Christmas Writings

I love collecting writings done by the boys! Their messy handwriting and invented spellings are just so adorable! I save a lot of these samples for their scrapbook, so some I didn't even take pictures of, but the ones I did, I had to make sure they're imprinted in this blog forever!!

 Wyatt's: "We go to visit family for Christmas."

 Grant: "My family opens advent pockets. Each pocket has a surprise. I like to see toys."

Grant wrote this elf story at school. Apparently he thinks elves have buck teeth!

"If I was an elf, I would help Santa. First, I would make toys. Next, oh no! The toy machine is broken. Christmas is ruined. 1 hour, 2 hours, its fixed! Let's load up the presents. Finally, Santa takes off. Ho! Ho! Ho! said Santa."

Oh the cuteness!!!

Hidden Messages

I can't remember how it all started, but Wyatt and I have spent the better part of a month writing hidden messages to each other. I think he was coloring with a white crayon and I showed him what would happen if you used marker over it. And so it began. And oh my goodness, I think we went through a whole pad of paper that first day writing messages back and forth! They are all so precious, they are definitely going in the scrapbook!

Writing Samples

Now that my kids are emergent readers and writers, I love finding little drawings or notes or "books" they've written! They're all so cute and such little treasures!! Up until the last few months, Grant refused to write or draw anything at home. It was hard for him, so it was a chore. He never enjoyed coloring, doodling, anything like that. But now that he's stronger, he's write and coloring and drawing up a storm! Wyatt has always enjoyed coloring, but now that he's an emergent reader, he's starting to write his own words or sentences! This is just such a special time in their development and as a former teacher, I'm so excited to see them grasping these skills and being proud to use them!! Here is a small sample of pieces of collected over the past few weeks!

 Grant made a book showing all the Star Wars movies. This one says, III Attack on Coruscant.

 Wyatt drew this Stormtrooper.

 Grant likes taking stickers and adding a drawing around them. He made this Max and Ruby one, this Jungle one, and a Wallykazam one.

 Wyatt made a book of him and Grant.

 Grant made this at school. It says Someday I want to be a scientist. And he gave himself an A+, hilarious!!!

As part of Grant's book buddy bag each weeks, he has to journal about one of the books he read. I love how he sounds out words!! 

This lead them both to start a journal of their own about Star Wars characters. Wyatt worked so hard on his characters and sentences!

 Wyatt drew him and Grant wearing Mickey Mouse tshirts and Goofy hats.

 Wyatt found this picture in a coloring book and wanted to give it to Mason and Luke, because they wore those costumes for Halloween. So he labeled each of them- Masi and Looc :)

 Grant brought this home for church one Wednesday evening. It says, "This is a secrit not becos it is a secrit no bote can lisn too this secrit." I love love love this

February School and Art

 It may only be February 4th, but we've been in full swing of celebrating Valentine's Day for a few weeks now!! Lots of school, crafts, and festive fun, as usual!! 

After taking down our winter decorations, my bookshelves were missing cute kid art, so we had to get artsy and paint some canvases. I let the boys search my Pinterest board to find what they wanted to make and this is what they chose! I was surprised Grant chose this one since it was so detailed. I just love how cute and colorful it is!! Wyatt had fun dotting his canvas and made the cutest masterpiece!

 Wyatt loves learncreatelove.com and after making about everything on there for Christmas, he had to find whatever was available for Valentine's Day. He did the painting, I did the cutting, he did the gluing. Pretty cute little guys!

 Wyatt and I have been having a ton of fun working on the centers I put together. Our morning time after we take Grant to school is so fun for both of us! His excitement and enthusiasm for learning just melts my heart!!! 

 Soring medial vowel sounds in his CVC words.

 Spelling and writing CVC words

Setting up pink and red heart math equations. His new favorite hobby is doing addition problems!

Sight Word race. He's beat me 10 out of 10 times. He said it's because I always let him go first, but next time I get to go first! Sweetie pie!

Roll and Cover. He takes his dice behind his back to his "labratory" to do his adding then turns around and shouts out his answer! He's such a treat! :)

And it wouldn't be February without our wafer cookies!! Cute and delicious!!!

10 more days til Valentine's Day! I wonder what other fun we will have?!!?

Parent Presents

I am totally obsessed with my kids art work, and I'm not ashamed to admit I decorate my house with it! What's not to love?!? Handmade with love? Yes please!!! I always look forward to seeing what little presents the kids bring home from school. The last two years, at Oakwood, the boys brought home little photo ornaments of some sort. But this year, we scored big!!! Grant brought home a hand colored pot holder, a piece of word art with our family names and this magnificent canvas! They made these the morning of their party and I love love love LOVE it!! I love that I can have it up all winter long! Obviously the only thing he actually did on their were the footprints and writing his name- the other room mom decorated them all. But its a pricless work of art in my book!

