No, this post is NOT late. I’m really still a jersey girl, and Governor Christie told me it was officially Halloween today. Enjoy!

The kids have been really interested in dinosaurs lately, so we declared it dinosaur week. To kick it off, we set up this week’s trays.

1. Fun dinos to play with and identify with our 3-part cards.
2. “Dino”cabulary words I downloaded from K-3 Teacher Resources.
3. Color matching and sorting dinosaurs. There are two of each dinosaur of color and kind as well as matching color tablets. Marcus is identifying and saying colors lately, so I thought this would be a fun way to reinforce it.
4. Dinosaur 3-Part Cards I found on jojoeb’s flickrstream.
5. Marcus “helping me” set them all up. This has become one of my favorite parts of Monday.
6. Adding three numbers together with dinosaur bones {popsicle sticks}. Basically, the kids roll the dice, lay out popsicle sticks representing each number and Plus gathers the dinosaur bones together and brings them to King Equal, and we count them up for the total number of bones. Then, as an added bonus, they can use the wood numbers to write out their answers. Convoluted? Sure. A hit with the kids? You betcha.
7. Measuring in centimeters. How long are these tiny dinos? I included a ruler with both metric and standard and a little measuring tape with centimeters to measure the dinosaurs.  I included a dry erase tablet so they can draw the dinosaurs along with their measurement findings.
8. A dot exercise for Marcus.
9. Examining rocks closely with a magnifying glass. We are talking about the three kinds of rocks and how they form. Geology is one of my favorite sciences.

To see them up close, you can head over to my flickr page by clicking on the picture of Marcus below.

There’s a lot more fun coming this week as well. From building dinosaurs to creating fossil cookies, we’ve got it all…

That, and worksheets. The kids always love worksheets.

 

…every Monday morning in the 10 seconds immediately proceeding the completion of changing the sheets.

Hello, Monday. Gotta love it.

I know it’s probably a bit early to be calling our trays a success, but introducing them into our day has been exciting so far. The kids were a bit mixed this morning about me taking down the trays from last week, which were a huge hit, but that all changed when I put up the new ones.

Molly loved the ladybug spot counting, and Thomas quickly levitated to the number decoder. He had to match the quantity with the symbol to the written word representing a number and he was focused and intense. Lastly, they both tried out the language matching CVC cards. Thomas breezed through it with ease, while Molly had to put a bit more concentration into it, but persevered through until she had matched all 12 words with their pictures.

Every day I’m more and more impressed by them. I can’t wait to see what they’ll be up to tomorrow!

I received a beautiful mother’s necklace {made by the lovely Lisa Leonard} from my own mother last week. It was truly the most bittersweet gift I’ve acquired yet. You see, there are four tags on there; as I am newly and most accurately the mom to four beautiful children. Turns out that all my babies are spring babes. Most certainly not in the way I would have planned it. Our newest arrival, Henry Walter, was born still at 8:45am on May 5th. It’s amazing how one moment can change everything, but somehow also leave universe intact.

hello May 21st. 12 years ago today the man I proudly call my husband {and my better half} asked me to be his wife. Something I would have agreed to on the day that we met, and have cherished every day since.

hello fully immersing ourselves in school time. I’ve been savoring this time with the kids; watching the children grow has been both an invigorating and grounding reality.

hello little things turning out to be the big things.

hello new appreciation for the “quiet”. It’s so easy to get lost in spinning, moments I am graciously welcoming from time to time.

hello muffin tin mondays. The kids look forward to every lunch time on monday {and beg for them on tuesday and wednesday and… I happily oblige}.

hello tooth fairy. {or should I say goodbye baby teeth?} Thomas has been holding on to his very loose two front teeth for a long time now. He lost the first while enjoying dinner {eeks! I was so afraid he’d swallow it!} and in 6 days time the second followed. He proudly exclaimed, “Sweet! Now I can eat cheeseburgers again!” Love that boy.

hello walking, warily, one day at a time, alongside my other half. Life continues. I am grateful that we continue on together.

Long time no see, huh? I kept meaning to blog, really, it just didn’t happen. Lots of things have happened since the last time we spoke…

First?
Oh, yeah, I’m pregnant.
Marcus was getting a way too big for all the baby modeling I needed of him, so what else did you expect me to do?

Second?
We did this huge trip to Disney Land and then took a cruise to Mexico…

Which was indeed, totally epic.

Oh, speaking of epic? Check out last night’s dinner:

Yeah, I may or may not be headed to the kitchen right now to partake in some midmorning leftovers…

What? I’m pregnant!

