Craft Catch-up!

The past few weeks have really flown by! I mean, how do we only have THREE days left in July?!

Here's a quick round up of some of the crafts Marshall has been making.  Two of his favorite things are paint and glue, so I try to include at least one of the two in every craft we do!

Baseball is a big topic of conversation in our house and 9 times out of 10, Marshall just wants to throw the ball up in the air and catch it with his glove.  He has gotten REALLY good at it!  So of course, I had to find a baseball craft for him.  This was really simple to do, but he absolutely loved it!

Marshall has also been on a Christmas kick lately, and NOT by any influence from me! 😂

It randomly started when he kept asking to watch Charlie Brown "Chris-Chris" every morning when he woke up, and even brought a Christmas book downstairs for me to read first thing.  Since then, we've watched several more Christmas movies, and I have no problem with that at all! 😉

We also made foam and popsicle stick Popsicles! When I kept telling him we were going to make popsicles, of course he was confused when I had to tell him we couldn't eat them. lol.

This was SUCH a fun and easy activity that Marshall loved way more than I thought.  I wrote out several of these sheets with numbers and letters for him to trace with Q-tips and paint, and he FLEW through them and kept asking me for more.  Not even joking, we probably ended up with at least 20 sheets of tracing that he did and loved so much! We will definitely be doing this again!

 

Finally, he asked me several times to do a shark craft, so I headed straight to Pinterest.  Marshall was eager to look, too, so he sat down beside me as I scrolled through "shark crafts for toddlers" and this was the one he chose! Coincidentally, we made it after reading Clark the Shark!

 

Books + Snacks

We took a break from our books + coordinating crafts and switched to books + coordinating SNACKS! 

Last week, we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin and I'm sure you know what we made. 😉  Marshall chose to make blueberry muffins, and seeing as they are one of his favorite foods, he loved this! He did such a good job helping mix up the batter and then anxiously waited while they baked.

Today, we read The Cat in the Hat, and I found this super cute snack idea on Pinterest.  I think it came together well, but it is definitely harder to draw a cat face on a marshmallow than it looks. 😂

Fun at the Library

Marshall and I (Mace, too 😊) have become regulars at the library this summer. He has always loved books and reading, and now he loves going to pick out his own new books to read.  Last week, we got him a library card and I showed him how to check books out.  This week, I showed him how to return his books in the book return slot, and he helped me check books out again. He loves to help with anything, and these tasks were no exception!

On Wednesday, we went to the Bobby Cadabra Magic Show at the Sandston Library to kick off Summer Reading. We have done so much already for Marshall's reading log, and he's really enjoying it!

Y'all, when he started this next trick, I was preparing to be embarrassed. haha. 

For those that don't know, Marshall could live off of PBJ sandwiches and waffles if we let him. It's his favorite thing. Well, Bobby Cadabra said he was going to make a PBJ sandwich for lunch, and I'm sitting in the back thinking, "oh my gosh, Marshall is going to ask for a sandwich for himself." 😂 Thankfully, he didn't, but then, they played the song, "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and I just KNEW Marshall would get up and dance. (We have dance parties to this song at home, haha). Again, thankfully, he didn't get up, but even if he had, it would've made for a good story!

Last night, we went to see Zeke the dog at the Varina library! We heard about him from mom (she works in an elementary school library).  Zeke visits libraries and hangs out listening to kids read to him.  Marshall didn't read to Zeke, but I watched from a distance as a couple kids did read to him.  The Varina library is still really new, and the entire building is beautifully designed, but the children's area is amazing! Marshall LOVED playing at this library, and didn't pick out as many books because he wanted to play with the groceries. 😂

 

This picture cracks me up!

Dad and Marshall were lining these monkeys up in the shape of a "C." Dad kept adding more to make it into a circle. Marshall looked at it and said, "Oh no! My C!" 😂

 

Checking out and heading home.

2014 To-Do List: 3rd Recap

It's that time again! Time to check back in with where I am in my 2014 to-do list.  No procrastinating here, so here we go!

#1. Blog more realistically.
Let's see, in my first recap, I had only blogged 18 times in 3 months; in my second recap I had blogged 24 times; and in the past three months, I've blogged 22 times.  Meh,not bad, but could be better. Dear Self, please get better at this.

But, the next recap will definitely top the rest, because that will include December, which will include my 25 Days of Christmas posts--they'll be here before you know it!

#2. Cook more.
I've been helping more, but when I look back, it seems like our summer was so busy that we just did something quick, or we weren't even here!  However, I did try a couple new recipes.  This Loaded Baked Potato and Chicken Casserole was pretty good.  I wasn't a huge fan of the chicken part in it, but the baked potato part was great!

