Diapers to Diplomas

Tot School - Ll

2012-02-04T17:09:00.000-05:00

Tot School - Ll is for Ladybugs

Owen and Eli: 41 months old

Most of what we did this week revolved around Ll is for Ladybugs. Usually I try to use more words that start with our Letter of the Week, but I liked the slower pace of just using one animal/word this week. We talked many times about other animals (lions, lobsters, lambs) and other words (lips, licking, letters) that start with Ll, but the activities centered around little ladybugs. Confessions of a Homeschooler has some great Ladybug printables and I found a great unit on Homeschool Share for the Very Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle (our book of the week).

(Pictured below: Writing Practice, Letter Hunt, Dot Counting and Ladybug Sequencing)

Shaving cream letter writing was a big hit, and I was actually surprised that they could write as many letters as they could.

Matching lids with their jars - fine motor skill practice and spacial reasoning.

We made paper plate ladybugs and then I punched holes in the edges and the boys used them as lacing cards. We don't do that very often (or ever!) but they seemed to enjoy it. I ended up writing numbers next to the holes on the back of the plate so they knew which hole to lace next - originally they wanted to make it look more like a spider web than a circle.

This was a printable on Homeschool Share. These were the directions they had to follow:

1. Draw 6 black legs on each ladybug.

2. Color 1 ladybug orange. Color 2 ladybugs red.

3. Draw black spots on each ladybug.

4. How many black spots do you have total?

5. Draw two antennae on each ladybug.

6. How many antennae are there total?

7. Draw faces on your ladybugs.

And of course, no week is complete for us without a hand/footprint craft!

Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other Tot Schoolers were up to this week!

Tot School - Kk

2012-01-27T22:00:00.001-05:00

Tot School - Kk is for Kings, Kiwi and Kites

Owen and Eli: 40 months old

I had a hard time with Kk as I was researching some ideas. I didn't like the concept of using Knights because I think that's really confusing to kids just learning what sounds the letters make, and I didn't want to use Kittens because the K sound is the same as the C sound in Cats, which I also think can be confusing. So I was left with coming up with my own words without ideas already in existence. Check out how it went!

We started this week reviewing all the letters we've covered so far. I wanted to start incorporating more writing and not just recognition so I wrote all the letters in pencil on a piece of paper and gave the boys a Q-tip and watercolors. I think it was so successful because they could choose their colors and we made it a game (ie: Pick a color and write the F!) We used watercolors a lot this week and I think we had a much more enjoyable week (because I wasn't so busy getting annoyed when they wouldn't follow directions - ha!) We'll definitely go back to watercolors again in the weeks to come!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the results of their color-by number pages. Only a week ago they would color just the number or randomly draw all over the paper, but this time they did GREAT! (Again, I credit the watercolors!) Instead of using our do-a-dots on the Find the Kk page we used watercolors to circle the Ks.

The handwriting pages continue to get better every week, though they 'draw' the letters instead of 'writing' them. What I mean is, they piece the letters together with short little lines. (Look at the second written K on the bottom row for an example). Is this normal and they'll just figure it out or am I doing something wrong? The BIG excitement for the week was that Eli learned how to write his name! I love the length of some of his letters : )

We reviewed numbers 1-10 with our sticker books. They had to count the items, then find the corresponding number and stick it in the right box. They loved it!

I had a really hard time finding paper plate crafts or handprint crafts that I liked for the letter K, so I made one up! We used a potato to stamp kiwis on the page, then dotted them with black paint on a q-tip to make the seeds. I painted the boys fingers and top of their palm yellow, then they stamped twice and added glitter to make the crown. They painted the face orange and after it dried they added the googly eyes, used a paint brush for the hair, stamped their brown handprints three times for the beard and drew the smile. A little messy, but they were proud of the results and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Letter L is next week - pass along any good ideas you've used! Linking up to Tot School.

Tot School - Jj

2012-01-23T15:46:00.002-05:00

Tot School - Jj is for Jungle Animals

Owen and Eli are 40 months old

Other than jungle animals, the letter J wasn't all that exciting of a letter for us, but it still worked out great because we spent a lot of time on writing and coloring letter J printables this week. Owen used the correct grip for his marker too, which was a huge accomplishment! We tried color-by-numbers again and I think it went better than last week. They really seemed to understand the matching of the colors with the upper and lower case letters and the finished product ended up looking vaguely like a jack-o-lantern. Score! : )

The letter maze is from here, the color by letter is from here, the J is for Juggling Elmo page is from here, and the Letter J writing practice is from here.

We read lots of books about Jungle animals and then they chose the animals they liked the best for our J is for Jungle Animals paper plate craft. We made bananas out of play-doh for all the monkeys we found around the house too. Then we used the counting cards from here to match the items to the corresponding numeral and the boys got some practice squeezing the glue themselves.

On to Letter Kk... have any good ideas for us? To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, check out 1+1+1=1.

Tot School - Ii

2012-01-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

Tot School - Ii is for Insects and Ice Cream

Owen and Eli: 40 months old

This week was so much more fun than I was expecting! I had a hard time coming up with words that went along with Ii, but we were on a roll as the week went on. I printed off capital and lowercase I's and gave the boys insect stickers to fill in the letters. Their personalities came through when Owen wanted to fill in all the white space and Eli wanted to stack as many stickers as possible on top of each other. The inchworm letter hunt and the letter outlines were both from here.

I can't find the link for the letter maze, but the color by number is from here. Both went better than they did last week : )

Our big art project for the week was making puffy paint ice cream cones. We mixed shaving cream, elmer's glue and paint together, then they spread it on the paper with their hands and they looked like ice cream when they dried. So fun! The clean-up wasn't even difficult, which I have to say was a small concern of mine : )

We only did a few of the ice cream printables from Mama's Monkey's, but the ones we did were pretty successful. They colored the cones the appropriate colors, matched the magnet letters with the uppercase and lowercase letters on the ice cream cones, and did some pre-writing practice too. They are both getting better at controlling their utensil movements and at holding the pen.

The crowning glory of the week was making ice cream from scratch. We had some friends over and all measured and mixed the ingredients, then watched the ice cream maker do its magic. So fun!

Other Tot Schoolers were busy this week too - check it out here!

Tot School - Gg & Hh

2012-01-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

Tot School - Gg is for Green, Go and Gumball

Tot School - Hh is for Hippos, Hermit Crabs and Heroes

Owen and Eli: 40 months old

The Letter Gg kinda got lost in the shuffle. I had a hard time coming up with words that went with Gg, so we just did a couple crafts and called it a day. The gumball activity was so easy - just draw the outline and then use do-a-dots for the gumballs.

After Christmas and all of our Christmas activities, we were all ready to get back to a normal routine. We learned all about hermit crabs and watched YouTube videos on how they change shells and what they eat. I found the handprint craft here, the letter hunt here, and the color-by-number here. I wasn't sure how the color-by-number would go, and quite honestly, it didn't go well, but it's kind of fun to see where they start as a benchmark for the future. Same goes for the super hero page on drawing circles and x's - NOT a huge success! They were really good at finding the right magnet to fill in the blank. Those activities both came from here. We had read several books from the library about hippos and horses, but I forgot to take a picture of them!

To see what other Tot Schoolers did this week, click here!

Countdown to Christmas: Days 16-25

2011-12-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

This week's focus is on the Nativity and the main characters in the story of Christ's birth. I found a great document with little summaries of each character that we use as a jumping off point, and I spent the last few naptimes creating a paper Nativity scene (similar to one that I found online that I can't find again to link back to!) that I'm going to frame when it's all put together. I LOVE how it turned out!

Day 16: Building our Nativity: Mary is visited by the Angel
The angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she would be the mommy to Jesus, the Son of God. Mary loved God very much and was the perfect person to be Jesus' mommy.

Day 17: Take the boys shopping to pick out Christmas presents for each other and wrap them.

Day 18: Make Christmas cookies!

Day 19: Mary, Joseph and the Donkey are on their way to Bethlehem

The donkey carries Mary the long distance to Bethlehem where Jesus will be born.

Day 20: The Star, the Wise Men and the Camel
The star leads the way to the birth site of Jesus. The wise men knew that the star meant that someone very important was born, so they followed it to Jesus to bring him gifts and to meet the Son of God.

Day 21: The Angel, the Shepherds and the Sheep
The angel visits the shepherds to tell them where they could find Jesus, the Son of God, now that he was born. He was born in a stable and slept in a manger because there were so many people in the city of Bethlehem and there was no room at the inn.

Day 22: Baby Jesus is born!! Jesus, the Stable and Manger, and all characters
Sing Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem and O Come O Come Emmanuel and talk about why it's so exciting that Jesus came to Earth as a little baby.

Day 23: Make chocolate covered pretzels

Day 24: Pick up our family from the airport!!
Play with cousins, show them our tree and go to Christmas Eve service

Day 25: CHRISTMAS DAY!
Sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have a scavenger hunt to find the baby Jesus' from our Nativity sets. Have a special Christmas breakfast and open Christmas presents.

I love this Christmas countdown! It is so much fun teaching the boys more about Jesus and incorporating Him into our daily conversations. I saw Owen today, holding an angel, and saying "Mary, you are going to have a baby on Christmas. And Baby Jesus is God's only Son." Precious!

Countdown to Christmas: Days 8-15

2011-12-09T09:42:00.006-05:00

Our first week of activities was great! It really added to the structure of the day and the boys were so excited to find the hidden Christmas books and tear off the next link on the paper chain.

I found a printable countdown Christmas tree that we've been adding an ornament to every day to mark the days too. It's really cute - and free!

Here's what's up this week:

Day 8: Paper Plate Snowman

Craft: I added silver glitter to white paint and the boys painted a paper plate. As it was drying, they sprinkled more silver glitter to contact paper and I cut out the inner circle of the plate, which became the snowman's head. We used buttons for the eyes and foam paper for the nose, mouth, top hat and scarf. After assembling, we used glitter glue on the paper for the snow. So cute!

Day 9: Drive around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights

Field trip as a family

Day 10: Attend the Live Nativity Hayride in Flower Mound

Field trip as a family

Day 11: Make footprint gifts to mail to the Grandparents

Craft: Christmas trees and snowmen and potential ideas for this project

Day 12: Nativity Pre-K Pack and Nativity Tot Pack

Preschool learning

Day 13: Make homemade Christmas ornaments

Craft: Salt dough ornaments with the boys' handprints or footprints

Day 14: Have a Nativity Lunch!

Edible craft using baby hot dogs and crescent rolls, cheese, animal crackers, pretzel rods and a few other goodies

Day 15: Building our Nativity: Mary, the Angel and Joseph

Craft: While explaining each of the characters of the Nativity story, we will add the people to a Bethlehem/manger scene leading up to the birth of Jesus

I might add a few other crafts or recipes if we're having a down day - Pinterest is so full of great ideas that I can't really choose!

Hope your Christmas preparations are going great and keeping you focused on the true meaning of Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas: Days 1-7

2011-12-01T15:19:00.009-05:00

Let the Countdown to Christmas begin!

Our paper chain is complete and ready to be torn. I tried to vary the days with crafts, foods to make, movies to watch, fieldtrips and Nativity-related items. Here's the lineup for Week 1 (pictures will be added as applicable):

Day 1: Make a Paint and Glue Christmas tree

Craft: I drew a Christmas tree with a sharpie on white paper and gave the boys green paint. Then they each chose several pieces of scrapbook paper that they liked and I cut out circles for the ornaments. The stars are made from foam paper and they decorated them with glitter glue.

Day 2: Peppermint Twist Preschool Time at our library

Daytime Field trip

Day 3: Christmas at Nash Farms in Grapevine (morning) and A Charlie Brown Christmas movie and Christmas cookie party at our church (afternoon)

Field trip as a family

Day 4: Road to Bethlehem in Grapevine

Field trip as a family

Day 5: Winter Wonderland Tot Pack and Pooh's Jingle Bells

Preschool learning

Book craft: Reading Pooh's Jingle Bells and making jingle bell bracelets with pipe cleaners and bells. We watched Winnie the Pooh and Christmas too afterwards!

Day 6: Make a paper plate wreath

Craft: Cut out the inside of a white paper plate. Give kids green paper to tear into small pieces and glue to the circle outline. Decorate with red pompoms (for holly) and a red ribbon. Attach a string to the back so it can be hung.

Day 7: Watch Small One as a family and Gingerbread Play-doh

Movie Night

Craft: The gingerbread play-doh was a great texture and really easy to roll out and use with cookie cutters. We pretended to make Christmas cookies and then did some of the activities from the Gingerbread Baby Tot Pack and read the Gingerbread Boy book.

