The Barnes Family Blog

After the CUE conference in Palm Springs I have become a believer in iPads. I have finally figured out how to use them in the classroom. Adrian (and my dad) purchased The New iPad for me!!! I have to admit I have gone a bit app crazy. I’m hoping it slows down soon. Right now my apps are a mixture of personal and classroom apps, most of them being for the girls.

Our favorite apps are the Toca Boca ones. I’ll post a link later 🙂 the apps include playing house, doctor, helicopter pilot, chef, hair stylist, butterfly painter and being the host of a birthday party or tea party. http://tocaboca.com/
The one downside of some of these apps is the ability to take a picture of their work. My camera roll was completely full of butterflies and hair styles. I have finally managed to clean out the 32 photos, however I did save one because we thought it was worth hanging onto.

Here is “butterfly pattern” by Jillian

Our other favorite app is Draw and Tell. This is a fabulous app for my little storyteller. The girls can draw with a variety of tools, add stickers, and record their voice while moving the stickers around. Duck and Moose educational apps

My cousin Scott got married to a wonderful person last weekend. We are so excited to welcome Lauren to our family!  I didn’t bring my DSLR camera with me because I was in a rush. Jillian was the flower girl 🙂 I gathered my images and video from my phone into a movie.

We had a wonderful time at the wedding. Jillian and Olivia absolutely loved dancing. Olivia became very adventurous and started roaming around the room on her own.

Today Jillian asked me to make her a book out of paper. She spent about 10 minutes filling it out. She then came and read it to us 🙂 It was so cute; we had to capture it on film.

Today was Jillian’s first trip to the dentist. She was a little apprehensive at first but once we arrived she was fine. The dentist was fabulous with Jillian! I stayed in the room for a little while and then left during the cleaning. I could hear her laugh every once in a while.

Here are some pictures from a recent photo shoot. When Olivia was born I had paid for three four sessions through a photography company. Here is our #3 sitting.

Jillian had a lot of fun with Valentine’s day this year! I found a bunch of Valentines ideas through Pinterest and shared them with Jillian. She picked out a butterfly Valentine. It took us a while to finish them. I made her write out her name on the back of all 16 Valentines for her class. After four she told me she was “too tired,” so we completed four everyday.

Here is her Valentine for her classmates:

These are her Valentines she made at school for Adrian and me:

Here is the Valentine that Adrian had the girls make for me:

We had a gag gift of mustaches laying around the house and the girls decided it was time to try them on. 🙂  There was a lot of giggling going on!

Wow, time flies by much faster when you have kids. They grow up so fast!! We celebrated Olivia’s birthday by taking her and Jillian to Pretend City. It is a fabulous place, I recommend you go if you are in the Orange County area and have young children!  The girls had a great time playing in the different areas. I think Olivia’s favorite places were the grocery store and the dentist’s office.

That evening we had a small gathering of family to have dinner and cupcakes. Olivia (and Jillian) enjoyed opening presents. I think her favorite gift over all was from Uncle Scott and Aunt Lauren. They got her a little veterinarian kit. She goes everywhere with the little dog!

Since Olivia adores monkeys, I made monkey cupcakes. I used melted chocolate to make the little faces and then placed them on top of the cupcakes. I got the idea on Pinterest (If you are not on there… and you are a woman… get on it!) I’ve gotten so many great ideas from Pinterest!!

Here are our family photos taken back in November. I know, I’m slacking off in my blogging. It’s been a busy few months but I am determined to get back into the swing of things.