Tuesday Randomness

Happy Tuesday!  I have some fairly funny stories to share!  Well, they are funny to me, anyway.  Aren't you just dying to find out what they are?! ;)

1.  Last week, in an effort to get Mackenzie to play outside more, I told her to go to the backyard and I would be there in a minute after I got Meredith and her food.  Mackenzie happily played with the door partially closed.  A couple of minutes later, she screams/shrieks and runs inside crying and pointing to the backyard.  I kept asking her what happened and couldn't understand what she was saying other than her pointing to outside.  Finally, being fed up with my lack of understanding, she yelled through her tears, "CAT!!!!!".  I looked outside and sure enough there was a cat walking in our backyard toward her car that she was playing in.  I did what any good parent would do and...laughed.  I'm sorry, but it was too funny.  I shooed the cat back over the fence to our neighbors yard (probably his home) and convinced Mackenzie to come outside again.  I did talk with her and tried to tell her not to scream and cry like that unless she was hurt and/or bleeding, not because she saw a cat.  I'm thinking we might need to take her around more animals so she can get used to them.  I'm not saying she has to pick up any of the animals (I don't do that), but she should be able to be in the same area with one and not need to scream and run away.

 2.  The day before the above story, the girls and I went to the playground.  We had been there for about an hour and Mackenzie wanted her and I to play hide and seek.  Other girls we didn't know were playing the same game around the playground, but she didn't want to play with them.  Anyways, she was walking away to go count and fell off the wood block that holds all of the playground mulch/wood chips in.  Before I could do anything, I watched her face plant into the grass.  Don't worry, she wasn't hurt.  She cried a little, but only because her face, hand and leg were wet from the rain/dew.  This girl does not like to be dirty.  I wonder where she gets it from?  It couldn't be me...

3.  Mackenzie calls her baby dolls "dears".  I think it's from one of her movies where they say, "my dear,..."  Anyways, her "dears" and her have a whole pretend life complete with her as the mom and a pretend dad.  For the last couple of weeks, the dad was a balloon that I received for my birthday.  Brandon finally threw it away last Friday because it was getting low on air.  When Mackenzie asked me on Saturday where her "dears' daddy" was, it felt strange saying, "remember, daddy threw him away yesterday."

I thought I had more stories, but that's all I can remember, so I guess not.  Oh well, just give me another 24 hours and there will be more!  Never a dull moment in our house!

Visiting Mamaw

Brandon and I finally took the girls to see his Mamaw on Thursday.  When I say finally, I mean it had been about 6 years since we had seen her!  6 years!  That mean she had never met Mackenzie or Meredith!  I know, I know...not great parents and/or grandchildren.  Sorry Mamaw! ;)

Anyways, Mamaw just recently moved to her daughter/son-in-law's property and since it is only about 1 1/2 hours away we decided to make a day trip.  It was so nice to visit with family we hadn't seen in forever.  Brandon's cousin's daughters were there and so Mackenzie had someone to play with.  They are age 12 and 8, but they have younger siblings, so they knew how to play with Mackenzie.  After visiting a little bit, Bubba (Brandon's uncle) asked if the girls wanted to go ride a horse.  Mackenzie acted like she wanted to until we started approaching the stalls.  She had a death grip on Brandon the entire time we were out there.

 

She wanted nothing to do with the horse - no petting, no riding, nothing!  Meredith, on the other hand, had no problem petting the horse.  Granted, she's 6 months old and doesn't really know what a horse is - but she didn't cry.  That can't be said about her big sister!

 

Lauren looks like a natural up on the horse.

And so does Meredith! ;)

Since that didn't go well, we went back to Mamaw's house where Mackenzie was still a little apprehensive about Mamaw's dog Annie.  I managed to change her focus by telling her to play her tea party app with the girls.  The app has a place setting for 3 people where you eat and drink by tapping on the food, but she always has to do it herself if Brandon and I don't play with her.  This time, she was able to have a tea party with 2 other girls!  It was really cute.  Then she showed them her other apps.  Even, Bubba was interested! ;)

Although being around animals aren't her thing, Mackenzie still really enjoyed visiting with everyone.  This was the first time I've really seen her open up and play with kids she's never met.  She really enjoyed sitting outside with the older girls for lunch.  I think she did more talking than eating.  (Yep, she takes after me!) ;)  Through the screen door I could hear her talking and/or singing to Claire and Lauren almost the entire time!

Unfortunately, since Annie (the dog) stays next to Mamaw almost all the time, Mackenzie didn't sit next to her very much and I don't have any pictures of the two of them.  But, I do have pictures of Meredith and Mamaw.

We had a great time and now that it's only 1 1/2 hour drive, I think we'll go more often and make up for the 6 year absence!

RRSP: Letter V

I'm so behind in my preschool posts!  Two weeks ago we studied the letter V, the number 8, the color brown and site word "me".  Our memory verse was "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life." John 6:47.  Mackenzie was very quick to point out that it sounded like John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave is only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  She actually said it sound like the "letter F verse", but that is John 3:16.

