Class Book

Zach's second grade class has been working on a class book about animals.
Every student researched an animal and then they drew a picture of it and wrote a paragraph about it.
Then they had it published!
We could each buy one if we wanted.
So, of course we bought one.
(Especially since we had an 8 year old pleading with us...)
This is the cover of their book:

Zach's animal was the Bottle-nosed Dolphin.
Here is his picture:

Here is his paragraph:

This was such a fun project!

Zach really enjoyed doing it and was very proud of his book when he got it. =)

Night At The Library

On Thursday night, Lily & I were going to go to the library for a stuffed animal sleep over.
The library was having a pajama story time for children and their stuffed animals and then the animals would get to "sleep" over at the library & the librarian (Aunt Amy) was going to take pictures of what the animals did while they were there & then everyone who came got a scrapbook when they went back to pick up their animal.
Lily was SUPER excited about it!!
When the boys heard what we were doing, they wanted to go too.
So, they all got there jammies on and grabbed a stuffed animal.

Here is who they took:

I reminded them that whoever they took had to stay at the library, so they needed to take someone they were ok with not sleeping with that night.
Lily & Riley chose animals they didn't really sleep with (Hello Kitty & Scooby Doo).
Zach however really, really wanted pictures of Dog-Dog having fun at the library.
Jeff & I were very surprised at this choice.
Zach has had Dog-Dog since he was 1 day old. (Given to him by Uncle Bill.)
He LOVES Dog-Dog.
Like really, really loves him.
But he was determined so we let him take him.


At the story time, they got to listen to stories and do fun dances with their animals.

Then they decorated the outside of their scrapbooks for their animals.

Then they got their pictures taken with their animals and told them good night.

(I have no idea why Riley looks so sad in this picture... he wasn't sad at all!)

That night, someone may or may not have been upset before bed.

That someone would not admit that he was missing a certain someone.

Even after we said Aunt Amy would bring him home to him.

He said he was just tired.

After school, the first thing the kids wanted to do was go to the library to pick up their animals and see what fun things they got to do at the library!

Here are the front of their scrapbooks:

Here are some of the pictures that were in their scrapbooks:

They got to play on the computer......


do puzzles (Lily thought this one was especially funny).....

and sleep on a sleeping bag!

Looking at the pictures was like a "Where's Waldo" game. =)

They had fun looking for their animals in each picture.

Thanks Aunt Amy & the staff at the Central Library!!

The kids had a lot of fun!!!

Rainbow Craft Day

I got the idea for this St. Patrick's Day themed craft (rainbows...) from this craft we did at the library:


"Stained glass" mittens. =)
My sister (the children's librarian for the Wichita Public library) let us know about a fun winter craft day at the library & this is one of the things they did. So cute!

Since St. Patrick's day is getting closer, (and there are only so many things you can do with a shamrock) and I am wanting Spring to get here faster, I thought that a cute spin on this craft would be to make a stained glass rainbow!

I went to the store and got big construction paper, contact paper, and tissue paper in all the colors of the rainbow.....except orange. (and we used pink for red) There was no orange tissue paper. Not even a space for it. But, I found orange napkins and got those instead! =)

I cut out the outline of a rainbow for all three kids.

Then I cut out squares of tissue paper.

I made my sisters help me lay the contact paper out and then lay the outlines on the contact paper, sticky side up.

Then the kids went to work making their rainbows.

It was a little bit hard for Lily at first. She just wanted to stick all of the colors all over the place instead of making arches of colors to form a rainbow.

Once she got the hang of it though, she did a good job.

So did both of the boys!

I wish I had found red paper though.

Camden did NOT want to use pink. ;-)

That is a girl color!

His rainbow turned out super cute anyway. =)

Here is Lily's rainbow when she was done:

Technically you are supposed to have another rainbow outline to put on top so it looks the same both ways.

But I forgot this step when I was cutting them all out.

And then I was too lazy to cut out three more outlines. =)

Anyway, after you put the other outline on top of the first outline (pretend I did that), you lay another sheet of contact paper on top of that to seal the tissue paper in.

Lily's is a a little wrinkly.

She helped me put the paper down. =)


We took the kids and their rainbows outside so we could see how pretty they were in the sun!

Here is Lily's on our sliding glass door:

All of the kids did a great job!!

I am going to have the boys do this project this weekend.

They are excited about it!

On an unrelated note, my mother-in-law won the primary for the Wichita School Board last night!! =) We are SO proud of her.

The final vote will be April 5th. If you live in the Wichita area, please vote for Sheril Logan for the at large school board seat. She will be an asset to the school board.

Bear Scout

On Sunday, we went to Zach's Blue & Gold Banquet for scouts.
He got several badges.
One for helping sell popcorn, one for selling over $800.00 worth of popcorn, one for participating in the Pinewood Derby, and one for donating to the scouts.
But the most important thing that happened was that Zach and his fellow den members became Bear Scouts!!
They got to change their neckerchiefs to blue with a bear slide.
They will get their actual bear badges at the next pack meeting.

He worked all year to complete the activities to become a bear scout.

We are so proud of Zach for working so hard!!

Congratulations Zach!!

Chalkboards

I was walking around Michael's yesterday looking for something for Lily to do as an art project and I saw these:

These cute chalk boards were only $1.99 each!!
They came in lots of shapes, but I grabbed a princess one for Lily & rectangles for Lily's cousins for a craft day.

I also got this pink marabou for Lily's crown, glitter flower & star stickers, and chalkboard sticker paper to cut shapes out of:

Before craft day started, I hot glued the pink marabou onto Lily's crown.

She was super excited about it.

Then when Camden came over (Johnny was sick =( so he couldn't come), he and Lily decorated their chalk boards.

I didn't get any pictures of them actually decorating them, but I did get some off them coloring on them when they were done!

Here are their cute chalk boards!

These were fun to make and the kids can use them over & over again!

Grilling Out

Zach had to help Jeff grill a meal for Scouts.
Since it was so nice on Saturday, we decided to do it then.
Here is Zach helping Jeff grill chicken & hot dogs:

We added pasta salad to what Zach cooked and we had a yummy dinner to eat outside!

Then we decided to cook marshmallows over the fire.

We used regular marshmallows & strawberry heart ones too!

Jeff got the fire going:

The kids had fun roasting their marshmallows!

Yummy!

Zach did a great job cooking dinner for us!

You Know You're In Kansas.....

when it is -17 degrees one week with 7 inches of snow on the ground,
and then 78 degrees the next week & you are playing outside with short sleeves on.
I am not complaining about the weather this week though.
The kids have loved being outside.
And I have LOVED the kids being outside. =)
We have been spending a little too much quality time inside.
(If you know what I mean.....)
So, here are some pictures of what we have been doing outside:

Zach has even been reading outside.

We are going to keep enjoying this weather before it gets cold again.

Because it will get cold again.

We live in Kansas. =)