperature down into the mid-80s and low humidity for the airshow Saturday.  I am only 32 weeks pregnant this time, so a few pounds lighter than last time :).  On Friday afternoon I'd filled up the kiddie pool and the girls watched the Blue Angels practice which soaking in the pool which got them super excited for the airshow the next day.  We spent the day with the Langehaugs and loved it!
 

Family shot with the USCG Helo.

Rebekah exploring the helo.

Faith insisted on waiting in a 20 minute line to see what was up the stairs in the C-17.  I was so proud of her as she waited so patiently to get into the cockpit.  I don't know exactly what she expected to see up there but she was pretty excited about getting to sit in the driver's seat!

Here are my girls going for a pretend helo ride :)

Faith and I enjoying a nice frozen lemonade waiting for the Blue Angels to start.  For skipped naps that day in order to enjoy all the entertainment and food was certainly helpful in keeping everyone happy :) We found some shade under the wing of the C-17 parked near the runway and hung out there all day, moving the stroller to keep our spot in the shade!

 

Rebekah passed out after walking back from the K-9 demo.  She slept for about 20 minutes until the Blue Angels started and then she watched in amazement with Daddy at the airplanes zooming by.

 

Who Built the Ark?

We broke up the story of Noah and the ark over a two week period, with the first week being in Genesis 6 & 7 and the second week in Genesis 8 & 9 to show the end of the story.  The crafts were again redos of my first go round with Noah but both girls enjoyed them emensly. 

 

For our Family Day we went to the zoo to look at the decendents of some of the animals Noah travelled with on the ark. 

 

 

During this week we sang, Noah Found Grace and Who Built the Ark?  For the second week I found a great Rainbow song on Bible Songs and More.  We made a handprint dove and revisted Rainbow Rice as well.  I have the Noah's Ark Golden Book and randomly found We're All in the Same Boat at the library this week.  It does not follow the Biblical account of the flood but it was a cute story and just reinforced the whole thing.

Here the girls are pointing the the olive leaf in the dove's mouth. 

I used plastic bags for the rainbow rice this time and it worked out much better than trying to use an old yogurt container :) 

This is such a great sensory activity, I love it almost as much as they do!

LOW - B

B also ended up being a 2 week letter, there are so many good words out there that the kids know that start with B!  The first week was a butterfly, bee, and black focus; the second concentrated on boats, buttons, and blue. 
For black we did our standard color collage followed by a black scavenger hunt.  I think Faith's favorite part of this was making the pepper in the shape of a B.

Next we made a Bumblebee B, that I found on No Time For Flash Cards.  We also sang the Bumblebee Song which of course the girls just loved!  And yes, we did pre-school this day in our PJs, just one more reason I love homeschooling :)

 

I used another idea from NTFFC and made some hand print butterflies, monarch butterflies to be exact.  I also found a great butterfly song there which we sang and Faith remembered it when we were reading our butterfly book during reading time each day.

 

The girls had a good time making Play dough Bs with Daddy one day as well.

 





Our books for this week of the letter B were Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons, an author from whom I am learning nearly as much as the girls :), and Buzz, Buzz, Buzz Went Bumblebee by Colin West.  Next time we get around to this letter, I would also like to look for Buzz by Elieen Spinelli.

For the second week of B we started with making some lower case b boats.

Next we made probably the girls' favorite craft during this letter, their own boats.  I modified this idea from NTFFC and the girls absolutely loved it.  Their made their sails and the nautical flag of their letter and in the evening Frank and I pushed the girls around, taking them to Faithland, Rebekahland, and everywhere in between.  The next day the girls loved "sailing" their dolls around as well!  What a hit!

The girls have started up gymnastics classes and I am trying to take our crafts on the road with us to have each girl busy learning and creating while the other one is engaged in her class.  This week we glued buttons onto Bs.

 

To reinforce the B, I bought the girls these bathtime sail boats and their both loved them!  For our final craft, Frank made a corn hole board and we tossed the beanbags around.  One craft we never got around to (because of our all day trip to the 2012 LRAFB Air Show and the delay on getting the book from the library with their "new" system) was a sensory tub based on The Deep Blue Sea.  I was going to have the girls fill a tub with blue water, add a red brick for the rock, make a green tree, use an avocado pit for the brown nut, make a purple parrot, and then re-use their orange butterflies from the week prior.  I was excited about it but it is just, another idea for the next time this letter comes around!

Our books during this portion of B were Boats! Speeding, Sailing, Cruising and the always popular Belly Button Book.

