Week of July 19 - Farm

 The last two weeks...

We took a little break from mommy pre-school to venture out to San Francisco and central California to visit family and attend a really good friend's wedding. While we were in central California, we stayed on a ranch through Air BnB. It was AMAZING. The kids rode on miniature horses, we fed chickens, goats, horses, cows and had the opportunity to visit the horses whenever we wanted. Clesse started off a little unsure of all the animals, but by the end of our stay he was so comfortable with everyone on the ranch and even begged to see the horses before going to bed each night.

Monday

The end of last week was pretty crazy with driving back from California and getting in so late, so it was time for me to pull out a few things I had hidden away. I LOVE these alphabet foam mats. They cushion my crawling baby, you can make cubes out of them, they're an alphabet puzzle, you can do patterns, practice colors. There's a ton of uses for them. We also built with some MagnaTiles I had hidden away and pulled out a bunch of puzzles.

My mama heart was so happy because when Charlotte found out it was farm week after our week on the ranch, she was SO excited. She insisted I pull something out while she ate breakfast first thing in the morning. Clesse was super excited to see that I had a tractor name craft lined up as well, and was so proud of it that he carried it around for quite a while after finishing it. The kids each worked on a letter "F" worksheet and then it was time for lunch, a little more play and naps!

  In the afternoon we made a giant farm using some butcher paper and "silky crayons". The crayons have a similar texture to a glue stick - it glides really smoothly. Toddlers seem to really enjoy the sensory feel of them. I grabbed some of our farm animal bath toys and we designed our farm around those animals. I tried to label each type of animal "home", like coop, hutch, barn, etc. and Charlotte decided to name all of the animals. Charlotte was way into it and we even added a bunny hutch because we had finished all the parts of the farm for the animals we did have. Clesse used his construction truck as a transport truck for the animals. He called the big duck "mama duck" and the small duck "Clesse duck" and I just about melted. Koko was so excited to see what his big siblings had created when he woke up! (He also crawled all over the drawing of the farm and smudged a bunch of silky crayon onto his clothes and skin. I don't mind too much, but also didn't think about that when I put the farm on the floor!)

Tuesday

The kids were having a ton of fun doing their own thing today, so we didn't really do any mama pre-school. We spent the morning at Tot Time (it's amazing, it's a turf field that they allow tots to run around on and place bouncy houses, Step 2 Coasters, tons of ride ons, a million balls, etc. The crowd can be hit or miss - sometimes it's parents/caregivers letting their crazy kids loose in an enclosed space and other times it's very engaged parents who are getting their kids a little social and play time. Today was the latter, which I'm grateful for! Charlotte made "like 15 new friends" in her words. I honestly barely saw her while we were there because she was running off with other kiddos, something I never would have dreamed of two years ago when her social anxiety hit its peak.

The rest of the day was naps (while Clesse napped I laid down on the floor in Luke's room while he and Charlotte intermittently woke me up by poking me in the face and yelling), playing outside, doing puzzles and all kinds of stuff! The kids led the day today and it was super fun.

Wednesday

I'm always a little torn on how much prep to do for the kids. Sometimes it's nice to have them involved in the prep work, and sometimes I lose them because it takes awhile and because I periodically have to entertain Luke while it's happening. Today we made playdough, but it had to happen over several sittings because it was way too hard to help all three kids at one time. But eventually it was made, and we made farm scenes using it! We made pens for the animals and planted some carrots and other vegetables.

The big kids watched some TV while I did Koko's nap. They were sooo adorable and snuggled most of the time and had a few snacks. I asked Clesse if he wanted to nap and he insisted that he didn't. He seems to only need one every other day at most, so instead we played. I made these little animals on cardstock, made a hole for the mouth and glued them onto cups. The kids loved scooping the kernels into their mouths. I think sissy needed something a little more challenging, like rolling a die and drawing a card to decide what animal to feed and how much to feed it, but I didn't get around to it. Clesse really enjoyed the sensory feel of it and didn't seem to mind the simplicity.

While Clesse was finishing up playing, I got out "Count Your Chickens" for Char and I to play. The cute picture you see below is the kids before Clesse decided to turn the board upside down. And we were so close to winning to! Darn!

Once Luke was awake from his nap, we took him to the doctor to get his one year check up. He did....how a one year old does at a check up. He cried most of it 😆. But when we came out of the doctor's office we were surprised to see that it had rained a ton! When we pulled into our driveway at home, the neighbors across the street were splashing in puddles so we decided to do the same!

Thursday

In the morning we spent a lot of time playing outside because it was oddly cool today! Our tree in the front yard is so full of leaves that there's plenty of shade for us all.

While Koko and Clesse napped, I put together this cardboard cow. I added a glove filled with water and placed it through a hole in the top. When Kev got home, we poked tiny tiny holes into each finger so the kids could practice milking a cow! It honestly was super cute and fun and worked way better than I thought it would.

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Friday

We went to the Children's Museum and had a blast!

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