And Wyatt- well, he brought his present home in early December and barely made it to the driveway before opening it up for him. He used some self-constraint and waited til after we got Grant and as soon as we walked through the door, he had me sit in front of the Christmas tree and open it up. I was blown away by his little masterpiece! He explained how he painted all of it, down to the last little detail- even the swirly snowflake. Apparently, he thought it was glitter glue he was putting on there, so once he dotted it, he swirled it around, only to find out it was just white paint. So he calls it the blowing snowflake. I think its quite VanGogh-esque! I just love this little thing so much!!  

Two priceless works of art I will proudly display each and every year from now until forever!!!

Christmas Crafting Up a Storm

It's no secret I love a good holiday craft project! Especially when hands and feet are involved!! And Wyatt is just like so we make a pretty good team! Grant tolerates my projects and will get involved every now and again, so the masterpieces I do get from him, I cherish greatly!! We've had a couple of specific activities in our Advent pockets, but many of these were just "for fun" projects! And, because I'm just "that" type of mom, most of these I took to Mardel to have laminated so I can treasure them forever (along with a handful of other old art projects I have saved from 2012 and 2013- ya, I'm "that" mom!) .25//ft,  you can't beat that for memory keeping!!

I took a variety of screenshots of some ideas I saw on Pinterest and let the boys choose which ones they wanted to do. Wyatt chose Santa and the reindeer, and of course Grant chose the mouse!! 

Grant made an angel too, should've taken a picture! Oh well, I have the real deal ready for the scrapbook! 

Wyatt had this idea all on his own! He wanted to make a wreath for the front door, so I made the white circle, he used my circle punch to make all the green circles and glued them on. He also used red glitter glue for berries. I made the bow, although it looks more like a pair of scissors, but eh, it works! And now its hanging on the back of our front door so we can see it all day long!

One of our Advent pocket activities was for a Christmas Craft Day. It just so happened to fall on the day that Grant was sick with some virus and was holed up watching movies all day, which gave Wyatt and I plenty of time to work on lots of projects! I went on to learncreatelove.com and he picked out a handful of different activites. We painted them all first, and once they were dry, I cut them out and he glued them together. They turned out pretty darn cute!! Wyatt chose his verse for the nativity, made me smile!

This idea was all Grant's, surprisingly!! We set out to make our own wrapping paper with green and red handprints, but when I realized I didn't have any more red paint, Grant suggested making a Christmas tree! So we did!! Lots of handprint brances and fingerprint lights and glitter glue ornaments! I love this one!!

We did some cookie cutter tracing and make ornaments!

We made a Christmas mural, which is proudly displayed in our dining room because the boys felt that all our holiday guests would enjoy seeing it!

And since we still have 7 days left til Christmas, who knows what other amazing creations we will have!! 

January Artwork

So I didn't get around to December artwork, sadly. But thankfully I loved it all so much I'm keeping it either in their scrapbook or I'm going to laminate it to hang up for many Christmas's to come. Yes, I'm that mom! So what!! 

But the boys did bring home some pretty cool stuff from January too!

 Wyatt's snowman makes me laugh!! He always tries so hard to make things look perfect!

 And Grant...well, he tries to make everything he makes just silly!! I think he was successful!

 They enjoyed learning how to fold paper and cute snowflakes. Wyatt was less than impressed with his and said he just needs more practice. "Maybe next year" he says!

 One of Grant's favorite Bible stories! He's been waiting all year to do this craft! It's double sided!

And Grant, of course, LOVES his walrus!

One of the weeks in January is dedicated to Gingerbread week! They have a fun Gingerbread hunt around the church and school looking for the Gingerbread Boy and they finish the day by decorating their own gingerbread cookie! Such a special week and a fun tradition!

 Wyatt made a roll of Yarn and Grant made a basket of Yarn for Y week!

They also made Yo-Yo's.

 And these are random pieces, the bird by Wyatt and the Quilt by Grant. Not sure why they don't each have one, but oh wel!

 And this was actually done one morning in church by Wyatt. For some reason, he didn't want to be dropped off at Sunday School, so he sat with us during the service. He wrote his whole alphabet. You might not be able to find all the letters in a row, but I assure you, they are there!

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I wonder how many childhood scrapbooks the boys will deem necessary when they have a family of their own. Because at the rate I'm going (or want to go!), they're going to need a room in their house just dedicated to their scrapbook collection their mom made them over the years. I'm ok with that!