I have a few back-ups in case something falls through, but I'm really excited about our daily activities! The boys found their first hidden Christmas book this morning and were so excited to tear it open and read it.

Are you doing anything fun to countdown to Christmas this year?

On Our Shelf: Christmas

2011-11-30T15:00:00.001-05:00

I saw this really cute idea that I think is going to become a tradition for years to come! I went to the library and took out an entire bag of Christmas books (free!) and I'm going to wrap them all and hide one per day for the boys to find for us to read together. It's kind of like Elf on a Shelf in that they'll have to search for it, but the entertainment can last all day instead of just for the minutes it takes to find. Did I mention it's free?! Genius!

Our Christmas Book List this year:

An Angel Came to Nazareth by Anthony Knott

Shall I Knit you a Hat? by Kate Klise

I Spy Christmas

B is for Bethlehem by Isabel Wilner

A Pirate's Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates

Crispin the Pig Who Had it All by Ted Dewan

Christmas Soup by Alice Faye Duncan

A Merry Little Christmas by Mary Engelbreit

Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera

Reindeer Christmas by Mark Kimball Moulton

Timothy and the Christmas Gift by Jeffrey Dinardo

A Song in Bethlehem by Marni McGee

Can't Wait Till Christmas by Mike Huckabee

The Twelve Bots of Christmas by Nathan Hale

Pooh's Jingle Bells by Kathleen Zoehfeld

Ten Little Christmas Presents by Jean Marzollo

The Donkey's Dream by Barbara Helen Berger

How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky

The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright

Snow Family by Daniel Kirk

Drummer Boy by Loren Long

Our Christmas Movies this year:

Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

Bear Snores On

Small One

Mickey's Christmas Carol

Muppet Christmas Carol

Before and After!

I have a whole countdown calendar planned that I can't wait to share with y'all! 25 Days of fun family crafts, activities, recipes and outings... and it all starts tomorrow!

A Freebie Pinterest Project

2011-11-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

I really like subway art, but I was never quite sure how to incorporate it in my decor. Then I found this one on Pinterest and fell in love. I used an old frame and happened to have a mat from a different frame that I wasn't using too. I covered the frame in Christmas scrapbook paper, printed the subway art and voila! I might change out the paper and subway art for other seasons too if I can find another one I love as much as this. What do you think!?

Tot School - Ff

2011-10-31T12:42:00.005-04:00

Tot School - Ff is for Firemen and Frogs

Owen and Eli: 38 months old

FROGS

We spent a lot of time this week reading books about how tadpoles turn into frogs and reading all sorts of frog books. Our footprint craft this week was from Pinterest and turned out pretty cute. We added the tadpoles at the bottom by painting the boys' thumbs and adding googly eyes.

FIREMEN

Our firemen printables were from Homeschool Creations and Mama's Monkeys and the boys' really liked them this week. We did the letter tracing and counting puzzles and the pre-writing practice to connect the firemen to the fires. I couldn't find a good firemen paper plate craft, so I made one up! Their handprints are supposed to be flames, I used a little creative liberty : )

We would have gotten to more this week, but I'm still getting used to THIS news! #4, due early June!

See ya next week for Letter Gg! Linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1

Tot School - Ee

2011-10-15T21:54:00.005-04:00

Tot School - Ee is for Elephants, Eggs and Esther

Owen & Eli: 37 months

On Our Shelf
Elephants

Owen and Eli weren't really into the printables this week, so I didn't force it. They wanted to read all of our library books several times and love making the handprint crafts, so we just went with a low key week and had fun with it. The good news is that they have no trouble identifying E and e and know the sounds they make, so everything we did was reinforcement. The boys used their safety scissors for the first time this week and I was really impressed at how hard they worked at them. Not too bad for a first attempt! The counting printable is from here and the stick puppet printable is from here.

Eggs

Our science this week came from talking about eggs and all the different kinds of birds (and other animals) that have their babies from eggs. Many of the egg books from the library were about protecting the babies in the eggs until they hatch and trying to figure out which babies match up with which adult birds. We made this paper plate craft for our alphabet wall.

Bible

As often as I can, I'm going to start using a story or character from the Bible along with our letter of the week. For E, we read about Queen Esther and how she saved the Jews and watched the VeggiTales movie 'Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen (A Lesson in Courage).'

Next week, Letter Ff! Other Tot Schoolers can be found here : )

Tot School - Dd

2011-10-08T12:16:00.008-04:00

Tot School - Dd is for Dinosaurs, Dogs and Dr. Seuss

Owen & Eli: 37 months

Dinosaurs

I had big plans for this week - my boys love dinosaurs and I knew that everything I had planned would be really fun for them. My littlest ended up with a stomach bug for most of the week though, so most of my really fun activities had to be replaced with Dinosaur Train. They didn't mind (because they didn't know any better!) but I was a little disappointed. In case you have more time than I did, I was planning on making dinosaur fossils and getting bones from the meat counter at the grocery store to bleach and hide so they could pretend to be paleontologists. Leave me a comment with your email if you want instructions for the bones! We were able to fit in most of the activities from the Dinosaur Tot Pack from 2 Teaching Mommies and the alphabet tracing page for the letter D. Our paper plate craft this week was a brachiosaurus that they painted, decorated and glued all by themselves!

Dr. Seuss

We read several of Dr. Seuss's books this week and made a hand print craft into Thing 1 and Thing 2 (and added Thing 3 for Garrett!) We used our thumbprints to make Green Eggs too!

I printed most of the Dog Tot Pack to use this week, but I'm going to have to save it to use for P is for Puppies instead (how's that for creative thinking? : ) We would have had time to do those activities if I didn't spend most of my week like this... but I'll take all the snuggle time I can get!

Hope y'all had a great week in Tot School!

Tot School - Cc

2011-09-30T14:09:00.009-04:00

Tot School - Cc is for Caterpillars, Cows and Camping

Owen & Eli: 37 months

Cows & Caterpillars

The alphabet tracing pages from Money Saving Mom for the letter C tied in great to the caterpillar portion of our week. We also made pompom caterpillars and The Very Hungry Caterpillar using handprints. By the end of the week, the boys were talking about cocoons and caterpillars turning into butterflies just like they learned about in the books. Our paper plate craft this week was making cows - so cute!

Camping, Clouds and Colors

We made C and c using cotton balls to make them look like clouds and made a rainbow out of all the boys' cars. We had a great time pretend camping this week and doing all the camping activities from Homeschool Creations and 2 Teaching Mommies. They have great stuff! We used the felt counting fish (originally from Counting Coconuts) to go pretend fishing at our campsite and practiced counting and number recognition too.

Dd for Dinosaurs, Dogs and Dr. Seuss next week! Linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School - Bb

2011-09-25T10:17:00.010-04:00

Tot School - Bb is for Bears and Bees

Owen & Eli: 36 months

The Letter B

I'm going to use the animal letters from education.com for all of the capital letters in the alphabet. I also love the alphabet tracing pages from Money Saving Mom that include the capital and lowercase letters and super cute graphics that go with the letters. As you can see, as of Week 2, they aren't that great at coloring with a purpose or tracing! : )

BEARS

I picked a ton of great books from the library this week to go with our Bear and Bee theme, and I think many of them will need to become permanents is our home library. The Bear Snores On series (Bears New Friend, Bear Wants More...) is awesome and we read them probably 20 times each. We read Bears, Bears, Bears! and ate bear pancakes and made grizzly bears and panda bears. That was probably their favorite day!

I printed off these two handouts from Making Learning Fun under their Brown Bear category. I think they are supposed to be used to graph M&Ms, but I painted a wooden cube all six colors in the graph and we played a dice game with it. They loved it! Every time they rolled, they would use that dot color to mark that column. When we finished, we counted to determine which animal had the most dots. Then we rolled a number die to color-by-number the brown bear animals. I loved that they had to count the dots on the die and then find the corresponding numeral on each animal to figure out who to color.

BEES (& other misc B words!)

Our other B word books from the library are shown in the first picture. We used several of the activities from the Bees unit on 2 Teaching Mommies this week too. The dot pages and tracing pages were nice, but a little too quick of an activity for the boys. They got some practice with upper and lowercase letters on the Beehive spelling page (even though I had to get creative since there were so many Es!) They were pretty good with the matching, but I wonder if it's because their odds were pretty good at getting it right with six Es!

Here we're playing our version of the clothespin counting game. I turned all 10 images face down and the boys took turns choosing one, turning it over, counting the bees and then dotting the right numeral for the number of bees. Then we put all 10 cards in order using the stamped answer. I thought it was a nice way to turn it more into a game... and aren't my lion and Spiderman super cute? : )

I've said it before that footprint crafts are always my favorite, but this one might be at the top. The stamped their feet and thumbs (the tiny bees) and then after they dried, glued the stripes and drew the smiles to finish them off. *Love*

We read Jamberry and had a berry snack... including feeding it to each other : )

I used this template (I think from Confessions of a Homeschooler?) to practice counting and 1:1 correspondance. They turned over a number (we just used 1-5 this time) and then matched the card to the right row, then chose the Ball stickers to stick in each box. When all five were filled, we matched the right equipment for each ball too. Stickers are always a hit over here!

Cc is next week - come on back to see what we're up to!

Tot School - Aa

2011-09-18T14:37:00.007-04:00

Tot School - Aa is for Apples, Acorns and Astronauts!

Owen & Eli: 36 months

We took a long break from Tot School for the summer to make room for travelling and visitors, but now we're back and better than ever! I thought a lot about how I wanted to teach the boys now that they are three, and what I thought would be important to incorporate, and I'm happy with how much we were able to accomplish this week. Last year the focus was mostly on letter identification, crafts and cooking (when applicable), but this year there will be a much stronger focus on letter sounds, math, science and reading.

We started the week at the library, getting books about our theme words and going to story time - the theme at story time was Apples (how appropriate!). Here are the books we read all week, but the biggest hits were I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track and Zoom Zoom Zoom I'm Off to the Moon.

The Letter A

We started off by reviewing capital A and lowercase a and the sounds they both make. We said lots of words with the long A and short A sounds and created As out of crayons and playdoh just to get the shape down. Education.com has a different animal printable for every letter of the alphabet.

Apples

We did some simple and really fun apple activities this week. I drew a simple tree for the boys to color and then decorate with apple stickers. We talked about when apples grow and what you can make with apples. We also talked about the colors of different apples and how the different colors taste different (sweet vs. sour). To follow that up, we had an apple taste test! I found the apple core activity on Pinterest (my new addiction!) and the seeds are the boys' fingerprints. Mama Jenn's blog had an apple chart printable that I created a dice game to go along with. When a color apple was rolled, a penny was placed over that color apple on the chart. They loved it!

Astronauts

We read a lot of books about astronauts this week and what they do while in space. They learned about rocket ships and that astronauts float in space. We made an adorable astronaut out of paper plates and rocket ships using their footprints that were decorated with alien stickers. Super fun!

Acorns

Science this week was in the form of acorns. We learned about how they grow on trees and start off green, but when they are fully grown or on the ground they turn brown. We also talked about how squirrels eat acorns and looked at them through magnifying glasses. The acorn activity is a slight variation of this one, using do-a-dots instead of just torn paper.

Next week is Bb for Bears, Boats and Bees. Join us! To see what other Tot Schoolers did this week, click here!

The Silver Lining

2011-09-09T14:07:00.002-04:00

After the few days that we've had around here, I think a version of 'The Glad Game' from Pollyanna is in order.

Bad News: I got a stomach virus on Wednesday that lasted through Thursday night

Silver Lining: Charlie's parent's were visiting and could take care of the boys while I was sick

2nd Silver Lining: Charlie didn't catch it!

Bad News: Eli caught a bit of the virus and threw up all over me and all over himself

Silver Lining: Owen and Garrett haven't thrown up

2nd Silver Lining: Everything in the line of fire of Eli was washable and came out of the laundry no worse for the wear

Bad News: Most of our sippy cups melted in the dishwasher : (

Silver Lining: I've secretly wanted to buy new cups for awhile now and most of the cups at Babies R Us are on sale right now!

Bad News: All three boys are pretty out of sorts and just want to lay around and watch tv

Silver Lining: They are all taking fantastic naps and going to bed earlier than usual

Bad News: I meant to start school back up with Owen and Eli this week... but didn't

Silver Lining: I didn't because Charlie's parents were here for a visit and we loved seeing them!

