If three is so good....

wouldn't 4 be even better?? 4 children that is!! We are expecting Johnson Baby #4 in May 2011 and could not be more excited!! The girls want a sister, Britton has no idea about what's about to hit him, Paul says its a boy, and I just want a healthy, chubby little baby in my arms :)

A fun educational game for at home or on the road

A few months ago we were planning a trip to California, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to keep my kids entertained. I was inspired by THIS post, and came up with this matching activity that my girls couldn't get enough of! The nice thing about this game is, you can change it up all the time, and since we have been home I have used it for tons of different things!

I think magnetic stuff is totally the way to go for car trips...then the kids arent dropping all the pieces everywhere and driving YOU crazy :) So I simply got a 24-ct mini muffing tin, sheets of magnets, scrapbook paper and stickers. You cut the magnets into squares to fit over the muffin tin and then cover the other side of the magnets with cute paper

This is what your finished product looks like. Now here is the great part: you can fill the tin with anything you want depending on the age and level of your children! For Skylar on this trip I made magnets of upper and lowercase letters and she had to find the matches.

(Sorry, not the best picture, but you get the idea!)

For Kendall I am using it this week as we are learning about the farm. One of our activities is to match baby animals to their mommy animals. I made magnets out of pics I printed online and we are going to do a matching game tomorrow. One other fun thing the kids LOVED in the car was I would put different colored Skittles in the tin, and they would have to try and find another one that had the same color...it was a hit! :)

And the winner is...

Thanks for being so patient with me, we ended up having a crazy weekend here :) But I did not forget about our amazing Jizdani Designer Bags giveaway! Thank you all so much for entering, and if you like what you saw check out http://www.jizdanidesignerbags.etsy.com/ for a lot more amazing designs. Without any further ado, the winner is....

JEWELED CHAVON!!!

Congratulations!! Please email me at designskyblue@gmail.com with your contact information and Iwill get it shipped out to you ASAP!!

And for anyone local here in Utah, Skyblue Designs and Jizdani Designer Bags are opening up a booth at the Quilted Bear in Prov0 October 1st! Make sure you stop by so you can see all our fun creations in person :)

Friend Week at our Preschool

This week is focused on learning all about friends! This was a difficult week to plan because lots of the activites actually include "friends" (duh!:) Since I only have Kendall in the preschool I had to tweak some things to make it work.

I am really looking forward to preschool this week....wanna know why? Because we didn't end up doing it last week! Life took over and got a little crazy, so we are back at it this week and I can't wait! Here are the fun things we have planned:

Tuesday:

Color of the Week (Pink)

Number of the Week (3)

Letter C Tracer Page

Sound Bag

Read "Rainbow Fish" Book

Friendship Boats: Have child sit on the floor with you. Face each other and touch your outstretched legs together. Finally lean forward and grab one anothers hands. Then lean one way then the other in a rowing fashion while you sing 'Row row row your boat'

Two by Two Movement Activities: Play roll or toss the ball, skip across the room together, hop together, run, march, etc

Coloring Page

Rainbow Fish Craft: goes along with the book we read

Snack time (If you can think of anything that goes along with this theme, please let me know!! I was drawing a huge blank!)

Thursday:

Color of the Week (Pink)

Number of the Week (3)

Letter C Tracer Page

Sound Bag

Read "Rainbow Fish"

Measure My Friend activity: Have you and your child take turns measuring each other with string. Lie down on the floor and let your child measure you with string and then cut it. After you can compare the strings!

Fingerprint Comparison: Show your child how your fingerprints are different by stamping them on white paper

My New Friend Worksheet: I am just going to let Kendall name everyone that is her friend and have her draw one persons picture on the worksheet.

Make Friendship Bracelets

Snack Time

A Dora Birthday Breakfast Adventure!!

This post is also a little late, but hey, you do the best you can :) Several weeks ago was my daughter Kendall's 3rd birthday, and I knew I was going to have to get a little creative to make it special. We are still staying with Paul's parents so I knew a big party was out of the question. I finally came up with something a little bit similar to our Princess Breakfast Birthday Bash we did a few months ago, and I am please to say this one was just as fun!!

If you have ever seen Dora, you know every time they go on an adventure they have to go to different places before they reach the end...I tried to use this theme for our breakfast :)

First up the kids had to make it through the Fields of Fruit! I just printed out pictures of Dora and all her friends and then cut them out and taped them all around the table.

Our next stop was the Juicy River!!

