Week of August 2 - Food

 Monday

We just got back from a super fun trip to Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hilton, along with some aunts, uncles and cousins. Again, Charlotte asked me if we could do mommy pre-school when I asked her what she might want to do this week! We started off making our napes with these little apples that I printed off with letters on them. Clesse glued on pictures of whatever foods he wanted while Charlotte thought of foods that started with each letter in her name, and then pasted pictures that included things that started with a letter in her name. She did awesome writing, but we still have to work on that "S"!

We came home to WAY too much zucchini from our plant, so the kids helped me make some zucchini bread. They watched the zucchini shred in our KitchenAid with the shredder attachment, and each stirred a loaf's worth and it turned out delicious. Koko was practically launching himself out of my arms trying to grab the loaves once they had cooled. Charlotte was being a grump about me taking a picture, and Clesse decided to join in (but kept breaking character, it was super cute!).

Tuesday

Clesse and Koko woke up in heaven when we looked out the window to our backyard and saw that there was a little excavator digging up some of the weeds on the path that our house backs on to. A skid steer/loader/I'm not sure what it is kept driving up and down the path to load up the dirt and weeds that were getting pulled up and Clesse very cutely would yell, "skid steer back!!"

The afternoon was picnic after picnic! We had lunch inside on the floor downstairs, and went to a playground after Charlotte's piano lesson to have some Chick-Fil-A and romp around. It was in the 70s, which is way too nice during the beginning of August to stay inside for!

Wednesday

It's not food related, but we spent the morning at the zoo! Koko was wayyyyyy too cute and loved the mountain goats and sea lions. Clesse again didn't want to leave the elephants, and was perfectly content to stay seated next to one for as long as his siblings would tolerate.

In the afternoon while the boys napped, Charlotte and I made some "juice spheres". They're kind of just jello, but the process is a lot more fun. You boil some agar agar with juice, let it cool a tiny bit, and then use a dropper to put the hot juice into some cold oil. The contact with the cold oil makes the juice form spheres! Then you can rinse them and gobble them up. We went a little too crazy with pouring the juice in and ended up with a blob of jello at the bottom because it was too crowded, but Char and I still had a lot of fun watching the spheres form. 

While Charlotte was waiting for our juice-agar agar mixture to cool, she sorted "healthy" foods from "sweet" foods with this little kit I got from Michael's a couple of weeks ago.

Thursday

The kids woke up this morning and were soo soo happy to see that Dad was home! He had been on a camp out with the youth from church and got in late Wednesday when the kids were already in bed. They had been asking me for the full two days he was gone when he'd be back. Then we were off to Tot Time!

In the afternoon we made lemon volcanoes! I cut the top and bottom off of a lemon, put a little dish soap and a couple drop of food coloring on top of the lemon and then sprinkled on some baking soda. When the kids poked the lemon to get some of the juice out, it would start to foam at the top. Clesse was initially surprised and then got very enthusiastic about poking his lemon to get more foam out - it was adorable! Charlotte was slightly less impressed, and eventually asked if she could have some vinegar and baking soda to do her own thing. It's funny how different their personalities are!

Friday

We spent the morning on Friday catching up with some friends we hadn't seen in a long time because of all of our travelling. It was really nice to have some social time, but still get to stay in our house 😄.

In the afternoon we wrapped up our food week by making our own "balanced meal" and learning about food groups, and then a counting ice cream activity! I pre-assigned the cones to numbers for Clesse and guided him with his stamping. I intended for Sis to just design her own ice cream and then count and write the numbers herself, but she saw what Clesse's looked like and ended up doing the same. Either way, she got a little practice with writing numbers which she definitely needs!