Favorite Preschool Moments

Last Friday was my last time to teach preschool for Paige this year. Since September I’ve been rotating with 3 friends of mine. Paige still has another month of preschool, but since my turns are finished I wanted to share some of my favorite moments I had with these darling little girls. It reminded me how much I love the creativity that goes into teaching. I had such a good time…

Letter A: we sprinkled “ants” on our cupcakes

Letter G: G is for gingerbread man. We made some cute gingerbread men out of paper and sprinkled them so they smelled just like the real thing! After reading the real story we kind of made up our own. I had fun seeing how many letter G words our gingerbread man could run away from. I put pictures of each of the words in a paper sack and the kids drew them out one at a time, and added to our story. Our little gingerbread man ran away from: a ghost, a gorilla, a giraffe, a girl, a grandma, a grandpa, a guy, a goat, a guinea pig, a goose, a giant, a grasshopper, a gecko, a goldfish, a groundhog, a gazelle, and a gopher!
The kids used a small skewer to poke holes along the dotted line on the letter G. Then, we hung them in the window so the light could shine through!


We turned our "Goldfish" into Rainbow Fish!

Letter K: I taught the kids some letter K dance moves. They seriously loved this! Karate chops, Kangaroo hop, Kicks. We turned kernels into popcorn for snack.

Letter L: we watched this little 8 minute movie online called “Lambert the Sheepish Lion” which they loved! I had some perfect cookie cutters, so I made jello jigglers and they got to choose what they wanted: a lion, leopard, lamb, lizard, or a ladybug. I cut off the leaves of tons and tons of my silk flowers until I had a whole bunch. I taught them the song “Leaves are falling all around” (From the LDS Children's songbook). I stood above them on a chair and sprinkled leaves on their heads while we all sang. They had me do it again and again.

Valentines Day Party:
I made these fun SweetTart butterflies for the kids, and had them paint the wings. I thought they turned out cute. Of course, my child was the one that broke into her candy before I could even get a photo!



I made them all princess wands (because it was a party!)

Letter Q: We went on a quest around the house to find all the hidden Q’s, we made quarter rubbings, we made quesidillas, and the kids searched one at a time through a big bowl of sand to find all of the “Queen’s jewels and treasures”. They totally loved that – it was so cute!
I had this bowl loaded with jewels! The girl wearing the crown got to search.

Letter T: The kids used old toothbrushes to brush the teeth (we pretended our white paint was toothpaste)! Amazing toothpaste I'd say...



We had to do some letter T dance moves – it just lent itself too well: tap dancing, tip toeing, twisting, twirling, the tigger bounce, turtle swim, the train (my kids help me me come up with these! ☺)

Letter V: We made bowls of vegetable soup, made a volcano erupt, and decorated "vases" with letter v's so the kids could take home a bouquet of cookie flowers:




My friends who have been doing the preschool with me have done such a good job. This is just the fun that I got to experience with the girls. Multiply this by 4 and Paige has had a lot of fun this past year. I'm so glad my friend suggested this idea and invited me to be part of the group. What a great memory!

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter Everyone!
Our day has been great so far. A definite highlight was when the primary kids sang so well in sacrament meeting! They did so good! I'm the primary music chorister in our ward, and I taught the primary children "Jesus Has Risen" and "Jesus Is Our Loving Friend". With Jesus Has Risen, we had the organ play chimes along with the piano. That was neat, and then the kids did actions (half sign language / half made up actions) to Jesus Is Our Loving Friend. I was so proud of them all.

This was part of my day as well, though not the highlight: I got back from my parent's house last night & got the mail. I had a Kohl's ad that said "Mother's Day - May 8th". Suddenly my mind panicked! Next week our ward has stake conference, meaning the next week is Mother's Day (May 8th), meaning that TODAY I needed to teach the kids Mother's Day songs (so they can sing in sacrament meeting). Since the kids just performed today I knew they wouldn't jump up and down when I told them we were singing the next time we're all at church! I hurried and taught the kids the songs in 15 minutes today, trying my best to make it fun for Easter at the same time. Right after church I got to thinking...May 8th is probably going to be Fast Sunday....GREAT! I'M SUCH A DORK!!! As you all know, you don't have speakers or musical numbers on Fast Sunday. Sure enough, it's going to be Fast Sunday. Kind of weird to have Fast Sunday on Mother's Day, but that's how it turned out. I feel silly that I rushed to teach them those songs, and I told them we'd perform them, but oh well, what do you do. My mind just didn't put that one together.

We had a fun weekend with my family, hunting for eggs, rolling eggs, swimming in the hot tub, flying a big kite my dad bought for the kids, and celebrating my brother-in-law Jordan's graduation from Weber State University.

Hunting for eggs:

She found a golden egg! Meaning, she found an egg with MONEY inside!

Ashlie wasn't too interested in finding the eggs. Once her first egg opened up (revealing candy inside), she was completely occupied with EATING instead of hunting.

At Kaysville Jr. High, rolling our eggs down the hill. In the tradition of my grandpa Memmott, my parents paid Megan 25 cents for rolling her's the furthest, Alyssa (my niece) 25 cents for having an egg that didn't crack, and 10 cents for Paige because...well,...because she's cute, & she participated!

Ashlie had fun too. Brad and I colored 6 eggs for her to roll, and she preferred to just sit in this spot while she threw them over, and over again. We eventually had to help crack hers!

