Loving their Daddy

1 - "I love you" cards decorated and the first wooden heart given to kick things off
Gracious
2 - A surprise drink and snack left in Daddy's car at work with the 2nd wooden heart
Plays with us
3 - A living room decorated with balloons, streamers, pictures colored; a scavenger hunt this time for the wooden heart
Hard Worker
4 - Feet and Hands Massage; a wooden heart behind their back
Loves us Well
5 - An extra couple hours of sleep followed by breakfast in bed; wooden heart between the toast and bacon
Smart
6 - Notes and drawings on the bathroom mirror; wooden heart on the sink faucet
Builds Legos with us
7 - A video; a heart
Best Dad in the world
*To see the video full screen, pause it then click the link on the top left.



8 - Roses are Red poem and large colorfully painted hearts; mini wooden heart, too, of course
Good at cutting hair :)
9 - Numerous smiley faces on the living room floor made out of pennies, legos, and blocks (WHY did I not take a picture??); a wooden heart representing the reason for the smiles
Joyful (one of my FAVORITE things about Derek is his joy in life!!)
10 - Red sauce with spaghetti noodles with meatballs, red raspberries and strawberries, sparkling red grape juice (for the grown ups), and heart-shaped toast AND red velvet cupcakes!!; wooden heart in the middle of it all
Unselfish




11 - L.O.V.E. pictures framed, with notes from each boy; wooden heart delivered by Josiah
kind


12 - Outback Steakhouse for dinner, a journal for jotting down memories of marriage for our boys to one day read; wooden heart by a candle-lit dinner
funny


13 - Two boys all dressed up to serve Daddy dinner...and then he comes home with something different already planned. Postponing this one :); The wooden heart was served up by Titus before saying goodnight
handsome

14 - Ended the 14 days simply by leaving a card from each boy on their pillow for Daddy. "What is your favorite thing about Daddy?" (Josiah's card said "What is your favorite thing in the whole world?" Inside: DADDY! It's so true...); wooden heart next to Justus' card
handyman

Thursday Three

Sorting bears by color

USA map...with a little help from T

Playing with J's math cubes

Out with the SNOW, In with LOVE

Happy February!! :)

Some things planned this month:
- Sort candy hearts
- Make Gospel hearts for Family Bible time
- Make bees' wax hearts
- Red and pink lunch
- Make coffee filter hearts
- Show Daddy how much we love him
(more on that idea here )

Thursday Three

...except I only got 2 pictures today :)

pre-writing practice

Melissa and Doug spelling puzzles

Marshmallow Snowmen

We attempted an igloo, but it didn't work out so well. The boys had fun dying their water blue and turning that water into ice cubes anyway!! (and a lesson in "things don't always go as planned" is never a bad thing)

Thursday Three

Today, E did his shape puzzles aka Tangram puzzles,

some Do-A-Dot painting (Thank you, Mimi and Granddude!!!),

and some scissor practice.

I absolutely LOVE this workbook. I bought ours at Barnes and Noble. There is something in there for all different levels of beginning cutting. Today, E cut a clown's hair.


There was also a really fun collection of pages for a pizza party. T LOVES this book, so he was thrilled to have it in one of his drawers this morning. He got to cut out a chef's hat, a pizza pan, pizza slices, and toppings. He even decided to glue on the toppings and hand out slices of pizza to each of us.

As I was taking pictures in the school room, I heard a little voice outside the gate saying, "Cheese!!" I couldn't resist :)

J is looking so much older. He seems like such a big boy to me in so many ways, but when he sits at his desk, working on his spelling or in his journal, I am flabbergasted at how old and mature he looks. (even if he does hang his tongue out of his mouth when he is trying to concentrate :) )

A New "Curriculum"

Because of all the fun I had planning for our 25 days of Christmas Fun in December, I decided to go with the idea of themes for the rest of the school year. It really has nothing to do with Justus' lesson plans...it is all the extra-curricular FUN stuff we can all do together aside from school work.

January's theme is SNOW. In February, we will talk about LOVE (and will have an acrostic and weekly memory verses and activities to go along with that as well.) In March, I am planning some fun with March Madness. I think J and T will have a lot of fun getting involved in that.

This month, we will be doing things like making paper snowflakes, having snow cones for a special snack, and making miniature igloos out of ice cubes (if it works!!)