Well it’s 2022! The first week of the year (week 17) the girls were just getting over being sick so we didn’t do much. We did party poppers and watched a slideshow of all the pictures from 2021. During the slideshow Millie kept saying “I want to do that again this year!”. So I guess 2021 was a success.

Week 18 we still had snow on the ground so we made ourselves busy feeding the birds! They really appreciated it considering all the snow.

We put up 3 feeders up around the pergola and they didn’t take long at all to empty. Then a little chickadee would perch on the light and tweet at us until we refilled.

I found a list of common backyard bird in Washington for us to check off. The girls don’t give a crap about it. Lol. But I think it’s fun.

We had such a good time watching the birdies. Charlee was pointing and jumping up and down shouting “bird! bird!”. Millie liked using her binoculars to look at them.

What went along perfectly with our bird adventure was that we were learning about the creation in church for that week. We watched a little video about how God created earth and talked about it. Millie thought it was pretty awesome and it all made sense to her.

I tried to do a craft where we each decorated a paper plate for each day of creation (day and night, animals, plants etc) but Millie only wanted to make plates with space things. She made a star plate and then a moon plate. Which was totally fine. I guess we know which of God’s creations is her favorite!

December flew by. It was a little ridiculous! It felt like I woke up and all of a sudden it was Christmas.

For preschool I just wanted to focus on the life of Christ. I went out and bought a bunch of cute little board books about Jesus. We have an elf stuffy from the dollar store appropriately named “Elfie” who brings a treat for the girls each morning in December. I wrapped each book carefully and had Elfie “deliver” them to the girls one at a time.

We had a lot of fun reading the books. In the mornings we would open the book, read it, and sing Christmas songs.

We also had our church Christmas party right at the beginning of the month which was incredible. The primary kids dressed up as shepherds and angels and sang for everyone up on the stage. I didn’t think Millie would go up because she is usually pretty shy, but she did! As soon as the curtains opened she walked out in front of everyone and started calling out “MOM! MOM! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I ran up and asked her if she wanted to come down or stay and sing with the other kids. She chose to go back with the other kids. One of the little boys whose family lives close to us helped her. So that was very sweet. Halfway through the program Millie hid behind the people playing Mary and Joseph but at least it wasn’t too disruptive. I was so proud of her for being brave and going up!

We have a professional storyteller in our congregation who read some Christmas books to the children. She had them singing along and the kids were infatuated! Millie loved it so much she recreated it all month at home. She would grab a stack of books and put them next to a chair and lay blankets around it.

Elfie also brought lots of winter crafts. We did playdoh Christmas cookies and snowmen. Millie painted a bunch of ornaments from the dollar store too.

One of my favorite crafts was making a manger out of a paper bag. It was a super cute decoration and Millie got to use scissors to make the hay so she was happy!

I also found the cutest idea on Pinterest which was to “make a soft bed” for baby Jesus. I sculpted a baby and a little manger out of polymer clay and cut up a bunch of twine to look like hay. Every time someone did an act of service we put a piece of hay under baby Jesus to make His bed more comfy. I hope that it helped Millie make the connection that when we serve each other we are serving Jesus.

We also did the Super Simple printable advent calendar which had a cute video for the girls to watch each day in December. They looked forward to that each day.

In the future I would like to choose different countries and learn about how they celebrate Christmas (or other holiday). I think it would be so fun. It would be a lot of preparation though. We will see. I for sure will wait until the girls are older because of the work it will take on my part.

Overall it was a fun month! It felt like we did a pretty good job focusing on Christ and we spent a lot of time together.

This was another great week. First I’m so glad to talk about how grateful Millie is. When I asked her what she was thankful for she had a nice long list which surprised me. She usually is shy to talk about things like that… things that are a little emotional…

We broke out the coffee filters to do another “tie dye effect” craft since we loved it for our Halloween monsters so much. I think they turned out so cool! But I had to do all the cutting and it took forever. So I wouldn’t do it again until Millie and Charlee can help me.

