Tooth Fairy woes and other stories.....

Wow, how did it get to be April already!  Seriously! 
I think having Easter so early this year has thrown me off completely!
Life has been busy as usual this month.    Much of it has been the same, but we have managed to get in some fun and have lots more on the way.  I will start with Easter weekend since it was the most action packed!

So we had a visit from the tooth fairy on the night of Good Friday.  After a lovely day with friends visiting, Sammy's extra ridiculously wiggly tooth finally gave up and fell out while her and her good friend Kayley were bouncing on the trampoline.  Cue funny looking child!   So the tooth fairy dutifully came and left a lovely certificate and a heart shaped charm for Samantha's bracelet (we don't do $$ in our house). 

One tooth gone....

 
Saturday was lovely.  We had a wonderful family day and both children were in bed early waiting anxiously for the Easter bunny to deliver chocolate - and boy did he ever!
Nana and Poppa came over Sunday morning to deliver more chocolate (both children were able to hang from the ceiling by this point!) which was lovely.  You know we love you both Nana and Poppa :)
During the visit there were sounds of silliness from the living room - which was hardly surprising due to it being straight after lunch and both of them being full to the brim with chocolate!
Anyway... you know that moment when you hear fun becoming something else....!   One minute there was giggling, then there was a shriek from Samantha that most Horror movie actresses would have envied!  I rush in and Samantha is cupping a handful of blood and a tooth in her hand!  She is screaming that her darling little brother knocked her tooth out, and he is crying because she hurt his head..?    Once we got them calmed down enough to get words out, it seems it goes a little like this....or thereabouts!  So big child shoves small but surprising stubborn child because she doesn't like how the game is going.  Small but surprisingly stubborn and strong child doesn't like being shoved so gives big sis a great big (loving) Liverpool kiss (for those of you that don't know what this is *hint* its a headbutt!) in the face - contacting his over sized forehead with her mouth.  End result - slight wiggly other top tooth is now in her hand!    So while in some ways Anthony saved us a few weeks or months of complaints about a wiggly tooth as well as the visuals - it did also mean the tooth fairy had to come again Sunday night!  Thankfully being the busy little bee I am, I had managed to stockpile a few charms away.  So she is now the proud owner of a little silver rose charm - for Samantha Rosalie of course :)

Two top teeth gone - Mwahahahaha :) 

SCHOOL UPDATE:

Samantha is doing really well with her school work.  She is amazing!  Her reading is really coming along thanks to the work she is putting in combined with a great system!   Add to this being rewarded with time on the Reading Eggs website, she is really coming along well.  Her letter and number writing is excellent.  It turns out practise really does make perfect and she is doing so well.  I am very proud.  Maths is amazing as usual - she excels in this anyway.  I guess some people just get numbers - she so gets this from me! :)
We spent the last week coming up to Easter doing some lovely crafts as well as learning about the true meaning of Easter.  Next year we are going to make our own resurrection eggs for sure!
This week we have had break from Unit Studies so we can start fresh next week with a Unit Study about Samantha's upcoming birthday :)  I will post details about this in a post next week - but trust me, she can't wait!

Easter egg stained glass pictures.

Colouring in her Easter egg Kite.

Reading Eggs - Anthony is supervising!

Play dough Pet Shops...

Pet shop mouse out of play dough!

Mouse family!

Our rain experiment - talking about how rain is dropped into the atmosphere.

Just water, shaving cream cloud and dye - simple but effective :)

PRESCHOOL - Anthony is loving his 'school' time as well.  As well as learning about Easter with his big sister, he has learnt about the letter J this past week.  He was absent when we took the photo of it on the Coconut tree (obviously off doing much more important 3 year old boy things!), but he did put it up there before running away :)

Anthony doing Reading eggs.

Welcoming the letter J to our Coconut tree.  Its surprisingly hard to come up with J words on the spot by the way....

The wiggle activity book Nana bought last Xmas.  Still the favourite back up :)

Hubby took the day off work last week and we managed with my bung foot between us to get the kids around Motat (The Museum of Transport and Technology).  It was a great day and the kids got so much out of their first visit there.   Definitely on our list of places to visit again the near future :)

On the Tram with Daddy.

Tinkerbell and Sammy loving the tram ride.

Watching the model railway - it was hard to decide which of the three were more thrilled!

Checking out the Train Engine.

Samantha and her new friend Samuel in the Earthquake Shack.    Notice the good grip on the table leg :)

Anthony checking out how a Diff works.

Sam trying to pull up her own body weight - better her than me!

And speaking of school stuff - we have loads of lovely things coming in the next week so watch for new posts.  We have a trip on the Water care Rain forest Express on Monday thanks to the Home school Outings Auckland group as well as a trip to the Zoo with the Trade Me home school Mums on Friday.
Oh, and I finally got the courage up to send out a message in our local group of Rodney home schoolers about arranging a meet up for the younger children of the area.  We are meeting up next Tuesday afternoon at a local playground.  Really hoping to meet a couple of other Mums that would be interested in setting up some kind of Co-op for activities like Art etc :)  The response has been amazing.  16 responses so far in less than 24 hours!  I think there must be a whole pile of home schoolers in my local area that hide away with their young children!  Looking forward to making some new friends for sure :)

Oh, and I promised photos of our Shell Mosaics.  So here they are.  Samantha's is actually set out like little people :)

Both Art Works.  Anthony's is the blue and yes he had help.

Samantha's shell people :)