Supermom Moment!

I was going through some boxes in the garage and found two old car seat covers from our original infant car seats from 2007. I had sent the expired seats off to recycle and apparently saved the covers just in case our next child was a boy...which he is! However, I was given an updated travel system that doesn't expire before my son is supposed to move to the next size, and it's a nice red and blue boy pattern. Back to today, 1-year after moving finding an unopened box here I find the covers I tucked away for future baby boy, now eight months old.

What to do, what to do?

Well, of course the first thought is...throw them out, duh! Who needs more stuff we don't need, and who's going to buy a car seat cover...that's just weird! Then I realize one thing...my 2007 Evenflo Expressions High Chair  needs a new cover! See, our original cover from 2007 made it through 2 kids, but was killed in 2010 by the dryer (since it wasn't supposed to be in there-oops!). 

We put up with it until my third child was born in 2011. At that point I took the cover down to Joanne's Fabrics and copied it, using fabrics that looked like the same quality and even putting a vinyl layer on it...really cute, but STUPID! They Vinyl was more trouble than it was worth and in the end it got just as dirty and nasty...yuck! It took so long to make that I just tore off the vinyl that tore after only a few months, and we lived with it...stains and all.

Now the "new" cover is stained and...well Pink! So my son needs something new. I was going to go down and get fabric and start the process all over again until today!! This is perfect!


I put the carseat cover on to see if the buckles lined up, and they are PERFECT, so all I needed to do was cut a whole for the plastic leg guard that keeps babies from slipping out the bottom...       Sew around the edges of the new hole...  And VOILA!

Repurposed car seat cover...

meet your new home!

   

And did I mention...it's washable!!

Did I mention I have two car seat covers? So with a mere 10-minutes more work I'll have TWO covers to change out when one needs washing!

Feeling quite the Supermom Today...yes indeed!

Zowy! It's Z End

Day Z: Zebra, "Robot Zombie Frankenstein", Zuccini

We made it to the end of our alphabet Summer!! It was six weeks of activities and outings, and it made me exited for new activities this school year with our newest preschooler as well!

We had Fried Zuccini snacks and colored our Zebras of course!

    

Tomorrow was going to be a Zoo outing, but I think that will be delayed a week due to swim lessons ending with a swim party tomorrow instead...can't do too many activities in one day, exhaustion and cranckiness go hand in hand!

Today is also the end of my 6 year olds Summer Reading challenge!

For the last six weeks he has had a 30-minute per day reading goal, and he had some wonderful people sponsoring his reading goal so as to earn money for some age appropriate and challenging books for our  little reader, since all our books are preschool and board books!

In addition to the 30-minute daily goal, we made a personal goal of reading 50 books this summer. He reads by himself and to his sisters every afternoon as well as a story before bed. Well, he met his goal and then some! As of today the final count for books read is 73 BOOKS in only 6 weeks! And three of those we're chapter books he read on his own, sometimes sitting for a whole hour reading quietly! I could not be more proud of my little reader! Thank you to all his sponsors, and I hope you will consider sponsoring us next summer as well.

What a fun summer break!

Yeah, We Are Almost Done!

Day Y: Yak, "Yoko Writes Her Name", Yogurt


We had to cancel our outtings for the day due to a sick baby, so we did some straightening up around the casa and a movie break...Frozen again! Yeah! ;)


Our animal of the day was a Yak, which the kids thought was funny...this pic...not so much a yak as a skull on a bush lol

One day left in our Summer Reading Challenge, my son has finished so many books I lost track! today he read 5 books (only one had a "y" title)

I'm going to go through and count all the books for tomorrow's final tally. I'm kind of excited to see how many he's done in only 6 weeks!

After some yogurt and some more x cookies we sat down and watched some Winnie the Pooh while the girls took a nap...nice relaxing afternoon :)

One more day and our Alphabet Summer adventure is through...then what will I write about!?

X-citing X-Day

Day X: X-Ray Fish, "Max and the Tag-Along Moon", X-Cookies

It's nearly impossible to find X foods, so we went with the shape on this X day more than the spelling...obviously!

We listened to xylophone music, exercised, read extra books, and colored X-Ray fish!

We had to go ask neighbors for flour...which didn't work since nobody was home...sigh!

So determined, we went to the store and bought flour! 

The finished product

Yum! Maybe not pretty, but I couldn't find my x cookie cutters...still tasty though!

What a Wonderful Day

I name this blog ironically because I had a child wake in the middle of the night sick, and had a second kid get sick in my car this afternoon as we pulled into the garage...yuck! Doesn't the germ parade know that we are not on the letter "y" yet?!? Yuck, yuck, yuck!

Ok, regardless of the sickness in my home, attitudes are still high, so we went ahead and did our letter of the day activities...by their request, not my need to finish on time, I swear! 

Day W: whales, "Wagon Wheels" by Barbara Brenner, Watermelon

Our animal was whales, and we even broke the no tv rule to watch a Whale episode of Wild Kratts on PBS kids.