This hello monday is brought to you by Molly. I have a Canon PowerShot that I got a couple years back. As we are going away on vacation soon {EEeee! The countdown to Disney has begun and we have only have 14 days until we head west!!} I decided to pull it out to have it packing ready to have on hand for some quickie candids and such.

Well, it wasn’t long before the kids got ahold of it, and I suppose more specifically; my daughter.

hello said daughter of my mentioning… lovely self portraits by the way.

hello still life shots. You are amazingly in focus for being wielded by such tiny hands.

hello views of Thomas that I would only see through Molly’s lens. I love the change in perspective that it brings.

hello Marcus, you seem excited to show Molly something.

hello traces of birds in our front yard. I should have known it was you that Marcus was so anxiously awaiting to share.

hello beautiful children. I love not only looking at your eyes but even more I love seeing the world through them.

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I’m linking up with Lisa Leonard today and her lovely hello monday link up.

This weekend was certainly a relaxing one.

…maybe relaxing is the wrong word…

More like staying in bed late and playing all day lazy kind of weekend…

hello writing cards just because. Molly has a whole stacks of them on her bedroom shelves, maybe one day we’ll send them somewhere.

hello watching Marcus watching birds. His excitement over them never wains, nor does my excitement over him.

hello sunrise watching while working early sunday morning. hello Marcus, sleepy eyed, joining be an hour later for more bird watching fun.

hello Candyland tea party. Molly meticulously set this all up and acted out the scene again just for me.

hello playing in the park…

…and hiding out under trees…

…and sunset strolls…

…and looking up at huge trees…

…and running, don’t ever forget the running.

They just love that patch of land by our home, I’m declaring it the 100 Aker Wood {Yes, I can spell, totally writing it like Christopher Robin does on his map}. It was a great reset kinda weekend. I feel like it’s going to be a great week. How about you?
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I’m linking up with Lisa Leonard today and her lovely hello monday link up.

Today marks the third three day weekend in a row for us around here. First comes christmas, then new years, and finally my mom’s birthday! We partied it up all weekend long and even snuck in a bit of school this morning. So… I know it was my mom’s birthday but…

hello 17-40mm f4 L series canon lens… Where have you been all my life? In the few short days that you’ve been around, you’ve changed my entire view on life {through my camera at least}.

hello incredibly delicious homemade ice cream cake. Yes, I know you are going to live right on my hips, but hey, you are totally worth it.

hello birthday present opening time with Mom.

hello birthday cake time. Again, cake=hips=totally worth it.

hello to sneaking in some school this morning before more partying it up. We are working on the AP family and Molly was so excited to spell lap and demonstrate it for my iPhone camera.

hello drawings the kids made at dinner. We sang happy birthday to grandma {my mom} and they came out with a huge sombrero for her to wear. Yes I got pictures and no out of respect I will leave them off my blog and in your imagination.

And with that…

Bring on the rest of the week!
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I’m linking up with Lisa Leonard today and her lovely hello monday link up.

hello NOT yesterday’s 365. I know you really wanted to be and made me post you, but understand that just because I took you yesterday and posted you up online yesterday, it does NOT make you a 365.

It’s hard for us both.

We’ll get over it.

Promise.

We had a wonderful weekend which felt like it went so fast, but actually spanned several years. Way back in 2011, we took peaceful walks and snuck snacks for breakfast. Fast forward to today? A whole year later and a whole new me.

hello mail! We wish that you were closer to our house or that the weather was warmer, but we’ll have to bundle up for a windy walk. It’s okay, you are totally worth it.

hello tortilla chips for breakfast. Marcus decided at 6am that you sounded yummy so over the stool went to the counter side and up he climbed to get you.

hello fun times of Christmas undecorationing! It was lovely having you around, but so nice to have the extra space back in our home.

hello Go Go Kiddo. I thought we knew just about every fun iPhone app out there, but on my sister’s recommendation we bought you. I can’t believe we missed out on your funny jokes and games this long. Molly took this photo while driving down to IKEA today… Speaking of which…

hello Princess and the Pea. The kids are so excited to get three new beds! They will be delivered next tuesday and hopefully in the meantime we’ll get the room painted and ready.

and finally…

hello new me! I’ve been contemplating getting my haircut for a while now and figured it couldn’t be a better time than now to do it.

Exciting things are coming!! We are all looking forward to this new year, how about you?

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I’m linking up with Lisa Leonard today and her lovely hello monday link up.