Bad News: It's been more than two months since I've posted to this blog!?

Silver Lining: We had a summer full of family, vacation and fun, which didn't leave much time for blogging.

Next week is going to be busy, full and fun! My mom's group is kicking off on Monday and my women's bible study on Tuesday. I need to get in the groove with a schedule for teaching the boys while trying to get Garrett used to missing his morning nap Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. It's going to be a great week - stop back to see how it goes!

Tot School - Qq

2011-06-28T21:19:00.005-04:00

Owen & Eli: 33 months old

I wasn't looking forward to the letter Qq because I thought it was going to be boring, but it turned out to be pretty fun! I made a counting/dice game with quarters that the boys loved playing. It was as easy as writing the numbers 1-6 on a plain wooden die and making a card with numbers 1-20 written on it. We would roll the die, then count out that many quarters and keep taking turns until all 20 spots were filled. Now they can count to 20 like pros! They really liked using their magnifying glasses (from their bug boxes that I bought at Michaels) to check out the quarters in more detail.

We used the Confessions of a Homeschooler letter hunt page to play a bingo type game: I would call out a color on the quilt or say capital or lowercase Q and they would fill up their page with the glass gems that we've been using lately. We used her pre-writing practice for the letter Q too.

The two crafty projects we did were making a Capital Q out of quilt squares and using Q-tips to paint a Q with watercolors.

I cut capital Qs out of cardboard for the boys to try out tiny clothespins for the first time. They were getting frustrated because they couldn't quite figure out how to pinch them open, but they'll get it with practice. They used tweezers for the first time too and really liked that part. We got our first pair of tweezers in the same bug box that the magnifying glass came in - what a winner of a purchase at $2.99!

We had a short week because we left for family camp but still managed to fit in quite a few activities. The same goes for next week with the letter Rr, but we'll do the best with what we can! Hope y'all, the other Tot Schoolers especially, had a great week too!

Tot School - Pp

2011-06-19T16:31:00.006-04:00

Owen & Eli: 33 months old

Pp is for Pirates, Policemen, Pizza and Peter Pan! I pulled these activities from Homeschool Creations and Mama's Monkeys.

Coloring the chef's hats to match the color word and matching alphabet magnets to the letter pizzas. We also traced lines to get the chef to the oven (not pictured)...

My boys are in love with Peter Pan these days. The tot pack was a little too old for them (it included a lot of reading and writing) but I pulled out the activities that were age appropriate for them. A coloring page with Pp is for Peter, tracing a line from Captain Hook to the crocodile and rolling a cube with the characters to practice graphing. Eli loved that one, Owen just wanted to eat the Cheerios : ) Of course we watched Peter Pan and ate popcorn this week too!

Melissa and Doug pirate stickers on the outlines of Pp...

The Policeman tot pack from Homeschool Creations was very toddler friendly. They traced the letter Pp, drew lines to connect the policeman to the robber, colored the police hats to match the color word and we made stop lights out of toilet paper rolls. They saw 'Green means Go' every time we're at a stop light now. I've had a lot of trouble in the past with color matching/coloring activities, but this time I colored over the word with the corresponding color, then the boys matched the crayon to the right paper, then I gave them a set to color (right crayon with right paper). It went much smoother and we didn't end up with every color on every page.

That's all for Pp - onto Qq! To see what other Tot Schoolers did this week, click over to 1+1+1=1.

Tot School - Oo

2011-05-22T14:42:00.003-04:00

Owen & Eli: 32 months old

Since the letter Oo is so easy to identify, we just had a lot of fun this week with artsy activities! We used large and small glass beads to identify the upper and lowercase O's (which I think I'm going to do going forward: big beads for uppercase, little beads for lowercase). The glass beads were a big hit.

I found this activity and thought it was really cute. She has adorable flamingo and peacock handprint crafts too. We watched several YouTube videos of ostriches running and racing too, which the boys thought was hilarious. I was actually surprised that they knew what an ostrich was before I even told them.

We did some octopus crafts too, and incorporated some ocean activities as well. The do-a-dot page was used to count the legs, stamp the circles and put cheerios on each circle. Gotta love multi-purpose printouts! I made up a hand print activity to make an octopus using their fingers as the legs and the letter O for the body. They glued lots of little octopuses to create more of an ocean scene too. I'm looking for recommendations on scissors for little kids - have any? I tried out my first 'I Spy Jar' this week too and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I colored sea salt brown (green, red and yellow food coloring) and filled it with beads, ocean stickers and tiny wooden items you'd find at the ocean. Oh yeah! And you can't have an O theme without having 'octodogs' for dinner! : )

The last O that we worked with was Owls. We listened to Owl Babies on YouTube and then made owls using the lowercase o for the owl's belly. They loved using glitter glue to make the stars!

We'll be doing the letter Pp for two weeks because I'm so excited about the themes! Pirates, Pizza, Policemen and Peter Pan!

Hope y'all had a great week!

Felt Pattern Giveaway Winner!

2011-05-18T15:05:00.004-04:00

The winner of the felt food pattern giveaway is...

#10

PrettyByrdie

Congratulations! Leave me a comment with your email address and the pattern you would like so I can order it for you. Happy felting : )

Thanks to all who entered!

I Love a Good List

2011-05-18T13:46:00.003-04:00

A good list keeps me sane. It keeps me focused. It keeps me on track. Just the act of making the list makes me happy.

Have I mentioned that we're taking THREE vacations with THREE kids under THREE years old?! I haven't? Oh. That's probably because I was in denial until yesterday.

Now that I'm actually acknowledging that these trips are going to happen, I'm choosing not to focus on the insanity ahead of us, but instead on the scores of lists that will need to be made to get us through these trips in one piece.

Here are the categories I have so far:

Clothing

Baby gear

Toddler gear

Toiletries

Car snacks

Car activities

Airplane friendly activities

To do/prep before leaving

To make/buy before leaving

Groceries to bring/meal plans

Electronics

Water gear

The first trip is a family trip to Hot Springs, AR, where we'll stay in a house and need to cook our own meals. The second is a trip to family camp in the Ozark's with nine other families from our church - meals are taken care of, but we're without the luxuries of having a house to ourselves. The third trip I'm taking sans-hubby, and it's on an airplane! Three kids alone, getting through an airport, security and keeping occupied for a 2.5 hour flight while holding an 11 mo old on my lap. Heaven help me. Thankfully, we're flying to my sister's house and once we're there, it'll be just like home - toys, baby gear, minivan - awesome.

I'm looking for items to add to my 'Car Activities' list. Suggestions are greatly appreciated! Keep in mind, the boys are not quite three, so games like the license plate game aren't going to work.

Send me some ideas... I'm starting my lists!!

I Can't Be Good at Everything

2011-05-16T13:30:00.003-04:00

Note: That is to be read 'I CAN'T be good at everything' ... NOT 'I can't be good at everything.' There is no sarcasm in this statement. There is no pride. There is no comparison. This is my new mantra. I CAN'T be good at everything.

Heaven knows I try though.

I want to be the best mom and wife I can be. I want to save loads of money by using coupons and a meal plan when I grocery shop. I want to have healthy (not packaged) snacks for my kids. I want to blog daily. I want to teach my kids things that I'm not even sure they're ready for. I want to decorate my home with skill and creativity. I want to get a good night of sleep. I want to keep the house clean. I want to read books that aren't made of cardboard. I want to be better at not caving in at 5pm and going out to dinner instead of planning ahead and actually cooking something. I want to keep up with all my friends. I want to be patient all day long. I want to be more willing to 'pretend play' with the boys. I want to teach them (age appropriate) scripture memory verses. I want to exercise (and shower, for that matter!) everyday. I want to stop wasting time watching mindless tv. I want to have loads of blog followers who leave comments all the time about my ideas.

The list could, literally, go on forever. To do most of those things well requires sacrificing several other equally worthy goals because there isn't enough time in the day for all of them. If I know that, then why is it so hard to accept? Because I want to have it all together. I want to be strong. I want to be supermom, with my three kids under three and a well oiled machine of a family life.

The problem with supermom is that she doesn't leave room for God to work through weaknesses.

'"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.' (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Since I CAN'T be good at everything... maybe now is a good time to stop trying.

Tot School - Nn

2011-05-14T21:02:00.005-04:00

Owen & Eli: 32 Months

This week we worked on Nn is for Numbers. Lots of potential, kind of a bust on execution. The boys were pretty good with number recognition but not very good or interested in actually counting. By the end of the week, Eli was counting from 1-10 outloud (but saying 10 instead of 6 every time) and Owen, when asked to count, would say 'no, not count, Eli do it.' I'm not going to push them, they'll get it eventually!

They used Cheerios to cover up the number that I would call out, and then used the same page to match number magnets. They put bean bags on their Sesame Street flashcards and used their number magnets on the number review sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler. We practiced counting using 1:1 ratio with pompoms on the same sheet, glass beads in an ice cube tray with number stickers, and buttons on pipe cleaners. Hit or miss, but the repetition was helpful, I'm sure.

We're on to Oo next week, but I'm planning on keeping numbers a part of our weekly activities from now on. To see what other Tot Schoolers did this week, check out 1+1+1=1

Tomorrow is the last day to enter my felt food pattern giveaway! You can't win if you don't enter : )

Tot School - Mm

2011-05-07T15:14:00.006-04:00

Owen & Eli: 32 months old

We're back on track with our letter of the week and this week we covered Mm is for Mice, Moose, Muffins and Marshmallows!

During the week I try to mix the 'school-ish' stuff in between the craft/cooking/fun activities that I have planned. They played with this ABC book with four piece magnet puzzles for all the letters we've learned so far (Now I Know My ABCs by Nora Gaydos) and completed several of the Monkey prewriting practice worksheets and 'find the M' worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

MOOSE:

We don't have a library close by that has a very large selection of children's books, and I'm not about to purchase every book that I would like to use every week, so this week I finally found a solution... YouTube!! I'm not sure why I never thought of it before, but you can type in just about any book you want and someone will read it out loud. I had to search around for videos that included the words of the books as well as the pictures, but I was successful for all three that I selected. We started with If You Give a Moose a Muffin. Then we made muffins and I came up with this Capital M Lowercase m craft that I think rivals anything out there. I'm pretty proud of it : ) The capital M is a moose and the lowercase m is the muffin! (I think our whole day would fit in great with the Once Upon a Book posts on Totally Tots!)

MICE:

We listened to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie too, then had cookies and milk for a snack and made the Capital M into a mouse as seen on Totally Tots. We also listened to Mouse Paint and then mixed up the secondary colors just like in the story to paint our rocks to look like mice. I saw the idea on Mama Jenn's blog, but I think if I had to do it again (with less than 3 year olds) I would to fingerprint mice instead. Put their fingers in the red, yellow and blue separately, then mix the colors together and continue fingerprinting, then draw on the mice features. Not to mention that I didn't want to buy six new yarn colors to complete the project!

MARSHMALLOWS:

We did size sorting using the big and little marshmallows, then color sorting just using the little ones. After that, they filled in the M outlines with mini marshmallows... and then they ate a ton of them! We made smores this week too - a huge hit!

Hope you found some useful ideas for Mm! Next week we're doing Nn is for Names and Numbers - so if you have any good counting/number ideas, pass them along! Click over to 1+1+1=1 to see what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week.

Click HERE to enter my giveaway for a felt play food pattern! Giveaway ends May 16th!

Felt Food - And a GIVEAWAY!!

2011-05-02T15:06:00.003-04:00

My boys are incredibly interested in playing kitchen lately. They have pots and pans and a few plastic items that came with their play kitchen, but after looking at toy stores for more food items that they could pretend with, I decided that I didn't like anything available. I played with Fun With Food when I was a kid and nothing seemed to measure up to what I was hoping for.

Enter Etsy's BuggaBugs shop! I am a DIY-er by nature but have a hard time coming up with ideas on my own. I love that she sells easy to use patterns in a variety of play sets and that each pattern comes with several items to make. I purchased the Groceries set and the Picnic set and made them for the boys as a part of their Easter basket and they love them!

Because I had so much fun making her items and because I love imaginative play, I'm giving you a chance to win one of her patterns too! I received the patterns within an hour of purchasing them and was able to get right to work. Easy peasy!

Want to win a pattern?!

Mandatory: Go to BuggaBugs shop and leave a comment telling me which pattern you like best
Extra entry: Become a follower of Diapers to Diplomas and leave a comment telling me you follow me
Extra entry: Leave a comment with a link to a felt tutorial you have used or want to use in the future. [I LOVE felt projects and I'm always looking for more fun ideas!] You can leave a separate comment for each link you submit!