Then finally we made it to Cereal Mountain....but oh no!! Is that Swiper I see?? Swiper no swipee!! (That was my kids favorite part :)

After we finished our breakfast Kendall got her Dora paper doll book, and we all sang, "We did, we did it, we did it, YAY!" SO cheesy, I know. But the kids had a ball, and afterwards Kendall said, "Who did this for me mommy?" I said that I had, and she gave me a huge hug :) Thats about as affectionate as you are going to get for that sassy little one.

I hope this sparked some ideas of things you can do that don't break the bank to make your little ones bday a little bit special!

And don't forget about our giveaway going on HERE. You still have two more days to enter!!

Jizdani Designer Bags GIVEAWAY!!!

Ok guys, I am more than a little excited about this giveaway!! Seriously people, this giveaway is a $90 value!! Not only that, the creator of this little beauty is someone pretty special to me...my Mom :) She is ridiculously talented and finally has the time in her busy, busy life to share that talent with the world! She just opened up her new Etsy Shop, Jizdani Designer Bags, and to celebrate she is giving away this one-of-a-kind, custom, handmade bag!

Now just to be sure you understand how awesome this is, the ENTIRE thing is homemade! The bag, the straps, the beadwork, ALL done by Vicky! I absolutely love the black and pink color combo, and no one else will have anything like this. All of her purses are unique, and definite showstoppers :) Each purse is decorated with brooches, sequin flowers, and handmade flowers with beaded centers and buttons. This purse also includes hand embroidered leaves and a great black trim!

So lets get to the good stuff :) This Giveaway will run til Friday, September 17th at midnight. As always, there are a few good ways to get entries:

1- Leave a comment on the post

2- Become a follower of this blog and tell me so in a comment! If you already are one, just be sure to let me know :)

3- Finally, post about this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page!

I wish you all the best of luck, and trust me, you are very lucky if you win! I have had my own purse for 3 days and can't leave the house without getting stopped every 5 minutes and complimented on it! Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out Vicky's Etsy Shop, Jizdani Designer Bags for even more amazing custom work!

A little back to school fun!

I know I am ridiculously late on this, but some of these pics were too fun not to share! This was a big year for us, my oldest daughter starting Kindergarten! She was so ready and not the least bit scared. I wanted to make sure it was really memorable for her, and do something special so she would know how much I love her and look forward to the first day of school from here on out :)

I had heard of the book "The Kissing Hand" from several people and figured I had to include it in our back to school traditions. If you haven't read it, you should!! As I read it to Skylar while we ate our back to school breakfast I couldn't help but cry, it is such a sweet story with a wonderful message for any child that is nervous or scared about any kind of big change in their life. (The funny part was Skylar kept saying, "Why is he scared to go to school Mom? I can't wait for school!":)










As far as breakfast goes, Skylar loved it!! (Please tell me you can see that is supposed to be a big pencil...my husband couldn't figure out why I would make her a rocket for her first day of school!;) Its just sliced strawberries for the eraser, pancakes for most of the pencil, whipped cream and chocolate for the top! Quite delicious if I do say so myself :)









And here is the big Kindergartener herself! She is such a poser...cracks me up all the time! Kendall (and maybe me) cried when she left to go to school, it is a big change in our lives. Kendall has never taken a nap without Skylar in the room with her, and I miss our carefree, easygoing days. With that all said...school is the best thing for Skylar. She needs that social interaction and she LOVES to learn. It is an adjustment, but we are loving it.









And of course, you must have fun snacks when you get home from school! I made these for my Young Women last year when they went back to school and have been planning them for my own kids ever since. I got the idea from Family Fun, you simply make cupcakes, frost them, and then use chocolate covered graham crackers as the chalkboard. I used the white Good and Plenty's for the chalk, and just frosting for the apples (I KNEW I was forgetting the skittles at the store!!)



That night when Skylar went to bed she said "I wish EVERY day could be the first day of school!" Mission accomplished folks! There are so many hardships in life, sometimes I look at my kids and feel scared about all they are going to have to deal with. One thing I can do to counter those hardships is to make sure I don't let any of these fun FIRSTS pass us by without celebrating and finding joy in them!! Hope everyone had a great Back to School! ( And lets be totally honest...I am loving 3 hours of my day with one less munchkin to chase around!:)

Farm Week at our Preschool!

Hey everyone!! I have to tell you, the first week of preschool at our house was a HIT!! It was so great to spend some one on one time with my middle child...she so needs it :) We had a wonderful time together, and she learned some great stuff too. With that said, here are the activities and links to some things we are doing this week, learning all about the Farm!

