T is for TIME OUT and Touchdowns!

You're probably thinking T is for Time out because I have a 4 year old ornery little boy. But that is not what this means, although he has had his fair share of time outs in the past.
Today I decided that we will be taking a "Time Out" from the Letter of the Day blog posts. It does take me some time to put together these little posts... upload and edit photos, type it up, insert pictures, preview, edit, preview, edit, etc. and it has been taking some time away from other things.

With the summer flying by as fast as it has, I am needing to focus my efforts elsewhere. {For one, I am taking on this TpT Seller Challenge which is requiring a little more effort from me this week. I am supposed to be creating my "masterpiece" of a product by next Wednesday!! TpT stands for Teachers Pay Teachers, an awesome resource for teachers to buy and sell teacher-created products. I love it.}  AND I have about three Teacher Binders I need to update for the next school year. I did one earlier this week and it took me over 3 "rest times" to get it all wrapped up. Usually, I type up these posts while kids are resting/napping in the afternoon or late at night once they are in bed, like right now. But lately I have had other things taking up my evening time and I have found myself blogging after breakfast while kids were watching TV. Now I am NOT opposed to a little TV time but don't want it to overwhelm their entire morning. And, you know how it is....your kid sees you "busy" on the computer and that is when they all of a sudden need you for every. little. thing. So, in short, I will still be posting Noah's letter of the Day pics on Instagram/Facebook but I am taking a TIME OUT from blogging. I know my 3 or 4 loyal readers may be disappointed. ;) ha ha

BUT if we do anything super cool, letter related, I promise to share!!

So to wrap up this particular post, I wanted to share about our BUTTERFLIES! We had to release them today. When I say we had to, well, we just did. The directions say to set them free 3-4 days after they all are out. I guess 10 butterflies in that little habitat gets a little cramped. We had to release them because we already had 2 sets mating! It was quite an interesting scene!!

Here are some pics of the release!

At first, they wouldn't come out. Noah was trying to encourage them. "Come on, little guys." 

A few of them figured it out pretty quickly and they were too quick for me to get a picture!

Myla was thrilled to get to hold one of them. It flew on the grass and she carefully scooped it up. 

Love this picture of them.

And as for those 2 sets that were mating...here is a picture of one pair. Look carefully...there are two. 

So for our Letter pic, we had to go with Texas Tech and touchdowns. 

After we took our pictures and pointed out the Double T on his shirt and hat, he ran to the laundry room to point out the Texas Ranger "T" he has on his backpack. And then later we were at my mom's to swim and he pointed out another Ranger "T" on one of mom's shirts. So, he's definitely getting some exposure and letter recognition with all these crazy things we have been doing. Yea! Now will he recall them if I were to show him the alphabet right now...I'm not sure.

We have definitely had some fun and will continue to go through the remaining letters. {OMG...what am I going to do for U??} Again, if we do anything share-worthy, I will post about it but a time out is a good thing every once in awhile! SO...

T is for TIME to focus on other THINGS. :)

Until next time!!

Sand Cake and Soccer!

Yesterday was semi-S day. We didn't do a whole lot but we did start off pointing out all the Ss we could find. 

Completely on his own, he picked up a book and looked through the pages. 

"Look, mom! I found 2!"

We had workers here all day again so we didn't get to the actual letter activity I had planned. So we made SAND CAKE instead!

I can't take credit for this image, it's straight from Pinterest. Here is the link on how to make it. 

I did capture a few pics of us making it! Notice "us" is just me and Myla. Noah had no part in making it, he just wanted to eat it when it was done!

 We had to bake the cake part first, just classic yellow cake. 

My sweet helper. 

Later in the day, we assembled the rest of the sand cake! We needed the following ingredients....Notice the sand pail?!

 Such a poser. 

 We started by making the vanilla pudding as normal, then mixed in the softened cream cheese and folded in the cool whip.

Then I cut the cake into cubes. 

This was the fun part! Layering the cake cubes and pudding mixture. 

 There were 3 layers of each. Yum!

Myla like to smooth each layer for me. 

Then we put some graham crackers into a baggie and beat them to crumbs. This is when Noah came running in the kitchen..."Mommy, WHAT are you doing?!"

Then we sprinkled the graham cracker "sand" on the top!

We decorated the top with an "S" of course using blueberries. Last year's sand cake was decorated better but we were pressed for time. 

Called in Noah to check out the sand cake....

Love how he brought his baseball glove. 

 S is for Sand Cake!

I love that we use the little plastic shovel to scoop it out! 

Didn't get a picture but Myla was so thoughtful to serve some cake to our workers in the bathroom. They gobbled it up!

And after serving 7 people (my mom was over too), we still have lots left!!  It keeps pretty well in the fridge and tastes even better the next day!

YUM!

And we ended the evening with some Soccer!

Soccer blurs....but wow, what a game last night!!

For his daily letter pic, we had to bring in the soccer goal. 

Silly Soccer Dude

Sweet Soccer Stud

SOO cute

And lastly, Myla picked out a Soccer book to read to Noah. Of course, it kept his attention. She was so sweet about it because at first she said the book was way too easy and she had already read it a couple of times...but she read it anyway.

Sweet Snuggles..

Love these two.

No Letter of the Day activities today. The new tile in the bathroom should be finished later today and the kids are going to the in-laws for the evening. It's our 9 year anniversary!

Hard to believe it this was 9 years ago!