This afternoon we did baskets at our house. Here's the first thing Paige pulled out of her basket:

You know, I didn't think anyone could love candy as much as Paige. Candy always makes her top 3 when she's listing off her favorite things. Apparently I was wrong. Ashlie obviously has learned from her big sister that candy really is one of the happy things in life:


We hope you all had a great day as well!

Game Night!

Lately, Megan has been loving learning new board games. It's no secret that Brad and I enjoy playing games, and lately its been a great bribe for Megan: If you do this...we'll teach you a new game. Totally works. She has her kid games that she loves of course, but here are some of the ones we've taught her lately. Mastermind and Mancala are Paige and Megan's favorites! Cool thing was that we actually read the instructions for Mancala before teaching it to her, and learned we'd been playing it wrong for 10 years! :)

The games are: Sorry, Blokus, Mastermind & Aggravation (both games that I used to play at my grandma & grandpa John's), Life on the Farm, Mancala, and Waterworks (which I used to play at my grandma & grandpa Memmott's).

Last night I taught Megan Life on the Farm, & then at 6:15 the two of us started this 500 piece puzzle of Logan. We'd never done this puzzle before, and even with Brad and Paige joining us at 7:00, we didn't finish it until 9:30. It was so fun though. Seriously, 30 minutes at a time would pass by without me even looking at the clock. I told Megan she had to go to bed at 8:15, and bed time kept getting pushed back further and further because she wanted to see it finished. I taught preschool this morning, so I knew I was going to have to clear this off my table as soon as I woke up, so we HAD to finish! :) Here's the finished product! I was amazed we had all the pieces!!! Yahoo!

Our First Family Trip To Disneyland!!!

My last two posts have described our California trip - except for Disneyland. In this post I wanted to share some of our fun moments from the three days we spent at the park. We didn't want to leave!!!

We waited to visit with 3 of the Disney Princesses. This was absolutely a highlight. Paige absolutely loves Ariel, and it was so fun to take Paige to see her. My girls get shy around strangers, and I was proud of them for taking photos with so many characters, and for getting as many autographs as they did. Fun memories!




Another highlight for the girls was when we waited at Pixie Hollow to see 3 of the Disney Fairies. They loved Rosetta! She kind of sounds like Kellie Pickler! :)





The kids loved driving the cars. We did this ride twice. I rode once with Megan, and then with Paige. I seriously laughed the entire time I was in the car with Paige because she could barely see over the steering wheel! She was quite the dangerous driver! :)


Pinocchio:



Even Ashlie liked Disneyland!

This is Ashlie going crazy when bubbles were falling from the ceiling during the Disney Junior show. She danced throughout the entire thing.


Riding Dumbo:


Toon Town:






We saved one of the very best rides for just about the last. The new 3D Toy Story ride was so fun.


The new World of Color show was absolutely fantastic. It's a water show with tons of Disney movie clips projected onto the water. Here's a clip:


Memories with my family are my favorite thing in the whole world. I'll never forget this trip. Hope you enjoyed the posts!

OUR 2 DAYS WITH PAUL & JULIANNE'S FAMILY

Before Disneyland, we spent 2 days with my sister Julianne, and her family. We had so much fun together - it just was way too short! We met at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. At this park the kids rode horses, we all went on a miniature train ride, everyone toured a train museum (while I stayed in the car with a napping Ashlie), and then we went up to the Griffith Park Observatory and viewed LA and the Hollywood sign. Take a look at the fun we had...

In line for the pony rides:
Megan went first. Since she was 7 years old, she could ride the larger ponies. They strapped her on with a belt, and away she went - giggling the entire time practically. She loved it!

Paige and my niece Brooklynn, and my nephew Landon went next. They were on the medium sized ponies. Paige was bobbing up and down like crazy when her horse was trotting around the track. It looked like she was just focusing on holding on. Honestly, it was hilarious!!! Believe it or not, she got off her horse and told us how fun it was. Paige is in the hot pink jacket:

My nephew Landon loves trains, and Griffith Park had lots of trains! We all went on a little ride.

At the train museum:

We walked up to the Griffith Park Observatory where we had a great view of the Hollywood sign & all of LA!





Next, we drove out to a beautiful area (Irvine, California) to take our chances at getting a free ride on the Great Park Balloon. The weather was rainy, so they weren't taking anyone up in the balloon in the morning. We walked through the farmer's market, and then waited around until they said the weather had cleared enough that they'd begin giving rides in the balloon. While we waited for our turn we rode the free carousel at the park. It was so neat that all of it was free! Here are some pictures of the carousel and our ride in the helium balloon. The balloon went up 400 feet. I was probably more nervous about looking down than anyone in our group, even though the balloon was my idea!
Isn't my nephew, Landon cute?! I can't get enough of him!


My adorable niece, Brooklynn:


My girls, Megan & Paige:



The balloon:


Going up!


This is the group that went up just after us:

We went to Laguna Beach together. It was Megan, Paige, & Ashlie's first time to ever see the ocean. It wasn't very warm, but they loved it!

On the last day of our trip, before we flew home, Brad and I and the girls went to the Fullerton Arbortoreum. It was a 26 acre botanical garden taken care of by the university. It was beautiful! There were ponds, streams, orange trees, varieties of trees and flowers we'd never seen before, and a very neat desert area.