2015-05-11

Posted by Julie Wiens Posted on 11:14 PM | No comments

Can't Get Enough Of This Everyday Love

February, like January, saw sun and snow. It also saw Logan start his second month at the Montessori school. While it ended up not fitting his needs, they did do some great stuff. Below he is filling out a card that is "Owl about me!" I added photos of his family, friends, favorite things, etc. He did all of the coloring. This was the first time Logan seemed really into coloring. He has always liked painting, but picking up crayons has never been a big thing with him.


I tried to do a "space" theme for January, but I never did it justice. However, I feel like I gave our February theme of "fairy tales" a decent amount of effort. We built a castle, painted it, wrote words for our letters of the week on it, got books at the library to match our theme, watched fairy tale episodes of Super Why (a PBS cartoon) and more. We had a great time. The theme idea came from a great school in Albuquerque called Miss Kelly's Academy. She really helped us to get started, and it dramatically improved our lives.

Painting our castle.

Checking out our brick painting.

Playing in the castle.

No bunny bean bags allowed.

Yes, I think he likes it.

Testing its stability.

That's right, I closed the draw bridge.

Then we had some visitors in February. In fact we saw them a lot in February and March.  I guess technically they are visiting our neighbors, as they are eating the neighbor's bird food. However, their droppings tell me that they were in our yard a lot.



I'm not a fan of being out in the cold now that I am older, but how can I stay inside when soccer calls?




Plus, we had to check out the enormous wall of snow built by the neighborhood kids!

Our lips sure didn't like February (or lip balm).





As February always does, it brought Valentine's Day. This year Logan helped me make special treats for dear ones and for his classmates.
Must be properly dressed to make special treats.

I'll have him making me cakes and cookies in no time.

Front of our Valentines Cards
Inside of our card with the special treat.

This is side one of our play dough mats that we gave his classmates.

Side two and the play dough hearts we handed out. I loved giving something other than candy.

The next special treat for the month was my attempt at Logan's Bowser cake (Bowser is the bad guy in the Super Mario video games). Of course the weather did not allow us to have his birthday party (again), but at this point I was still hopeful that it would happen.
Butter cream painting

Just a few photos to show you my technique. I'm just piping on wax paper, with small tips. Then it goes in the freezer.

I should have started with the small parts first. Glad I got a 2nd shot in March.

Meanwhile it was doing this outside.

The next day Logan delivered his Valentine's cards at school. They had a great Post Office and gear to really set the mood.








I think it was a successful first part of the month, minus the once-again delayed birthday party.

2015-05-10

Posted by Julie Wiens Posted on 11:41 PM | No comments

January was warm, January was cold... NM weather for sure.

Apparently we were very busy for the second half of January. Logan had a fever. So of course we spent lots of time snuggling on the couch.



Luckily the fever only lasted a day so we were back to having fun in no time.

Not the season for jack-o-lanterns, but why should that stop us.

A new dinner game was discovered. Who can blow the wine corks the farthest? Not sure why it didn't end with: Who can pick up the corks the fastest?


Another wonderful past time is practicing cutting up paper.



Nothing our vacuum can't clean up.

Continuing our space theme, Logan painted the moon and stars.
Logan's birthday party was delayed, but it gave me time to finish all the decorations. We handed out mushroom bags filled with a Yoshi egg (full of play dough), a play dough mat, gold chocolate coins and a hat or crown for our young party goers. Sadly we didn't see them till March thanks to bad weather, schedules and illnesses. I really can't take credit for anything below. I found all of the ideas on Pinterest and just made them.
party bags and gold coin boxes

Play dough mat. I did make up this mat design though.

Super Mario hat. For those not familiar, he is a video game character.

Princess Peach crown

Party Banner

 I believe below is a photo of Logan who was a little too tired to watch Dad play Mario.

One weekend we ended up at the zoo. We managed to meet up with Logan's friend, Carsten for the day. The boys were super excited to see each other. Notice how he isn't even wearing a jacket in mid-January.





We must have stayed the night with Grandma and Grandpa Neel because the next day Logan and I were at Gravity park.


Then we headed home just in time for the next snow storm. A chance to finish up January with some sledding. Well, Dad did most of the sledding.






It is great to have so many windows overlooking our back yard and the park.