 

 

Creation and the Fall of Man

Following up on our week of creation crafts we did the creation of man for one week and the fall of man on the next week.  These are mainly repeats of crafts that I did last summer in our Bible study of the fall of man but Rebekah got to participate this time and I got to watch Faith learn even more this time around.  Here they are breathing life into Adam's nostrils....

 

Faith is putting the rib from Adam onto her newly formed play-dough Eve.

 

Here is our paper chain serpent.  Aren't my girls just beautiful!

We re-visited this fingerprint craft as well and the girls really had a great time.  After we were done with the Bible craft we had a finger paint free for all, which I think they liked better :)

 

LOW - A

We actually did A for 2 weeks and it was great!  There are just so many A crafts out there that I hated condensing it into one week.  Plus, our Family Fun Day of apple picking was able to fall right in between the 2 weeks so we talked about apples before hand and then cooked with them afterwards.  We started out the letter by making an alligator A that I found on No Time for Flash Cards and I just loved it!  We also watched some YouTube videos on alligators. 

 

After we were done with alligators we headed into apples where we stayed for the rest of our time in A.  We painted an apple from cardboard, which I was thinking I would put on a basket for our apple picking adventure but never got around to that part of the craft, so they just hung on the fridge :)

We revisited a few crafts from the last time we worked on the fall of man in our Bible story, so the girls painted a paper bag filled with shredded paper.  We also made some apple trees with pom-poms and talked about many apple trees making an orchard. 

Faith is practicing the different sounds that the "A" makes :)

 

For our outside activites this week we made several letter As with our bodies as well as playing on a hopscotch board with the three different types of As, uppercase, lower type, and lower print.  By the second time we played, Faith knew the difference between the three.

 

For our Family Fun Day in the middle of this 2 weeks of A, we went apple picking at Cadron Crest Orchard in Conway, AR.  It was only about 2 weeks into apple picking season at this orchard and still pretty hot so I planned to have breakfast in the car so we could beat the heat and pick our apples in the morning.  Well, God is totally blessing our pre-school effort, I just love Him!  The weather was about as gorgeous as it could be, having rained all night and part of the morning, it was cool and surprisingly not humid.  The girls tromped around in the rain boots while wheeling the apple cart and filling the bags with apples.  They had such a wonderful time, it really was a blessed little day for our family.

 

 

The eating of the apples was of course a particular highlight for both girls.  We came home with nearly a bushel of apples.  Later that day Faith and I made 2 quarts of applesauce, which everyone loved and then a pie later in the week.  I plan on making and canning more applesauce for use in the future :)

 

 

Rebekah Joy - 22 Months

Rebekah loves shoes, anyones shoes but especially wearing her sister's shoes!  She repeats everything we say and loves to quote "Stand-up Jesus" whenever we tell her to stand-up.
Eating:
Continues to eat well for the most part.  Meat is never the first thing to be eaten but the vegetables are!  She always insists on having a fork in her hand but doesn't always use it!  She is in the take-a-part stage of sandwich eating which is always comical.  I think she would do really well with a regular cup as far as drinking but her arms are a bit too short right now to be able to reach a cup on the tray of her highchair without running the risk of knocking it over so we are sticking with the sippy.  She does great using a straw.  She also loves to have sips of coffee, water, wine, or whatever we are drinking!
Sleeping:
She continues to wake about 7:30-ish but is always quiet until I go and get her.  Nap time has been at 1:15 this month and lasts until 4.  She seems to be doing fine with it :) 
Play:
Her dislike of glue during craft time is waining a little bit. However, she really doesn't like to get dirty for the most part. We did a game involving some mud for our Deborah story and she hated every second of it.  Her love for stuffed animals has not diminished and it is super cute.  I do rotate the animals so she never gets too attached to any one.  She loves baby dolls too but I think stuffed animals really are her favorite.  She really enjoys stacking toys (and then knocking them down of course) and has started this month with lining things up. 

Skills:
Her knowledge of numbers is awesome.  She knows 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (confuses 1 with 7) and it isn't just a memorization thing on the calendar, she really does know them; I am so impressed by her!  Her colors are certainly improving although her first reaction is "green" when something is red but she is really doing great!  She knows orange, yellow, and purple as well.  Her knowledge of numbers and colors also demonstrates something else: she talks CONSTANTLY!  Don't get me wrong, I love it but she has quite the vocabulary and uses it. all the time.  She is probably just figuring out she'll have to work to get a word in between me and her sister :)  Her potty training also continues to go well.  She still has the occasional accident but most days are accident free and she tells us (usually by walking into the bathroom) when she needs to go.  Sundays are the only days where she struggles.  I would say she is accident free at church about 60% of the time right now.  She is also doing remarkably well at swimming with just her floaty.  She loves that thing and loves being in the water.  I don't have to hold her at all, except when she wants to do Ring Around the Rosie in the pool! 