The girls’ favorite craft was these turkey feather hats though. Millie called it the turkey crown, so I called her the turkey queen!

I wanted Millie to show gratitude toward someone this week so we took some homemade jam from the summer her primary teacher from church who is also a great friend. Millie was excited and put on her turkey hat. I asked how she felt after and she said she felt “so so so happy!”.

On thanksgiving I had some cinnamon scented playdoh I made set out for them to play with along with some feathers and eyes. I thought they could make turkeys but Millie made this guy based off the puppet from the “Crafsman Steady Crafting” YouTube channel. I think it’s pretty cute. The dough definitely needed more water though, as you can see it’s a little dry and crumbly.

While Millie was playing Conrad asked her what she was thankful for and she said “mama because I love her so much”. So I was just tearing up.

We watched some of the Ohio State/Michigan game. Ohio State lost but Charlee sure looked cute!

While Conrad had some extra time off for the holiday we spent a day shopping then grabbed some lunch to eat on the beach while the girls played in the sand.

Charlee had a lot of fun chasing the crows and seagulls away.

Millie didn’t understand why I didn’t bring her bathing suit. It was 40 degrees…

But it was pretty fun anyway.

I’m so thankful for little family and the life we are building. My plan for December is to focus on learning about Jesus and doing fun Christmas crafts. Since it’s all the same theme I will post about the whole month in one or two posts probably. I’ll post again in January!

November 15-21

This was a crazy fun week. I’ve been collecting books on space for a while now so we had a new one to read before bed every night. And we even got to see the full moon! Which was a treat because it’s usually so cloudy here in the fall.

The first craft we did was play with “space goo” and Millie made hers into a nebula she said. It was just chia seeds and food coloring left in the fridge over night. It was awesome. And incredibly messy we are never doing it again. Haha.

We also scraped frosting off of Oreos to make them resemble the phases of the moon! Millie doesn’t remember what they are called but it was so fun.

We also found a space mobile at the dollar store we colored and hung from our ceiling in the playroom.

Our last craft we used crunched up aluminum foil to paint a cool textured moon.

I think the most awesome thing was Millie learned the Blue’s Clues space song. She memorized a ton of facts. Like that the moon doesn’t have its own light, the sun’s light is reflecting off of it. She knows that the red spot on Jupiter is a storm. She knows that multiple planets have rings, but Jupiter has the biggest, and she knows they are made of ice, rocks, and dust. My sister had a friend over and Millie was so excited to tell her all of these things. Poor friend had no idea she was in for a lecture of basic space facts… she was a good sport though! Millie was so enthusiastic!

I haven’t been stressing over our “preschool” because I believe play is most important at this age, I’m mostly just doing activities to get a feel for if we are cut out for homeschooling. This week gave me a lot of confidence. It was so fun to see Millie get really passionate about learning.

Conrad and I couldn’t be more proud of our sweet girls.

This is for November 8th-14th. Millie found out a while back that the enamel on some of her teeth didn’t form properly so she is very prone to cavities on those teeth regardless of how much we brush. This last trip to the dentist a few weeks ago they said the decay on several of her molars was bad enough that we better just put caps on them. So she had that procedure this week and went under general anesthesia to have it done. So we took it easy this week.

Charlee is just starting to talk so we read lots of books with farm animals in circle time. We sang Old McDonald and played with farm animal puppets. Charlee’s favorite animal sound is “quack quack” which comes out sounding like “cack cack”. Very cute.

Millie was so excited to have her cavities fixed. We explained to her several times what was going to happen. We told her when she woke up her mouth would hurt for a little while.

The anesthesiologist told me Millie would probably be angry and combative when she woke up from the anesthesia, knowing how sensitive and high strung Millie can be I expected the worst and I got it. Poor sweet girl was pretty upset. But I was amazed at how strong she is. Our little girl is a real fighter and there is no doubt in my mind she can do anything. She’s got such a strong fire and a sweet spirit.

