Ping pong fish bowl toss

One year ago in April, I set this game up in our backyard play environment and it was a lot of fun! However it was missing something. It was missing the little "ting" noise you hear when you play this game at a carnival or festival! I loved the ping pong fish bowl toss game when it was at the yearly Firemen's Festival, in my hometown in PA. It was my favorite of all the "carnival" games. You would win goldfish if you landed a ping pong ball into one of the glass fish bowls. I remember that distinct sound that the ping pong ball made when it hit the glass fish bowls. So I went by dollar tree and they had the most perfect fish bowls, and ping pong balls too!! We had lost all of the ping pong balls we had from last year and I really wanted to do this again! The kids just LOVED it last year, see HERE. They loved it even more this year!! Last year I used ping pong balls and purple plastic cups from the dollar tree.  I am so glad I switched to the glass scallop top fish bowls this year. Well, they probably aren't supposed to be fish bowls but they are in the glass section at dollar tree. I added some liquid water colors and water to each bowl and it was awesome!! We still have it set up from Saturday!! Everyone loves it, my twins, my teens, husband, My mom even stopped by over the weekend and had to have a turn!

So easy, so fun, and a must do!!!

New Choo Choo Wagon Shade!

Scroll down for PIRATE SHIP!!

Yes! We are still using our Step2 choo choo wagon 3 years later! They are 5 but they still fit in it really well, and are not too heavy to pull in it. Plus it gives me extra exercise when we walk, and I still need to take off some weight. We used the Radio Flyer clamp on umbrella shades for years but they faded, rusted, and fell apart. It was time to replace the shades, so I looked around on amazon,.com and really liked the ideas of these shades, seen below in the pictures.

These shades are working out really well, we went on a wagon walk today and they are perfect!! I like them even more than the umbrella shades because they cover more. I do really like the umbrella shades too though, they are great!

Parker is really small for a 5 year old and gets tired really easily walking, Graham has issues walking far as well, because he has a hereditary disease called CMT (charcot marie tooth). So we really need the choo choo wagon still, even though they are 5 now.

If you are wondering why we have two extra carts on it, there is a simple answer fo that! When you are out and about, you need somewhere to put your stuff, bags, lunch bags, diaper bags, toys, snacks, drinks, purse, etc.  If you have kids over for playdates, someone always wants to go on a choo choo wagon ride, we needed the extra two carts for both of these reasons. In face we had many choo choo wagon ride playdates, two seats for two playdate kids and everyone else could bring their own wagon. It was great for all the Moms to get exercise and chit chat, plus the kids were contained, content, and had a great time! Having the two extra carts was very necessary for us, but isn't always for everyone.

See my original Choo Choo Wagon post HERE
See my second Choo Choo Wagon with the umbrella shades HERE
See all Choo Choo Wagon posts on this blog HERE

Get the shades HERE
Umbrella shade HERE
Get the Choo Choo Wagon HERE

We love our choo choo wagon, it has been so great for the park, zoo, science center, theme parks, on walks, for playdates, trick or treating, etc.  We even dressed it up as a pirate ship for Halloween 2011!! It was a hit, we had so many awesome compliments on it!!!

• The flags were poster boards that we painted and attached to a dowel rod
• The mast was old curtain rods, a sheet, ropes, and some netting from an old crib tent
• The sides of the ship was cardboard box, cut to fit and then duct taped on and we drew on it to make it look more wood ship like. 
• The cannons on the sides were rolled and taped black cardstock paper.
• It was a HUGGGGGGE hit in the neighborhood. We had dozens of compliments, everyone was very impressed! 

Be sure to check out Stuff 4 Multiples if you have twins, triplets, or more. 

You can get more awesome products for Twins, Triplets, and higher order multiples at Stuff 4 Multiples. Stuff 4 Multiples has really unique, user friendly, and efficient products for taking care of multiples. The website is really nice, they have a blog that is updated regularly, and their facebook page doubles as a mom to mom advice forum!

The owner of the website, Julixa has twins of her own and has designed products for multiples that she sells on the website. She is a very sweet and friendly lady and is so helpful to other Moms of multiples. Seriously, go check out the site and get on her facebook page so you can interact with other Moms with Twins, Triplets, or more.  I see posts come up daily on my FB feed with Moms seeking advice from other Moms with multiples! It's awesome!!

