Thankful Countdown

The first two days of November have given me cause to reflect on things (or people or experiences) I feel grateful for. This year has presented challenges in all areas of my life: personal, mental, emotional, physical, and family. I have spent the majority of days focusing on just making it through the moment. 

My hope is to pull myself out of the moment and focus beyond the fleeting feelings of inadequacy, identify the good experiences, and move forward with faith. 

So, today (at this moment) I am grateful that my husband is unemployed. He has been around to lean on, help take the kids to their activities, he's volunteered at the kid's schools, and we've had a chance to re-evaluate where we are headed as a couple and as a family. Both of us have had some health issues that we've had time to work on. 

Which brings me to the 2nd thing I'm grateful for: good doctors. 

Happy Hauntings

Mountains

I forgot how much I love the mountains. 

Corn Syrup Bubbles

There are a lot of bubble recipes out there and so we will be trying out a few. While we were waiting for glycerin to come from Amazon, we found a recipe that uses corn syrup.

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup dish soap
• 1/4 cup corn syrup

 

 

 

I poured the water and corn syrup into an empty juice bottle and mixed well. Then slowly added the dish soap. I let the mixture sit overnight, then the kids went bubble crazy!!

 

 

  

 

 

 

It was all fun and games until they started drinking the bubbles:

 

Large amounts of water, please!

 

 

 

 

We finished the afternoon with random duck lips and silly faces. Another reason you should never let your children drink bubbles then use your camera.

 

 

 



Moon Sand

I love this idea for a sensory box!

The original recipe is here: 8 cups flour and 1 cup baby oil mixed together. I doubled the recipe to fill the box. Smells and feels amazing.

 

The kids loved it! Fortunately, I've been around kids long enough to know that I did not want to deal with this in the carpet or even on our vinyl kitchen floor. It's definitely a great outside activity and easy to hose down the kids when they're finished.

 

Out and About

I took the kids to the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels. Super fun day!

 

The kids spent the most time outside at the water works. (I'm sure that had nothing to do with the Texas summer heat.)

Next they headed to the construction zone.

And there was also random cuteness involved.

 



Pigs in Space

The best laid plans...

For Pigs in Space week we had great plans that fell short. I blame it on Cub Scout Camp - also a great, time-consuming adventure.

So, here are my ideas for last week's theme. Great ideas and pictures that we'll get to... eventually...

Craft Ideas:

• Moon phases painting project from DLTK
• Space book from an idea found here
• glow dough from a recipe found here

Sensory Boxes:

• moon sand - Mix 8 cups of AP flour with 1 cup of baby oil
• pea gravel and black beans

Food:

• Moon Rocks
• Moon Cake
• Ultimate Star Wars Feast

Pigs in Space YouTube Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z825bcGpTbk


Books:
First Space Encyclopedia by Caroline Bingham
The King of Space by Jonny Duddle
Toys in Space by Mini Grey
Space: A Visual Encyclopedia DK publisher


Field Trip:
The local planetarium is closed for remodeling, so we are planning a trip to Houston in July to check out NASA's Space Center. Woo hoo!