Here is my sweet girl sleeping. So peaceful. I don’t get to watch her sleep very often anymore. We had to wake up at 4am to get to the dentist about 40mins away so I was excited to get home and nap.

I got home and fed her pudding and Conrad watched Charlee while Millie and I got into my bed together. She finally fell asleep and so did I. 20 minutes later she popped over my shoulder and said “I’m not tired anymooooorrreeee!!!” with a big smile.

I was so happy to have her back to normal but I also wanted to cry I was so tired.

We also had a real treat this week. One of our mama deer decided to take a long rest very close to our window and the girls watched her for so long.

She is so gorgeous. It’s amazing how much we are learning from our backyard wildlife.

So I am very behind on posting these so I’ll add the date for this week is November 1st-7th. I didn’t really do a theme for this week. We just had fun learning and going on a field trip to Fort Casey on Whidbey Island! Get ready for another post of mostly pictures. Maybe set your phone down and let them load while you grab a snack. Lol. Here we go!

We have these cool toy locks and keys. The locks have uppercase letters and the keys have the lowercase and she has to match them. She is starting to get it. I’m not pushing for her to learn letters at all right now but casually including them in play.

In music class they listen to the Nutcracker March and Millie absolutely loved it, we listened to it a dozen times. Then I told her there was more and more and we listened to the whole suite. She really liked it. Then we got comfy and watched Barbie in the Nutcracker. When we were in Lowe’s and she saw the big nutcracker she wanted to set up a little scene and take a picture with it.

Ok now onto the exciting part. We went up to Fort Casey on Friday. When we got out of the car we saw a bald eagle fly over us with a small animal in its claws. It was so majestic and powerful. I loose my crap every time I see a bald eagle.

I love love love love lighthouses. I hope to see all of the lighthouses in Washington. It so special to have pictures with the girls and lighthouses. Even if my hair is a mess.

We also stopped at a little museum called the Pacific North West Naval Air Museum. It was mostly things to read and we had the kids so it was a short stop.

Overall the trip was so fun! We stopped for KFC on the way home and the girls watched movies. I love my family and I love the PNW. It’s amazing to watch my little girls discover it 🥰

I typically workout for and hour during the time Charlee naps, and she only naps for an hour and a half so it’s a hustle. If I’m lucky I get to shower after. But, this week I took the week off and spent Charlee’s nap times having one-on-one time with Millie. We crafted our hearts out and played so much Pretty Pretty Princess.

Charlee is now old enough to go into the nursery at church! When Millie hit this milestone the first day I dropped her off and she waved goodbye. No issues. But Charlee is having a little bit of a hard time being away from us.

But she did let me leave for 10 minutes at the end. Charlee is a sucker for circle times. We do them all the time at home. I said goodbye and stepped out no problem.

We kicked Monday off with Spookly the Square Pumpkin inspired snacks. We decorated graham crackers like jack-o-lanterns, and we did it for breakfast and I justified this because people eat donuts for breakfast. A frosted cracker isn’t that different? Right?

Next we carved a pumpkin. Charlee had no interest. But Millie liked it. She did not want to touch the guts though.

I put it on the counter with Millie’s scarecrow craft and three of the pumpkins we picked at the farm this year. It looked cute until the mold started to grow.

We made awesome coffee filter monsters. It was so fun I made too and my sister ended up making one as well. You just color with markers and spray with water and when it dries it looks awesome!

Conrad joined us for a game of Pretty Pretty Princess after Charlee went to bed one night.

The girls also loved these hats. Super fun to make for Millie, she was thoughtful enough to make one for Charlee.

In place of trick or treating we did a scavenger hunt around the house and yard. I got all kinds of toys and treats. I found clues online so it was super easy. And the girls loved it! Millie was able to figure out all the clues. Things went perfectly.

It was such a fun and spooky week! I feel so blessed to have been able to share it with the most incredible family.