Five for Friday...FUN WEEK!

So much fun this week!  My husband took Thursday and Friday off.  It was our "summer vacation."  We had a play date earlier in the week with my niece.  On Thursday, the four of us headed to the Bronx Zoo.  Friday we dropped the boys off at my mom's, we checked into a hotel, and went to a Yankee game!  Thanks  Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

I put up a few new products.  These two are my bigger two.     I also have a few really great freebies.  I'm planning on making more too!  Keep checking back!

 

Play date with the princess!  The kids seriously love the water table my mom picked up at a tag sale.  They also love my 90 cent plastic garbage pen storage bins haha.  I actually had to go inside and get a third one so they could each play with one.   

 

We finally had a fire in the fire pit and roasted marshmallows.  A little late I know haha.  My little one made this face every time he bit the marshmallow!

Cuteness overload in that top pic!  They were sooo excited to be at the zoo!  We had a blast!  We saw a polar bear playing with a ball!  It was AWESOME!  I recorded it too but my phone and Facebook are currently hating on each other :(

Last but not least, my hubby and I said "goodbye" to Derek Jeter and his cuteness...I mean awesome baseball skills.  It was really sad.  I heard a couple of people yell "bye" to him as they left the game.  Won't be the same!  Oh, and I totally made it on the jumbotron lol!  I was one of those people who didn't realize it at first then started waving like crazy when I did!

Five for Friday

Another busy week in our house!  NYC, aquarium, swim lessons, and more!  Thanks  Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

 Lots of fun in NYC again!  This time my oldest and I took my 15 year old cousin.  I have been taking her since she was little!  We had a ton of fun.  My son seriously loves going.  Probably because he likes getting toys...haha.  This time, we rode the big Ferris wheel in Toys R Us and then did this super fun trivia game at the Disney Store.  They gave everyone in the game this lanyard and the Planes:  Fire & Rescue button.  We had the Monsters University one from our visit a few weeks ago.  They also gave him Planes:  Fire & Rescue trading cards.  All of that was great but doesn't make up for the fact that the Planes vehicles we bought that day all broke within a day!     

 

My aunt's birthday was this week.  We all went to my mom's to swim and eat lunch.  She LOVES the beach.  She spent most of life being in the Cape for her birthday.  I wanted to capture that for her :)  It's not as "nicely" decorated because my son helped haha.  But that's okay!  The concept is still super cute.   

 

We headed to a big aquarium in our state for my aunt's birthday.  It's not the one we usually go to.  This is a larger one that's a bit farther.  I haven't been there since my oldest was 6 months old.  Unfortunately, he had an attitude all day but my little one loved it!  My favorite photo is the last one :)

We attended story time at our local library again.  They like it.  Probably because snacks are involved!

And finally, we wrapped up our Friday by celebrating the fact that my little one was actual home to nap in his crib!  I love the time it allows me to have with my oldest.  We picked up some fly swatters for a letter game.  I think I might have seen this somewhere on Pinterest.  I will have to find the link.  I wrote all the letters on the driveway.  I would call out one and he'd smack it with the fly swatter.  It was fun!

Five for Friday...Busy Week!

Second week in a row!  Yay! But I totally didn't realize I haven't posted since then!  It's been tough finding computer time with my kids lately.  By the time they go to bed, I'm exhausted too! Thanks  Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

 

 Let's start off by discussing my second failed attempt at infused water.  Gross.  This one was definitely better than the first nasty one I made (the first smelled sooo yummy but just should not be something someone drinks haha).  My son had fun making this too and was excited to try it.  The cucumber was overwhelming even though I used less of it than it said.  It also resembled lemonade...minus the delicious, large amounts of sugar!    

 

My son picked this book out because it had a moose on it.  When we got home and read it that night we were laughing hysterically.  This book is sooo funny!  You HAVE to act it out when you read it because it just adds to how funny it is.  It's about a duck making a movie about the regular life of a moose.  It keeps getting interrupted by the crazy animals (Moose included).  The director yells "CUT!" each time and also says "Take 1" and so on.  I will definitely be buying it and using it for reading aloud at school!  

 

Ah the simple things.  My little one was actually napping the other day in his crib!  Nap time is so important because it allows for some great one-on-one time with my oldest.  He loves playing outside and sometimes it's hard to do this with the little one running around.  He also loves to "wash" my car.  This was him washing my car and discovering the sponge could stick to the car.  Then he proceeded to tell me I needed to take his picture lol.  

