Ultimate Blog Party '10 - Welcome!

I love a good party, don't you?

Already, there are close to 1,000 family-friendly blogs linked up to the Ultimate Blog Party!

If you're stopping by from UBP10, welcome! Here you'll find a little bit of everything mommy related, but mostly I blog about my kids and preschool with my three-year-old. 

My name is Sela (Say-la for those who care) and I just started blogging in December. I have two littles: my 3-year-old Kahlen loves to learn and keeps me laughing with the funny things she says and my 9.5-month-old Nathanael is a happy, smiley little boy (especially at 3am!) who keeps me cooking (what am I going to do when he is a teenager?!?). I have been married for almost 9 years to Tim and love it! 

We live in beautiful Colorado and I can't imagine living anywhere else. I grew up here and was homeschooled here. I've been doing preschool with my daughter for a year (a year, really??). We started as just something to keep us occupied, and over the last year, it's become part of our routine.

Here's my kiddos the other morning playing together :)

Ultimate Blog Party has a HUGE list of prizes to giveaway! Here are a few I would love to win:

• USC 60 – For one winner a $200 gift certificate for any Wall Slicks vinyl wall decal of your choice. DIY decorating made easy with Wall Slicks wall stickers.
• 62 – Ever wanted to read the entire Bible? This prize is for you! One Bible in 90 Days Thinline NIV Bible and one Bible in 90 Days Participants Guide.
• 56 – 12″ x 24″ Custom, hand~painted gallery style canvas for baby nursery or kid’s room {to be coordinated with winner’s bedding/decor} for one winner, see samples here!
• 39 -Be My Guest certificate ($250 value) for one lucky winner, (2 night stay for a family of four) at any Hilton Garden Inn. 
• USC 39, USC 37, USC 35, USC 15, USC 8, USC 3, 112 (All gift cards)

Have a Great 2010 Ultimate Blog Party! 

Please leave me a comment and include your blog address if you have one so I can share the comment love!

UPDATE 4/12: I just added a giveaway to my page in honor of the party! Check it out and enter here :)

~S

Ultimate Blog Party '10

So, I just found out about this, and am very excited to participate! I just started checking out the list of prizes available, and WOW! There are some great ones!

Click on the banner for all the info. I'd love for you to join us! You can be a blogger or non-blogger to be eligible for the prizes. This is a super way for us to find more mommy blogs to remind us that we are not alone out there.

If you want to learn more about the Ultimate Blog Party, you can visit 5 Minutes For Moms.

The party starts tomorrow, so stop back by then!

~S

Tot School - Easter Week 3

Kahlen is 39.5 months old

We are following the Hubbard's Cupboard curriculum for 2's called Joyful Learning. For four weeks, we have been learning about eggs and Easter. Check out this post that includes the planning sheets for the last two weeks.

We really focused in on Easter last week with some great activities and crafts that I found all over the blogosphere. Please see my planning post for links to the activities.

Here's our trays for the first day:

We didn't actually get to all the activities on these trays because some of them took much longer.
We started with our bible story and resurrection eggs.
Then we did the first few steps of the Playdough Mountain from Desiring God:

 First, I made the people and the cross. I think probably next year, she'll be able to do this step.

 Mixing the ingredients.

Poking the holes for the cross and the people.

It then has to bake for a really really really long time (like 6+ hours), so we moved on to the next activity :)

We made a masking tape cross:

She was supposed to paint the entire paper, but just didn't want to.

This is after we pulled the tape off. 

That was all we had time for that day since the mountain took a long time, and the bible story portion was long as well.

The next day, after the mountain was cooked and cooled, she painted it:

Before the paint

Painting the mountain.

The completed masterpiece.

I managed to not take any pictures of it after we put the cross and people on it :( We took out the can that we used to help form the tomb and placed all the people in the holes we had poked in it. On Good Friday, we took one of the people, pretended it was Jesus and placed him in the tomb. On Sunday morning, it was gone! She definitely understood it better this year than last, but I think we'll keep doing it every year anyway :)

Our second day of school:

We started again with our bible story and the last two resurrection eggs.

She then picked the one with food on it, of course!

She made resurrection rolls:

Rolling the marshmallows in butter and sugar/cinnamon.

Before we rolled them up.

In the "tomb".

While they were cooking, she made a picture frame with Easter stickers I got from Oriental Trading

She also did her C handwriting page from First School.

Then, the rolls were done!

Mmm, yummy!

We also started an oatmeal sensory bin this week, we'll keep it probably for a couple weeks before hopefully doing something less messy :)

Here's everything we put in the bin. The bin itself is a wrapping paper box.