Camping Sleepover

*Normally my blog posts are about my 5 year old twins but on occasion I post about my older kids.*

My 13 year old wanted to have some friends over for a sleepover and wanted to come up with a theme, so we came up with the idea of camping in a tent on the trampoline!! It was a lot of fun for the girls and turned out great!!  We bought a $30 two person tent from Wal-Mart, which perfectly fit three girls with some room! They roasted giant marshmallows on bamboo skewers on the grill! I lit our propane grill and moved one grate over so they could roast their giant marshmallow on an open flame! They LOVED it!! They had waters, fresca, and other various snacks, I popped up a big bowl of popcorn in our air popper, they did a few crafts, and even watched a movie on my daughter's kindle. They had a walkie-talkie to contact me with all night and the trampoline provided an excellent place to put the tent! Much nicer than the bumpy ground!  I provided them with colored LED finger lights, LED mini reading lights, and LED tealights. They were even able to nest the LED tealight's in the roof of the tent, so they had ample lighting!  My daughter and her friends are all girly girls, so this provided a camping experience that was just their style!!

Learning Toys and Tools

This is just an overview of what we use indoors to learn for preschool/pre-k/kindergarten. We mainly do  Montessori and Reggio inspired learning, but I do throw in a few worksheets here and there because I am very new to homeschooling. The worksheets and workbooks are to make sure they aren't getting behind. Most of the laminated worksheets in the binders (below) are simply pre-writing practice lines, as well as tracing of shapes, letters, and numbers. This does not show every toy in the room, it also does not show all of the gross motor toys. I will do a more extensive room update in the future.

*Keep in mind these are their toys too, we choose fun but educational toys rather than the average toys you would find in Wal-Mart, Target,  or Toys R Us. So this is 5 years of Holiday and Birthday gifts x2.*.  The idea of this post is to give others ideas, not to suggest that everyone gets everything we have.  This is not just the homeschool room, it is their playroom and bedroom too!*

I decided to homeschool my twins due to the fact that they are my last children and I want to try schooling differently this time around. I am very unhappy with the Florida public school system and the stress it puts on both the parents and the children. I feel like public school tries to run your life with the endless homework, projects, and tests. Kids don't have time to play or be creative after school, on weekends, or during breaks. They always have tons of work to finish for school.  In Florida they even give out up to 30 homework sheets a week to children in many of the VPK programs. In kindergarten they receive homework daily. I feel it is ridiculous and I am sick of my kids being subjected to common core. I feel that the Florida public schools do not offer much of a fair chance to any child that has any sort of disability or learning disability. My 14 year old son has ASD, ADD, and SLD. It has been really hard with him in public school. It has not gone very well for him at all. They have to go by too many strict common core guidelines to really help a child to learn in a way that makes sense to them. I just can't bare to put more children through public school. It has caused a world of stress on myself, my children, the whole family.

Luckily my older kids are all teens now and soon will be out of public school. It has not been a fun ride. I plan to work my hardest to make sure my twins receive a great education. If I had known what kind of really awful rollercoaster ride I was in for by sending my older kids to public school, I'd have looked into homeschooling many years ago.

If anyone wants to know what anything is or where to get it, just reply to this post and ask!!
You can get 90% of it HERE!

from Lakeshore Learning

the green basket with the bag is full of about 40 bags of learning games
most are similar to like a file folder game, some are flash cards with manipulatives added, like paper clips.

coloring books, crayons, cameras, playdough, playdough mats and tools,
push pin  boards, push pins, and push pin board "worksheet" papers

writing/drawing.craft supplies

craft supplies, magnetic dress up, sorting bears and cups, story cubes, binoculars

under the bottom shelf are lacing beads and shapes, spelling boards, and dominoes

paper/writing center

manipulatives/light panel and marble run

educational toys/blocks/manipulatives for learning and light table learning

educational toys/blocks/manipulatives for learning and light table learning

educational toys/blocks/manipulatives for learning and light table learning

side of paper/writing center with trays, sorting trays, scissors, and imaginets

light table area (Graham working on stuff there now)

the mirror table

waldorf playstand

book/magnet area

magnet part of the book/magnet area

games

overhead projector (sorry top part cut off in pic)

puzzles inside the doors of the paper/writing center (under are squishy bags and squishy marble bags)

kitchen loaded with real spice jars(empty) and lots of toy food, pots/pans/silverware

block area view 1

block area view 2

block area view 3

block area view 4

450+ laminated print outs for tracing of letters, numbers, shapes, prewriting lines, etc.
Plus a few back up work books if I think they need extra help.