Well there have been a lot of fun (not) medical bills at our house lately and more to come so we have been cutting back where we can. I wanted Riley in preschool this year and between the new expenses and her unwillingness to potty train ( don't even go there with me...) it's been hard to get that started. Another reason I've been dragging my feet is that's have this thing where I hate to pay for something I can do myself! I used to teach kids and even managed a faculty and wrote the curriculum we used. I know how to do this, just a matter of would it work???
Well I finally decided to give it a shot! Today was day one. I have been telling Riley we would start school today and she really didn't get the at home part. Even while I was singing the welcome song she's yelling " I need my shoes!!! Time for school!!!" Got past that though. We welcomed her, rocket, the lamp,the kitty, the blanket, mommy and the table before I finally called it good. Then we sang some songs and introduced our weeks theme " the alphabet".
We started our first activity, matching magnets to the letters on a paper on the fridge. We actually played twice!!!! Who knew!
Then we read four books 2 about the alphabet and two she loves. Then we did our second learning activity. We roll out play dough then use the magnets to stamp the letters into it and we name that letter. Obviously works well best for letters that are the same backwards and forwards. Such as A O W T etc.
she was loving that until she figured out she could make circles with her rolling pin and shoot them. After she discovered that the learning was over and the real fun began!!!
Our last activity was our art activity and as much as I tried she wouldn't so sidewalk chalk in the back, it had to be in the front.
So we practiced writing the letter we learned and started with name recognition for her. She loves to pretend spell, "eopr, mommy" it's pretty cute. That is why so many random words are written on the driveway because she wanted to know how to spell them.
Then I had to draw picture of them for her. Finally she decided a little vandalism was in order. She ran over and made a white mark on the light pole and ran back giggling wickedly. She repeated a Ton of times until finally she figured out no one really cared;-).
Then SHE decided it was time for a walk. Who am I to disagree. So we took off.
About a half mile later she looked up and was determined we were soooooo lost.
I took a little turn and poof there was the house. She was thoroughly impressed!!
We came inside sang our goodbye song to everyone and that was day one! Now the trick is, will there be a day two??!!? :-)
We Decided to kick off our summer with a camping trip to Tahoe. Eric and I have been going to Sugar Pine for a very long time so it was fun to take Riley there for the second time. She loved it. 
When I was little I used to play on our big dog Dorado, it was fun to see Riley playing Ponies on her daddy.
It was a perfect weekend!
Then I did some freehand scroll work, sorry about the tilt, I apparently am having some editing issues!! Finally it was time to tackle the real project. I was working on these cookies for the sweetheart dance when I just couldn't take the color anymore. It was TIME!!
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