Make sure you leave your email address in your comments so I can contact you if you win!

This giveaway ends Monday, May 16th at noon. Good Luck!!

Egg Painting 101

2011-04-24T21:29:00.007-04:00

I've never been a fan of dying hard boiled eggs. It's messy, it stinks and they are hard to peel (and it's hard to eat that many eggs!) My solution: I bought a pack of wooden eggs from Joann for them to paint with their washable Crayola paint. My thought is that we'll add to the collection every Easter and have lots of memories to look back on over the years. I'm going to date and initial each child's egg so we can keep them straight.

This year, since the boys are only two and Garrett is just a baby, I wanted to do a paint 'technique' rather than just have them paint free-hand. I love them!!

The first technique is to put some drops of paint on plastic wrap, put the egg in the plastic, try it up and give it to the child to squish around and spread the paint. It made a really cool tie-dye effect...
The second was to put drops of paint in a cut out cereal box and to roll and bounce the egg inside the box to spread the paint. It turned out streaked and the colored mixed really nicely after it dried. Next time I wouldn't use white - it dulls the colors a little too much for my liking, but the pastel effect goes nicely with Easter.And the last technique we used today was to paint Garrett's hand and let him grab the wooden egg to leave his handprint and then added the words "Garrett's First Easter." I love capturing the size of their hands in different ways. Super cute!
Other ideas for little kids:
- Putting a few drops of paint on bubble wrap instead of plastic wrap and rolling the egg
- Painting the whole egg a solid color, let it dry and wrap it tightly in a rubber band (choose your pattern). Paint over the rubber band with a different color and unwrap when dry to have a cool line/stripe effect
- Paint the egg a solid color and let the kids paint polka dots using fingerprints

What do you think? Any other techniques to add to the list?

I'm linking up to ABC&123's Show and Tell!

Tot School - Easter!

2011-04-24T14:21:00.021-04:00

Owen & Eli: 31 months old
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

I love Easter! I wanted to make sure that many of our activities this week focused on the Resurrection component of Easter and not just the candy/bunny portion of Easter.We started the week (Palm Sunday) by making palms and reading the Triumphant Entry story in the Bible and continued throughout the week by adding more and more of the Bible stories from Holy Week until today, when we told them about Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

Throughout the week we made stained glass crosses using tissue paper and contact paper, colored our Christ is Risen do-a-dots (Confessions of a Homeschooler), made bunny ears to wear and Easter lambs by painting their hands black and decorating them with cotton balls, googly eyes and ribbon, and made homemade peanut butter eggs.We took a field trip to a local feed store to hold and pet the baby bunnies, chicks and ducks - a HUGE hit! They've been talking about the baby animals ever since : )After breakfast on Easter we painted wooden eggs (my plan is to have the boys all paint an egg every year to add to the collection and to put their initials and the year on the bottom, told them the burial story, had an egg hunt and opened Easter baskets. After everyone was up from their nap we made Resurrections Rolls and finished up Easter week with the great news of the Resurrected Christ. He is Risen!What a fantastic week! We have visitors all of next week, so I'm planning on getting back to the Letter Mm in two weeks. Can't wait to see what others did this week on 1+1+1=1

Handprint Ideas for Easter

2011-04-20T10:34:00.006-04:00

Handprint crafts (though messy) are some of my favorite things to do with my kids. Not only is it a tactile experience for them, but it captures their size and skill level all on one piece of paper. Last year we made these 'Some Bunny Loves Me' hand prints and this year we made Easter Lambs (painted, not cut out like in this picture). We've been having a great time this week making Easter related snacks and crafts, reading Bible versus and teaching the boys about the true meaning of Easter. Anyone else doing anything fun this week with their kids?

Tot School - Ll

2011-04-17T14:23:00.014-04:00

Owen and Eli: 31 Months

Ll is for Ladybugs and Leaves! We had a short school week because my brother and his family came for a visit, but we managed to squeeze in a few activities anyway. We started out with do-a-dot L's from Confessions of a Homeschooler and used L outlines to make leaf collages with our backyard leaf scavenger hunt findings. They loved talking about the little and large leaves and trying to get them to stick to the glue.

We used the size sequencing ladybugs from Confessions of a Homeschooler too. We put them in size order and rainbow order, we matched our Melissa and Doug fish color puzzle to the ladybugs and they answered questions that I would ask them ('Which fish is the littlest?' 'Which fish is the largest?'). We finished out the week by making ladybug magnets with foam, glue and pipe cleaners too. They love anything that has to do with arts and crafts these days!

We're going to take a break from the alphabet next week to focus on Easter activities. Hard to believe we're almost halfway through the alphabet already! Click here to see what others did this week.

Book Review: Bringing Up Boys

2011-04-11T09:05:00.004-04:00

After reading Bringing up Girls last month, I wanted to follow it up with Bringing Up Boys - since our family is in the business of having boys : ) I was struck on page 7 with the fantastic summary of what it means to raise boys...

"[Parent's] assignment during two brief decades will be to transform their boys from immature and flighty youngsters into honest, caring men who will be respectful of women, loyal and faithful in marriage, keepers of commitments, strong and decisive leaders, good workers, and secure in their masculinity. And of course, the ultimate goal for people of faith is to give each child an understanding of Scripture and a lifelong passion for Jesus Christ."

One of the columnists quoted in the book talks about how to raise healthy boys in our shock-wave world... It can be accomplished by "being reasonable, smart and fully awake: Reduce boys' exposure to violence, be there when they return from school, help them with homework, ask them about their day, let them cry if need be, support them when they're down, help them to see options, teach them to handle guns safely if you have them, reward good behavior, provide meaningful consequences for unacceptable behavior, make reasonable demands, express moral expectations, talk to their teachers, and hug those boys every chance you get. Don't ask them to be men when they're just little boys, but show them how to be real men by demonstrating the thing we as a society seem to have lost: self-control."

I felt very strongly that every parent should read Bringing Up Girls because I thought that it helped parent's understand their girls, and understand the heavy responsibility of raising boys to treat them right. I feel less strongly about this book, as it seemed to be more of a critique of society than a manual for raising boys, not to mention it's 10 years old already, but nevertheless, there are a lot of extremely well thought-out and well supported thoughts on education, discipline and the nature of boys and it was a good read. We aren't just living with these little people until they're old enough to take care of themselves, we're bringing them up and molding them into the men that God created them to be. It's a heavy task, but the best of parents should be up for it.

Tot School - Kk

2011-04-08T18:16:00.009-04:00

Tot School - Theme - Kk Owen & Eli: 31 months old

This week we learned Kk is for Kites and Kings. We started the week with this worksheet from Beginning Learning and I couldn't believe how well they did with it! Not only did they find all the K's, they dotted them perfectly with no help at all. I'm sure that 2 1/2 year olds should probably be able to do this, but I've never tested them and they did great! Using some contact paper, torn up tissue paper and popsicle sticks, we made a suncatcher kite... We had friends over for a Kings (and Queens) tea party and decorated kite shaped sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles - yum! - and decorated paper crowns to wear for our party. After they made the crowns, they wanted to wear them for the rest of the day! We rolled out playdoh into snakes and shaped the letter K (a favorite from last week)... The last thing we did this week was sponge painting to make a kite collage with the letter Kk. I cut a kitchen sponge into kite shapes and they dipped them in paint to press onto the paper. Once it dried, I added the 'strings and cross bars' to the kites. After I cut the sponges into kite shapes, I realized that the leftover corners made kites too when they were rearranged. I quickly drew a 'puzzle' on a piece of cardboard and they figured out how to assemble the kites based on sizes, shapes and colors. Not too shabby for a freebie! We have family visiting next week (yay!) but we're going to press on with the letter Ll. Any good ideas for activities? I'm linking to Tot School at 1+1+1=1

Tea with Lemon

2011-04-05T19:19:00.006-04:00

My latest creation with felt... tea bags and a lemon wedge! I'll refine these boys yet ; )

In other news... what do you think of my new header and menu bar (the blue drop down menu)? I'm hoping it makes navigation of my site quicker and easier. I spent about 5 hours over the last two days working on it but love how it turned out! I was pretty proud that my HTML skills were still there after brushing off the dust of the last two years not using them!

Tot School - Jj

2011-04-03T16:26:00.012-04:00

Tot School - Theme - Jj

Owen & Eli: 31 months

Letter Jj was a lot more fun than I originally thought! We focused on Jj is for Jungle, Jellyfish, jellybeans and jigglers! We rolled snakes out of play-doh to form J's and then added jungle animal stickers to decorate the page, filled J cutouts with jelly beans and make jello jigglers in the shape of J (actually just a backwards candy cane cookie cutter!) We did a lot of color sorting this week too - I'm sure the boys were so interested in playing this game because they always got to eat jelly beans at the end! As for jungle animals, we made paper plate tigers and elephants with paint and construction paper and used our 3 piece jungle animal puzzle to match up the animals with the Little People animals we have who live in the jungle. I found this jelly fish craft here, but we used colored sugar instead of glitter. A) I'm not a big fan of glitter and B) I don't have any glitter. The contact paper was tough to stick together after they added all the sugar (probably too much!) so we had to staple the edges to keep it closed, but it saved me a trip to the store : )

Next week we're learning Kk is for Kites, Kings and Kangaroos... should be fun! To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, click over to 1+1+1=1!

Inspiration for the Moms Out There

2011-04-01T16:38:00.012-04:00

Have you ever caught yourself responding "I'm just a stay at home mom" when someone asks you what you do for a living? JUST?! Seriously?! This is the hardest, most exhausting, most time consuming, most important, (most rewarding!) job available - raising the next generation to be thoughtful, considerate, contributing and intelligent members of society. When you're tempted to feel like you're *only* a stay at home mom, think about this quote and realize that we have the only job out there where we get to be everything to someone (or multiple someone's!)

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. (Excerpt from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton in Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge)

Stand proud moms - you're indispensable!

Tot School - Ii

2011-03-26T21:28:00.006-04:00

Tot School - Theme - Ii

Owen & Eli: 30 Months

We had some fun this week despite the fact that I was playing the role of a single parent while hubs was in Vegas for a work conference and the printer was out of ink so I couldn't print off any online materials. We made it work though! The end goal (identification of Capital I and Lowercase i) was achieved, so everything else was just for fun!

I saw this idea on this blog, but the original idea is from here. Make an igloo out of baby marshmallows! It was supposed to just be with white ones, but I didn't have any and I think the colored ones are more tasty : ) Looking back, I probably should have talked more about what an igloo actually is - but they didn't seem to care and were on board with making the project.

I froze alphabet letters in a tupperware container for them to break out too. I only put in A through I, the letters we've done so far, capital and lowercase. They loved this activity and kept asking me for more ice throughout the week. They used warm water and their tool bench tools mostly, and we able to find and match all the letters once they were free! Success!

We made inchworms out of toilet paper rolls too. I found the idea here and they really loved it! This is one of the first crafts that they were able to do most of themselves - they painted, added glue, added the eyes and strung through the antennae. All I had to do was cut the rings and staple them together. They turned out pretty cute too!

An of course, the Letter Ii wouldn't be complete without homemade ice cream!! We made chocolate and have been enjoying it every day since : )

On to the Letter Jj!

Tot School - Hh

2011-03-19T21:00:00.003-04:00

Tot School - Theme - Hh

Owen & Eli: 30 Months

This week we focused on Hh is for Hippos, Horses, Houses and Hats! Their 'prewriting' practice was so much better this week than last week and they are getting better at drawing circles too. We built Hh's with blocks and drew pictures of all the things that start with H, read the Cat in the Hat and colored hats, we built houses out of foam blocks for our Little People hippos and horses (not pictured). I really wanted to get to this handprint activity, but our printer is out of ink so I couldn't print the poem. I wanted to do this one too and make a hot air balloon, but we ran out of time in the week. They are both so super cute though!

This was a pretty light week on alphabet activities, but successful and fun nevertheless. To see other Tot Schoolers, click over to 1+1+1=1

Book Review: Bringing Up Girls

2011-03-13T15:10:00.004-04:00

I have three boys and no girls, so why would I read a book subtitled "Practical advice and encouragement for those shaping the next generation of women"? I have to admit that I only read Bringing Up Girls because it was this month's book club book, but I never expected to love it. While the whole point of this book was to advise parents on how to raise their girls, I couldn't help but feel a huge responsibility in how I raise my boys because of it.