We did a fun water experiment, "sink or float" using several objects around the house.

The kids hypothesized whether each item would sink or float and then we tossed them in the water. The piece of watermelon rune (little upside down square in the plate) floated, which amazed the 4 year old, as did the floating wood block! After all, the hair tie floated, and the block was much heavier than that! It was a lot of fun to explain density and such and watch them not their heads all, "hmmm, fascinating". I love homeschooling!

We obviously got the watermelon rine from somewhere...today's treat!

Sliced like a FB post I saw a few weeks ago from my friends Tanya. Fun finger food!

Ok, so the day wasn't a total loss, here's hoping the kids are done with this yuck!

Vultures, the Lot of Them

Day V:  Vultures, Vampire's Vacation, Vanilla

Another difficult letter to figure out animals for, but this website with the letters and animals mixed...very helpful www.colormegood.com

Vultures! Everywhere! Carnivorous, scavengers...not a fan of vultures :)

My big reader read an entire chapter book today, over several sessions and a total of 2-hours...amazing! He's really enjoying these "A to Z Mysteries" series books. Not all of them are at my library branch, so I think I'm going to have to start requesting them for holds and have them delivered to our branch. 

And today's snack...not so much a snack! Lol I dipped toothpicks into vanilla so the kids could taste it and we discussed all the things we eat that are flavored by vanilla. They still enjoyed it, but apples followed the lesson so they had something into their stomachs!

Second S Day, Two T Days and Unbelievably Difficult U

Day T: Turtles, "This Tree Counts", Tomatoes

We'll we extended our S day and T day both since some of he other letters are harder to work with at this point.

This kids decided to color snakes after all

Monday's continued "s" theme meant extended Story time, and my 6year old read for an entire hour in one sitting (peaceful!)!

We also ended up having some delicious Strawberry Shortcake, which definitely made the extended S day worthwhile ;)

Since it is summer, we have been hitting the park every day, so Sunblock was another S thing I pointed out to them this week! Lol

For T day we colored Turtles, read a chapter book on T-Rex (as well as others), and ate tomatoes. I was going to make fried green tomatoes, but walmart didn't have them and I didn't want to go to multiple stores with 4 kiddos in tow! 

We drove past a construction zone and pointed out all the different construction Trucks, and got some fix a flat stuff to fix the bike tires so we can work on losing the Training wheels this summer too!

The last day of this week we did the letter U, which  meant sea urchins

The book "Under a Prairie Sky", and watching the movie "Up".

There were no U foods, so we just skipped that...kids didn't even notice ;)

It was a long week, but lots of fun!

Something Spooky This Way Comes...

My children were quite unruly this morning! We had planned a trip to the zoo, with seals, seal lions and reptiles (for yesterday's theme) but Noooo! I mean literally, changing clothes and pant less when we are supposed to be out the door...REALLY?! Must be a full moon...OH IT IS! And Friday the 13th you say?! Well we are not going anywhere, these kids may very well be about to change into ware wolves or something! Sheesh!

It's ok, we go with the flow, even when the crazy juices are flowing...

Day S: Spiders, "Space Case", Sausage Breakfast Burritos

Started the day off right, with a yummy homemade NM breakfast burrito (don't know why everything went crazy from there), and also had some sugar snap peas and string cheese for snack time.

We improvised, due to cloudy, windy weather, a space shuttle to have lunch in...as well as snack and story time! We used that thing all day!

Then for some reason, the kids chose spiders to color...Bleh! I didn't even want to see them, let alone take a photo...spent the afternoon telling me I had a spider on me...thanks!

Road kill Stew!!

No, not really! Sheesh!

Day R: Rainbows, "Reptiles are My Life", Radishes

Ok, though I didn't get is posted yesterday, there is good reason...I was planning that we were taking a zoo trip on Friday and would see reptiles in,person, but that was a bust, so here is Thursday's R day in Review:

We colored Rainbows because nobody wanted to color raccoons...go figure!

Had 40-minutes of reading, since RELAXING was on the agenda ;). Woohoo!

And had Radishes for snacks...not a hit at all! Lol. I thought there were not as spicy as it turns out they are! The kids decided that the red part made it spicy and would eat the white part if I sliced them up, leaving little red peels everywhere...weird kids ;)

Quiet...Not Quite Impossible ;)

Day Q: Quail, "the Quicksand Question", Quiche

This morning Abbi and I made breakfast Quiche! Fancy schmancy new family favorite!

Made buiscuit dough, molded it into muffin pan, added turkey bacon crumbles (5 pieces cooked) mixed 3eggs and 3Tbs milk, poured it over the bacon, sprinkled with cheese and baked 18mins at 400*. (Makes 9 quiche)

They were really stinking good!!!

With only quail in our Q animal vocab, we colored also Queens and Quiet!

 (subliminal messaging from momma?)

Our story today was "The Quicksand Question", which was a rather long book and took the entire 30-mins...which is good since it's the only "Q" book I could find I the entire section! Seriously!

We had peaches (yup...still have plenty of P foods) and quesadilla for our snack.

