~Turkey Yoga~

Yoga for kids is one of my most favorite activities to do with my girls. They love it! Rita's kindergarten teacher thinks it's good for the kids too and incorporates it into the curriculum twice a month. Last week I was lucky enough to get to actually teach the class. There is a kid yoga teacher training in January and I just may get some hours training in that specialized area! Here's a wonderful way to kick off the Thanksgiving festivities with your kids....

~Turkey Yoga for Kids~

~Start in mountain pose with your eyes closed



~Take a deep breath in through your nose and imagine all of the delicious food smells we associate with Thanksgiving

~Imagine Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Cranberries, and Apple or Pumpkin Pie or any other foods your family will enjoy. Taking deep breaths in between naming different foods.

Next we will go through movements for each of the foods listed above...

~Turkey Strut: however you want moving around the room. With a big group we formed a circle and flapping our wings and strutting our stuff all around saying

"Gobble Gobble Gobble"



~Mashed Potato: a famous dance move from the 50's like a combo of the twist but moving one foot in front and back


~Green Beans or Peas: Gotta get our veggies in! First we harvest our veggies by planting seeds and by raining down on them and giving them plenty of sunshine. For Green Beans we stand as straight as we can and jump up and down. For Peas we get in a tight ball and roll on to our backs while holding our knees in tight


SUN


RAIN




GREEN BEANS & PEAS



~PIE! We stand in Mountain again and look the the left then right and then up and look for an apple tree. Tree Pose and we grow our branches and then sway to the right and left. Then we put our arms in front and make a big circle for our basket and we either reach up high on our tippy toes for the apples or we squat low for the pumpkins. We then stretch our arms and do a back bend while we dump our fruit out and then fill and dump again several times.



TREE


BASKET


PICK FRUIT


DUMP FRUIT

~Finally our basket is so full we can't pick it up so from a squatting position we fall back and grab our feet for happy baby pose.





~Close our eyes for the finally resting talking about all the great food we put into our bodies to make us strong and healthy!

~Slow and Steady Wins the Race???~

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!
just a day or so late...
We had a nearly perfect fourth and hope the same goes for ya'll! We didn't have any official plans so we just went with the flow. It was nice to be able to celebrate this holiday with our sweet lil family unit. We started the day out slow and just walked around our funky lil neighborhood taking in the morning scene. Stopped off at the corner market to pick up some last minute necessities. We decided to get to grilling and head down to the beach for the long haul. Behold a sweet photo montage aka excessive amounts of photos used to tell our story...


The Great American BBQ


Roasted Potato Trio with Garlic and Peppers





Star Brownie Bites








Peppercorn Pork Tenderloin~Corn on the Cob~Portobello Mushrooms~Parmesan Garlic Bread



Turkey Kielbasa and Andouille Sausage


Feast Enjoyed by All


Wagon ride to the beach for the Lil Surfer Girls



Setting up the most perfect spot...Lucky!



Plenty of time for some Fun In The Sun



Lovely Sunset


Time for the surfers to paddle out and watch the fire works from the water!



~Waiting for the Fireworks~


Lots of excitement during the show



Spectacular view when you get to sit directly across from the action!



Sleepy Wagon Ride Home Late at Night

Yes life is good when you get to take it slow on a day like the 4th of July! Not so good is my S~L~O~W start to my tri training. My body still seems to be healing from a recent back injury and I am getting it checked out soon so I am hesitant to register for the September Tri Rock Series. If it is only the sprint distance, this is an event I hope to be apart of. If not there's always the San Diego Women's in October! I have a week under my belt for the 10 Week Training Plan for the Olympic distance training plan and I do eventually plan to blog about it. Planing a Sum it Up on Sunday post and will play catch up for the last week! One thing I haven't been slow at lately are my bike rides!!!




And I am a happy lil beachmom now that Craig can keep up too!

~Craft of the Month~

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
uhhhh no wait...

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!
i KNOW
HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!!

If you ever truly want to see how quickly time travels, just have children. I mean seriously I go non stop all day and yet i'm still searching for more hours in the day...gotta hurry up before i run out of time for this...uh oh i forgot to do that. And yes I realize that facebook and this blogging business takes up too much of my time too but it really is a moment of relaxation for me. Just try and watch Dexter to wind down at the end of the night!

We kicked off the New Year with friends visiting the lil beach shack and the celebration of visitors continues all year! The beach is a popular destination spot! Oh and I guess we are very much loved too...or at least the lil surfer girls are! February is just a short month...so that leads us straight to the Mardi Gras Mambo as we did the January Craft today on Fat Tuesday. The March Craft would have been easy, if only I had a shoe box! Oh Well...there's plenty of time until April, right?

~Craft of the Month~

First set up your craft area and collect all necessary supplies.
Materials Needed:

Empty egg carton
Duct tape
Beans/rice/dry sand/corn (or something similar)
Paint/markers
Crepe paper streamer
Glue
Scissors

Cut out the compartments in the bottom of the egg carton


Fill one of the compartments with beans/rice
Place an empty compartment on top of filled compartment



Cut 2 strips of duct tape ¼ inch wide and 6 inches long
Tape the compartments together (use 2 pieces of tape for strength)
Paint the shakers
Let dry


Decorate with crepe paper or ribbons or stickers
And SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE


~HAPPY MARDI GRAS~

~Foods of the Rainbow~

Hello Hello anybody out there??? I know I haven't been for some time but I'm still capturing great photos and have big ideas on future blogs. Trying to get this back into my routine and hopefully this lovely holiday will do just that! This was a last minute plan since our last round of visitors departed on Friday. I know I'm a day late and a dollar short (and always have been) but my attitude is that I should be really good at this by the time Ruby is in Kindergarten ;-) Let's face it this blog is about raising happy healthy confident girls...and this is only the beginning. I have a lifetime to make up on blogging! Behold the party treats we made for the school party today...





Flour Tortillas and Cheese...does it get any easier than this???
Happy Valentines Day!

~Craft of the Month~

~December~
~Craft of the Month~

If this whole month isn't about baking...then it's about crafting! Since I craft most of our gifts...I haven't posted very much so I don't spoil the surprise. Those posts will come after the holiday festivities...2 days and counting!






If it were up to me, I would have snowflakes dangling from the ceilings and all around the living room. Well, as always I've got my 2 and 4 year old lil surfer girls running the show. They've had more fun with the boxes from the family gifts arriving in the mail then they may have with the actual presents. They realllllly wanted to make a Gingerbread House especially after looking at all of these! I kept saying next year we'll do that...next year. Well those sneaky lil girls got their Gingerbread House! This may be more difficult to get rid of and has been the center stage for the nightly performances and endless entertainment for all!