Some of the chapters discuss the desire of little girls to feel like princesses: valued, beautiful and pursued. Some of the chapters discuss purity (and the extremely dangerous repercussions of sexual promiscuity). Some of the chapters talked about the importance of a father's role in his daughter's life (and the unhealthy fillers she can turn to when that relationship isn't quite right). Some of the chapters talked about the brutality of girls towards each other (especially in middle and high school) and the hit their self-esteem takes when they are at the brunt of others' ridicule. It was hard being a teenage girl... I can only image how hard it would be to raise a teenage girl!

In reading about purity especially, I felt a huge calling to train my boys in how to treat women well. How to treat them like ladies and how to care for them as they would a little sister. Obviously Charlie's example to them will be of utmost importance as they grow into young men. With a culture today that emphasizes peer relationships over parental relationships, technology over talking and promiscuity over purity, our kids are in for a world of hurt if we aren't helping them navigate the rapids.

There was so much I could relate to in what Dr. Dobson described. I think today's culture wants to ignore the fact that women are different than men and that we have different needs, insecurities and hormones. It doesn't make us weaker, but it does make us different. Knowing how to raise our sons to care for these girls and women won't only make them better husbands, it will make them better people. I don't know about the other mothers of sons, but I'm all for training them to be understanding, protective, respectful and loving men and husbands. I think their future wives will thank us : )

In summary, whether or not you have a daughter, read this book. I can't wait to read the predecessor of it, Bringing Up Boys.

Tot School - Gg

2011-03-06T22:24:00.006-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Gg

Owen & Eli: 30 months old

We're back on track! We covered the letter Gg this week and I think we had a lot of fun with different types of activities. We started off with Starfall.com so the boys could see the capital and lowercase G's and then headed to the library. We read Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Gorilla, Curious George books and Green Eggs and Ham (in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday!). One of the highlights of their week was making Green Eggs out of white chocolate and M&Ms. Super easy and a yummy little snack to go along with the story.

I made outlines of the capital G and lowercase g and gave the boys cookie cutters of a G and a Giraffe to paint with. After doing this, I read a few other blogs about not introducing the /j/ sound that a 'g' can make (as in giraffe) and instead focusing on the 'ga' sound as in gumball. I think that makes sense and I'll probably be more careful with that in the future when they're closer to reading.

One of the art projects that turned out pretty cool was grape painting. I cut out a cereal box to give them a tray to contain the paint and a few different colors to roll the grapes in. It turned out great!

I found this activity here. Painting is quickly becoming one of the boys' favorite art activities!

This was their first time trying 'pre-writing' worksheets. Confessions of a Homeschooler has them for every letter, so we'll be practicing a lot more in the future. They were big on coloring, not that big on following the dotted lines. I love how the pictures show how Eli is a leftie and Owen is a rightie : ) It'll be nice to look back at these pictures in a few weeks to see how their 'writing' has improved!

We're on to Letter Hh! Click here for ideas from other Tot Schooling moms!

Green Eggs & Ham, Hold the Ham

2011-03-04T14:04:00.009-05:00

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday this week, we have been reading all sorts of his books - Cat in the Hat, The Foot Book, One Fish Two Fish, Fox in Socks, and our newest addition: Green Eggs & Ham! Just wanted to share this super simple (and delicious!) snack to make that goes great with Green Eggs and Ham. All you need is white chocolate, green M&Ms, wax paper and patience while they're hardening up in the freezer to not eat them all immediately : ) Melt the white chocolate in the microwave until about half of the chips look melted, then stir quickly to melt the rest. That ensures that you don't burn your chocolate. Then simply pour little drops of chocolate on the wax paper and let your kids place the M&Ms in the center. We put ours in the freezer for about 15 minutes to let them harden and then had our snack while reading the book. I love the idea of crafts (edible or otherwise) that go along with books. It makes learning so much more fun!

Tot School - Ff

2011-03-01T13:45:00.004-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Ff

Owen & Eli: 30 months old

Our letter Ff activities took quite a bit longer than expected to finish because we tried our hand at potty training this month. Ha! We should have focused on F is for Fail! : ) We're taking a little break from all of that craziness and waiting a little longer (maybe until the summer so they can pee on the grass instead of on my carpet!) and instead, focused on Ff is for Feet, Fingers and Fish! Just to introduce the letters, we started with shaving cream finger painting. I drew the letters in their foam and they traced with their own fingers. What a mess! But they really enjoyed it and smelled so good when they were finished : )

We did a lot with paint for this letter too. They fingerpainted to color in their letter outlines and we foot-painted on a long pieces of paper too. They loved that part and were surprisingly good at keeping their feet on the paper. I can't believe it took me this long to purchase washable paint. Genius invention!!

I found this activity and thought it was really cute for their age group. I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but you can see it in the original post under the 'Make a Fish' heading. I think next time I might just have them paint the paper because a lot of the strips fell off after I cut the fish out.

I made Counting Fish a while back but never got around to making a 'fishing pole' for them. No worries, Cranky to the rescue! We 'caught fish' and counted how many Cranky could hold up in the air (lots of focus on Four and Five because of the Ff sound). I know they are only 2 1/2, but I really like incorporating the spelling of the words we're using during activities too. I'm sure they aren't getting it yet, but it'll come eventually!

I made a road for their cars in the shape of the letter F and f too. They filled the road with their cars and made them drive really fast too. All kinds of Ff sounds going on!

I'm really hoping to get back on the Letter per Week schedule. We'll see if twin two year olds, a seven month old, and life will let that happen! To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, click over to 1+1+1=1

Potty Training: One at a Time is Still HARD!

2011-02-16T14:29:00.002-05:00

My boys are just shy of 2 1/2 years old. A few weeks ago, they both started asking to 'go peepee, get gummi?' I went with it, not really thinking that it would go anywhere. They both peed several times, but since then E has decided that he's terrified of sitting on the potty. In fact, he starts to freak out when I'm changing him from his pj's to his clothes saying 'no mom, don't take diaper!' So... he's not ready, clearly.

O has maintained his interest, so I'm going with it. He hasn't worn a diaper since Monday, but everyday seems a little bit different and a little more difficult. At first he was really willing to pee on the potty, but it seems to be a fine line between reminding him to stay dry too often and not often enough. He wants to wear 'skivvies' instead of his diaper, but had four accidents yesterday and held his bladder for 3.5 hours this morning before finally peeing. I'm not sure if he's just learning to hold it better or being really stubborn (or both!)

The boys have always done everything within days of each other - but this is one milestone I'm glad that I can focus on one at a time. Add in a 6 month old and another toddler to care for and it's all I can do to get to the end of the day in one piece! This. is. stressful!!

How do you know when a kid is officially 'potty trained'? Is it enough not to have accidents during the day or do they have to initiate using the potty themselves rather than being reminded? Any pointers to share!?

Tot School - Ee

2011-02-05T21:44:00.006-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Ee

Owen & Eli: 29 months old

We took a bit of time off from Tot School during Christmas while we travelled halfway across the country to visit family for three weeks. Needless to say, the boys were excited to get back into a routine and have some structure to their day. We focused on Ee is for Elephant. I found some pretty cute ideas out there in bloggerland and came up with a couple of my own.

The boys are pretty good with capital letters - I think they actually know all of them already (thanks Super Why!), so we focused on the lowercase e for our alphabet craft.

As for our elephant activities, we played 'Hide and Seek Elephant' a lot and the boys loved it! We did some size sequencing, matched numbers to the numbers of the elephants, made elephants out of their handprints and I found an Easter egg craft that we didn't get to around Easter to focus on E is for Eggs.

We did a lot of review of other alphabet letters this week too: Starfall.com, writing letters on the magna doodle, creating letters out of their blocks and finding letters in the stories we read. We looked for elephants in their picture books too, and watched the Elephant on the Run episode of Backyardigans (I love that show : )

Hope y'all had a great week in Tot School. Onto Ff!

Virtual Book Club, 'Meeting' #2

2011-01-27T14:05:00.004-05:00

Back in November, before all the craziness of Christmas, travelling, sicknesses and transitioning to big boy beds, I started reading A Mother's Heart by Jean Fleming and thought it would be an interesting idea to start a virtual book club. Sorry to keep those of you hanging who participated last time!

To get you up to speed, the first chapter was about God's calling in the lives of women to be mothers. To be active mothers who help to form and create the people our children will grow up to be. The discussion question was 'What is one decision you can make to be more of the mother you want to be?'

The second chapter is called 'A Vision for the Task' and was challenging to say the least. I think the temptation in today's society is to feel that we're *just* stay at home moms. Our degrees are going to waste and our skills and talents are backburnered until the kids grow up and go to school. I love what this chapter has to say about that type of thinking.

I am making a permanent difference in my children's lives. I am a woman of influence. I impart values, stimulate creativity, develop compassion, modify weaknesses, and nurture strengths. I can open life up to another individual. And I can open an individual up to life.

I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot more challenging than most 9 to 5s that I'm aware of! The job of being a mom is hard... a lot harder than being a mother. Anyone who births a child is automatically a mother, but being a mom requires the time, energy and love devoted to our kids to teach, discipline, encourage and comfort our kids. We should have a vision for our time at home with our kids so we don't look back 20 years from now at our grown children and regret not spending more time with them. I don't mean more time around them, but more time with them. If we are feeling like our role as a mom is too small or unchallenging, maybe it's because our vision for this time in our lives is too small. 'We will touch few lives with more intensity than the children God has placed in our homes.'

Here's the question for Chapter 2:
Create a vision for your time at home with your kids. Write out a specific plan for application to one (or more) of the following:
a) teaching your children what is good
b) enriching their lives with beauty
c) training them in obedience and respect
d) stimulating their interests
e) encouraging them to attempt new things
f) praying with them

Don't miss the higher calling on your life by focusing on the day-to-day tasks of caring for kids and a home. We only have a handful of years to be the primary influence in our kid's lives... let's make the most of them!

Gettin' Crafty with the Crayons

2011-01-24T22:07:00.007-05:00

I have to admit, I was skeptical of my ability to complete this project. I'm not one to follow online tutorials for projects, and I'm generally not one to use my sewing machine for anything other than a simple square shape BUT a good friend of mine sent me this link and I thought it was too cute not to try it for myself. I showed the finished project to my husband who said 'looks great! the boys are going to love it.' to which I responded... 'this is for me... but I guess they can share it.' : ) Does anyone out there know of any good sewing or craft blogs that have good tutorials? I think I might be hooked!

A Moment of Perfection

2011-01-06T12:41:00.004-05:00

There are rare moments in motherhood that seem perfect. It is a very rare occurrence when there are no kids crying or fighting through lunch battles or nursing or throwing something or sneaking out of there cribs when I can actually enjoy the day with my kids. I'm in that moment right now.

Owen and Eli just opened their Christmas presents last night since we travelled for the last 2+ weeks. They are putting together jigsaw puzzles with the skill of a five year old even though they aren't much more than two. They just assembled four twelve piece puzzles on their own, stopping after every matched piece to give me a high five. How cute is that?! They are talking to each other about what they are creating (a bus, a train, a race car and a fire engine) and they are helping each other find the right piece. Garrett is sitting in his bouncy seat watching all the action just smiling away and kicking his legs.

I was actually able to read the whole MOPS magazine and drink a whole cup of tea without reheating it while watching them!

I know that soon it will be lunchtime, they'll get bored with their puzzles, they'll escape like daredevils from their cribs and someone will start crying, but for now, I'm in heaven.

Tot School - Dd

2010-12-03T23:14:00.009-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Dd

Owen & Eli: 27 months old

This week we focused on the Letter Dd is for Dinosaurs, Ducks and Dirt. We started off the week with the Letter of the Week activities from Totally Tots. They were pretty excited when they realized that all the foam shapes turned into a dinosaur! I tried to remind them that the lower case d was a Daisy, but they insisted that it was a flower. We also used Do-a-Dots on outlines of capital and lowercase Ds.

I painted their feet so they could make ducks - or duck feet, as they called them. Super simple! Just make a footprint and add a beak and wing out of foam or construction paper and draw on an eye and the legs. They loved it!

Dinosaurs were a big hit this week. We used watercolors, crayons and stickers on dinosaur coloring sheets, did our Melissa and Doug dinosaur jigsaw puzzles (tons of times!) and watched a couple episodes of Dinosaur Train on PBS and the Letter D on Starfall.com

We happened to have a 72 degree day here in Dallas, so I took advantage of it and used the leftover soil pellets that I had from our week on nature. We added water and the dirt expanded into a big pile that I hid dinosaurs, buttons and colorful rocks for them to find. They used shovels and tiny forks and spoons to dig around and had a great time getting dirty!

