Week of June 28 - Dinosaurs

 Monday

The kids took turns being grumpy this morning, which made it really difficult to bust out activities. So we watched tv, walked to the playground and played for a little bit, and then came home to get the boys down for naps after lunch because Clesse desperately needed to catch up on some sleep from missing his nap yesterday. He was so sweet and while crying because I had to change his diaper, he told me, "jammies on mama". Yes buddy, it's definitely time to nap! I'm so proud of him for recognizing what was causing his distress.

While he napped, Charlotte, Koko and I put together this dinosaur "amusement" park that I ordered on prime day. It's kind of amazing. It has gears that you can either turn using the motor, or if you connect it to this music house then it will turn it for you! There's also a magnet that pulls the "car dinosaurs" (as Clesse calls them) up onto the track so they continue to go around and around. Charlotte and Luke loved watching it, and when Clesse woke up he was absolutely delighted too!

Tuesday

It was a horizontal day. And by that, I mean that I woke up with a horribly stiff neck and had to spend most of my time entertaining the kids while I laid down. We started off with this pattern puzzle. The kids did great playing together until Koko decided it would be more fun to destroy it, which made Clesse realize that, which made sissy pretty upset.

Sissy is a really awesome artist, so when I was at the Dollar Tree and saw this book I had to grab it! Plus it's fun for me too. She did an awesome job following the steps to create dinosaur pictures. 

My last horizontal activity for the day before Kev came to save me was to lay down on a blanket with pillows propping me up and a huge container of Goldfish for the kids. Then Clesse and Charlotte decided it would be fun to yell at birds (Koko joined them here and there). On these days where I can't do much, I find that Clesse and Charlotte peak with their cute moments playing and also fighting. They have to interact more to entertain themselves when I'm struggling and it's so fun to watch their relationship develop.

Wednesday

In the morning we met up with some friends to see "Ann Lincoln's Magic Show". She was incredibly engaging for the kids and had Charlotte cracking up most of the time. Clesse started to join in too once he got over the novelty of it all, and was so excited when he got to pet the bunny at the end of the show!

In the afternoon, Charlotte worked on her stegosaurus counting book. I found some clipart of a stegosaurus, added some text and then put all the hole punched pages together with a pipe cleaner, which actually works really well for keeping the pages in place when they're turned but also glides relatively smoothly. I saw one teacher use a dabber to create spots and decided to modify it a little bit by using a stamp pad and fingerprints since they're a little smaller for the pages.Luke's naps were a little weird today, so while Clesse napped and Charlotte watched TV I enjoyed some long overdue one-on-one time with him. He is so fun and cute and I can't believe he's going to be 1 next week!Once Clesse woke up from his nap, we hatched dinosaur eggs! Since Charlotte knew what was going to happen when we added vinegar to the baking soda eggs, I thought it would be funny to put a Flynn Ryder in instead of a dinosaur for one of her eggs. But she didn't think it was that funny, she kind of just told me, "I told you it was a human." Haha, oh well! At least Clesse was impressed. One funny tidbit is that when Kev was done with work I had already cleaned up our activity, so he was very confused why Clesse smelled like vinegar 😆.

Luke's First Birthday!

We finished off our dinosaur theme by celebrating our favorite little dino's first birthday. Happy birthday sweet boy!