Cake Decorating

I am taking a cake decorating class this semester. Here is my first cake!

Postal Museum

In preschool, this rotation, they have been learning about different careers. Kyle says he wants to be a Monster Truck Driver!  Today we went on a field trip to the Post Office Museum.  Kyle LOVED it!

They started by gathering the kids and going over the parts of an envelope such as where the stamp goes, what you write in the middle, and in the upper corner, the mark that is placed over a stamp so it can't be reused, and what the postmark means. They then read a story about a cow that liked to scare the postman. At that point they had various stations set up for the kids to participate in.

 They could dig through a treasure chest filled with THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of stamps and pick out as many as they wanted to, to take home and start their own collection. The each received a stamp collecting book as well.

Carter was definitely a fan of this!

 They could make their own postcard. They decorated the front, addressed it, wrote a message, and added a stamp. Then they walked to the post office part of the building, and cancelled the stamp (by stamping the stamp), and mailed the card. Here is Kyle working hard on his postcard for his cousin.

 They also made bookmarks decorated with stamps. Kyle wanted an all dinosaur bookmark. So the INCREDIBLY nice woman took him over to the archive area of the building, where they cross reference all of the stamps by style and picture, and pulled the "Dinosaur Stamp" file, and let him pick out the EXACT ones he wanted. Here is Carter cheesing it up for the camera.

And his completed work of art!



 As part of the building they also had a 100 year old post office from a small town in Arizona. They showed the kids the process of getting the mail, sorting it, stamping it and delivering it 100 years ago. They also got to try on a Post Masters hat which Kyle was thrilled about...Carter was not amused.

It was such a fun field trip!! I love finding a little hidden gem in Tucson!

New Year...New Commitment to Blogging??

Well, in terms of keeping a family journal/blogging this year...I kind of stunk it up!  So here is to a new year, a new comittment!
Sara

Deep in Concentration

Kyle is good at puzzles. Like REALLY good at puzzles. He can whip out a brandnew 48 piece puzzle in a couple minutes. Recently he has completed 100, 500, 800, even 1000 piece puzzles. The most intersesting thing is his level of concentration/dedication to a puzzle. Anyone who knows Kyle knows he is a run around, crazy little boy. But when it comes to puzzles, he will stay at the table, until it is done....one, two, or three hours..there he stays. He also has his own way of doing each puzzle. He doesn't seperate pieces, or do the outside first. He just picks up a random piece out of the pile and goes from there. It makes me wonder what job this little guy will have when he grows up.

Sprinkler Fun!

We have had a BEAUTIFUL May. But, I think June is going to hit us with a vengence! But, that also means that its perfect sprinkler weather! Kyle was first to place his claim on the hose.
Poor Carter was the first victim.

Followed by Kyra. Then Karl. I was able to avoid the brunt of the spraying by yelling "I HAVE MY CAMERA, YOU CAN'T SPRAY ME."My sweet girl. Carter bailed early, and headed to the local sandbox, while maintaining a constant look of disgust for the obvious lack of respect for the water hose rules. Kyra making mud puddles.After the pool was drained, Carter sat everyone down, and went over the proper safety protocals. Finally after a grueling 10 second meeting, they hugged it out and were best buds, yet again.

Kyles turns 4!!

On March 30th, Kyle turned 4 years old!!! With Mater Tall Tales out, he has fallen in love with Cars all over again. So we decided to do a DRIVE IN MOVIE! Here is the invitation I made. I found something similar online for mucho mucho moola, so I just recreated it in powerpoint. I was going for a movie ticket effect. Here are the decorations for the party. Super simple. A banner, ballons and a red table cloth. We had some squeezers for drinks, and popped some popcorn and set up a candy bar. The cake was Tokyo Mater themed. I had this grandeous idea for the cake and the the moring of the party as I began to decorate I realized I had NO IDEA what I was doing! LOL! So a couple of hours before the party I scrapped everything I had, and did a simple round cake, and then cut a slightly taller cake in have and put it behind the round one to make it look like a ledge. A friend let me borrow the toy crane from the movie, and I had that swaying in the background. I used the backside of legos as distant buildings. Then I made a variety of Tokyo themed signs. Then I attempted a fire affect along the bottom. He loved it (all that matters!). We collected a lot of cardboard boxes, and painted them red, black, blue, and purple. We used white paper plates as headlights, and spray painted some black for wheels. The kiddos decorated their cars with foam stickers and then made a license plate for their car as well.

We borrowed a projector from a friend, and pulled down our sun shade that is attached to our back porch. It worked FANTASTICALLY! We, of course watched Mater Tall Tales.

We sure love the sweet, energetic energy our little guy brings to our family!!

Kyle started T-ball last week. He was SOOO excited! He is on the Yankees. We really lucked out with the coach that was assigned to his team. It is a husband and wife team, and they are SO great with him. I think they are a perfect match for him. They practice twice a week, and then have a couple games a week. So it will be a busy couple of months! He loves wearing his uniform! He wasn't a fan of the cup during the first practice, but I did something different for the next one, and he wasn't bothered by it at all tonight. (Of course Karl goes out of the town the week our first born son has to wear a cup for the first time). Tonight was his first game! Here he is all dressed up. I told him he was so cute, that I could just eat him up. To which he said "Please don't. I don't want to be late for my game."Here he is with his meanest game face on. Kyle loved the game! I think he may of enjoyed the socialization of it all, as much as everything. On two of the bases they have a parent volunteer standing there, just to give the kids an extra reminder when they are supposed to run. It was so funny, because I think Kyle used his opportunity of a captive audience to his full advantage! Then when he was running the bases, he would often times be seen chatting with the opposing team's member who was covering that base. He even scored four runs!

Kyle had such a great time. I think this will be a really good experience for him!