Music and Singing

Singing is pretty big in our house.  Having a Daddy that used to sing in Glee Club and a Mommy that used to play an instrument (and who LOVES to sing but is tone deaf), music and signing come pretty naturally in our home.  Here are a few video snipits of the kids getting creative with their music genes...

They made a gong out of tinker toys and had a self made band...

20130721_162227.mp4 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Cameron can make a song out of anything, even looking for darts for a Nerf battle...and Timo was just happy to join in with his guitar...

20131020_165701.mp4 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Can you tell what her favorite song is...caught her singing in the shower...love that girl!

20131014_183630.mp4 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Down Days

Since school has started, the most common complaint from Timo and Cameron is "we didn't have any time to play!"  Between school, after school Chinese, homework, dinner, bath and bedtime routine, the kids have very little time during the week to just play with their toys.  So Young and I decided that we would set aside at least two Saturdays a month to keep free for just stay home play time.  We would wake up to lazy mornings, no schedules, no place we needed to be and just let the kids have a free play day....and so far they LOVE it! The first few Saturdays they kept asking "Where are we going today? How long do we have to play?" Nothing and all day!

Legos tops the list of activities, which they can sit down and play up to two hours at a time just building and creating.  Timo is taking an after school Lego class once a week and is learning lots of new tips and tricks.

Random sock boxing glove matches could break out...

Lazy mornings to have big breakfasts...and time for burgers and milkshakes for lunch.

Riding bikes is usually at the top of the list too.  We're so lucky to live across from GG Park, but it's a workout just to ride from our house over to the section that is closed to traffic.  By the time we get there, ride a few loops, the kids are tired and ready to head home.

Time to work on the big puzzles...time for story time and time to read.  Since the kids are learning how to read now, it takes a while to get through one book...but on our lazy Saturdays, we have time.

Ardenwood Fall Fest

We continued our fall festivities by going to the Ardenwood Harvest Festival! We typically go ever year to get our free Indian corn and pop corn...in addition to all the cool harvest activities they offer.  We met up with our fiends, the Hirzels, and were off and running back in time to the historic farm.  Starting at the blacksmith barn, we watch a iron snail being made.

The kids discovered a new sweet treat...honey sticks!  We learned about bees making honey that was finished off by sucking on amazing fresh honey sticks.

Checking out all the other period activities...along with these, we watched corn get ground to cornmeal, old time fire hose pumping, baking in a coal oven and hand churned ice cream.

We finally made it to my favorite part...picking the corn.  We got a quick lesson on how to pick and shuck, were handed our sack and gloves and off we went.  It's very addictive!  You search and search for the pretty corn and even though you've found at least 10 beautiful ears, you just have to keep looking for an even better one!

Luckily all the corn needed to be picked and most you could give back to the farm, so we weren't doing any harm in picking more than we would take.

Fun in the corn fields!  Timo was a boy on a mission!  He probably picked the most corn out of all of us...he loved it.

Coming out of the field, our sack was full and heavy.  We found a hay bail, found our friends and started shucking it all.

The farm asked 1/3 of your loot to be given back to the farm for their use, so we carefully picked out what we wanted to keep and wanted to donate.  It all was so pretty, it was hard to choose.  But Timo loaded up and dropped off our donations.

Corn husk doll making and apple press finished off our farm visit.  I love how Timo always finds sticks to carry around....

After lunch we headed over to the pumpkin patch for a little fun.  Timo  and Matthew found the perfect pumpkin for us and was determined to take it home.  But at $30, we decided to visit our local grocery store for a little bit cheaper one!

It was a fun, hot day on the farm!  We had depleted all our snack and water by the end of the day, were dirty and dusty so we stopped in at a McDonalds to get a refreshing beverage and wash up.  Oh how we love hand dryers.  A fun, long had was had by all!

School Life--Early Fall

I'm getting behind on my school life pictures.  Here's a quick post of our daily life in school.  New shoes!! It's unbelievable how quickly my kids go through shoes...I feel like they drag their toes across the pavement and the shoes get ripped to shreds. The last pair I actually invested in good quality (read expensive) shoes in hopes that they would last longer than 3 months...no difference.  I'm back to Target shoes and they love them!

National Ride Your Bike to School Day!  Or scooter. Each child who rode a bike or scooter was met with a sticker, pencil and got to participate in the parade of wheel in the play yard.

A little school art.  I love Timo's witch using egg crates as the eyes.  And Cameron's class is studying the sight word "see".  They had to draw pictures of things they hope to see "see" one day.

Picture day!  I volunteered to help out with picture day and it was so much fun seeing all the students all dressed up.  It was especially nice to see my two good looking kiddos...and fun to see the action behind the scene.

Cameron's class has this really cool activity for all the kids to get to know each other better...it's called the "ME BAG."  Each week a different child takes the Me Bag home and fills it with all their favorite things, books, pictures...anything about themselves.  Last week was Cameron's turn and she had a really hard time narrowing things down to fit in the bag, which after talking to a few other moms, is a common problem. Good thing Mrs. Marcia made it a small bag.  A few of the things she included were her T-Rex from the Natural History Museum in NC (suggested souvenir) Wowsy-her dog that sings "Jesus Loves Me", a Switch & Go dino (her fav toy), the Elephant and Piggy book b/c she can read it all by herself, her Iron Man book and a few other little items.  It was funny, when she pulled out a family photo the class started shouting "that's Timo!"  Lot's of her classmates didn't know Timo was her brother so she proudly explained they were twins and had the same birthday but that he was older.

One thing our school does that I love is work with local business for fundraising.  Each month we have a different "Argonne Family Night" at a local business and a percent of that evening sales goes back to Argonne.  This was one night at Green Apple Books and Toy Boat desserts.  Can you guess who's book belongs to who??

Just a little taste of school life so far...October has been a busy month so stay tuned for lot's more...