Now. This may be switching languages, but we live in New Mexico, so "Spanglish" is our state language, so there!

I actually did get a little over 30-minutes of Quiet while the youngest was napping, so it was quite a lovely day 

Positively Popping at the Seams with Possibilities!

Day P: Perry the Platypus "Pirates Don't Change Diapers", Pineapple (and pears, and Popsicles!)

My goodness there are lots of "P" foods! That we did not have trouble with at all! We had Popsicles, pears, pineapples and the kids requested we play in the Pool! Well, the dog popped the pool (sigh) so no pool, but we had all the rest and...it was crazy! We had TOO MUCH...so we made it a two day letter! Now we can fit it all in!

Animals were oddly harder to figure out. Everyone thinks of penguins and parrots

I wanted something more our family's style too though, so day two..duh!

(Used the template from J's 5yr bday cake)

In addition to hitting the library for more books, we had a Picnic in the Park, including pickles, popcorn, peanut butter sandwiches and pink lemonade! (We were having so much fun...I totally forgot to take pics for the blog!)

We got home and did some painting, which was a huge hit!

I decided we needed to make peanut butter cookies...that was a lot of fun! 

We used an easy three ingredient recipe I found online, 1egg, 1c. Sugar, 1c. Peanut butter...1part amazing!  Definitely going to use this one again!

To tie the day all together we had pork chops and peas for dinner! 

Then just as a splurge...we stayed up late to play Pokemon!

Positively Perfect Day! ;)

Operation Octopus...or Not

Day O: octopus, "Owl at Home", oranges

Day started O so early...not really, but it feels like it when you have to get everybody dressed and out of the house before 10! Granted I take longer than the kids...but still!

We went on an octopus hunt at the aquarium, but only found a toy octopus, oh well. Still had fun with friends!

After our adventures under the sea, we came home and commemorated the adventure with our own octopus creations.

The kids read their final 30mins of the week, and my son has read 11 books this week! So awesome! With the 15 from prior weeks that's a total of 26 books he's read in 15 days! Amazing Right? I made his summer goal 50 books...I'm thinking maybe that was too low! Lol

So we did a bookworm owl project...though now I see we forgot the books! Lol

You can tell I helped place glue for my 3 & 4 but let my 6 just go for it! I love it :D

Since it's Friday, I let them fight Orkes for a half hour before throwing them Outside to play.

Lego video games really allow you to play a ton of games that you normally couldn't with little kids and they just love it. Busting up Lego people (or in this case, Orkes) isn't nearly as violent as killing digital characters.

The kids had oranges with their dinner, and then Oreo's for dessert.

I had an Outstanding day with my kiddos overall! Great end to a busy week!

No Nonsense Nerds

Day N: Nightengale, "Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas", Nectarines

Today was fun and we tried New things. On top of Nectarines, which the kids quite enjoyed, we went bowling using the kidsbowlfree.com passes for summer. The kids did great, and for the most part had fun! 

Turns out my oldest is kind of a natural, must come from throwing poké balls all day ;) he got 105 his second game, with a strike and spare in sequence, oh, and a spare in the 10th! Almost forgot that excitement! 

Even my oldest girl started really getting into it towards the end

My younger daughter started getting bored as the balls were just to heavy and hers kept getting stuck half way down the lane. So, she watched a movie while the older kids bowled...meh, whatever, it was free! 

Our reading was a bit of a struggle, I think it's hard to sit for so long on one book when your six, and I only had one N themed book, so there wasn't as much variety, but he made it and read all three chapters, which filled his 30min reading goal. I really am proud that my 6 year old just straight up READS like he's 8 or 9...big words like, un-recognizable! My son ;)

We learned about nightingales, which apparently sing even louder when they live in cities as they compensate for background noise....sounds like my house! 

The last activity planned was the noodle necklaces, yup...double points for double N's! Ooh, triple...noodle necklace nerds! Hehe 

Not MY kids! No, never! Lol

And finally, I must confess there was one more N activity that happened, though unplanned… Mommy had a nap! And I'm feeling quite refreshed, regardless of the spider crawling on my leg as a wake up call!

'Night all!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Day M: Monkey, "Maisy Plays Soccer", Mangos

Today my little monkeys mimicked daddy all morning, very amusing to me...

Mimics exercising with daddy..."mountain climbers" move. They were running, frog hopping and lunge stepping all the way up and down the hall, this was the only pose that wasn't a blur of legs and bodies ;)

In my hunt for M activities my sister suggested eating Mangos while watching Malifasent...not really in the budget, but some where free to play during this crazy heat? Yep, you guessed it...

After our play land adventure we did however have some Mangos, great idea sis!

I saw this little activity ona Pinterest page some time back, and now we can get rid of all the marshmallows that will not be in hot cocoa any time soon.

And as our tradition holds, we have our letter of the day animal.

Just to make sure the day was completely exhausting, we tried out this cute new toy for my little tater tot...it turned into monkey see...

Monkey do...

And do some more!

My monkeys, so proud!