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!

Pirate Alphabet Treasure Hunt

Hey everyone!  Happy hump day!  My boys had super fun playing with their cousin today.  They didn't want to stop!  They had fun playing with one of my latest products that I created with them in mind.  My Pirate Alphabet Treasure Hunt is a great letter recognition activity to help our little friends.

I found this great jewel clip art from ZisforZebra's store.  It was the perfect thing to be my treasure!  I also picked up Ashley Hughes' super cute pirate clip art.  I plan on using it to it's fullest when I make my Bossy R activities.  Oh and did I mention I bought this (and so much more clip art) during the awesome back to school TPT sale?  Yay!

This activity has 4 treasure chests.  26 uppercase letters are split amongst 2 chests and 26 lowercase letters are also split amongst 2 chests.  The jewels come in uppercase and lowercase.  You decide how to play.  For today, my son and niece worked with uppercase on everything.  I buried the jewels in the sandbox.  They dug them up, told me the letters they found and placed them in a clean bucket.  Sadly, they didn't make it to the part where they put the jewels in the treasure chest because my little one decided the jewels needed to go in the water table.  *sigh* What a waste of ink and laminating paper!

Oh well. They still had fun!  I intend on using this with my Kindergarteners when school starts up.  I will probably use a small bin of sand or rice that can sit on my table but be easily stored.  I know they will love it!  Please check out my store...I've added some freebies!  I will be posting more on them tomorrow.!

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!

Summer Lovin...

I hope everyone's enjoying their summer as much as I am!  I'm home with my two favorite little boys and couldn't ask for anything more!  Although the transition from working to stay at home summer mommy can be tricky, ultimately I adore it.  I wish I could be home all the time.  I'm more relaxed, my kids are more relaxed, my house is clean, and dinners are cooked more frequently.  Heck, I even planted flowers outside and am sprucing up our little outdoor areas!  Pinterest has also been inspiring me so stay tuned for the backyard rock quarry/gravel pit/town I'm making for the boys!

So far, my summer loves and I have gone strawberry picking.  We lasted 5 minutes because it was soooo hot!

Attended the kick-off of the summer reading club at the library.  I actually worked there for 5 summers and helped run it.  It's cool to go back with my own kiddies!  Here's my oldest getting a bubble haircut!

Our biggest thing so far was going to NYC!  We took my oldest when he was about 18 months old.  Now he's 3 1/2 and my little one just turned 1.  It was a blast but a LOT of work with the two of them!  My husband said he'll pass on doing that again any time soon but my oldest wants to go again.  Mommy has no problem going again :)  I've gone into the city a million times but I was definitely appalled by the number of people dressed up as kid characters (Disney, Sesame Street) in Times Square.  There are tonssss of them and they immediately run up to your kid.  They try to get your child all hyped up to take a pic with them then expect you to pay them for doing so.  My husband yelled at them to stay away.  It's just wrong.  Also, no joke, every couple feet the tour bus people are trying to get you to ride.  NYC it's time for you to fix this.  This isn't the NY I love!  PS...don't touch my kid.

 

With all of that said, I've also been making some new, exciting things!  My most popular products seem to be my Diphthong, R-Controlled, and Vowel Digraph packets.  I'm making even more resources for those topics.  My new Vowel Digraph packet will be posted tomorrow!