Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from our family to yours! I hope that your 2014 is filled with warmth, joy, curiousity, exploration, and love.

These are the photos I took to send our to family as our holiday cards, they are not the traditional formal pictures I take, but I thought the kids would enjoy this sitting more. I set up a secret hot cocoa picnic compete with artisan marshmallows and candy canes.  It is fun to give them a big treat like that every once and a while.

After taking the photos we went on our annual December float on the Willamette River with our kayaks lit up for the Illuminata Regatta. It is always fun, but this year was so amazingly pleasant. I don't know if it was the really cold (14 degree ferenheit) weather we had in the weeks leading up to the Illuminata Regatta or what, but it felt so warm we didn't even need our gloves!

I hope you enjoy the pictures.
:) Emilia

Alphabet Search Lends a Helping Hand

A few weeks ago I was trying to get a few things done before heading out the door and my kids were going a little wild so I quickly put together this little word search for my son and alphabet search for my daughter. It was so easy to put together and it kept them at the table for a few minutes doing something new just long enough for me to gather our things and get ready to go (and still take some photos of them).

I think this would be great while out because you can make endless versions of it on the fly. Just make sure you carry around paper and markers/colored pencils/pens or whatever. You could do this with shapes, numbers, emotion faces, animals, whatever.

The nice thing about doing it yourself is that you can make the letters larger so that it is easier for the younger kids to see and distinguish differences/similarities. It is a great exercise in sight words, learning the alphabet, matching, and concentration.