I put the bin on a big blanket on the floor so I can just shake it off outside when she's done. 

We have a "blanket time" every day where she must stay on her blanket. She's been trained to do this since she was very little, so it's nothing new. Just recently, though, I've started letting her play with her sensory bin on blanket time. This is time that I typically use to do my bible study or get something else done that would be difficult to do with her. We usually do it for about 45 minutes (I set a timer so she knows when she's done). She enjoys the time she gets to spend with her bin, most days she plays a little longer after the timer goes off. 

I've really enjoyed our Easter activities, but after next week, I'll be ready to move on to something besides plastic eggs and cross crafts ;)

~S

Tasty Tuesday - Peach Cobbler & LINKY PARTY #1

It's time for our Tasty Tuesday party!

Please link up your recipe at the bottom of the page. You can post a link to a recipe on your blog or anywhere else. In the title of your link, please leave your name too (especially if it's not a blog post) so I know who it came from :)

Also, feel free to grab my Tasty Tuesday button, it's on the left side, near my other button.

My recipe for today came from the Betty Crocker cookbook my mom had growing up. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) my husband doesn't like peaches, so I either have to eat the whole pan or save this recipe for when I have people over to my house. I love making this with fresh Colorado peaches, but any kind will do.

{Ingredients}

• ½ cup sugar 
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch 
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 4 cups sliced peaches
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  -------------------------------------------
• 3 tablespoons shortening 
• 1 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1 tablespoon sugar 
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder 
• ½ teaspoon salt 
• ½ cup milk

{Directions}

• Heat oven to 400°.  Mix ½ cup sugar, the cornstarch and cinnamon in 2-quart saucepan.  
• Stir in peaches and lemon juice.  Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  
• Boil and stir 1 minute.  
• Pour into un-greased 2-quart casserole; keep peach mixture hot in oven.
• Cut shortening into flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, the baking powder and salt until mixture resembles fine crumbs
• Stir in milk.  Drop dough by 6 spoonfuls onto hot peach mixture.
• Bake until topping is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.  
• Serve warm and, if desired, with whipped cream.

Mommy Monday - Easter

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter celebrating the Resurrection!

We started off the day with this great message from Mitch Majeski
After some lunch and getting ready, we headed down to Tim's parent's house in Loveland (about 20 minutes from us).
After Kahlen woke up from her nap, she dyed eggs with her cousin, who is 13.

Daddy got in on it too :)

Her masterpieces

Enjoying the one she cracked before it even made it in the dye

She really wanted to throw her hat around and generally play out side, so I got a couple cute ones

Later, the boys played cornhole while Kahlen mostly stayed out of the way

The one picture of me from the day :)

I only got a few pictures of the little man, but here's my favorite with his sister

My husband didn't want to wear anything fancier than his T-Shirt, so I threatened informed him that I will be making him a tie shirt like I did for the little man :)

~S

Muffin Tin Monday

There was no theme this week at Muffin Tin Monday so we had a mix of things. This morning when Kahlen realized it was Muffin Tin Monday, she said she wanted to do all red things. Of course, by the time lunch rolled around, she had changed her mind. She asked for waffles for breakfast, and we didn't have any (since I hadn't made any after she ate the last of them last week). I told her we could have them for lunch before I remembered it was MTM. So, we had waffles for lunch along with some other tasty food:

Top row: Waffle cut in half, string cheese

Bottom row: Strawberry jelly for waffles, ritz whole wheat crackers, applesauce

I did have to remind her that the jelly was for the waffles and not for eating with the spoon, but otherwise it was a good meal, everything but the crackers were devoured in record time :)

~S

Menu Plan Monday - April 5th

We had an off kind of week. We ended up having dinner with friends on Wednesday, went out for a mystery shop to Lone Star Steakhouse on Thursday, and hubby had Good Friday off, which always confuses my schedule a little. Needless to say, we didn't stick to the menu AT ALL last week :) That's fine, though, because now I hardly have to buy anything for this week!

Our menu for this week:
Monday ~ something tasty provided by dad and stepmom

Tuesday ~  Texas Roadhouse for another mystery shop :)

Wednesday ~  Beef, Bean, and Barley Stew

Thursday ~ Chinese of some kind. Probably Orange Chicken Stir-fry or the like

Friday ~ Hidden Valley Crispy Chicken with noodles

Saturday ~  Leftover Buffet

Sunday ~ Mexican Lasagna

Remember, TOMORROW, April 6th, I'm starting a Tasty Tuesday linky party. Come visit me then!

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

~S