Tuesday:

Color of the Week (Orange)

Number of the Week (2)

Letter B Tracer Page

Sound Bag-Fill up the bag with items that all start with the letter B

Read Touch and Feel Farm

Farm Sound Discrimination Game-Get 8 plastic eggs and fill them with 4 different sounding food products. Two with sugar, two with flour, two with rice, and two with beans. Then have child take turns picking an egg, shaking them, and then searching through the basket to find its "sound" mate :)

Coloring Page

Make pigs nose craft- Cut bottome of egg carton, paint pink, cut out nostrils and attach with string.

Have "pig slop" for snack- Mix yummy snacks together like pretzels, M&M's, etc!

Thursday:

Color of the Week (Orange)

Number of the Week (2)

Letter B Tracer Page

Sound Bag

Read Touch and Feel Farm Book

Moms and Babies farm animal matching game- print and laminate pictures of mom and baby animals, have kids play matching game.

Farm Animal Sort-Cut out pictures of lots of animals, some farm animals, some not. Then have them put the farm animals in a barn, and the others outside.

Wooly sheep craft- Trace your childs hand, then cover it with glue and let them attach cotton balls. The flip it upside down so the fingers are the 4 legs, and decorate the thumb to be the face.

Have pigs in a blanket for snack time.

If you are doing anything similar in your home, please tell me what you are doing!! I am always looking for new, fun ways to teach my kids!

One more thing, you are gonna wanna make sure you check back tomorrow.....for an AMAZING giveaway!! Someone very special to me has just started a fantastic business and is allowing me to giveaway one of her very own handmade creations. We are talking about a $90 value here folks!! So make sure to stop by tomorrow to enter, you are not gonna want to miss this!!

Back to school!!

Preschool, that is!!!

I was so sad when I realized because of where we live I would'nt be able to take Kendall to the preschool I had been planning on. Skylar attended A Childs Garden Preschool for two years and loved EVERY minute of it! I was so looking forward to Kendall having some of those same experiences but if the last few months have taught me nothing else, I have learned the need to be flexible, adjust, and make the best of a new situations.

So with all that said, my solution was to do my very own preschool with Kendall, one-on-one! I have had SO much fun putting it all together and I thought I would share it with you so if you want to do something similar it will be all right here in one little place. Most of these ideas came from these great preschool resources: Preschool Express, Preschool Education and Everything Preschool.

Now as usual, I must warn you, I am a huge dork! But if I am going to do something, I like to do it right :) So here is our agenda for our little preschool:

1:30- Welcome Song / Pledge of Allegiance

1:40- Singing Time / Nursery Rhymes

2:00- Learning Time / Letter, Number, Color of the week

2:30- Craft / Activity

2:50- Snack Time / Free Play

Every week we will have a theme that reinforces the letter, number and color for that week, and some fun crafts and projects that fit in there too :) I really want to foster a love of reading in my children, so every week we will also read a book that ties into our theme. Another fun idea I got from Skylar's kindergarten teacher is to have a Sound Bag. Whatever the letter is that week, the sound bag is full of items that start with that letter. That way we are really reinforcing the sounds that letter makes and making the child more aware. I also have a card holder up that holds the flashcards for the letter, color and number of the week, and we will go over those as we discuss those items for the week.

This weeks theme is apples and here is our curriculum for the week:

Tuesday: Color of the Week (RED)

Number of the Week (1)

Letter A Tracer page

Sound Bag

Read The Giving Tree

Sorting and counting activity with apples

Rock "apples" craft

Make apple and peanut butter sandwiches

Thursday: Color of the week (Red)

Number of the week (1)

Letter A Tracer page

Sound Bag

Read The Giving Tree

Apple rhymes activity

Apple stamp craft with Aa template

Homemade applesauce for snack time

If you are interested in the specifics of any of these activities please feel free to leave a comment, and I will email you back shortly! I am so excited to start this with Kendall, and will continue to post our weekly curriculum. Hope you all have a great day!!

Labor Day Sale at Sky Blue Designs!!

Hey everyone!! I know times are tough for a LOT of us, and to show you how much I appreciate you and your hard-earned dollars we are having a Labor Day sale at Sky Blue Designs!! For a limited time only, all headbands are buy one get one half off, and shipping is just $2 no matter how many headbands you buy! If you have any questions or want to make a purchase email me at designskyblue@gmail.com and I will make the appropriate princing changes. Thanks for stopping by and have a great holiday! :)

Better late than never!!

I am so sorry it has taken me so long to announce the winner of the second giveaway...yesterday was the first day of school and it completely took up our whole day!

And the winner is....

Marissa!!!

Congratulations, and I really hope you enjoy the headband :)

Once again, thank you so much to everyone that commented, became a follower or posted about my little giveaway on facebook! Your kind words meant so much to me and you can plan on lots more fun giveaways and specials from Sky Blue Designs!!