I just realized I missed writing about one of our weeks. So here is a little catch-up on what we've been doing.
Some highlights that didn't get photos were walks with friends in the forrest. We finished up this term's swimming classes (TJ will move up a level in January, while MJ still has a few more thing to complete at his current level). We celebrated my sister's birthday and my boys made the cake. Nanny came to watch the boys one day and had fun playing Monopoly Jr with TJ. We went to a Homeschool Christmas party and had a fabulous time. And we have been taking care of a friend who is off school this week. The boys love having her over to play it has been such a blessing.
We started last week with painting more wooden animals. The boys then played farm most of the week. We did end up tidying up the farms a little to make the boys room look more manageable. Lots of fun animal adventures have gone on.
TJ also set up a pet daycare using some toys that came down from their cousin. TJ took excellent care of our stuffies and the boys were very much amused by all the noisy toys for a few days.
I often get inspiration and ideas from other blogs I read. I tried out a game with our base 10 blocks. I made a number with the blocks, TJ then made it on the abacus and told me what it was. We even added a few larger numbers together. Meanwhile MJ made a corn field with the base 10 blocks and counted how much corn was knocked over by his tractor. The base 10 blocks also came out again as TJ was experimenting with his bulldozer. He tried pushing everything including the nativity set.
MJ made a fort that he turned into a store. We had fun buying things from him. That day we also sung lots of Christmas carols for fun.
Both boys have been making interesting Lego creations. We had one of the boy's friend's over in the morning and they all made Lego cars most of the time. It was interesting to see how two 4 year olds negotiate and interact. We are very thankful to have such great friends around us.
One day I suggested that I had an activity for the boys to do. MJ jumped right in and said he needed to make his craft first. The boys each made a carwash from a paper bag. They pretended to wash all their cars. TJ even announced the opening of his carwash to all the cars around the house pretending his recycled parts airplane was making the announcement over the radio.
We finally got to moving a new load of wood to the font door. The day the wood was to be delivered TJ went outside to get some fire wood and ran back inside saying there was a furry lump in the wood pile. I went to check and discovered a racoon camped out at the front door. He was very stunned and stubborn. After many attempts to scare it off he finally moved into our shed (not much better but at least away from the front door). He's moved on since and we moved our wood.
TJ decided to make his own set of tree blocks all by himself.
We also made some birdseed ornaments. We had to half the recipe because we didn't have too many seeds left. TJ is amazing with division! I think the pictures helped a lot.
At our church all the children participated in a family service on the weekend. The boys were wonderful and remembered all the actions and words for their songs despite being sick and missing many Sunday's for rehearsals. My mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law all came out to see the boys. It was very well done.
Later in the afternoon MJ spent ages building a train track and road way from blocks. We had our old employee over for dinner and the boys were blessed with some new games to play.
A few other random things... While my mom was watching the boys one day, TJ created what he calls a soka-moka kit. It is a decorate your own socks kit that he made from paper for me! He later made a pant decorating kit for daddy by tracing his pants onto a large sheet of paper.
TJ and I finished his gift of MJ. He did most of the work on this needle felted fox. I gave MJ some suggestions of things we could do for his brother. He firmly told me he wanted to make a bulldozer lego kit. So he gathered up some of our lego into a box and wrapped it up for Christmas.
I finally made a second attempt with a shaving cream activity for the kids (the little girl we are watching wanted nothing to do with this). I was trying to make dough using shaving cream and cornstarch. I should have made it up myself then let the kids play with it. As you can see the boys had fun making a mess, but we ended up throwing most of it out. I think I'll avoid the use of shaving cream for now on, or only do it in the summer outside near a hose!
MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! We'll be back with some Christmas highlights soon....
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