Rainbow week 2!

Today is our first day back into rainbow week, since yesterday Alli had school in the morning and Stanford in the afternoon.  I was hoping to find a miracle cure for why she doesn't wear her right hearing aide, but the best the ENT could come up with was that there was some wax in her ear, which he took out.  I tried putting both aides on today, and again when it came time for the right one, she freaked out.  Now I don't know if that is because she is so used to it bothering her and if I could just get it in she will see that it is ok, or if the wax wasn't the issue at all.  I hate to pin her down and traumatize her, but I don't know how else to get it in.  Maybe tomorrow...

So I tried real hard to have everything prepped and ready to go for Emily and Alli when Em got home from school today.  I had everything all laid out and organized ...

And when Em got home she was really excited!  And thanked me for setting everything up.  :)  This is definitely the way to go.  In the past I knew what activities I wanted to do, but nothing was set up, so the girls had to wait around while I tried to get all our supplies together.  which isn't ideal as sometimes patience wears out or they loose interest.  She wanted to do the counting bear activity first (the purple tray) I suspect because it was new lol!  

This is a cute game and there are several ways to play it.  Em got a little confused at times though.  She kept thinking you needed to get 10 bears to win.  Which you do, but you need 1 bear of each number counting up to 10 to win.  So she didn't always get that concept, but she still won!  I wasn't easy to play with Keira around, she kept stealing the tray and throwing the bears on the ground. Then Alli showed up...

And immediately started linking all the bears together regardless of their numerical order.  Next we read the rainbow fish book...

and of course did a Rainbow Fish activity after.  I set Keira up with a fish to color...

But she wasn't interested.  Every time I would read a page, she started vocalizing very loudly!  It was frustrating, and nothing I did or gave her seemed to make her happy.  I finally took her down, and Alli showed up on the scene..

She took over Keira's spot and really got into the coloring...

 All done!  With Emily I set her up with glitter and glue to make the pretty shiny scales.  

 She painted the glue on with a brush, and then I helped with the glitter, then she wanted to try the glitter on her own, and she was pretty good.

 But after about 4 scales she wanted to be done with the glitter and use markers, and really make it a rainbow fish.  She used all the colors of the rainbow and colored the rest in.  I can't believe I didn't get a pic of the finished piece.

 Then Alli wanted to try her hand at glitter, and of course spent most of the time throwing little pinches of glitter on the floor. 

 And just when I tried to confiscate it, she would fake me out and put some glitter on the fish...

Finally I had to take it away.  And this whole time I'm dealing with the glitter girls, Keira is fussing and pulling on my legs and I'm alternating between holding her and then setting her down again to help Em or Alli.  It was not easy, and I finally put all the glitter mess away, and went to try to get Keira down for a nap since she was so sassy.  She fell asleep, but not before Alli stole my bag of chocolate and ran off into the other room with it.  Such a beast!  

I finally caught up with her and the empty bag and this is how she looked!  This picture does not show the brown coated hands, bed and sheets.  UGH!

Anyway, I cleaned her up and did some chores while Keira napped, then it was time for Emily's ballet class.   When we came back home we had some visitors in our driveway...

They weren't very scared of us, and Matt even got out to film them and they still hung out for a few more seconds before they ran up the hill.  

I had great intentions to make a healthy dinner tonight and even meal planned for the week, and went grocery shopping. but when we got home, all heck broke loose and there was no way that a fancy dinner was going to happen, so we did fast and not so healthy just to shut everyone up .  I'm still bummed that I can't seem to find a way to do the dinner thing, but It's impossible to move around the kitchen with Keira attached to my leg, pulling my pants down.  

After dinner though we managed to get a few more activities in.  I never push it, Em always asks.  She is very eager to do these projects, and while I have stuff for Alli too, she tends to want to be in her own little world playing with her busy books.  If she comes up and seems interested I will give her something to do 

She joined us again at the table for this gluing and matching rainbows project, but spent most of the time sticking glue on her fingers.  This is the second time I tried this project since she seemed to like this activity when we did the farm one, but both times, she just played with glue.  Go figure.  

Meanwhile, Emily is painting a rainbow...

 And then we attached some clouds.  There are clouds for the other side, but the tube is drying so it isn't put on yet.

I introduced Emily to dominoes rainbow style and that was fun.  It would have been a lot more fun, if Keira and Alli didn't keep stealing our dominoes.  

Emily won of course. :)  And of course this whole time Keira is climbing on all the chairs when she isn't busy stealing cards.  But the problem is she climbs up and then gets frustrated because she can't climb down.  So I solved that problem...

I put some cushions on the floor that she could climb, which quickly expanded into...

 More cushions!!  The girls had a blast running and jumping all over, but I had to keep warning them to watch out for poor Keira.  

Anyway, I think it got some much needed energy out.  I hope!  

So today was tough.  It's frustrating when you have a very willing child that really wants to do all these activities, but with Keira it is just so hard!  Which of course she can't help since she is so young, but I just don't know how to give everyone all the attention they need.  It seems as if it's needed all at once or none at all.    And while Emily is very independent, she still wants me around to help her which of course she needs with a lot of the projects.  So I somehow need to find a better balance and Keira needs to take longer naps!