Fun with Magnets!

We discovered magnets recently by chance, as the cabinet locks we have installed are magnetic and have a little magnetic knob that "unlocks" the cabinets.  Somehow Brady got a hold of one of the magnetic knobs and it stuck to something.  He was amazed!  So that day I got out a metal cookie sheet and put some of the magnetic knobs on it for him to play with.  He loved it, so I decided to look into purchasing a few magnets.  They arrived the other day and boy are they neat!  I am extremely pleased with the items we received so I wanted to share them with you.

The Magnetic Easel I purchased is really neat because you can set it on the floor and it is at kid-level, like in this picture:

It is sturdy and is magnetized on both sides.  I imagine one day when they are older I can assign a side to Brady and a side to Chloe and maybe they can both play in peace!

I have been looking for more and more ways to incorporate letters into our everyday play, so I was very pleased with these Melissa & Doug Upper and Lower Case Letter Magnets.  I haven't used any of the lower case letters yet because we have just started the process of learning letters, so I don't want to make it even more confusing by also using lower case.

Another way I like to use the magnet board is to associate letters with words that begin with those letters.  I bought these wonderful Foam Magnets that have 60 objects in them.  I've found that they have approximately 2 items for each letter of the alphabet in the set.  Here is the magnet board combining the letters and objects:

Chloe now can recognize and name all of the letters in the alphabet I think, with the exception of maybe U and V (she gets these confused).  Brady has started to vocalize his recognition of letters as well this week, I've heard him correctly identify several.  He may recognize and know more and just hasn't vocalized it yet.  I have even started to dabble in associating letters with spelling small words.  I recognize it may be a long time before they understand spelling and words, it is just fun to play with the magnets in general, and I don't think it can hurt to expose them to it.

We play with the magnets on a daily basis.  Sometimes they are used for learning letters, identifying objects and building vocabulary, and a lot of times they just play with them for fun.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!  It is rainy here so we are having a relaxing weekend at home watching football and playing with toys (including our magnets!).

Oklahoma!

I am behind on the blog again it seems.  I have so much to tell you about our big kids and all the things they are learning/saying/doing/getting into.  But before I can do that, I want to share a few pictures from our trip to Oklahoma and by doing so maybe share a little of what we did on our trip with you.

We got off to a little bit of a rough start.  Our plane was delayed 3 hours because of weather, and we had arrived at the airport 2 hours early for our original flight time.  So we spent roughly 5 hours in the airport waiting to board our 1 hour flight to Oklahoma.  

Technology to the rescue!  We spent some time watching movies on the iPad at an empty gate.  

Once we got to Oklahoma, we had a great trip.  We got to participate in a Cure Search walk in honor of my niece Mia.  Brady and Chloe held our hands and walked nearly the entire mile.  I was shocked and proud!  

While we were in town we got to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  I had never been before.  I was amazed at the arresting beauty of the grounds.  

Chloe and Brady looking out over the Reflection Pool.  

Chad and Brady walking among the chairs symbolizing all the victims of the bombing.  

This nice Park Ranger befriended us and let us take pictures with his hat!  

Outside of the Memorial/Museum they had these squares where you could leave messages in chalk.  Chloe did NOT want to leave these when it was time to go.  

The children's area of the Memorial Museum was really neat.

The children's area of the museum also had a place where the kids could dress up as a police officer, a fireman,  or a doctor or nurse.  Chloe LOVED this hat!  

While driving around OU's campus, we found the OU Football team's equipment truck.  Of course Brady and Chad had to take their picture beside it!

Trucks and OU Football!  My guys' two favorite things!  

This picture was taken at my nephew Max's football themed 1st Birthday party.  

We borrowed Mia's awesome car to scoot around the party for a while.  

More scooting, they were in heaven getting to play with and try out Mia and Max's toys.

Brady and Grandpa had a stare down at Max's party.  Not sure who won, but it was intense.

On the morning we had to leave, we took all 4 cousins to breakfast and to play at McD's.  Here is my attempted picture at 4 kids ages 2 and under.  

We had the best time on our trip to Oklahoma, and we actually got to do and see many things on our trip, some of which I didn't get any pictures of sadly.  Not included in the pictures was a fun dinner out to meet Chad's friends from OU, Liz and her husband Jeff.  We met them for dinner one night and frozen custard afterwards.  They are such nice people and I am looking forward to them joining us on the cruise we are going on in January!  We also got to drive out to see another one of Chad's friends from OU, Ben and Susan and their sons James and Nathan at their farm.  The kids had a blast one morning playing with James and Nathan and all of their toys, and running around the farm chasing after their cat, dog, chickens, and goats (bless their poor hearts).  Another highlight of the trip was a dinner out with my brother Charlie, my SIL Beth, their kids Mia and Max, Beth's Mom Kay, Mom and Dad, Chad and I and Brady and Chloe.  We needed 4 high chairs for all of our kiddos!  The restaurant wisely stuck us in our own room in the back and it was awesome!  We had an amazing dinner and a good time was had by all.  We didn't even have any meltdowns!

We truly loved our time in Oklahoma and the chance to visit with so many family and friends.  Since it is only a short one hour flight to get there (provided you don't have a 3 hour delay) we hope to make many more trips back in the future!

Ack!

I am so sorry for neglecting the blog for so long!  This is probably the longest I've gone without posting to the blog in a looooong time!  We've had kind of a crazy couple of weeks around our household as I managed to get Shingles in my right eye and on the right side of my face, and that same week Brady also got Strep Throat.  This all occurred around/during Labor Day weekend, which also happened to be the weekend of our 5th wedding anniversary and Chad's birthday.  

We all made it through thanks to Chad, who basically stayed home from work for a week and played Mr. Mom to all of us.  Yet another example of what an amazing husband and father he is!  We are so lucky to have him as the Dad of our family!  :-)

Even through all the illness we still managed to have some fun, but now we are all feeling MUCH better and we are so thankful!  Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to during this long blog break:

We celebrated the opening of college football season!  Boomer Sooner!  This picture was also taken on Chad's birthday!  

Daddy with his little girl!  

Even though we were sick, I still made and we still enjoyed a delicious birthday cake on Chad's birthday!

We did a lot of hanging out in our pjs and playing.

One of Chloe's new hobbies is trying to balance this "hat" on her head!  

Just eating a snack with his truck by his side!  A happy boy!  

Chloe and Mommy!

I ordered this bow to go with a fall/Halloween/pumpkin patch outfit for her, just trying it out!  

This Friday night Chad and I did get to enjoy our belated anniversary dinner at the Melting Pot.  It was AMAZING!  

Seriously too good!!!!

We are so glad to be getting back to normal, and we are looking forward to a fun trip to Oklahoma that we have coming up soon to celebrate my nephew Max's 1st birthday!  I am so excited for Chloe and Brady to meet and play with their cousins Mia and Max for the first time!  Four cousins---ages 2 and under!  It should be a LOT of fun!

Happy Monday everyone, I will try not to go another 3 or so weeks before posting again!