Our Schedule:
0800 - Wake up, dressed, breakfast
0900 - Outside
1030 - Pre-school
1130 - Sister playtime
1200 - Lunch, chore
1315 - Nap
1600 - Snack, Training time, Mama and Rebekah time before solo play (usually around 1700)
1730/45 - Freeplay
1800 - Dinner, family time, bath, reading, Bible story, bedtime o/a 2001

Faith August - 3.25 years

Faith is growing up!  She is 3 1/4 years old now :) 
Eating:
Forcing the use of the fork has gone well.  She cleans her place after every meal and is very eager to help set the table as well.  Continues to ask how everyone's day is going at the table and I love hearing her imitate conversations we have there and her telling us she loves all of us!  She is still required to eat 2 bites of everything on her plate and that is usually done without any heartache.  Carbohydrates continue to be her favorite food group (who can blame her!). 
Sleeping:
This has been our biggest adjustment during this quarter.  The week of VBS at our church in June, Faith didn't nap the entire week and to be honest it was a huge stresser for me!  After some prayer about it and talking with Frank, I decided that we would start moving to a sleep/rest time.  Basically, I put her down at 2:30 and for 45-1hr she has silent rest time, no lights, no toys, just her and her blankie.  If she falls asleep during this time, great but if not then I will go in and turn on her nightlight and give her some books and her doll and she can play in her room for the remaining time until 4.  If she does fall asleep I still wake her up at 4.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason why some days she sleeps and some days she doesn't but she is quiet and respects the silent part of rest time and I am super happy about that.  On days she doesn't nap she will usually fall asleep at night in about 30 seconds.  On days she does nap, it takes a lot longer than that (like an hour sometimes)!  I am sure she is getting herself to the point where she needs 12 hours of sleep total in a 24 hour period.
Play:
Preschool is her favorite playtime activity. I will usually find her at the end of solo play with several dolls sitting on her bed and her reading to them.  My in-laws found a Radio Flyer Trike at a garage sale and gave it to Faith.  She absolutely loves riding that thing around.  She'll put Dolly in the basket in the back and ride for our entire outside time; she loves riding it on walks.  It was a great $5!  Her other big play love this summer has been the pool.  After the first trip during which she was trepidatious at best, she quickly got over any concerns she had about swimming and jumping in by herself.  She is a regular water baby and relishes her time in the pool, even our little kiddie pool in the back yard.  We have brought the slide over and turned the sprinkler on to make that pool a little more exciting. 
Skills / Learning:
Did I mention that Faith loves pre-school.  Not only is it her favorite playtime activity, she really really loves doing it together during the day.  She knows all of her uppercase and lowercase letters and does really well matching them together. We are starting to work on the sounds each letter makes.  Family Fun Night has also been a great addition to our pre-school routine.  For the first 2 nights we used the Eeboo Matching Numbers game and not only did she love it, she did remarkably well.  Since then I have tried to be a little more creative with Family Fun Night but the games are always good!  She is learning her right from her left and that has been fun, especially when my mom taught her that her left hand makes an L! 
We are also in the Why? phase.  I read a statistic when we were at the Magic House in STL that the average 4 year old asks 437 questions per day.  So, the next day I counted and in a 20 minute time period Faith asked upwards of 80 questions.  I ask that she be specific with her Why? and not simply leave it has an open ended question.  I was kind of hoping that would decrease the number of questions but it hasn't; it has made her think more about her question but the number has not diminished.  I suppose that is a good thing.  I try very hard to answer the question honestly and not simply give the "just because" answer.  I want her to be inquisitive and be full of wonder about the world around her!
Her physical skills are also expanding in addition to her mental.  She is doing very well throwing and catching a ball (a large-ish rubber one).  She is also learning how to write all of her letters.  For her birthday she received the Kumon Write and Wipe uppercase letters and she LOVES working on these. 

Faith continues to be a little OCD.  She is a huge proponent of reading books based on their order in the stack :)  But, she loves to read and ultimatly, I love it!
Our Schedule:
0800 - Wake, breakfast, ready for the day
0900 - Outside
1030 - Preschool
1130 - Sister playtime
1200 - Lunch, chore, playtime with Mama, "work" time with Mama (this is anything I need to do that I normally would have done when she was napping, i.e., cooking, cutting fabric, additional chores)
1430 - Nap / Rest time
1600 - Snack, Training Time, Solo Play
1730 - Freeplay
1800 - Dinner, family time, bath, reading, Bible story, bedtime o/a 2001