I also made this orzo salad recipe, but when I didn't find orzo in the pantry like I thought we had, I just used some other pasta noodles instead.  Still tasted great to me, and it was really great to take to work in my lunch! Also, in that pasta recipe, I used mozzarella cheese instead of feta cheese.

Without sounding like I'm trying to make excuses, I did honestly have better intentions of trying to cook more, but a lot of the time, it just didn't work for our schedules.  Matt is off Mondays and is always home from work before me, so most of the time if it's a crock pot meal, he preps and starts it on Monday, or starts dinner first anyway. I'm very thankful for him and his love for cooking!!

Within the next three months, especially around Christmas, I know more baking will definitely come :)

#3. Participate in more races.
Well, of course we completed the Spartan race!! But, that's the extent of races for these three months, it seems. Bummer.  However, assuming all gets better -*fingers crossed*- there are several fun races to come for the last three months of the year!!

#4. Read more. 
Since I was off for the summer I really knocked this one out of the park! Here are all of the books I've read since July 1st:

• Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien
• How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
• Hairspray and Homicide by Cindy Bell
• The Women of Duck Commander by Kay, Korie, Missy, Jessica and Lisa Robertson
• The St. Valentine's Day Cookie Massacre by Elisabeth Crabtre
• To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
• Better Off Friends by Elizabeth Eulberg
• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler by
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
• Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy
• Cruel Summer by Alyson Noël
• The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle
• No Place Like Oz by Danielle Paige
• Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige
• Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles
• A Sixteenth Summer Novel - Pulled Under by Michelle Dalton
• How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles

Boy, am I missing summer and having SO much free time to read, now!! I'm only on my second book since school started!

If you missed my other 2014 To-Do List Recaps, here are those links for you:
1st Recap
2nd Recap

2014 To-Do List: 2nd Recap

We just got back from Disney last night and I know many people are waiting to see more of those pictures (and don't worry, there are PLENTY!!), but I haven't had a chance to upload those pictures to my computer yet, and my computer is already taking too much time just to open Blogger to write this post! There will probably even be several posts about our trip to Disney, because there's just so much to share!!

However, to get pass the time until then (and I'm not planning on it taking too much time to get to it!) it's time for the 2nd recap of my 2014 to-do list! If you missed the first recap, you can read it here.

#1. Blog more realistically.
In my mind, I still didn't blog as much as I wanted to, but, it was an improvement from last time! My goal was to blog 2-3 times a week, and I guess I'm sitting at an average of about 2 times a week. Not horrible. I blogged 8 times in April, 9 times in May, and 7 times in June. Hopefully since it's the summer and I'm not working now, I'll have more time to blog and share what we've been up to!

#2. Cook more.
I really slacked off on this goal the past three months! I didn't cook as many full meals, but I did try new recipes! As far as dinners go, the only thing I can probably do without help is spaghetti and toast, but even then I always call Matt in to check behind me, because I'm always worried I'll leave a piece of meat uncooked in the sauce! haha.
Some of the more snack-time recipes I tried were guacamole, mango salsa, mango smoothies, and, uh, whoops, looks like that's it! haha.
Note to self: You're on summer vacation. There's no reason why you can't learn and try to cook more. haha.

#3. Participate in more races.
Let's see, since the last recap, I've only done a few races.  I walked in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with some of our family friends.  That evening, Matt, mom and I were supposed to be running in the Glow Run, which we were really looking forward to. But, due to the weather, they cancelled it, and the outcome wasn't pretty. They didn't bother to reschedule, but said we could switch our registration over to another one of their races, but, it's really not that convenient for us to just up and go to Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania, or any of the other states for this 5K. There was nothing closer to us, so we just lost out. Luckily, we did get our shirts from packet pick-up the day before. Then, several weeks later, Matt and I did The Color Vibe, which was a lot of fun! It might seem like I'm not doing more races like I'd hoped, it's just that the majority of them are in the fall/winter!

#4. Read more.
Okay, I think I blew the 1st recap out of the park on this goal. haha. Spring Break was during this last 3-month time period, and I read several books that week, which helped with this goal! Here are all of the books I've read in the past 3 months:

• Reshaping it All (I finished it--I was almost finished reading it when I did the 1st recap)
• Growing Up Duggar
• Titanic: Voices from the Disaster
• Si-cology 101
• Duck Commander
• Mates, Dates & Cosmic Kisses
• Mates, Dates & Chocolate Cheats
• Wicked
• Killer Cupcakes
• Innocent in Las Vegas
• Why 26.2?
• Happy, Happy, Happy
• When You Reach Me (this was my flight read to and from Disney!)

I love that I've been making more time to read for fun! I have a list of books I'd like to read, so we'll see how many of them I can get through over the summer!