To top off a great week, we smashed Oreos with shovels and made dirt sundaes!

Letter Ee is next week and I'm having a bit of a hard time coming up with activities. Let me know if you've done anything fun! To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week, check out 1+1+1=1.

Virtual Book Club

2010-11-28T21:11:00.002-05:00

I just started reading a book called A Mother's Heart by Jean Fleming. The first chapter is called A Call to Mothers and I love what Fleming says about motherhood:

"If you are a mother, you have a call from God. God entrusts into your care a life, a future, a piece of what the world will become."

The problem with that statement is that it's A LOT of pressure! In a perfect world, we're providing a secure and loving framework in which to nourish our kids - emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually.

In order to be better moms, we need to seek the support of others who have gone before us, or who are currently treading in the same water. I think that groups for moms like playdates or MOPS are extremely valuable, but I think that doing a little self-reflecting is important too. The chapters end with questions for reflection and discussion, and I would love it if the readers of this blog would participate in a virtual book club of sorts.

So here's the first question:
What one decision might you make to be more of the mother you want to be?

Oh gosh, my list could go on and on, but I'll list the two that came to mind first. I want to be more active in playing with my kids, not just directing them to the next activity. They love it when I play cars or built train tracks with them, but I'm too often content to let them play alone. Ialso want to pray specifically for their character traits more often - for confidence and boldness, for gentleness and compassion for others, for integrity and courage and discernment.

Will you participate in my virtual book club? I'd love it if you did!

Had-To-Share-It Recipe

2010-11-26T17:05:00.004-05:00

The STAR of the meal yesterday was the Sweet Potato Casserole. It was so completely delicious that I couldn't keep the recipe to myself. I'm not kidding... it's like hot sweet potato candy - and you'll never make another version of sweet potatoes as long as you live.

Ingredients:
3 large sweet potatoes
1 c white sugar
2 eggs beaten
1/2 c milk
1/2 t salt
1/3 c butter, melted
1 t vanilla extract

For Topping:
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c flour
1/3 c butter, melted
1 c pecans, chopped

Boil sweet potatoes until fork tender, drain and mash. Mix sugar, eggs, milk, salt, butter and vanilla with the potatoes. If you've just boiled the potatoes, be sure to temper the eggs or they'll scramble! Mix well and pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish.

To prepare the topping, mix the brown sugar, flour, melted butter and pecans in a seperate bowl and crumble over the potato mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes. I'm not kidding - it'll change your life : )

Did anyone else out there try a new recipe for Thanksgiving that they can no longer live without? Share it!

Announcing the Winner!

2010-11-20T20:38:00.004-05:00

Using random.org, the winner of my Celebratory Giveaway is #4...

CRYSTAL!!

Leave me a comment with your email so I can contact you and send you your prize!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Tot School - Cc

2010-11-19T21:09:00.006-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Cc

Owen & Eli: 26 months old

This week we focused on the Letter Cc is for Caterpillars, Cooking, Colors and Cars. Art, as always, is one of their most favorite activities, so I tried to incorporate as many different applications as I could. We started off the week with a letter C caterpillar. I did most of the coloring, but we talked about all the colors and they repeated most of them for me and we able to point to each color I asked them to identify - even aqua! I found this Color Mixing activity and the boys loved turning the food coloring dots into new colors. We did the Letter of the Week craft and turned a C into a Crab. I made a race track C for them to put their car stickers all over too. I found this paint brush color id activity, which went the same way it usually does - they start off doing exactly what I want them to do, then they start crinkling up the papers and throwing them off the table. They proved that they could do it though, which I guess is all I'm asking for!

Baking and cooking are two of their favorite things right now too - any kind of helping in the kitchen really. We 'made' cookies (break n bakes) - and they added all the sprinkes, and we made a pound cake too. There was also a lot of pretend cooking going on - and watching them 'taste' all the pretend food was super cute. We sang 'C is for Cookie' and 'Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar' while we were baking.

As for other activities, we had a scavenger hunt with the scores of cars that we own, did mini puzzles of capital letters and lowercase letters, worked on all of our puzzles, talking about colors of most of the pieces, read books about rainbow colors, caterpillars and animals (cats and cows, specifically), played the starfall.com letter C games and watched how crayons are made. It was a good week!

I'm going to do Thanksgiving activities next week and postpone Dd for the week after - so if you have any good turkey day activities, pass them on! To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, click here.

Time is Running Out!

2010-11-19T16:33:00.004-05:00

There's still time to enter my giveaway! I'll draw and announce the winner tomorrow night after 6pm Central time. The items would be perfect if you currently have a baby in the house or for a baby shower or Christmas gift.

Click here for the entry rules and pictures of the giveaway items. Good luck!!

Round Holes, Square Pegs

2010-11-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

I had a vision. It included two little boys water coloring their coffee filters to turn into beautiful butterflies. Each brush would be dipped into a color, blotted on the filter, rinsed in the water, and another color would be chosen. Rinse and repeat, literally. In this vision, we were all smiling and happy, my little blossoming Picasso's creating masterpieces at the ripe age of two.

In reality, the only part of my vision that turned out to be true-to-life is the fact that they are, in fact, two years old. They were so excited to hold a paint brush and dip it in the paint over and over that almost no paint made it onto the coffee filter. My brand new watercolors looked like this...

... and I was left feeling frazzled and frustrated.

The worst part is that they were having a great time while I was too busy focusing on how they weren't doing it the 'right way' to have a great time with them. I missed out on an opportunity to build a happy memory because I was too focused on my own agenda. The thing is though, that there are going to be thousands of times in their lives when they don't do something exactly as I would. My job as a mom is to provide a safe and protected environment for them to make decisions, have fun and learn all about the world around them. Sure, there should be consequences for throwing paint or painting the table, but art time shouldn't be over for something stupid like mixing paint colors. Learning to push my silly expectations to the side will make me a better mom and make them more secure, happy and confident kids.

Have you ever had a 'watercolor moment' when you realized that you had to let go of an expectation in order to allow your kids to be who God created them to be?

Tot School - Bb

2010-11-14T17:26:00.005-05:00

Tot School - Theme - Bb

Owen & Eli: 26 months old

We had a lot of fun with Tot School this week! I focused on Bb is for Butterflies, Buses, Barnyard, Bears and Bubbles, but I also had some good ideas planned for Balls and Balancing. We read the Brown Bear and Polar Bear books this week and matched up the animals as we read the story using these from 1+1+1=1.

We did a few art projects this week too - always a favorite with the boys! They love playing with glue and paint, so I try to come up with a couple ways to incorporate those every week. This week we made the lowercase Letter of the Week from Totally Tots, but I made up my own capital letter B craft. I liked how the butterflies went together. We also used coffee filters and watercolors to make butterflies and sang The Wheels on the Bus as we made our own buses out of foam paper. I found these coloring sheets of butterflies too.

I knew this idea would be a big hit! I filled up the sink with water and tons of bubbles and gave the boys measuring cups and spoons, whisks and cups. They poured and dumped to their hearts' content!

We sang Old MacDonald and played with our farm animal puzzle. We talked about all the animals that live in a barn and played with our Little People barn set too. They are really getting into pretend play and had a good time 'feeding' the animals in the barn.

We watched the Starfall.com B video this week and Eli walked around for the rest of the day pointing to himself saying 'I a boy, me a boy!' We watched a couple videos on the Mister Rogers website too. We watched the bouncy ball factory, the bulldozers and backhoes and Eric Carle's I Can Do It book about body parts.

Baking is another favorite activity around here! We made Banana Bread this week.

The ideas that I wanted to use this week if we hadn't run out of time included an activity using ball stickers and matching them to a picture of each kind of ball (football, baseball, soccer ball and basketball). It would have given them a chance to practice matching and identification. I wanted to play indoor basketball using laundry baskets and create a balance beam using tape on the floor to see if they could walk without falling off. I wanted to do more with body parts too, like singing the Hokey Pokey, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes and tracing outlines of their bodies in chalk for them to color. The other art project we didn't get to was using their fingerprints to make bees and their hand prints to make butterflies. I visualized those in my head so there isn't a link to send you to for the idea, but I'm sure you can figure it out too : )

Onto Cc next week! To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, click here.

The deadline to enter my giveaway is November 20. Click here for more details!

A Celebratory Giveaway!

2010-11-12T22:51:00.007-05:00

About a week ago I received a comment on my blog from Jolanthe, asking me to email her when I had a chance, that she had a quick question for me. She had read my blog through the Tot School linkup on 1+1+1=1 and wanted to know if she could feature my blog on Totally Tots!! For those of you who have never visited Totally Tots, it's an amazing resource (followed by almost 1000 people!) for ideas for being at home with toddlers. Here's her post all about Diapers to Diplomas.

Since her post a couple days ago, I've had 20 more people follow my blog and I just crossed the 100 post milestone... sounds like two good reasons for a giveaway!!

I have been doing a little sewing lately and came up with these super soft burp cloths in a variety of snuggly soft flannels backed in minky dot material. (You would recognize minky dot to see it - Carter's makes bumper pads out of it). They are the perfect size to become a lovie or to be used as burp cloths. If you don't have spit-up-age kids, they would be great to give to a new mom for a baby shower gift too! Each burp cloth measures approximately 12 x 16. I also made a blankie with eight minky dot tags, backed in minky and faced in flannel.

Here's what you can do to enter my giveaway:

1. Mandatory: Become a follower of my blog and leave a comment saying your a follower

2. Mandatory: Leave a separate comment telling me which TWO items you like best to receive if you win. [I have more than one of each pattern if you'd prefer two of the same]

3. Optional: Link back to this blog and giveaway on your blog and leave a comment telling me that you've done so - and the link to your blog so I can check it out!

So everyone who wants a chance to win gets at least two entries! Be sure to leave your email address in your comments so I can reach you after the winner is drawn. The giveaway will end on Saturday, November 20 at 6pm Central time.

Here are your choices!

Cars

I Love Mommy/Daddy

Retro Polka Dots

Blue/Brown Patchwork

Car Blankie

Stubborn or Stupid... or Both?

2010-11-12T09:20:00.003-05:00

Garrett is a chub. I love it, but boy oh boy is he getting big!

He's a little more than 3 months old and he's already growing out of his size 2 diapers. I think he is at least. Based on the scale, he still should have 2-3 more pounds left to stay within the weight limit of the size 2s, but (and I'm not exaggerating here) he wakes up with his entire belly soaked after every nap, and probably every other time he's nursing he'll blow out the back of his diaper. He's a hot mess.

The problem is that we still have 2/3 of a box of size 2s left that I don't want to waste... and I'm not sure I want to admit that my baby is already big enough for size 3s. I don't mean 'admit' in an 'I'm embarrassed that he's so big kind of way' but more in an 'I'm in denial that he's growing so fast kind of way.'

I know that I should just bless someone else with 100+ diapers and move on to the size 3s, saving myself a lot of sheet changing and loads of laundry, but I feel stubborn about the fact that my baby is growing up so fast.

Can anyone out there relate to me in not wanting to admit that their baby is hitting (yet another!) milestone? I'm in denial... and need to go change the crib sheets!

Tot School - Aa

2010-11-06T16:06:00.011-04:00

What a great week! I came up with about 20 different activities involving 'Aa' so I could pick and choose what to do each day based how much time we had, whether or not Garrett was sleeping and the boys' interests. I focused on A is for Apple, Ant and Animals.

I started the week just showing them uppercase and lowercase A's. They used do-a-dots to fill in the letter outlines, we made A's out of playdoh snakes, used the LeapFrog alphabet magnets to stamp the letter A into playdoh and used this activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler. They weren't as into the apple matching as I would have hoped, but I think it was because they want the paper to 'click' into place like a puzzle piece and they get mad when it's just supposed to sit on top.

I cut out all the pieces needed to make the uppercase A and lowercase a to make the Letter of the Week from Totally Tots. We made them out of foam, which was a homerun because they couldn't rip it. They loved dipping the pieces in glue (which they kept calling paint) and were pretty excited at the end result. They kept asking for 'more teeth?' 'more eyes' to make the alligator and 'more seeds' to make the apple.