I haven't talked about sensory bins lately because we've kind of been doing them outside lately.  We have *big* plans to make some sort of gravel pit/construction site outside for my sons.  While we were picking out things for it, he insisted his gravel pit needed a beach and picked out a bag of shells and little fish.  My little one was napping again (wahoo!) so we decided to play outside.  I spread out our giant ocean themed beach towel and he dumped out his ocean goodies.  He had so much fun pretending it was all in the ocean!  We talked about how they all felt, what they looked like, their sizes, etc.

I don't have a pic for this one (it's better that way haha) but I recently tried PIYO at my local Zumba studio.  It's a new workout by Chalene Johnson.  It was just what I was looking for!  I really want to stretch (Zumba doesn't do that) but it does it at a faster pace so you aren't just slowlyyyyyy stretching.  It's definitely cardio stretching if that makes sense?  They were offering a free trial so it was packed.  Some people left during it because it is pretty tough.  They say it's for everyone butttt I don't know lol.  I say it's for everyone as long as everyone realizes that they won't be able to do everything right away or hold things for very long.  I know I couldn't.  Actually I was surprised (in a good way) with myself.  As a former dancer/former dance teacher this is just what I wanted.  I miss that flexibility!  Click here to check PIYO out for yourself. 

That's it for now!  I'm off to NYC again tomorrow.  This time, just with my oldest and 15 1/2 year old cousin.  I used to take her a lot into the city and my son is dying to go again soooo perfect thing to do!  Plus hubby's not feeling it so he's staying at home with crazy baby.  Hopefully no weird characters try to come up to my kid again!  I'm sure I will be posting again about our adventure!  Happy Friday!

Five for Friday...I remembered!

This is my favorite thing but I keep forgetting to link up!  Thanks again to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting this linky party!

 

  
These little boogers are seriously my whole world.  I wish I could spend every day with them!  Makes me extra thankful for summers off.  They decided to hold hands and watch tv one morning this week.  Then, of course, they proceeded to wrestle each other lol.  They baby won because Jake and the Neverland Pirates was distracting my older one.  Arghhhh haha.

 

It's summer which means Summer Reading Club at the library!  I'm bad and don't even take them to the one in my town.  We go to the one in my mom's.  I'm biased because up until last summer I worked there for 5 summers and helped run the program lol.  Since my oldest is also swimming there (it's a community center) 4 days a week for 4 weeks it just makes sense!  The library has tried different formats over the years and the one that seems to get the best response and is the easiest to run is when the books are weighed.  They have a baby scale on a table and when you have read your books you bring them in to be weighed.  The goal is collectively read "a ton of books."  So far, over 800lbs has been read and there's still a few weeks left!  There's also a board where each child gets a little marker and for every 10lbs they move up.  It's a travel/around the world theme.  Right now he's at the 20lb mark which means he's traveling in a train.  He's sooo excited and wants to read over 50lbs so he can "go" on the flying saucer in outer space.  Here's some of our MANY reads this summer.  And yes, my 3 1/2 year old likes Dan Gutman haha.  I just have to change "stupid" to "silly" because we discourage that words and he would just say it way too much!

 

This big boy is working so hard on feeding himself!  Yes, I am a crazy mother who let him feed himself a bowl of Cheerios and yogurt.  Messy?  Yes.  Great practice?  YES!

 So happy with how this turned out!  I love my colorful centers and all but I love not having to cut anything myself!  Yay!  I can't wait to print them out and add them to my diphthong binder.  I will be blogging about my binders and collections soon!  Click on the pic to head to my TPT site to check it out!

I was just feeling super inspired and my children have been behaving allowing me some work time so...I had to keep going!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how these turned out!  I'm so excited to use these!  My kids respond very well to things like this and they most definitely refer to them on a daily basis.  Working in a small space helps with that.  Whatever I choose must be meaningful since I don't have enough room but on the plus side, they also don't get lost in the clutter of large classroom walls!  Once again graphics by Pink Cat Studio has been super inspiring.  Wait 'til you see my diphthong materials!

Happy Friday everyone!  I hope you enjoy your weekend!  Mine will be filled with swimming at my mother's, church, and of course, my son seeing Planes Fire and Rescue lol.  Thank you Disney channel for LITERALLY counting down the days for my son and for making me have to explain why he can't go the day it comes out ;)