Mommy and Jay Preschool

Mommy and Jay Preschool

Since we are going to be in transition for the next 7 months or so and I am not going to have a huge house to clean during that time, I figured it would be the perfect time to start doing some preschool with Jay.   We've been at it for about 2 1/2 weeks now and so far its going pretty well. We do preschool 5 days a week for about 20 to 30 minutes a day- nothing too time intensive. Which is good, because after about 10 to 15 minutes, Jay gets antsy.  

I found an amazing free Christian preschool curriculum on line from Motherhood on a Dime.  It's called "God's Little Explorers".  I highly recommend checking it out if you are thinking about doing some preschool with your little one. It's wonderful, as is her site as a whole.   I use it as a starting point and also add some of my own ideas along with idea's from a great little resource book called,  "A to Z Preschool".   I like it because there is not a lot of prep for anything we do and there are lots of fun activities because lets face it-he's 3.  Life is, and should be, about play at this point in time.  

Our first week we did letter X.  This is Jay's X page in his alphabet book. 

This week we did letter G. Our theme was Garden. 

Our math activity was counting seeds and placing the correct amount in the numbered  spots in an egg carton. 

Doing preschool with Jay has been a joy so far.  I also have to give props to his daddy for being home again so that I actually have the extra time to plan and teach Jay now :).  Amen for daddy being home!!

What's In A Name?

What's In A Name?

Welcome to the Erickson family blog! 

 We hemmed and hawed over a name for this blog. I can't believe how difficult it is to come up with a title for a blog!  Our first great idea was to call it "Home is where his boots are."  To us, that really sums up life for our family. However, someone else had already come up with that blog title.( We are a little behind on the blogging game. )  Then a friend suggested the title "Erickson Escapades".  It was super cute and we almost went with it and then we had another idea...

We went for a walk as a family one evening and James and I were discussing blog titles.  We were calling out things we think describe us.  Finally, James said, "What if we called it Coffee, Kiowa's....and something else that starts with a C or a K?" I loved it.   Here's why:

• The word coffee describes one of our favorite things in life. One of our favorite pastime is to visit cool coffee shops and talk.  On every date night we inevitably end up at a coffee shop at some point in the evening. What makes this word in our blog title so special to me is that James told me he loved me for the first time at a little coffee shop in Bolivar, MO called , "The Daily Grind".  Coffee describes something of great importance to us. 

•  Kiowa of course describes the air frame James' flies as a army pilot.  It's a job he loves and it also greatly effects our family life.  His job  in the army dictates where we live and when we are together and apart.  We changed "Kiowa" to "Camo" because it flowed better when we came up with our 3rd word- "Crayons".  

• Crayons was my choice for our last word for a few reasons.  One, I am a teacher.   Before we had our son, I taught kindergarten and, therefore, handled crayons on a daily basis.  Crayons are a great love of mine. I even love the way we smell. Of course, now we have a 3 year old that I stay home with so crayons are still a very large part of our world.  

So our blog title was born! Now we are off to begin filling it with our family stories, plans, and pastimes.  This blog is not intended to be us telling you how amazing and proud of ourselves we are.  It's not intended to make us feel superior or give us a way to brag on our child (although as parents, that's probably going to happen once in a while).   We simply want to share with our friends and family what's going on in our world. The army has us moving this way and that constantly and we know it gets confusing. Hopefully, this will help clear up some of what is happening in our world.   So, enjoy Coffee, Camo, and Crayons and feel free to let us know if I am edging into the realm of bragging and boasting...as that is the opposite of our intent.