Category Archives: Tot School

Summer Vacation 2012

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Crisc| 1 Comment

Since my birthday is in the Summer, my husband and I usually take a trip by ourselves. This year I decided I would take my 13 yr old Brother In Law and 12 yr old Son to Minnesota and send the younger kids to Chicago to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. After seeing the pictures of the younger ones trip, I’m a little jealous I wasn’t there to enjoy it with them. Overall I would say it was a great end to summer break.

Older Kids Trip To Minnesota

River Walk in Naperville, IL

Bloomington, Minn

Minnehaha Falls- Minneapolis, Minn

Downtown Minneapolis, Minn

Valley Fair Shakopee, Minn

State Capital- St. Paul, Minn

Younger Kids Trip

Water park outside of Yorkville, IL

Children’s Museum

Hope everyone is enjoying summer and gearing up for the upcoming school year

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Summer Camping Trip

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Crisc| 4 Comments

(Heaven and I excited about our 1st camping trip)

I love the traveling we do in the summer months. From the theme parks to our upcoming summer vacation, every trip has been great. This past week we decided to take the younger kids camping. My husband has never been and refused to sleep in a tent so we booked a cabin. This cabin was a lot different than the one we stayed in when we went to TN. In TN not only did we have a pool table, tv and game system we also had a hot tub. This time we had a 1 room cabin with a double bed and bunk bed. The 1st thing my 3yr old said is, “where’s the tv?” (it was his 1st camping trip also, poor kid has a lot to learn)

I tried to unplug from technology this time besides a picture I took on Instagram so I didn’t get very many pics on my camera. Here are the few I did manage to get. As always I hope everyone is enjoying summer. We will be back to our regular schedule at the end of Aug-early September.

What I love the most is how well the kids played together without all the distractions of home..

The kids at one with nature

I let them each bring a couple things to play with and 2 of the things Heaven picked were books! REAL BOOKS- no tablets, no electronic devices..just camping the old fashion way After dinner we walked to the playground (no pics) and when we returned Heaven wanted to read Daddy a story.

When she was done Thomas wanted his one on one time (plus Ben-e)

Once the sun went down we started the fire and no camp fire is complete without marshmallows..

The sunrise on the way home =)

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Bucket List Month 2

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Crisc| 3 Comments

(I assure you everyone is happy even though they look miserable)

This week we took a trip to Sandusky, Ohio to visit Cedar Point and view the 4th of July fireworks. It was in the late 90′s so we went to the beach and headed to the pool. We did spend a few hours in the park on the 5th but being from MI, I’m used to summers being in the 80′s. Late 90′s-100 is too hot for a theme park. (Tip from me to you) Here are a few of the pics, during the summer months you can follow me on Instagram to check out what we have been up to =)

Hope everyone had a great holiday and enjoy their weekend.

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It Must Be Summer

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Crisc| Leave a comment

During the summer we take it pretty easy around here. We mainly focus on learning through play and discovery. Due to the lack of structure the summer days bring, it has made for a fun week.

Situation Number 1- I hear ” Mom TJ drew on his wall, Dads gonna be mad” and this is what I find along with a 3 yr old covered in marker from head to toe.

Situation 2- I’m watering the garden and the kids are catching butterflies.. I hear ” MOM I GOT A BABY!” as my 4 yr old is coming towards me, I’m terrified to see what kind of baby she had..she found this..

Don’t worry it wasn’t dead and we washed our hands after this. (He died the next day)

So as you can tell it’s been a fun week..here’s some other highlights of the past weeks. Hope everyone is enjoying summer =)

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HSV Garden (Last Link Up)

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Crisc| 6 Comments

Time seems as though it has flown by and we are at our last link up =( On the bright side our garden is doing AMAZING! I’m sad it’s June but will be looking forward to doing it again next year. I hope the wonderful new ladies of HSV, will keep this link up. The past 2 years I have watched my husband work his hardest for this challenge. (I’m sure he secretly wishes he had a blog so he could link it up and I could take no credit b/c it really is his baby)..lol I take pictures and show the world so I think my part counts

I’m going to dedicate this last post to my husband for all his hard work that he put into making it what it is..xoxo John

The start of the hard work can be found here, dont worry it will open a new window so you will still be able to finish this page.

The Final Viewing

Regular Tomatoes

Giant Tomatoes

Grape Tomatoes

Broccoli

Heavens Cucumbers

Jalapeno Peppers

Till next year

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Checking Off The Bucket List Month 1

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Crisc| 3 Comments

For almost a month we have been checking off our awesome bucket list ideas I got from Pinterest. Last week I had to add another sheet because we were going through them so fast. Somethings are not checked but we will be doing them in a couple of weeks. Here’s an update on the things we did this week.

Mixing Colors

Crayon Rubbings (plus we melted the crayons and molded them)

Took Our 1st trip of the season to get some frozen custard

Looked For Flowers

Made Sun Tea

Built With Legos

Had A Sleep-Over (many more to come)

Had A Couple Play Dates and A BBQ

And Per Heavens Request We Have Officially Started Learning To Read

For more ideas visit my summer Pinterest boards.

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Starting The Summer Fun List

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Crisc| 2 Comments

School officially ended for us a few weeks ago and since we have been working on our Summer Fun List

To start off I went thru my Pinterest folder (linked above) and printed out a few pre-made list and hung them on the whiteboard.

As we go along I highlight or check off what we have done. Since this picture was taken more than a week ago we have a lot more checked off. (you will see at the bottom of this post)

Things We Have Done

Made Play Dough

Hosted a BBQ with family

Had a treasure hunt

Took TJ for his 1st trip of the season to Cedar Point and Soak City Water Parks

Went over our Summer Safety Rules from Scholastic

Made Clay from Applesauce and Cinnamon

Had a surprise visit from Chicago Grandma

and visited friends for a fire, play time and roasted marshmallows

List update

What’s on your summer list?

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Preschool Grad and Summer Fun

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Crisc| 2 Comments

The day has come when my little girl has completed her preschool years. As sad as I am, I’m also excited about the fun we will have in K-4.

Now that school is finished up (till Aug) we have started some of our summer activities. If you’re looking for ideas, visit my Pinterest Summer Fun Board. Lots of great ideas! This week we have spent so much time outside enjoying all the things our backyard (and Grandmas) has to offer.

Finding snails at Grandmas

Toads are back

and Heaven finally caught her butterfly

We also started checking things off the summer fun list like “blowing bubbles”

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Getting Ready For Summer

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Crisc| 3 Comments

Our 2011/12 school year is coming to an end. We spent this past week visiting a Theme Park, playing outside and cleaning out the school room. Next week will be Heavens last day of preschool and then we will begin our summer fun so be sure to check back =)

Cedar Points new Dino Alive

Enjoying nice weather

Spring Clean Out

Finished

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Science Week

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Crisc| 8 Comments

We are nearing the end of the 2011/12 school year, only 3 weeks left! This week we took it easy and just enjoyed the nice weather, doing Science experiments and planting in the garden (will update soon)..

The Rubber Egg

Place an egg in white vinegar

We then compared the eggs