What I have been up to.

The past few weeks I have been working out everyday except Thursdays and Sundays. Both nights are my relaxing nights for television.
I have Zumba fitness.found here. I must say it is a lot of fun and you do break a sweat! I love it but after a couple weeks of it I was getting bored so I bought Jillian Micheals 30 day shred. found here now this is a workout!! For 20 minutes with no breaks it is INTENSE! I do it every other day and so it is nice having 2 different workouts and I don't get as bored.  I don't have a scale, I know how strange it sounds but I just don't. I am not on a certain diet either. My decision for working out is just to get in shape. Of course I am eating better but I am not following a specific diet; at least yet anyways.

Other very exciting news is that 1 week before Mother's Day I took a pregnancy test and low and behold I am pregnant! We were not trying, but not preventing. So yes it was planned but not to the extent of following when I ovulate. Honestly, I have never known when I ovulate and try to keep up with when I had my period but I am not good at it. We are hoping it is a girl but as long as the baby is healthy is what matters most. When I called and made my 1st appt the gentleman scheduling told me my EDD is December 25! So the baby could/most likely be a Christmas baby! I do feel indifferent about it though. Having a birthday party for the child will be the hardest and buying Christmas and birthday gifts will not be as joyous for the bank either! My family is sad around Christmas because my grandma passed and we buried her day before Christmas Eve, so a Christmas baby would bring us all some joy! The bad part about being pregnant in the military is the waiting for an ultrasound and heart beat check. I have to wait another month! It really is driving me bonkers waiting because I am in the stage of thinking maybe I am not pregnant. I never had morning sickness with Colton and don't with this one. However, with this one I have felt nauseous but it comes and goes now.

So because of the tiredness I have not posted nearly as much as I should and hope to get around to it much more.

My Mother's day!

My Mother's Day was pretty great! I would have loved to get a pedicure or something like that to relax, but all in all it still was a nice day. My husband can't stand eggs at all. So, it is rare for me to make them, instead I make breakfast foods he likes. Well, he made me breakfast in bed! Yummy eggs with ham and cheese, sausage links,and hash browns! He always tell me how he can't cook, but i think he just prefers my cooking over his. He brought in a pretty card and a dozen yellow roses-My FAVORITE! For dinner he worked his magic and cooked us some Olive Garden to go. I thought it was perfect since knowing the wait would be forever long. Our to Go order was in and out in 2 minutes and back home in 15 or so. We spent the dinner saying mmmm, laughing, and chatting.
The weather was beautiful; personally I thought it was way to hot out but I guess I shouldn't complain. For dessert we had strawberry cheesecake made by the wonderful Sara Lee. Not the best in the world, but the price was right. After Colton went to bed I worked off all my fatty foods I ate to Jillian Michaels....HA! I will tell you all about that later in another post...then after the husband and I cuddled up and watched the 1st episode of season 3 of Sons of Anarchy.
Today, I just feel like being lazy...so lazy I am making pot roast for dinner. Hope all you moms had a wonderful day!

Homemade flowers that DON'T die!

This week I haven't been myself. I have been tired and not wanting to do anything...not even crafts! However, I have been continuing the workout on the Wii. My husband bought me Zumba, so I have been doing that for the past 2 weeks. Thursdays are my days off, lets face it depending on the weekends..sometimes I can't squeeze it in.
Well, today sitting on my butt I thought we NEED to do something fun. Why not flowers from an egg carton?

paint,brushes,pipe cleaners,scissors,egg carton,and paper plates for the paint.

Cut each little 'egg holder' into a flower like shape and paint in ANY colors you choose. I of course had to paint some too!

When dry, cut a slit in the flower and use a pipe cleaner for stem and bud. Arrange them in a vase!

There you have it! The finished product! I really think these flowers add personality to the dining room table. Every time I look at them I will think of my little artist.
I must add, these would be a super sweet and cute Mother's Day gift or even a fun craft to dowith your kids for your home!

Catch up/Volcano time!

Friday was painting our fossils and enjoying a day outside after having a week of nasty rainy, thunderstorm weather. Colton was sick on Tuesday to the point it was our 1st trip to the ER and I must say all though scary, it went smoothly. He was diagnosed with Strep AND Scarlet Fever! YIKES! Scarlet fever is not the same as it was a long time ago. Some kids develop a rash with Strep and some don't. Mine of course did and the rash is Scarlet fever. The reason we even took him to the ER was because of the rash. The husband and I had no idea what it could be. Colton is better now but we are waiting for the rash to be completely gone.
So Friday after he was feeling WAY better and having both kids. I wanted to do something interesting. So the husband made a Volcano from baking soda and vinegar! I added a few drops of red food coloring to make it look more like one.

That was our fun Friday with the letter V we missed.

Our Dinosaur Unit

Since we have been done with our letters I was trying to decide what we would do next. Well, I am watching my friends daughter every other week now. This week was her 1st week with me and I decided to try out Dinosaurs with the kids. I figured ALL kids like dinosaurs and there are SO many wonderful ideas online that I knew i would have NO problems keeping the kids busy for the week.
I researched and searched MANY blogs, and google imaged many ideas. I will share some great ones with you!
Living at the Whiteheads Zoo had a Dino playdate a couple weeks ago and made the kids dino eggs...well I took this idea and made our own. I didn't have sand so I used moon sand and worked well enough.

I went to Domiciliary Artillery and downloaded her pdf file. The kids loved tracing the lines. Colton is still a little young but made a great effort!

Dino pre writing this link will take you to some more fun worksheets to help pre writing skills. I got these fromConfessions of a homeschooler. She has WAY more ideas and I took a couple ideas that both kids could do.

I also made some clay. This link will take you there. It has video AND a list of directions. However, I let it sit out and it never dried up. So, I baked it and it worked a tad better. I think next time I will just do salt dough. The kids LOVED this! We made fossils with this clay from the Dollar store dinosaurs. 

 The next day we painted them for a fun activity!

I also made a heads and tails game. I cut these out and glued them to cereal boxes to make them last a lot longer. Dino heads and tails is the pdf file to download and more ideas are at 1+1+1=1. I love all her ideas!

I threw together a dino sensory bin as well. I need to invest in a plastic shoebox for them. I used a big round Hello Kitty bowl. My husband laughed and said dinos and cats don't mix...well hey maybe not but it worked for the week.

I also cut some shapes out and had the kids piece together a couple 'Shape-o-sauruses' Both kids loved guing and talking about all kinds of dinos.

The week continued with story time too! I had the kids eat some yummy mandarin oranges while I read a couple books. I read "How do Dinosaurs say I love you" and "How do Dinosaurs say Goodnight" They went over real well and I even read them more than once. 

At the Dollar Tree on a Dinosaur hunt, I found some grow your own Dinosaurs. An 18 pack! I was ecstatic and gave each child a bowl to grow them in. I also printed off some dino pictures of them without their "skin" and had the kids color. This was a fun activity. Colton really loved it and it kept him a lot busier than I thought it would.

That was our week! A very busy one too! Most of these were done in the first day, I guess a 4 yr old really knows how to keep you on your toes! This coming week is my off week so Colton and I will work in his work books, play with play dough, and work with his flash cards.