The Last of the Dr. Seuss Activities

Source

J and Blake made a stacking turtle out of paper plates.  Can you tell that the boys were doing this craft with no supervision?  They didn't use colors, markers, or anything!  But J got to use the stapler and that was very exciting for him!  It would be fun to make a lot of turtles and see how high the stack could get without falling.  Jenga would be a good game to play to connect with this book.

Source

Mom and I took profile pictures of both kids so I can make their silhouettes.  When I get them done I will share them with you.  I want to make them pretty so I can hang them in their room.  Blake also traced J on butcher paper and let him decorate it.  They traced a couple of horses too so J could see their shapes.  K got involved in the coloring.  She had marker EVERYWHERE!  Thank you for washable markers!  Shadow puppets would be a fun activity with this book as well.

Source

J colored six sets of feet and paired them up.  I had him glue the pairs on a piece of construction paper.  He has sorting figured out so we didn't sort shoes or socks but that would be a great activity to do with a younger child. 

We also put together his Mulberry Street book.  I picked out some of the better pictures and glued them on paper to make a book.  The cover of the book had a picture of our road and the title "And to Think That I Saw it on ..."  I used the name of our road in the title.  He told me what he saw and I wrote it down for him.  It took a minute but once he got going his stories were all over the place.  We also read Oh the Thinks You Can Think!  This book goes great with this activity because it involves thinking and imagination.

The picture was of a house and yard with trees.

The picture was of a dog tied to a tree. (Poor dog!)

"Left foot. Right foot. Feet. Feet. Feet. Oh, how many feet you meet!"  The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss

Oobleck!

Source

I love this book!  It ranks in my top three favorite Dr. Seuss books.  I love making Oobleck with J.  We made it last year and he was so excited about making it this year.  It started out in the bowl but we dumped it out onto the table.  He buried some of his horses in it too!  I thought K would like to play with the Oobleck but she cried the minute she touched it!  We had to wash her hands and find something else for her to do.  Silly girl!

You can find the recipe for this Oobleck and another version of Oobleck on my last year's post HERE.  I don't use a recipe anymore.  It is basically 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water.  I mix the food coloring with the water before adding it to the cornstarch.


"They still talk about it in the Kingdom of Didd as The-Year-the-King-Got-Angry-with-the-Sky."  ~Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss

And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street

Source

The kids and I went for a walk today and I let J take the Polaroid.  He read Mulberry Street over the weekend and I reminded him of the little boy's imagination.  I told him he could take pictures of things on our walk and when we got back home we would use our imagination to create our own story.  We didn't get to the story creating yet but J took 9 pictures on our walk.  He had fun using the camera and watching the pictures pop out of it.  I can't wait to see what his imagination makes of them!

By the way, this is my favorite book written by Dr. Seuss!


"When I leave home to walk to school, Dad always says to me, 'Marco, keep your eyelids up and see what you can see.'  But when I tell him where I’ve been and what I think I’ve seen, he looks at me and sternly says,  'Your eyesight’s much too keen. Stop telling such outlandish tales. Stop turning minnows into whales.'  Now, what can I say when I get home today?"  ~And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss

Hives and a New Phone

K must have gotten into something (or ingested something) Saturday morning or she had a delayed reaction to tuna fish from lunch Friday because she broke out in hives Saturday afternoon.  They started out small and we weren't that concerned but by Sunday she looked awful!  We kept her at home Sunday just to make sure the rash wasn't strep or something worse but Dr. D. told us today that the rash was most definitely hives. 
While waiting for her medicine to get ready at the pharmacy, Mom took me to get a new phone.  Mine went for a swim in the deep end of the pool over the summer and hasn't been the same since!  I ended up with a Droid Razr.  I had a Droid before and I don't know if I'm quite ready for an IPhone.  I LOVE it!  I can still use my internet like before and all of my apps are the same.  Thanks Mom! 

Source

"Eating greens is a special treat.  It makes long ears and great big feet.  But it sure is awful stuff to eat.  I made that last part up myself."  ~Thumper in Bambi

Cows

Saturday morning, we tagged and vaccinated cows.  We took both kids and they had a blast!  J received instructions on how to "pole" the cows while they were in the chute and K played in the grass with Granny.  I think she dug in the dirt, climbed on the bush hog and tried to climb the fence. 
Jules and I filled syringes and I gave vaccinations while the boys tagged, castrated and sorted.  What a fun morning!

The John Deere boots were J's but his foot was too big by the time he was old enough to wear them.  Now sweet girl is wearing them!

"Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days."  ~Henri Alain

Sunday Sampler

My culinary adventure continues!  Here is what I made last week.  Maybe this week I will remember to take pictures! 

