Tots and Me... Growing Up Together

Monday, April 7, 2014

Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up- April 8, 2014

Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Karen @ Tots and Me and Emily @ Emily Reviews

So glad you could join us as we share our giveaways on Tuesday's Giveaway Link Ups.

Our co-hosts this week are Sue from My Photopage and Shelly from The Attic Girl.

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Here is how to use the Giveaway Link Up

1. Post your reviews and/or giveaways, as many as you have, be sure to add the end date (family friendly please)

2. Help spread the word about the giveaway link up by grabbing our button, Tweeting or posting on Facebook. (Not mandatory- but it helps get more exposure to your giveaways as well!)

3. Take a moment to enter any giveaway that strikes an interest to you!

If you would like to follow the hostesses, we will gladly follow you back! Simply leave us a message to do so.

Featured Giveaways

Attipas Slipper/Shoes for Babies/Toddlers (They grip floors to prevent slipping) Ends 4/16

Coobie Bra- 5 winners Ends 4/18

Thank you for linking up with Karen @ Tots and Me & Emily @ Emily Reviews along with Sue from My Photopage and Shelly from The Attic Girl.

5 Days of ... Making Geography Fun- Day 1: Interactive Town Maps

Welcome to the Schoolhouse Review Crew's 5 Day Blog Hop. This time around there is no specific theme, each Crew member will be sharing a subject of their own choosing with a new post each day this week. There are going to be posts like Making Homeschooling Fun, Family Friendly Finger Food, Babywearing and Clearing Out the Clutter.

I will be sharing some ways to make geography fun for young children.

When the girls were younger they really enjoyed watching Dora the Explorer. Originally my thinking was that the show would be a nice introduction to Spanish for the girls. I then realized it is a great show for an introduction to map skills. I love the way there are several landmarks they need to be looking for as Dora and Boots travel to their destination. I thought it would be fun to create a map of our town.

I found an aerial map of our town online and copied the main streets and river into a file folder. We live in a town that is only 1 mile around, so this was pretty easy. For bigger towns or cities you would probably want to concentrate on a smaller area to start with.

We went around town, taking pictures of important buildings and other landmarks. I printed out 2 copies of each picture. One copy went onto the map and then I covered the entire thing with clear contact paper (the poor man's laminator). Then I "laminated" the second set of pictures so they could be matched onto the map.

The idea is to take the map around town and match the landmarks as you go. You could also pick one as a destination and two or three others as stops along the route to plan fun activities (sort of like Dora). Another thought is to print a third set out and play a matching/memory game. The last landmark matched can be the destination for a fun trip.

Though we made the map a few years ago, we just recently used it as we took a walk around town in an attempt to fill in some more details about our town. I posted about this in my Poppins Book Nook post, Map Skills with Mapping Penny's World.

There are many more insightful posts to be found. Just click on the banner below to head to the main post on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog where you will find a list of everyone who is sharing. To get you started, I invite you to stop by these blogs:

Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool ~ Homeschooling with Excessive Energy
Lexi @ Lextin Academy ~ The Homeschool Dad, CEO
Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles ~ Organizing Your Home and School
Cristi @ Through the Calm and Through the Storm ~ Homeschooling Thankfulness
Melissa@ Mom's Plans ~ Historical Field Trips
Adena @ AdenaF ~ Mnemonics
Amy @ Homeschool Encouragement ~ Lego Learning
Erin @ For Him and My Family ~ Record Keeping

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Hopping Along to Easter 2014: Week 2

Welcome to the second week of the Hopping Along to Easter Blog Hop hosted by Tots and Me, Walking in Faith and Angels of Heart

We would love for you to come back each week and check out the current topic. We ask that you compose a related post answering the question, or share an old post that fits the theme. Please include the Hopping Along to Easter Blog Hop Button or a text link back to the hop, and head on over to any of the co-hosts' blogs to link up. Your post be as long or short as you want it to be. We will be choosing a co-host from those who link up a relevant post during the week. The co-host will have the linky on their blog for the following week.

Featured Co-Host

Roberta from A Little Bit of Everything shared these cute Crocheted Easter Baskets last week:

Please take the time to visit the blogs of those who have linked up. Leave a comment. Follow them. Wish them a Happy Easter.

Don't forget to follow the hostesses. We will gladly stop by your blog and follow you back.

Here is this week's question:

What sort of craft ideas do you have?

Whether you have children or not, do you have any special crafts planned to help decorate or perhaps give as gifts this Easter/Resurrection Sunday?

We are looking forward to reading your posts, visiting your blogs and following you.

(Please be aware that irrelevant posts, links to your main blog instead of a specific post and giveaways will be deleted. Please only link up posts relevant to the weekly theme. Thank you for your understanding.)

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Five on Friday (Oops I Mean Saturday): April 5, 2014

There are funny things or cute things that will happen during the week that I would like to share, but they don't really make a post on their own. So, this is the perfect opportunity to share them.

1. Harold was so excited to have a new toy to play with in the church nursery last weekend. This Mega Bloks piano actually plays music and will record and play back what the child (or mommy) plays. He was doing a good job matching the colors too.

2. The girls have been enjoying being able to explore outside again with the nicer weather. They found some moss they wanted to examine. They pulled out the magnifying glass and then I had them note what they observed in their notebooks.

3. Amelia decided it was her baby's birthday and then they decided the baby Hannah is holding was its twin so she joined in the celebration. She fed her some jarred baby food and then they made a cake out of Legos and we sang happy birthday. The books are the plates they were serving the cake on. By the way, do those babies look like they are 3 years old, because that is how old they supposedly are?

4. Tabitha must have more English blood in her than I do, not sure how though. Hubby and I are content to drink our tea in mugs, she must have hers in a proper tea cup. Isn't she lucky I have some in the house as I am not a huge tea drinker. My mummy (mommy) would be so proud.

5. The children have been having a blast going to story hour every week. Last week they made these cool pipe cleaner flowers. Then Tabitha got home and decided to make some more. She wanted a bouquet for daddy.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #79: Quail Eggs (from My Father's World K Teacher Manual)

Time for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen

(A weekly linky to share what you and your children have created in the kitchen.)

The linky is at the bottom.

This week we focused on the letter Q and Quail. The My Father's World Teacher Manual had another fun recipe for us to try. We made Quail Eggs to go with our muffin tin lunch. Well, I decided to make the muffin tin after we made the eggs. It worked quite well. It is a very simple recipe and the children got to get their hands dirty, great combo!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup oats
2 Tbs peanut butter

The recipe called for 4 Tbs of rolled oats. I reminded the older children and showed the younger children that 4 Tbs equals 1/4 of a cup, then we measured out a 1/4 of a cup of oats into all the bowls.

I added 2 Tbs of peanut butter to each bowl.

Then they stirred it for a while with their spoons.

Mixing it in with their hands worked much better!

We then shaped them into an egg shape. Did you know quail eggs are really small, like only 1" tall?

Eating the crumbs.

I built today's muffin tin around the quail eggs. You can see the details over on today's Muffin Tin Moments post.

Do you have your children help you in the kitchen? What lessons do they learn? Do you have any kid friendly recipes to share?

I'd love to see your posts, whether you have done something this week or some time in the past. Just link up below. This is a weekly linky.

I am linking up to:

Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Try a New Recipe Tuesday at Home to Four Kiddos
The Gathering Spot at Mamal Diane
Friday Food Frenzy at Close to Home
Fantastic Thursday at Five Little Chefs
Foodie Friends Friday at Robyn'sView
Family Fun Friday at Happy and Blessed Home
Find a New Recipe Friday at Almost Supermom

And here is my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen linky

Muffin Tin Moments: Q is for Quail

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a Q muffin tin this week. Today we made Quail Eggs for our Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen and I had a brain storm. I decided to build a muffin tin around them. Here is what I came up with.

Quail Eggs in a bread nest

Rice to represent the grain quail eat

Fruity Trix cereal to represent berries they eat

Grapes to represent fruit or because they look like quail eggs (take your pick)

Q shaped cheese

Spinach to represent the plants they may eat

Yes, Harold now has a round tin like his sisters. I found two more at the back of my cupboard that I must have purchased a while ago.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Lovin' the Weekend Blog Hops: April 3-6, 2014

Welcome to Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hops with your co-hosts:

Karen from Tots and Me, Rena from An Ordinary Housewife, Erin from For Him and My Family and Aurie from Our Good Life

Thank you to every one who has stopped by, whether this is your first visit or you have been a faithful ongoing participant!

Please note, there are 3 linkies, please scroll down to the 3rd one to link up giveaways! Thank you so very much!

(Giveaways linked up to either of the other linkies will be removed. Thank you for your understanding.)

We would love for you to stop by all the co-hosts and follow us, then feel free to add your links to any or all of the following linkies.

We also randomly choose a Featured host each week. This week we are featuring Sarah from Mommy of Two.

Here's what she has to say:

"My name is Sarah and I live in the Midwest with my two little ones. I spend my days balancing my walk with God, the budget, housework, kids and school. I love to learn and plan to travel the world one day. When I started this blog, it was a way to keep the family updated. In the last couple of years it has turned into a way to connect with not only my family and friends, but with other moms. We all have the ‘mom thing’ in common but it’s amazing to see the diversity in each of our lives."

Don't forget to link up to the Lovin' the Readers Hop if you would like a chance to be a Featured host next week. Please comment with a way to contact you, especially if there is not an obvious way mentioned on your blog. We would love to include a little write up about you and your blog in the next week's Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop post, including a link to your blog. And you will get to include the linky codes on your blog. Sound fun? We're looking forward to getting to know our readers better.

Here's how this blog hop works. We would appreciate it if you would follow Tots and Me, An Ordinary Housewife, For Him and My Family and Our Good Life then please head on over to our Featured Host and follow as well. If you no longer have GFC please follow in some other way. After that there are three different linkies you can link to. Whichever one you choose to link to, please grab that button and share it on your blog (the codes are on Tot's and Me's sidebar). We'd love it if you could tweet or in some other way share about this blog hop, the more people who know about it, the more potential visitors and new followers of your blog. We'd love to meet some new friends this weekend.

Some people are more interested in just increasing their numbers, while others really want people who appreciate their blog and want to keep up with their posts. So, there are two separate blog hop linkies.

The third linky is for you to link up your giveaways.

If you are interested in increasing the number of followers to your blog via GFC, Linky Followers, email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ link up here. We will follow you back if you follow us (just note which one you are linking to):