This holiday was filled with so many wonderful activities. When I say Charlotte is the place to be a parent, I'm not kidding. There were so many free events and crafts, I have a bin full of unused loot for next year. I know I probably should be posting at the top of the month, but I like to live in the moment with my daughter. You never know what she'll feel like doing and she always wants me to be looking her in the eyes. I wanted to unplug for the season to be more present.

I don't pretend to be a great gingerbread house builder. I have to say, I was more successful this time around. My daughter did the lovely decor!!!!

Every year I bake chocolate chip & walnut, as well as pecan tea cake cookies. I bought some cheap dough from Aldi for my daughter to cut, stamp and bake herself. Of coarse she ate all of hers and none of mine.

I just love little bells. They were half off everywhere, so i bought a few little bags. The day after Christmas, I was able to find some large bells that I made into instruments for preK activities. We also made necklaces with the small bells. 

These were all the adorable projects that my daughter enjoyed the most.

These were the book obsessions for December.  My mother always finds beautiful items such as the Christmas books.  She's just one of those people with impeccable taste. The story starters were really fun for my daughter and her friends.  They loved being able to make up the story together. 

I used to hate that I was "stuck" living in North Carolina. Being from Northern California, the lack of a certain level of culture, variety and diversity has been hard.  Even 11 years later, I still miss home.  It wasn't until I had my daughter, that I discovered how amazing Charlotte is.  I can't think of a more kid and parent friendly place to be. There are so many seasonal activities and events for the family. The pumpkin patches were so fun this year. It was a beautiful Fall. We had such a great time learning about pumpkins.

Julia Rothman's Farm Anatomy book has become one of our favorites.  The illustrations are so beautiful and informative.  We used it to identify some of the pumpkins we had seen at the patch as well as ones we had not yet seen.  We also used a couple of identifying pages that came up in a google search. 

I’m not kidding when I say that my daughter is obsessed with these books. We literally read them 4-5 times a day!!! She knows them by heart and she loves to read aloud!!

The Dollar section at Target is the best for finding teaching treasures. We used these Halloween erasers for counting, graphing and sorting.  My daughter loved using a timer.. It was fun for her to have to rush.  

These are some of the great halloween crafts my daughter chose to do. 

A random science project I got for $5 at Marshalls. It's one of those things I always looked at since I was a kid, but never tried. It's funny how children can make you so open to new things? My daughter had such a great time with her daddy.  

It took patience and self control to not touch and shake the growing container. It would take about 9 days to grow. Every day she would push her chair over to the counter and gaze at the growing crystal.

​There was one day that she couldn't help herself and just had to touch it.  The container was completely cloudy and crystals had cracked off.  They were afraid that that was the end of it.  They left it for a night, the dust settled and the growing continued.  The final product was really cool.  They plan to do all of the other colors in the coming weeks. 

​I usually keep an endless list of possible activities to do each day. It turned out to be a potato stamping day. I cut the potatoes in half and used fall cookie cutter/stamps.  It was a nice sensory experience. . 

My husband and my daughter made a Halloween ginger bread house. Building the house was so frustrating, he almost gave up.  With a lot of patience he finally got the walls to stick together. My daughter took over from there..  She loves spooky things. Don't ask me why....She really is obsessed with Halloween year round like some people are with Christmas.  It's too cute and hilarious! 

​This month was filled with travel and beauty. We went to Hawaii and collected treasures on the Beach.. We enjoyed ourselves on the Central California coast. We made a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.. We saw incredible jelly fish, Sharks, penguins, turtles....everything that you can think of.  

I did make a futile drive down the coast to Big SirJust me and my daughter. it was absolutely frightening to drive the really steep and narrow parts right on the cliffs.  by the time we arrived, She complained that her tummy hurt......sooooo I turned right back around to Monterey.  A waisted 4 hours!!!! 

It was an amazing month my daughter enjoyed herself and learned so much about the sea and the life within it.  It was a world schooling experience. 

(Note: The shells and starfish were purchased in Monterey, None of them were collected by us.) 

These are books we read to complement our ocean theme. She favored the Dolphin book because she saw spinner dolphins for the first time while we were out to sea.  It was one of the most beautiful experiences as a mother. To see her amazement and glee is something I will never forget. I'm so thankful to my mom and dad for giving us such a wonderful trip.  

​These are the sea animals my daughter chose to read about in her animal encyclopedia.

​This is the gif story for our visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.