I didn't take many pictures this week, but we did do our usual - color the verse, tracing letter V...I also found (Preschool Palace) a little extra sheet for her to do - find the letter V.

She now insists on cutting the vocabulary cards herself.  She asks for help if the safety scissors are being stubborn and won't cut.  I'd like to use different scissors, but I don't want to take any chances with her cutting her fingers just yet.

She likes the picture sorts we do with words that start with the letter we are studying.  It helps that some of them are the same as the RRSP vocabulary cards.  This sort is from the Bible and Rhyme program.

For our letter V collage, I just gave her a bunch of different V stickers.  She did have to look for them herself, so that helped with her letter recognition.

One of the activities we did was sort fruit and vegetable cards from Homeschool Creations.  We looked at each card and decided if it was a fruit or a vegetable.  She new most of them, but there were a few that were new to her - cauliflower, zucchini, onion, squash & lime.  I thought it was funny that she new what a lemon was but not a lime.  I guess we've just never talked about them being similar.  For cauliflower she said she would try it when she's older.  (I can relate to this, since when I was little I always said I would eat potatoes when I turned 10.)

 

After sorting, we matched our play food to the picture cards.  We didn't have everything, but we had quite a bit.

Our letter V craft was using water colors over masking tape to create letter V in the void space.

 I helped paint quite a bit, but I think it turned out pretty cute.  We'll have to do this again soon.

Since we were studying fruits and vegetable, I had planned to go to the strawberry patch to pick strawberries and to buy some vegetables at the farm's store, but the weather canceled our trip.  I'm hoping to go this week and then we will officially be finished with this unit.

Cake Pops

Mackenzie and I made cake pops last week.  Well, we tried, anyway.  I think my cake was a little too moist and once the icing was added, it was way too moist to stay on the stick.  I also, think the chocolate bark was too heavy for cake pops and maybe the balls were too big.  I know it sounds like I'm saying everything was wrong, but I think/hope my theory is right.  They kept trying to come off the stick, so after about 6 or 8 pops, I made just plain cake balls for the remaining cake. 

Mackenzie helped lick the bowl after we mixed the cake and icing.  I think she liked it! ;)

She also helped roll 2 balls.  She then decided to lick her hands clean.  After she was done she asked if she could roll more balls.  I, of course, said no.  I probably should have said all of the cooking rules prior to her licking her hands, but lesson learned, I guess.

Although they didn't turn out quite they way I had planned, they were still delicious!  Next time I will use the candy melts and a different cake mix and hopefully, they'll be even better.  I think I also need to make the cake pops for a special occasion and not just because I want to. Other than the friends we had over the day after we made them, no one else ate them except us.  Read mainly me.  I think I seriously ate half of the 38 cake balls/pops in the week that they were in our house! :/  It's a good thing I'm still walking on the treadmill every other day!

Too much excitement!

Now that Meredith is older, Mackenzie has asked to hold her more often.  The other night she wanted to hold Meredith, but Meredith was a little too excited for her.

Meredith's arms and legs were moving pretty wildly and her hand hit Mackenzie right as I was taking the picture.

"Oooow, that hurt!"

"I didn't like that."

"I'm done.  Pick her up."

shopping for bathing suits

We went summer clothes shopping for Mackenzie this weekend.  While we were there, we decided to shop for bathing suits as well.  At first, we only found a few and this is the one we decided to try on:

But, as we were headed to the dressing room, we found another rack with swimsuits.  We each chose a suit for her to try on.

This was my choice:

I wanted her to have a 2 piece so that bathroom breaks would be easier this summer without having to pull a wet one piece back onto her body.  She liked it and it fit well, but was eager to try on her pick.

Mackenzie's choice:

I wasn't too fond of the pineapples and unfortunately it didn't fit her.  She doesn't need to know that they make other sizes that might fit her.  If it's too big, we just can't get it. ;)

Brandon's choice:

I thought this might be an issue with her since she doesn't like to show her belly even around me and Brandon, but we decided to try it anyway.  She did not disappoint in making me laugh!  I put the top on first and she immediately tried to pull it down "all the way".  I told her it that was as far as it went and then I put the bottoms on her.  She then tried to pull the bottoms up to cover her belly and make the two pieces meet!  Hilarious.  She wouldn't even go out of the dressing room to show Brandon!  Crazy girl! ;)

So, we bought my pick - yay!  Now we are ready for summer!  Well, she is anyway...I'll have to work on convincing myself to wear my swimsuit! ;)

Action shots

Unlike this weekend, last weekend was beautiful.  The girls and I played outside in the backyard and I, of course, took my camera.  I took some really great action shots of the girls jumping (Mackenzie) and falling (Meredith). 

This is Mackenzie doing a jumping jack.

 

I read somewhere that in order to get a really good jumping shot, you have to get as low as possible.  I laid down on the ground and had my camera set to continuous shots for this next string of pictures.  I love them!

The grass was a perfect place for Meredith to practice sitting up.  When she fell back it didn't hurt her, so I was able to let go of her and let her try to stay up on her own.  I did get some pictures of her falling and I love that she tried to grab the sheet to keep her up.

The last picture isn't an action shot, but it's cute! ;)