We'll just make our own sunshine!!

Here in our state, it has been a veritable monsoon season! I thought it was supposed to be SPRING!?? I have been so looking forward to the warmer weather with the brilliant sun shine. Well, I guess we will have to wait a bit longer. We have had 8 straight days of rain and there is no end in sight! The worst part about it is all of the THUNDER storms and tornado SIRENS that wake us all up at night (except for my heavy-sleeping, snoring hubby:) which leads to a "cranky-pants day" with tired little girls (and Mom). 

So................we decided to make our own Sunshine:-)

You can make your own, too!

We got the idea here.

It was frugal and it was fun!!

Blessings,

Aria:)

Our "Fun" Easter Projects! {eggs and more}

While we heavily focus on the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ during this Easter holiday season, we still think it is ok to have some fun with some good old fashioned Easter eggs;-)! Just so long as our girls know the REAL reason for the season----still....no Easter Bunny here, though(or Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus either:)

Enjoy seeing what we have been up to!

 Em and Elle both had fun matching up the capital and lower case letters I wrote on the plastic eggs.  Mostly, Em identified the letters, gave suggested beginning sounding words and then.....made little hats out of them, lol:)

 Em had a BALL finding her little eggs. I even found some in the shape of Elmo with bunny ears. They were so cute:)

 This was the 1st year we hid eggs for the girls to find. Elle really enjoyed it as well! She had fun counting up all the eggs.

The girls mostly got stickers, coins and a few dollars in the eggs. I wrapped the gifts in tissue paper so they all would sound the same when shaken. So, they were so happily surprised when they opened them. They each got 1 chocolate/caramel egg and 2 jelly beans:) That should last them all year, lol.

 Found these new Easter cookie cutters for only 90 cents!

 I used convection bake on our oven and it turned the edges a little brown, but they were still really good! They were lemon-sugar cookies;)

 Em and Elle had a good time putting little ornaments on this spring/easter tree.

 Tonging plastic eggs with bunny tongs.

 Tweezing little plastic bunnies into a mold.

 I made these eggs with different sounds. Each egg had a matching sound. The girls LOVED this activity and kept going back to it throughout the week!

 "I found a match, Mommy!!!"

 Here is what I put inside.

 Sorting jelly beans. Funny, she did not eat one of them--didn't even ask:)

 Spooning and pouring jelly beans.

 Hiding eggs for Mommy and Daddy to find. Very funny girls---the eggs they hid were EMPTY:)!!

 Of course, we dyed eggs. It was a lot of fun!

What do you all do with all of these boiled eggs????/

Blessings,

Aria:)

Our Gardening Unit!

We had a really, really fun time working through our gardening unit. We got most of our printables from Homeschool Creations' Gardening Pack. We tweaked the preschool pack to suit our needs and the girls' interests and let them have fun just playing in the dirt!

 I got this adorable mini-gardening tool set at my favorite Thrift Store for just 90 cents!

 Elle had a ball tweezing the little baby carrots.

 Elle did a great job separating the pictures of seeds that would either grow into vegetables or flowers!

 We spent some time learning about the parts of a flower.

 Elle matched up the words to the parts on the printed picture.

 Em loved learning all of the new words and names of gardening-related items. We actually have a family in town we know that has a huge garden every summer. We are going to go over there and learn first-hand from them {since Mommy and Daddy do NOT have green thumbs;)}

 We planted some Rosemary, Basil, Cilantro and Chives.

 We also decided to try to grow some things in egg shells. They worked out nicely!

 We turned these cards into a memory match game after laminating them.

The girls LOVE checking the plants every.single.day....multiple times per day:)

 Elle cut out some pictures from magazines and both girls had a lot of fun classifying them as living or non-living.

 And on a rainy day, some lovely deer grazed in our neighbor's back yard. (no, we do not live in the country, lol:)

Em and Elle loved watching them and kept asking if they could go outside and pet them:)

 Em working on sequencing cards of a plant growing.

Elle worked hard at matching the words with the gardening items pictured.

Our little plants are starting to grow-the girls are so proud!!! The LOVE showing everyone "their plants" and we cannot wait for them to grow enough that we can transplant them into pots and snip a bit off to use in our cooking!!

 The girls had a GREAT time making these simple bird feeders. We used dry cereal and bird shaped templates. Our birds LOVED them!! They were gone in no time!

Blessings,
Aria:)