We did a lot of painting this week, which they loved! We make ants with their fingerprints and used paintbrushes to paint egg cartons black to make into ants. Going forward, I don't think they're ready for paintbrush painting. I made colored sugar for them to make an apple outline too. I would recommend letting one color dry completely before putting the glue on for the second color. They can help with the shaking to turn the sugar a different color and really liked dumping spoonfuls of sugar into the box to make the picture. This one was a hit! I cut an apple in half to use as a stamper too, but it was hard for them to pull it back off the paper since it was bigger than their palm. A little too messy for my taste.

For snacks, we made ants on a log and apple shakers (apple slices in a sandwich bag with cinnamon sugar).

We did all of our animal puzzles, played with Noah's Ark, and read all of our books about animals, their babies, and the sounds that they make.

The last thing we did this week was Starfall.com. I have read on so many blogs that kids really like it, but I had no idea they would like it this much! Since we were using a laptop, I had to position the mouse and they could press the button to move to the next screen, but I'm sure in no time they'll be pros with the mouse. The last picture is my favorite from this week!

To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing, head over to 1+1+1=1. Next week, Bb!

Better Late Than Never

2010-10-31T16:10:00.003-04:00

I know I said that I was going to start Tot School again on October 1st... but between family visitors, three kids, P90X and a travelling husband, there just wasn't time in the day to play the activities. So now, November 1st is tomorrow and I'm all geared up to begin my Aa Preschool Activities with the boys. We're focusing on Aa is for Apple, Ant and Airplane and I have a pretty wide variety of ideas to use with each word. Stay tuned next weekend for pictures of our week!

And by the way, if you have any ideas to share for alphabet activities for toddlers or blogs that have been helpful in your planning, please leave a comment with the web address so I can check it out too.

Tot School Letter A - Here we come!

First Place Apple Cobbler Recipe

2010-10-24T09:21:00.006-04:00

We held the Annual Chili and Dessert Cookoff at our house last night and had almost 50 people over! There were seven chilis and three desserts that competed and my (mom's) apple cobbler won! It is de-lic-ious, super easy and pretty fast to make. Perfect for the fall, hot or cold, fresh or leftover and for dessert or breakfast (or any time really!)

Here's how I made it...

Peel and slice 4 Granny Smith apples and 5 Jonathan apples. You might need more or less apples depending on their size, but you want them to fill a 9x13 casserole pan. Toss with 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, depending on the tartness of the apples and up to 2 teaspoons of cinnamon (or more, if you love it like I do!).

In a bowl, combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Scramble an egg in a seperate bowl and add it to the dry mixture. Combine until crumbly and sprinkle over the apple slices. Melt 6-8 tablespoons of butter and pour over the topping. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the topping is slightly browned and the apples are fork tender. We ate it just like that, but it would be awesome with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream too.

Unfortunately, as soon it was declared the winner, the rest of it was gobbled up... I'm going to have to make another one today!

Two Reasons to Start Posting Again...

2010-10-19T14:16:00.004-04:00

Owen and Eli.

They turned two less than two months ago and we are in the depths of power struggles, tantrums and control issues. The biggest issue we've been dealing with lately occurs every night at dinnertime. They hate their highchairs/being strapped down but they don't want to sit in a seat like a big boy. They have suddenly become uber-picky eaters too. They will literally put both hands over their mouths to block the food while they shake their heads back and forth in refusal. The infuriating thing is that they have to be hungry!

We're trying to figure out how to handle dinnertime without turning it into a power struggle. If they won't eat, do we just take the food away and make them go to bed hungry? Should they go straight to bed or be allowed to play? Should we give them their dinner at breakfast until they finally eat it? I don't want to be super stubborn about this, but I will not make toddler-popular dinners for them just because they won't eat what we're having. I want us to enjoy eating dinner together and right now, it is not an enjoyable time.

Please tell me that we're not the only ones with picky eaters. What do you do? What strategies have you tried that have worked or failed? What's the hardest you've ever come down on your kids over a power struggle issue? I know that trying to force them to do anything makes them 100% less likely to do it - so what are my options? Comment Comment Comment!!

Creative Ways to Teach the Alphabet

2010-09-15T15:41:00.004-04:00

I've been looking for ways to teach my kids the alphabet and found an article in the July/August issue of MomSense, the magazine from MOPS, that had some great ideas to try. Sponge Paint the Letters Using a black marker, draw the outline of a letter on a large piece of paper and give the kids a sponge and some washable paint. They can practice staying in the lines, exercise their artistic abilities and learn to recognize letters at the same time. Body Letters Using a roll of paper and crayons or chalk on the patio, shape your child into a letter and trace around their body. Let them color in the shape while teaching them the letter. Letter Hunt Hide refrigerator sized alphabet letters or ABC puzzle pieces around the room for your child to find. You can use this to reinforce words like 'under' and 'behind' or you can hide the letters near a corresponding item (C by the couch, T by the television, etc). Once a letter is found, help your child string together the alphabet in order. Alphabet Soup Put a mixture of magnets or puzzle pieces in a soup pot and ask your child to find certain letters. You can also pull the letters out and ask your child what the letter is. Alphabet Memory Play a version of Memory using upper and lowercase letters. Have your child turn over two pieces trying to match 'A with a' 'B with b.' I'm not sure how many of these I can use with my two year olds, but I'm going to try to keep learning interesting for them by adapting some of these ideas. Can you think of any other fun alphabet ideas?

Tot School: Coming Soon!

2010-09-14T11:30:00.004-04:00

I've been on a serious break from blogging lately. With moving, buying a house and having a baby, I'm pretty sure that I have enough good excuses to go around, but I'm ready for more structure to our days and I'm ready to start getting back into the swing of things with Tot School!

We finally have our printer set up so I can use some pre-made Letter of the Week ideas, and the boys are talking a lot more than they were three months ago, so I think it's an appropriate time to start alphabet activities, counting, colors and much more.

For anyone who has used alphabet 'curriculum' before... how did you decide the order to teach them in? Did you go alphabetically or based on the letters that they were capable of saying (mine can say all the P B D E type letters but not the N J G type letters). Would you recommend teaching numbers at the same time or as seperate units? I don't want to overwhelm them with information all at once, but I don't want them to get bored either. What about uppercase vs lowercase? Do you teach them at the same time? What materials have you found particulary useful with alphabet, color and number lessons?

I'm planning on using September to create my plan of attack and starting up in October - so send your ideas my way!

Outside the Box: Sand and Water Table

2010-08-01T21:10:00.005-04:00

I love when I hear ideas for how to use a toy in a new and different way to make it exciting again! We bought a sand and water table for our boys on clearance at Target the other day and one of my best friends sent me a list (from an Amazon reviewer) that was amazing. Granted, the kids are still in love with their table simply filled with water, but I will most definitely be using these ideas to turn the table into an all-season toy. Check these out!

Sand alone

Water alone

Potting soil/trowels/silk plants/plastic pots

Landscaping stones and small tonka construction vehicles (aka 'the quarry')

Bubble station to use with the large and small wands

Mommy made iceberg (colored blue) on the hottest summer day with dollar store penguins and polar bears. You can even shave the iceberg to make snow or put crushed ice from the freezer into the basins

Water and play dishes with sponges and scrubbers to play clean-up without making a mess at the sink inside

Aquarium gravel/toys/plants with pretend fish

Sand over buried 'fossils; - pretend dinosaur bones from dollar stores

Pan for gold by using sand sifters and dirt with various sizes of rocks spray painted gold

Measuring spoons/cups/jugs to teach lessons about volume. Pair with bath color tablets to teach about color mixing

Use the Little People sets (Noah's Ark comes to mind) to play pretend

Arts and crafts projects that are better done outside like making slime, paper mache, etc

Tin pans/muffin cups paired with dirt/sticks/water for mud pies

Making sand castles or using shovels and buckets to transfer the sand to dump trucks

Use the sand and water table as you should, with sand and water and add animals who swim in the ocean and birds who live on the beach

I really like this new concept of thinking outside the box about a toy and coming up with new ideas on how to use it. There might be more of these to come!

Getting the Hang of This

2010-06-07T21:28:00.004-04:00

I'm a newbie at this whole couponing thing, but my purchases tonight at Kroger sealed the deal for me to keep plugging along. I got:

a gallon of milk

2 Gillette body washes

2 family size packages of pudding

a container of Pampers wipes

Dawn dish soap

All laundry detergent

Resolve Spray n Wash refill

... and only paid $10.65!!

I've been using SouthernSavers.com for help on the deals and coupons of the week at two of the local grocery stores and have really been seeing a big difference in the bottom line. My biggest hangup with coupons has always been that I felt that using coupons would tempt me to buy things that I wouldn't normally purchase, but that hasn't been the case so far. The trick is to use the coupons with sale items, not on full price (and over priced) items. I'd love to hear any success stories you have with couponing. What websites do you use for help? What strategies have you found work the best? Are you a CVSer? (I haven't been brave enough to try this one yet!) Share your tips!

For Dad: King of the Grill

2010-06-02T10:51:00.006-04:00

These cupcakes from FamilyFun.com look so fun and fantastic that I might just have to try them out this year for Father's Day (nevermind the fact that we haven't grilled anything since we started moving all around the country two years ago!) That doesn't change the fact that Charlie grills a mean steak and I love a good lookin' cupcake ; )

To make a batch of 12, place liners in a muffin pan, oil them, and fill them 2/3 full of your favorite brownie batter, then bake according to the recipe directions. Let the brownies cool. In a small bowl, mix 1-2 drops of black food coloring with 1/4 cup white frosting. Transfer the frosting to a ziploc bag and snip a small section from the corner. Pipe grate lines onto each brownie and let them set for 20 minutes. Add embers with a sprinkle of orange sugar. Prepare the grill food like this:

KEBABS: A caramel cream and red, yellow and green candy fruit slices, cut into small pieces + toothpicks for skewers
PORK CHOP: 2/3 of a caramel cream, molded with fingers + black food coloring applied with a toothpick [note: I think most grocery stores also carry chocolate creams, which would make a very cute steak]
HOT DOGS: hot tamales candies + black food coloring applied with a toothpick

I have a few ideas up my sleeve for Father's Day this year, but I don't want to show my hand yet for fear that Charlie will read this ahead of time.

What are you doing for the dad in your life this year?

My ABC Book!

2010-05-31T10:38:00.004-04:00

Here it is: My ABC Book! I have to admit that this is not my original idea, however, the final product is pretty different than the original idea that I saw on this etsy site. I wanted upper and lower case letters and more complex images for each letter, and this is my finished product! I wanted it to be a 2nd birthday present for the boys, but they have been dying to get their hands on it ever since I started cutting the felt, so they might not be able to wait another 3 months. I think my favorites are the lion, penguin, jellybeans and rainbow, but I'm pretty pleased with how the entire book turned out - especially all the beaded embellishments. What do you think?!

Beanie Bags

2010-05-30T21:37:00.004-04:00

Using the leftover felt from a few earlier projects, I whipped up these colorful bean bags for the boys. They are actually filled with dried beans that we had used for a Tot School sensory tub a little while ago and I was looking for a way to repurpose them.

I'm still discovering all the ways that these can be used for playtime, but so far they are having a great time tossing them into buckets and baskets, balancing them on their heads and each other's head and stacking them up. I love that it ended up being a free project for me since everything I used was leftover from something else.

I can't wait to 'unveil' my most impressive felt project yet! I have one more component to complete, but it should be ready within the next day or so. Stay tuned!

Growing Pains

2010-05-25T16:40:00.004-04:00

I'm telling you, if you are the mom of little boys, you have to buy this book. How Do You Tuck in a Superhero by Rachel Balducci is full of little gems like this:

I spend my days trying to find a balance in protecting my boys from the dangers of the world while letting them discover the beauty of it. I want to let them run and jump and climb and build, without crashing and burning in the process. The scary part of being a female raising males, or maybe just being a parent in general, is that I have to guide and cold the nature of these boys without working against it. It is not in my nature to run screaming through the backyard while carrying a large stick. But it is in the nature of my boys, and I don't want to squelch who they are simply because I don't always understand it... As they grow and bloom and spread their wings, I have to do the same. I have to keep up with them, while allowing them to be who God created them to be. (p. 190)

How many of you can relate to this mom?! I know that my ideal afternoon at a park would include a quiet stroller ride for the boys through a shaded (and paved) path. Their perfect afternoon at the same park would include no parts of a stroller, walking through all the dirt and mud they can find, collecting sticks, rocks and acorns along the way, and maybe tasting a few of their findings at the same time. They are explorers; they love being outside and they don't want to be told how to enjoy their surroundings thankyouverymuch. They notice things that I have long since tuned out, like airplanes, lawn mowers and barking dogs. They think slapping each other is hilarious. They love climbing on everything. To them, coming inside from playing is a tragedy. They are boys, through and through, and I need to learn how to nurture their adventurous spirit instead of try to contain it to suit my likings.

