Rodeo Time

Let’s Rodeo San Antonio San Angelo!  I have to admit, since we have lived in San Antonio, we have only attended the San Antonio rodeo once.  It’s big, crowded, a pain to park, runs late into the night and just not my cup of tea.  We’ve made it a tradition for the last four years in a row to head home to San Angelo when the rodeo rides into town.  The San Angelo rodeo performance is just as good, if not better.  You can leave your house, park and be inside the grounds in under 20 minutes.  The ticket prices are reasonable for great seats.  The show is just long enough to be entertaining but not too long that the kids are going nuts.  Plus, we usually get to attend with other family members.

This year, we were able to share the experience with Blake’s parents, Tyler and Sandra, my mom and the twins.  Since we had all the kiddos with us, we spent most of the time in the petting zoo before the show.  The kids loved it!

This was also Blake’s Birthday weekend.  Somehow he managed to make sure we didn’t get a single picture of him turning the big 3-0!  Happy Birthday Old Man!

Valentine’s Day 2013

This Valentine’s Day, Blake really went out of his way to make it special.  He got up early, beat the crowds and brought home fresh donuts for the kids from Shipleys.  He also went shopping on his own and picked up some new cups for them just like my cup I use for the gym.  (Now I can finally reclaim mine!)  The best surprise though was my gift.  He ordered a return address stamp for me.  You know, the cute little ones that emboss your return address into the envelope.  We received a Christmas card last year where someone had used one.  I pointed it out to Blake and two months later, he bought me my very own!  He is so thoughtful and does listen to what I say!

A Party fit for a Princess

Make that quite a few princesses and a prince or two as well!

Since Addie isn’t in preschool this year, we decided to host a Valentine’s party for a few of her friends.  We had a heart themed party, complete with all the trimmings.

Decorating their goodie bags:

Exchanging their Valentine’s cards:

Enjoying some yummy snacks:

Decorating some cookies:

And finally the sugar crash after everyone has gone home:

We had lots of fun and were so blessed to share a special day with so many special friends!

In The Kitchen: Stained Glass Cookies, Valentines Cards and Cupcakes

This week, we busied ourselves in the kitchen to prepare for our upcoming Valentine’s Party.  We tried our hand at making some stained glass cookies.  It was a fun project and we learned several things we should do differently next time.  The end result wasn’t nearly as pretty as I had hoped for but then again who can expect perfection on the first try right?

Any recipe that involves using a hammer in the kitchen has to be a winner right?  Good thing Dad has been taking her to all those Lowes Build and Grow clinics.  That girl is a pro when it comes to crushing candy with a hammer.  Luckily, Macca had given us this cute little flowery hammer a few years back.  It made the perfect kitchen tool!

 

Taking a quick cleanup break…apparently the trash will fall out if you tip the can over.  She wasn’t as excited about this part of the day.

Batter is all done…time to take a taste test.

Working on Valentine's cards while the dough chills.

Time to roll out the dough….wax paper is my new best friend!

Time to insert the “stained glass” part of the cookie.

We also decorated a few cupcakes to munch on over the weekend.  The heart sprinkles were a hit!

Measurement Math Part 2

We finished up our math unit on measurement this week.  Addie seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  Today’s lesson covered weight.  Here she is being silly and working on the lesson.

Second Grade Awards

The semester has come to an end, which means it is time to celebrate all the accomplishments from the first half of the school year.  Dalton earned all A’s for the semester, as well as achieving all his goals on the district common assessments.  We sure are proud of our little guy!

Measurement Math

 

I have apparently been neglecting the blog lately.  Who knew?  It’s not for lack of stuff to blog about.  Maybe that’s why….we’ve been too busy and I haven’t taken the time to do it. 

Today, Addie and I completed a fun lesson in math and I thought I would share.  We’ve been learning about measurement the past two weeks.  It was always one of the units I looked forward to teaching in school.  You can practically spend the entire unit doing hands-on activities.  Today, while learning about capacity, Addie and I decided to take our lesson to the kitchen.  We basically used three different sized cups and measured the capacity of each using handfuls of goldfish (non-standard) and then a measuring cup to scoop the goldfish (standard).  We did estimates first and then actual measurements.  Almost all of her estimates were right on or just 1-2 off.  She’s one smart little girl if I do say so myself!

At the end of the lesson, I told her she could eat one cup full of goldfish.  I assumed she would use her little measuring cup we had used to scoop out the goldfish.  Wrong!  She grabs one of the bigger cups and promptly fills it to the top.  When I asked her why she took the bigger cup, her response was “Well, mom…..you see this cups hold more than mine.”  I guess she understood the lesson of capacity today!