Chicken and pasta with dill sauce, fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, more breakfast burritos for Blake, tallerini (easy...it was in the freezer!), lemon blueberry crumb bars, s'mores cupcakes, broccoli chicken casserole (for Monday night...it's in the fridge), and ham and bean soup.  I also made chicken spaghetti, poppyseed chicken, and tex mex lasagna in preparation for the next couple of weeks.  I divided each recipe into several small pans and froze them.  Now I have easy meals for gospel meeting week and I was able to share with family. 

I love cooking on the weekends!  I am figuring out how to do it slowly throughout the day so I can still spend time with Blake and the kids. 

I will try to share a recipe with you each week and maybe one day I will be able to share a weekly meal plan.  I'm not confident enough to do that yet!  I got this recipe from Amelia when I was in college and I believe she found it in a Pillsbury cookbook.  My original recipe was lost on one of Blake's trips so I have made up my own version that is a bit different from the original.  I learned to cook chicken this way from the Beal's. 

Chicken and Pasta with Dill Sauce

3 or 4 thin sliced chicken breasts, trimmed of fat

Cavender's Greek seasoning

chili powder

paprika

dill weed

ground cayenne, optional

salt

pepper

2 Tbsp. butter

1/4 cup of flour, about!

1/2 tsp. dijan mustard

2 cups milk

1/2 to 1 pound Velveeta, diced

1 Tablespoon dill weed

salt and pepper to taste

chicken stock, optional

Pasta of your choice

Season both sides of chicken breasts with the first seven seasonings.  Depending on how hot/spicy you prefer, adjust seasonings according to your tastes.  Less Cavender's and cayenne will be less spicy.  Cook in skillet with 1 to 2 Tbsp. olive oil.  Once the chicken is cooked through, cut into strips or bite size pieces and put back in skillet to soak up remaining seasonings.  I like bite size pieces.

In a saucepan, melt butter.  Add flour, about 1/4 cup or enough to make a paste.  Stir with whisk.  Let paste begin to bubble and add dijan mustard.  Whisk to combine.  Add milk.  Whisking over medium heat until mixture begins to thicken.  Add cheese.  I like about 1/2 pound of cheese.  The original recipe called for 1 pound.  The more you add, the thicker the sauce.  If sauce is too thick, add chicken stock to thin.  Once cheese is melted, add dill weed and salt and pepper. 

While cooking chicken and sauce, boil water for pasta.  To serve, prepare plates with pasta and chicken.  Pour sauce on top.  It works best if sauce is not combined with pasta in a bowl. 

Serve with garlic bread.  Yum!

"Her tongue appears to be hinged in the middle, but she may turn out all right."  Rachel Lynde, Anne of Green Gables (movie)

Followers

I know there are a lot of people reading my blog now and I love it!  But I don't know who you are.  If you are reading, please take a minute to follow this blog.  That way you can see when I post and I can see who is reading.  Thanks for checking in and seeing what's new each day!
Comments are welcome too!!!

Dirt, Trees, and Swings

The weather has been lovely the past few days.  Yesterday the kids played outside a lot with Blake while I was in and out cooking, doing laundry, and watching my sweet babies get completely filthy!

"No. We Breathe. We Pulse. We Regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds, well used, is a lifetime."  ~Mr. Magorium, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Green Eggs and Ham

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!  We celebrated the day with green eggs and ham, biscuits and chocolate syrup for breakfast.  J added the green food coloring and was pretty skeptical about how they would taste.  But in the end, he liked them and asked for more green eggs and ham for dinner! 

K liked them too! Blake was off work today so he got to enjoy breakfast with us and he also likes green eggs and ham.

I DO NOT like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am! This was what my plate looked like.

Source

"I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I Am."  ~Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins

This is one of my top three favorite Dr. Seuss books.  I love Bartholomew and King Derwin! 

Source

J decorated his own hat in the same style as Bartholomew. He picked out all of the decorations and wanted every color feather.

I had plans to take him with me to WalMart and let him keep a tally of caps and cowboy hats but he stayed with Mamaw instead. (Which was good because I bought two weeks worth of groceries and it took FOREVER!!!)
Instead, I gathered up all the hats in our house (at least the ones I could find) and made a little chart. He added stickers to the chart as we sorted the hats and we counted the stickers when we were finished. We had more baseball caps than other hats. Katherine helped sort hats as well! I have a feeling she is going to like playing dress-up!

"And he took off his hat--and it didn't do any good. Another hat sat on Bartholomew's head. He took of hat after hat after hat until he was standing in the middle of a great pile of hats."  ~500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss