You hear it everywhere that you need to read read read to your kids. I love reading and I want the girls to love reading as well.... But honestly, reading out loud tends to be one of the first things that gets dropped from our days when things get busy. This summer, I have a goal of forming a habit out of reading aloud to the girls. To get the girls excited about our new reading regimen, we have been using the Summer Reading Star printables from HowDoesShe.com.

We've been reading through the American Girl Kirsten Series and Kenley especially has really enjoyed it! I like that these books are simple readers that keep the girls attention. 1854 is a pretty neat time to read about! I like to ask them questions about what happened after we finish each chapter to really help them understand and also to encourage that they listen. :) 

This Bingo chart makes our reading each day super fun for the girls! Most days they beg me to do reading time! 

The first coupon the girls earned was for lunch at McDonald's! We have pretty much stopped going to fast food but the girls still ask for it all the time so this was a special treat for them! 

 The girls are pretty excited to finish up the whole bingo board and earn this golden ticket...

Kenley asked me what we were going to do when we finished up this bingo chart. I asked her what she wanted me to do and she said make another chart. I'll take that as a sign that this little program is working for us!  

We have also enrolled in the base library and our town library's summer reading programs so we have made lots of trips to the libraries! 

We created our own little library with all of the books we checked out this week! The girls love playing library and I conducted multiple "storytimes" for the girls baby dolls yesterday :) 

Next up on my Summer reading goal is to read on my iPad less and read real books in front of the girls more. I rent ebooks from the library all the time and its so quick and easy! I love it, but I would rather the girls see me readying a physical book than being on my iPad. 

What are your favorite read aloud books? 

Since Kirsten has been such a hit, I think we will go through all of the American Girl books. Then I think we will start the Little House books. Any other suggestions for us? 

Summer is for Watermelon

*Our internet has been down since the storm on Friday.. Man.. are we dependent on internet of what? I am so happy to have it back up and running today!! 

Mmmm Watermelon! We love it! It sure is a mess to cut up though! I wanted to pass along this little tip to help keep the mess of watermelon contained while you cut it up! Just place your cutting board inside a cookie sheet! This way when the watermelon juices run off your cutting board they are collected inside the cookie sheet! 

Yesterday was FUN!

Our craft of the day yesterday started out simple.... Paint the deck with washable paint... We are in the midst of working on the deck and will be repainting it in the coming weeks. While the deck is all crazy we may as well add some color to the crazy right?! 

Pretty quickly the girls started painting themselves...

Then I got the idea that it would be fun for them to jump in the paint! 

After the girls had jumped for a while we got out the hose and started spraying the trampoline down... Wet trampolines are so much more bouncy! Then Daddy joined us and we all jumped on the trampoline and sprayed each other with water. It was so fun and it was totally one of those perfect afternoons that I hope the girls remember when they are older! 

My new favorite website!

Yesterday while Claire was napping, Kenley and I were hanging out in the craft room. I didn't have a specific craft for her to do so I asked her to draw me a giraffe. She has drawn giraffes a few times in the past but for whatever reason she "couldn't" draw a giraffe. I didn't want her to give up so I googled "how to draw a giraffe". Artforkidshub.com came up as one of the top searches and boy am I glad that we found it! What an amazing resource! 

Art For Kids Hub posts videos of a Dad and his kids drawing (or painting or sculpting) all different kinds of things! It is great! The Dad does an awesome job of explaining the shapes and concepts so that kids can understand them but also so that the child won't feel defeated if their picture doesn't look the same as the Dad's. I honestly can not say enough good things about this blog or these videos! 

Here are some of the drawings that Kenley made yesterday:

Elephant:

 (Of course this Elephant picture must be mailed to her Elephant loving BFF) :) 

Zebra:

Olaf:

Rainbow Dash:

Unicorn:

Turtle:

3D House:

There is so much more to discover on that blog! We have barely scratched the surface and we can't wait to do more of the activities! 

Kenley lost her first tooth! June 18th 2014

Kenley lost her tooth yesterday! 

She is super excited about this because in her mind she is now a big girl who doesn't need to ride in a car seat or hold my hand in parking lots anymore :) 

I followed Mel at The Larson Lingo's instructions for making this super cute tooth fairy receipt. I also glittered that dollar even though the picture doesn't show it! 

I may have cried when she smiled at me with her new gaped smile for the first time :) I can't believe she is losing teeth already! 

Life Lately

Gramma and Grandpa mailed the girls some shirts from their trip to DC. The girls LOVE these shirts and wear them almost every other day. We have had lots of fun lately with our Dollar Tree Water Squirters! I'm telling you they are the best $1 you will spend for your kids all summer! 

Where's CLo?

Our plums are ripe!! 

Daddy started working on the deck...

Free crafting time... I am trying to cultivate more creativity in Kenley. She is totally a "follow the directions and it must be exactly how the package looks" kind of kid... So I am trying to do more open ended projects with her. (But you better believe that CLo and the glitter glue were testing my calmness big time) :) 

I forgot to put the girls sheets in the dryer before we left for community group the other night so we put a movie on for the girls to watch while their sheets dried. CLo fell asleep on the couch. Sleeping kids are so peaceful and sweet. I just love it...

Legos! The girls had never played with Legos before but since Kristen's birthday theme was going to be Lego I picked up some little packs at TJ Maxx to get the girls familiar with them...

Both girls LOVE doing Legos! I definitely need to start going to garage sales and looking for Legos now! 

The girls and I drove up to Raleigh to spend time with Job and Ruthie while Kim was in the hospital having EllaBeth! We loved getting to see our friends! I REALLY wish we lived closer to them! Maybe one day??? 

Kenley & EllaBeth...

Claire & EllaBeth...

I made some shaped crayons for Job and Ruthie. I came up with packaging the crayons in an old egg carton to keep the crayons from breaking and having the colors rub on each other... It worked great! I LOVE making crayons for friends!  

KenKen wanted me to take pictures of their Legos...

Kenley wrote down our menu for Friday night...

Patiently waiting... We LOVE our ice cream maker! 

Kristen and Kenley at Kristen's Lego party! 

CLo in the Lego race... I know I am biased but man is she a cutie! 

Silhouette Projects!

I've done more heat transfer projects this week than I have done the entire time I have owned a Silhouette machine! I've got to say.... Heat transfer just isn't my thing. I love the results but weeding the heat transfer is such a pain! I would definitely much rather work with regular vinyl! 

I made monogram sibling shirts for Kim and Ian's kiddos...

Monogram tank tops for my girlies...

Are these pacis not the cutest thing ever?! 

These and that baby gown make me want to have another baby girl!

I also did a practical little project of labeling my homemade cleaner bottles. It was driving Brian crazy that I had a bunch of unlabeled bottles under the sink. Problem solved! 

Our friend Kristen had a Lego party last night! I made this shirt for her to wear at the party...

And you know how I run with a theme so I added her name to the bag we got at the Lego Store. We also made her a personalized card on Lego.com... The site is for making personalized Christmas cards but with a bit of photo editing I turned it into a birthday card. We also stopped at the Lego store in Raleigh and Kenley made that little Lego Mini Figure to look like Kristen. So cute!