Last week, the weather was perfect for some late afternoon bubble fun!
We were outside at least 3 times last week, and Molly even convinced Pop to blow bubbles with her when he came over one evening.
While blowing bubbles is fun, popping them is even better! Molly runs around jumping, yelling "pop, pop, pop", and poking at the bubbles. It is so funny to watch! Here she is mid-air.
We used Molly's new zoo foam stickers to create our own jungle scene.
I purposely planned J week after Easter since I knew we'd have plenty of jellybeans. Molly had fun counting and matching them, but the best part of this game was eating the jellybeans when we were done!
Molly made a jellybean prayer cross to hang in her room. It says:
Red is for the blood He gave.
Green is for the grass He made.
Yellow is for the sun so bright.
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins we made.
White is for the grace He gave.
Purple is for His hour of sorrow.
Pink is for a new tomorrow.
A handful of jelly beans,
Colorful and sweet,
Is a prayer, a promise,
A loved one’s treat!
We also made some jewelry. Molly has loved wearing her new beaded cross necklace. (You may have to look closely. It blends in with her colorful shirt!)
And lastly, Leah has started playing on Molly's little keyboard in hopes of making it into Juilliard!
You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.
While most of our week concentrated on Easter, I couldn't pass up making this cute E for elephant.
This was Molly's first time working with patterns. I tried to relate them to the patterns that are on Team Umizoomi.
Molly also worked with clothespin count and clip cards for the first time. Opening the clothespins is also great for fine motor skills. (Both of these egg printables were found at Home Grown Hearts.)
Molly participated in her first egg hunt at our church, but we also had our own egg hunt in the backyard. We probably hunted the eggs 5 or 6 times because Molly enjoyed it so much!
As Molly opened the eggs, there were E items for her to match: eye, elephant, ear, egg, letter E.
For our stART project, we read What is Easter? and talked about the real meaning of Easter.
Then, Molly, Leah, and I made these handprint Easter lilies to give to Grams on Easter morning.
A funny story from this week...A wasp flew into the house, so I sprayed it with Raid and it flew into the dining room. Molly kept asking where he was, so I told her that it was not alive anymore and she says, "But Jesus is alive!"
You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.
This was our first Easter with 2 kids. Molly, experienced with Easter mornings, jumped right into her Easter basket and the candy within (I believe she's eating jellybeans here). Leah joined in too, enjoying her own Easter egg (no candy included).
We, of course, had to count the eggs.
Leah got a new book in her Easter basket, and was obviously very excited.
Leah's eggs were filled with different things and sealed, so they became shakers. When she became bored with chewing on them, Leah decided she'd try to get in shape for when she can crawl. Here she is doing push-ups. :)
After church, we headed over to Grams and Pop's house, where more Easter baskets and good food awaited. Leah enjoyed hanging out with her Aunt Caroline.
Molly knew fun was in store when hanging out with her aunts. Aunt EA obliged with some high-flying jumping.
We had strawberry shortcake for dessert, which Molly liked a lot. Of course, the stawberries were completely unnecessary to her, as she was fine eating straight Cool Whip.
Here's the family, plus our cousin Jacob who joined us for Easter lunch.
It's important to shake and egg and observe it closely to determine what kind of candy is held within.
Owen was at the Easter Egg hunt as well, and they were both pleased with their haul.
After the egg hunt, Molly colored some Easter pictures. She did a great job focusing on individual eggs with different colors.
Owen came over and joined us for coloring as well.
G'mom, Grampa, Aunt 'Chelle, and Emmie came in town to celebrate Molly's 3rd birthday. Molly was happy to get to play with her little cousin.
They loved rolling the ball to each other.
Leah thought she'd show them both up and show G'mom how she's been working on her soccer skills before she can even crawl.
To begin our 'S' week, Molly and I read The Very Busy Spider...
and made an S for spider.
She did some abstract painting using a straw. There was also a bit of splattering with a spoon.
G'Mom, Grampa, and Molly enjoyed some S'mores after dinner.
Leah got in on the theme of 'S' week too. We started her on solid foods. She's doing great and even seems to enjoy sweet potatoes, unlike her daddy and big sis!
Most of our week was spent preparing for Molly's 3rd birthday party, so I didn't quite get to everything I had in mind.
You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.
Today our little girl is 3! We've had a fun year. She's still the little dancer and now really gets her hips and arms into it! She also loves to sing and enjoys making up her own songs. It makes me happy to hear her singing the songs that I learned as a child. The best part of the year though has been watching her become the best big sister to Leah!
This weekend we had her Dora the Explorer birthday party with family and her friends.
Come on! Vámonos!
Everybody let's go!
Where are we going?
Molly's party!
All the food followed the theme with fruit salsa, monkey bread, apple and cream cheese quesadillas, and monkey mix.
The kids created their own personal piñatas to take home as party favors.
One of the hits of the party was this Dora guitar. Molly spent much of the time she was supposed to be opening presents distracted by her new toy.
Molly was really excited have "Happy Birthday" sung to her. In fact, she got to hear it twice, as a couple of the kids missed the first time while they were in the bathroom.
We of course also celebrated today on Molly's actual birthday. Chad and I tried to sing Happy Birthday to her first thing this morning and she started crying saying, "No, you can't sing without my cake!" Molly was very excited to do the cake thing again.
There are a lot more pictures of her party here.
I chose to concentrate on the letter C this week because of all the clover activities I could do around St. Patrick's Day, and we didn't even do any of them!
We started our week by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar,
and then creating our C for Caterpillar. Apparently Molly thought the caterpillar needed whiskers like Daddy! (I saw this idea at Explorations in Learning.)
Leah has started exploring a lot of Molly's toys and especially likes the "McComputer" (as Molly likes to call it!).
For our stART project, we read Spot Bakes a Cake.
We extended the story by baking cupcakes. I think we need a little more pouring practice! (I saw this idea at April Flowers.)
We decorated our cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day. Molly worked hard on "tap tapping" the sprinkles on top.
The rest of our week consisted of a lot of celebrations! First, St. Patrick's Day...
Then we celebrated the arrival of spring at the playground. I think Leah is a big fan of swinging, just like her sister. What do you think?!
And lastly a special trip to the zoo for Samson the baby elephant's 2nd birthday.
You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.
With the weather being so great this weekend, we were invited to go to The Maryland Zoo with Molly's friend, Sadie, and her family. The zoo was celebrating Samson the baby elephant's 2nd birthday. We got to sing happy birthday and watch him (and the other elephants) eat some birthday cake. Don't worry, it was a cake made for an elephant. I saw oranges, grapes, carrots, and raisins in it.
Here are the girls checking out the elephants.
There was also a cake there from Charm City Cakes (the guys on the show Ace of Cakes), though this one looked like it was designed for human consumption, not elephant.
It was perfect to go to the zoo with just two families. The girls had someone to play with and we were able to move through the exhibits fairly quickly. Sadie was very loving toward Molly the entire day.
Playing in these turtle shells was a lot of fun. Molly and Sadie crawled in them and spun each other around.
While most of the fun was a bit over Leah's head, Leah still had a great time. And who wouldn't have a great time when wearing such a cute hat.
The zoo also had a petting zoo. Molly enjoyed brushing this goat and wasn't scared of it at all.
After a long day at the zoo, everyone was thirsty. Unfortunately, neither of the daddy's got to drink very much of their drinks once the daughters got ahold of them.
Thanks, Melissa, for the invite! We had a great day!
