Last Year In Kirksville

This post is a bit long and may be out of order in parts.  Going back through all my pictures, I have tried to remember when things happened and the details, and just have done the best I could.

SAA fire department field trip.

A pipe cleaner strainer activity that kept Landon busy for quite a while.

For general conference, I made a house with covered parking to keep the boys happy while we enjoyed each session.  They loved it, and if you look closely, you can see a drive through window on the covered parking side.  The boys had fun playing drive through and house.

The kitchen.

The bedroom.

The boys watched quite a bit of conference too. 

I made bath paints for Landon to create bath murals.

These two have always been BEST buds.

A beautiful park in our town.

Shaving cream tracks.  Easton's was yogurt(I knew he would end up eating a lot of it).

Noodle painting.

It turned out pretty good.

Landon and Lydia.  I have some oatmeal we use like sand for the kids to play with.  We put out a sheet and it is super easy to clean up after.  They pretend to cook, hide cars, and do everything you would with sand.  

Dave was really busy studying, and we needed something to do, so we had a Christmas decorating party with Christmas music, and hot chocolate. 

There was no mall in our small town, so we made a day trip up to Columbia to visit St. Nick.

We had fun all along the way.

And they slept in the way home.

This picture makes my neck hurt just looking at it. 

One of my favorite Christmas traditions that we do is, throughout the month of December, we read all the the accounts of the Savior's birth. We spread it out each night, a little at a time, and read by candle light. Landon like to act out what we are reading. I love this picture, because he has all the characters surrounding with the Savior in the center. If only we could always remember to keep Him at the center of our lives. Children really get it don't they?

Our Christmas Eve tradition of having breakfast for dinner.

Christmas morning, here are some of the presents they opened:

We made a fort to play with their new toys in.

We got right out of bed one morning and headed straight for the hills to do some sledding.

We didn't have boots for Easton, so he used and extra pair of gloves.:)

Valentine's Day!  I gave Dave a box of cookies stating all the things I love him MORE than.  These are some of my favorite things, so he is very loved! :)

We also broke into his locker at school and the boys helped me decorate it, and leave a treat.  They also helped me make this note:

Valentine's Day breakfast.

Love Juice.

I love St. Patrick's Day.  We made a leprechaun trap with a laundry basket.  We didn't catch a leprechaun, but he did mess up the house and leave funny little surprises.

He wrote on our bathroom mirror.

He must have needed to go to the bathroom during his visit...

He added leprechaun hats to the kids pictures.

He put dots on our mirror so we would think we were sick when we looked in it.

And...he left a fruity treat with green dip, and a note saying that he had hidden 5 shamrocks around our house for the kids to find.

Easter.

I made an Easter sensory bin where the boys dug for word family eggs.

One side of the eggs had the last part of the word family, and the other side of the egg had a bunch of letters for the beginning of a word.  You could turn the egg and make a new word each time.  Some were nonsense words and some were real.

They followed the string to find their Easter baskets.  I would have used colored string, but we had black so I went with that.

Library Easter craft.

Landon's first story.  He dictated it, and drew a picture.  It was about Santa.

Landon was just learning how to read, so I made these labels and he read what it said and then went to find the object and taped the label on it.  

Brothers!

Yogurt fruit painting.

This is how they shared a blanket in the car one day:

I came out side to find them on the deck like this one afternoon.

I made a colored rice sensory bin.  This is before we mixed all the colors:

After:

SAA children's craft and face painting:

Landon cooking for his stuffies:

Letter shaped bread sticks.  These were the letter sounds Landon knew.  He helped me make them, then would sound them out, and the eat them.

Easton joined in on the fun too.

Getting rid of the sugar bugs:

Noodles for supper.

Playing race car driver in the laundry bins.

You can't see it very well, but I wrote a secret message in white crayon and Landon painted over it with water colors to reveal what it said.

Sammy the snake.  We made him in home preschool.

The tradition of taking all the books off the shelves and reading them continues with Easton.

Noah's ark primary lesson that I redid for family night.

Not a very good picture of anyone, but still cute!

Easton with Grandpa McGarry.

Feeding the ducks.

In home preschool, we learned about plants and planted a bean seed.  It actually grew!

Doc McLandon!

Ziplock window painting.

Number game.  Landon counted the hearts on each card, then found the number to match it.

I lost my wedding ring for over a year, and had given up hope of ever finding it.  There are A LOT of things about moving that are not fun. But finding your wedding ring that has been lost for a year, and then having your husband propose again...PRICELESS! Many prayers had been sent out about expensive little item.

Landon was obsessed with watches, so we made one.

Family pictures taken by a good friend.

I LOVE this guy's smile!

Kitchen drums.

In home preschool, we made a fire fly.

There was a glow stick inside.

Landon's 3rd birthday party.  Dino themed.

The decorations.  The red and white blob is supposed to be a volcano.

The cake.

Dino gear.

This was what the kids took home.  I made fossils for them to dig through.  There were toy dinos inside.

Each kid got a dino tail that I made with scrap material.

Each child also got dino feet.

They came in and colored dinosaur pictures while they waited for everyone to get there.

The dino stomp!

Dinosaur egg hunt.

Digging in the rice for fossils.

Cake.

Landon's fossil.

He found the dinosaur!

Father's Day supper!

Father's Day breakfast.

Each card had a something on the back of it that the kids would do to make their Dad's Father's Day special, like giving him a hug ETC.

My favorite Father's Day tradition is the gift of the home made tie.  

This is how we wrapped the tie.

We went up to Canada for my sister's wedding.  

Waiting outside the temple.

 The beautiful bride.

We had fun visiting Canada.  The police car is a highlight for sure.

My Mom made this rocket ship and the boys thought it was so fun!

Inside the rocket.

They loved the bunny.

And playing in the sink.

Snake pancakes.