Apples, Apples, Apples!

September is over...and sure flew by fast for us over here in the Adams house! September always makes me think of apples, so our month was full of lots of apple fun woven through our other activities and school time. We made some yummy apple treats and some adorable apple crafts, it was a great way to usher in my favorite season...I love the fall!

Of course we had to do the classic apple printing...

Faithy was REALLY intense about her project, LOL!

Samuel decided he just wanted to eat an apple while everyone else dipped theirs in the paint...

I'm sure it tasted great mixed with the paint from his fingers.  :)

I was just going to do this with Faith and Samuel since the big kids have done it several times before and I thought they wouldn't be very interested anymore. I was wrong. Joshua asked where his paper was as soon as we started and then said "Of COURSE I want to do apple printing Mom!" when I asked him if he wanted to join us. It wasn't long before Joy came in saying, "I want to make one!"

So while we were doing this Joy tells me she's lucky to have little brothers and a little sister. She has said this before, but I decided to inquire why she was saying it at this particular time and she answered me, "Because I get to keep doing preschool every year!" She's 7 now and homeschooling through 2nd grade this year, but she LOVES to do what the younger kids are doing, even if it's something she's done MANY times already! :) She's right, we are pretty blessed to get to do all this fun stuff year after year! I'm so glad she enjoys it still.

Faithy made us several yummy apple themed snacks throughout the month including sliced apples dipped in carmel, apple crisp, cinnamon apples and these great apple rings smothered in peanut butter! She was a great helper.  :)

We also made some biscuits that looked like apples...we spread them with red strawberry jam and added a piece of apple on the top for a stem. (and yes, they are gluten free and VERY yummy!)  :)

Bend-a-roo apples...super cute! (We LOVE Bendaroos in our house)

I love how our yarn apples turned out!

We wrapped tons and tons of yarn around a piece of cardboard, then pushed a brown pipe cleaner through the bundle, slid it off and kind of rolled it around itself till it was round and apple shaped.  :)

The kids were trying to see who could make theirs bigger...

Faithy gave up early on, so her apple is much smaller and looser than the other kids', but it's still really cute!

Joshua had the great idea to make a worm to live in his...and then Joy had to make a worm for hers too.  :)

They are cute for fall decoration but we also played lots of games with them the day we made them. We did a lot of 'following directions games' like...inside, outside, under and on top.  :) We played some apple catch and we also balanced them on our heads...cause balancing anything on your head when you're 3 years old is always tons of fun.  :)

Which then made us want to read our Ten Apples Up On Top book...that's a great one. :) And we read it probably 10 times this month along with some of our other favorite apple themed books.

The kids made a beautiful tissue paper apple banner for our wall....

We glued the tissue and then cut out the apple shapes so we got a nice smooth edge.

One of our most favorite apple things we did though was making homemade apple juice with the juicer. It's actually something we do often, but we've done it a lot this month with all the yummy apples that have been available here recently.

Samuel and Faith Elaina helped with the juicing most of the time. They love sticking the apples in the top and pressing them down to make the yummy juice run out. 

This juicer is amazing by the way! I got it for my birthday a couple of years ago from my Mama...it's wonderful! I love it!  :)

Our regular blend that we do most of the time is apple carrot juice... delicious! But this day we just did good ole' apple juice...YUM! 

It never lasts long in our house...

Samuel was really excited about having his own 'big boy cup' full and getting to drink it with a straw. I love that the simplest things can make the little ones so happy!  :)  

Pants For George!

Ever since I started sewing a bunch this summer, the kids have been asking to make some projects of their own. So Joshua had a turn this week and decided he wanted to make some pants for his Curious George (that was actually his Daddy's George when HE was a little boy...so it's Super Special!)   :) 

It was very cute watching him try to figure out how this was going to turn into pants!  :)

He did a great job though and was really happy with how they turned out! 

Now he and George having matching Batman pants and Joshua is excited to start his next project! :)

Wet Chalkboard Writing and The Bean Bucket

Faithy is having fun this week writing some of her letters with a little wet sponge on the chalkboard. Just another fun way of practicing letter writing without actually sitting at the table and writing. :) She's enjoying it very much...and the chalkboard is now very clean! :)

Ha! Ha! I just realized as I am posting this that my kids are wearing their pajamas in over 1/2 of our 'school time' pictures! LOL! Yes, we wear our pj's most all the day if we don't have to go anywhere. Why not stay comfy? :) But really...I think it's because most of the time we get up so early and the kids are ready to get started that we just begin our day and don't often get the kids dressed until after we take a break and have a mid morning snack....or "2nd Breakfast" as my kids like to call it because they get up so stinking early! LOL! Thanks to those dreadful Army trumpets blaring so early every morning!

So the Bean Bucket... it's definitely a favorite in our house, but is only to be taken out when Samuel is napping.

He got up earlier than I thought he would this day and Faithy was still happily playing with it so I thought I'd sit there with him and show him how we play in the bean bucket.... It took all of 2 seconds for THIS to happen....

See the floor!? Faithy instantly started saying "I didn't do it!" But it was okay...part of playing in the bean bucket is using the tiny broom and dustpan afterwards to clean it up. Only usually, the mess is much smaller!

My sweet Faith Elaina didn't mind though and she helped Mama clean it all up! But I don't think we'll be letting Samuel around the bean bucket again for a long time. :)

What To Do With Samuel?

I have had SO many friends asking recently what to do with the littlest ones while they homeschool the bigger ones so that THIS doesn't happen while you have your back turned....

The backside of the hutch is a mirror that Samuel can see himself in thru the glass doors but only...when he's on the table. THIS is his new favorite thing to do. And of course once he saw me taking pictures BEFORE telling him to get down, he thought it was really fun and okay that he was up there.

SO HE DID IT SEVERAL MORE TIMES BEFORE THE DAY WAS OVER!

Anyway, if you don't want your little ones doing this during school time, the best trick in our house is to keep them busy doing their own things during school time. I save certain toys that only come out at school time and often fill a few baskets each morning or the night before that I set out for the little ones to do while I'm schooling the big kids that have activities for them to do in them. I've posted about several in the past under my Babies & Toddlers category but I'll add a few more here that we've been doing in the last couple of weeks. 

Several of these Samuel did in one day...

Long colorful straws and an empty bottle:

An ice cube tray and anything to put into the spaces...here he's using felt balls:

Pipe cleaners into anything with holes:

I found the idea for using a colander on pinterest.com. I stuck all the pipe cleaners in and thought he would enjoy pulling them all out...he did...and then he also wanted to stick them all back in when he was done! So it was extra entertaining and for a much longer period of time than I thought it would be! It's always nice when that happens. :)

Then of course Faithy, my preschooler wanted in on this and she did the same thing... pulling them all out and sticking them back in...

Then she wore it like a hat while she ran around like a crazy person!

Lids! I know I've told a lot of people about this one but I don't think I have any pictures up of this one yet. It's just a large container full of plastic lids of every color that we collected off of anything we could find before we threw it away. I was surprised at how many things we buy that have bright plastic lids!
The kids love to dump them, sort them, stack them and do all sorts of things. :)

Easter Eggs! Yes, even in September a carton of Easter Eggs is fun...you don't even have to fill them! Though that is fun to do sometimes too! :)

Well, that's a few ideas. I'll post more as I get pictures of them! It's kind of hard to remember to take pictures when these are the things I plan specifically for him to do while I do something else with the big kids! LOL! But I'll try! :)