Good thing I'm always up for a challenge... because raising them while allowing them to be the little boys God created them to be is going to be one!

How Do You Tuck in a Superhero?

2010-05-20T13:18:00.003-04:00

Charlie bought me a book for Mother's Day/our anniversary written by a mom of five boys. The book is divided into chapters (Proper Care and Feeding, You Know You're with Boys When..., Family Togetherness, etc) and each chapter is full of short stories related to each topic. They range from hilarious to heartwarming, but regardless, I'm realizing that each story is a glimpse into my future as a mom of three boys of my own.

From the vast quantities of groceries downed every week to the 'house rules' she never thought she'd actually have to say out loud ("We use doors to enter the house, not air-conditioner vents or second story windows"; "We never close our brother into a large appliance, no matter how much he begs you to do it"), from the camaraderie of brotherhood to the challenges of grooming, trimming and styling boys, I'm both excited and slightly terrified of the years ahead of us.

I LOVE what she says about motherhood:

The journey of motherhood centers on being the person God has chosen out of all humanity and space and time to care for these souls, these beings who will exist for all eternity. The thought of that incredible task, that humbling honor, is more than enough to direct my focus back to an overwhelming gratitude for the gift of my children, my incredible sons, in my life.

I read that page last night after a difficult few days when I was thinking of my boys as a challenge instead of a blessing. What an awesome reminder of the task that God has laid in front of me: to raise these boys, these blessings, remembering that He has chosen ME out of all the women in the world, to be the one that they call Mom. What an honor.

"It's Too Late, To Turn Back Now"

2010-05-19T14:20:00.004-04:00

27 weeks pregnant is most certainly too late to reconsider the timing of having a third child. I just keep telling myself that my mini breakdown today is the direct result of four straight days of caring for two sick toddlers who are whiny, snotty, coughing messes and refuse to be awake without crying. I know that the level of exhaustion that comes from being woken up 2-4 times in the middle of the night by coughing fits is enough to run anyone's patience a little thin during the day. And I know that sometimes food just goes to waste when you present it to a fussy toddler who doesn't want to eat anything - no matter how lovingly you prepare it for him.

All that aside though, I also know that my mini breakdown is a direct result of the stress that I'm under that's caused by LIFE right now... and the progression of one more week into this pregnancy isn't really helping. Let me give a brief summary of what needs to happen before this baby boy makes his appearance:

Charlie will finish his current rotation in Atlanta
He will interview for the positions he has applied for
He will travel to and from these interviews (mostly out of state) and I'll fly solo while he's gone
We'll get word of whichever job(s) he's offered
We'll weigh the pros and cons of the offers (hopefully it's an easy decision) and choose a city where we'll settle
House hunting, negotiating on price and closing on a house [mental math says that even signing an agreement on a house TODAY wouldn't allow us to close until I'm 31-34 weeks pregnant]
Organizing, packing, moving to the new house
Charlie starts his brand new job
He travels to CT for training in July for 5 days, me flying solo again
Finding a new doctor and changing insurance for the third time this calendar year
Figuring out an emergency plan for the boys when I go into labor
Having a baby

That's an awful lot to accomplish in a maximum of 13 weeks from today, especially since the interview process is just starting and there's no reason to think that we'll have a clue of what's going on within the next couple weeks, though I'm praying that I'm wrong about that.

It's just a lot to process and even more to feel like you have no control over any of it. Being stuck in the house and having to skip playdates, church and other fun activities because of the aforementioned sick kiddo dilemma is just adding to my loneliness right now.

Time is marching on and I feel like a passenger on a train that's moving too fast. I was remembering the good ol' days of being pregnant with the boys when each day felt like a week had passed instead of now, when each week is flying by as if it's a day. I'm so so thankful for this healthy little boy that's on his way, but I'm also praying that we still have as many days left to work with as possible and that everything else in life starts to move as fast as this pregnancy.

Tot School - Rainbow Colors

2010-05-15T20:57:00.008-04:00

Tot School - Week 10 - Theme: Rainbow Colors

Owen & Eli: 20 months old

Two weeks ago I found a goldmine of Thomas trains at a local consignment store and the boys were so completely obsessed with them that I didn't even attempt to get them to do anything 'school related.' They spent hours building the tracks and pushing the trains, connecting the trains with the magnets and racing them on the floor. I'm sure they were learning, it just wasn't about the color purple!

We had a good time this week focusing on all the colors in the rainbow. It was a great review too, and I might actually continue it into next week to really reinforce the concepts of each color. Should a 20 month old be able to point to a certain color or just match something red with something else red? They really enjoyed the activities too, so continuing might not be a bad idea anyway.

I tried using the R is for Rainbow printable from Making Learning Fun with balls of Play-Doh, but should have laminated the paper first. They loved sticking the balls to the paper, but peeling it off (when they got it wrong) was a bit of a mess. In general, they love Play-Doh and anything I ask them to do with it, but filling each white hole was a little too challenging I think.

I made circles out of pipecleaners for them to match with their race cars. By the end of the week, any color matching activity I asked them to do included them putting the object in every wrong color saying 'no' before finally putting it in the right spot and leaving it there. They really do get it! We used our foam/cardboard/velcro puzzle with all the colors and shapes. I think for next week I'm going to color in the shape outlines so they can match the foam colors to the outlines. I used the back of the foam puzzle board to make a Brown Bear matching puzzle for them too, which they loved! I printed two copies of the Brown Bear lap book pieces and put half of them (rainbow colors only) under the contact paper, then added a piece of velcro to the top of it and to the backs of the second set of laminated animals. They didn't quite get the heads and tails right, but they were able to match the colors very well!

We used Ikea cups and colored popsicle sticks for another color matching activity. I love watching their brains at work - they would hold a stick over a cup and pause to see if it matched before dropping it into the right cups. They used the cups for stacking practice too. (Not pictured) we used the cups with the pipecleaners and toy cars for color matching also.

The highlight of their week (I'm sure!) was the Rainbow Cupcakes. They are time intensive, but delicious and so worth it! Just watching their faces as I cracked one open to show them the colors was awesome, and they ate every bite. Good thing we still have some left for next weeks 'reinforcement' : )

Hope you had fun this week in school too! Go to 1+1+1=1 to see what other Tot Schoolers were learning this week. If you have any more rainbow ideas for this upcoming week, pass them along or leave me a link to your blog to check out your ideas.

Tot School: Yellow and Orange

2010-05-04T11:12:00.006-04:00

Tot School - Week 8 - Theme: Yellow & Orange

Owen & Eli: 20 Months Old

This was our worst week yet for using our theme, but it was a great week for learning in general! Here are a couple of the color activities that we got around to this week...

Matching the colored item to the colored paper. This is an oldie, but a goodie, but the problem is that the boys are getting to the stage where, if they know how to do something, they'll just refuse to do it. I could get them both to demonstrate yellow to yellow, orange to orange, but then they seemed bored because they knew what to do.

We used our do-a-dots and crayons on orange and yellow paper, but that turned into a coloring activity in general.

And we used orange and yellow pipecleaners by putting them into the small holes of a spice container.

This was a big week for puzzles and stacking blocks. The boys are getting so much better with balance and identification, so these puzzles and blocks are getting used much more often. I think it's so cute when they clap for themselves after every piece!

Unfortunately, that's about it for our week. Purple is our theme this week, followed by all the colors in the rainbow. Two more weeks of colors and I think we'll ALL be ready to move onto a different topic! : )

To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week, click over to 1+1+1=1

My Love Affair with Felt

2010-04-28T13:50:00.009-04:00

It started with Counting Fish that I first saw on the blog Counting Coconuts. My neighbor and I churned them out in about two nap times. They have buttons on the front and the corresponding numerical value stitched into the back. They also have washers in thier noses so the boys can use a magnetic fishing rod to catch them! Then, with the leftovers, we made some sea creature magnets for the refrigerator (jelly fish, sea horse, starfish, Nemo, angelfish and other tropical fish) and they turned out great! Felt is super easy to work with, even with beginner skills like mine. Here's a sneak peak at my newest project. I'm almost done with the cutting process and just need to work on the time consuming sewing/embellishing process. Can't wait to show you how it turns out!!

Tot School - Red

2010-04-25T12:29:00.010-04:00

Tot School - Week 7 - Theme: Red

Owen & Eli: 19 months old

This week was a little tough. The boys started the week off with their 7th respiratory infection of the winter - this is way past ridiculous - so they weren't into that many activities and they were much more whiney than normal. It's hard to find motivation for learning when you're just trying to keep them happy! It was also a little tough because I feel like I'm in a rut with my color work. It seems like I'm doing the same activities every week but just swapping out one color for another and even I'm getting bored with it. We don't have our printer set up at home, so most of the activities I do have to be either with toys/items that we already have or I have to draw/create them from hand. It's hard to find the time to do that! I'm really going to try to be more creative this week though for Orange and Yellow. I decided to combine them to hopefully give me more ideas for activities.

We started the week with our color tray, including colored popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, buttons, silicon baking cups, spoons and a juice jug. They always love playing with this, especially shaking all the items out of the jug once they feel it's full enough. I gave them an old spice jar too and showed them how to put pipe cleaners and golf tees into the holes. I thought they might get frustrated with the level of concentration it took, but they really enjoyed filling up the holes. Great fine motor skill practice!

We looked through our book about colors and identified different red items. We reviewed the green and blue pages from the last two weeks too and they remembered most of the objects. I was surprised that when I would point in a general direction to a pile of cars and say 'bring me the red car' that they could actually do it by the end of the week! It doesn't hurt that their favorite vehicles right now are fire engines and ambulences!

We reviewed our shapes and colors with these Sesame Street flash cards from our Dollar Store too. They were more interested in the characters than identifying the shapes, but it kept them entertained for a little while.

Play-doh is always a hit too, especially with cookie cutters. I'm not sure how I can make this activity more advanced or more educational though - any ideas? I'm looking for ways to take everyday household items and use them for Tot School to gain skills without buying new things every week....

... Like this!! This was my favorite project/activity of the week and the boys totally loved it! I had bought a pack of colored foam paper from Target on clearance and had no idea what to do with it. I had some leftover velcro and a cardboard box too, so I went to work with my cookie cutters and made this little game for the boys. I just gave them the red pieces this week, but I made red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple shapes for them to match. There's actually two boards for them to work with, but that's only after we're using all the colors together. I can't believe how good they are at matching up the right piece to the right outline! Eli is my Mr. Meticulous! He lines them up perfectly and makes sure each piece of velcro has a solid stick to the board. Eventually, I'm going to color in the shapes with corresponding colors so they can practice both shape matching AND color matching with the same activity, but for now, I just wanted them to get the hang of the game.

We were supposed to go to a Touch-a-Truck event this weekend but it poured down rain so it was cancelled until further notice. Bummer! The boys would have loved all those red vehicles!

Tomorrow we're starting Orange and Yellow. Even if you haven't done color-specific activities, send me a comment for activities appropriate for 20 month olds... please! Hope you had a great week in Tot School!

To check out what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week, click here.

Don't Mind Me... I'm Just Nesting

2010-04-22T11:31:00.003-04:00

That's right. 23 weeks and already nesting. It's like I can't get things clean enough. Already this morning, I bundled up the two bags worth of garbage overflowing in the kitchen, took out the recycling, scrubbed the floor around the garbage can, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, washed and folded two loads of laundry (including crib sheets), put new sheets on both cribs, vacuumed the entire upstairs, used the vacuum attachment on both bathroom floors, Clorox wiped two highchairs, put all of my and Charlie's clothes away and took all miscellaneous toys back to the boys room that had walked all over the upstairs.

And it's only 11:36am.

I wish I could stop there. Yesterday I cleaned out my sock and underwear drawers (why is that such a feeling of accomplishment?!) organized my spice rack and refilled all the jars to the tops, wiped all the lint and extra detergent off the washer and dryer, organized my Tot School supplies and cleaned out both travel toiletry bags. Are we going on a trip any time soon? No.

I have big plans for my afternoon too - sweeping and vacuuming the downstairs, rotating toys, figuring out how to disassemble my double stroller to wash the seats (any ideas?!), make dinner, walk to Aldi with the boys, organize and file ideas from my parenting magazines and scrapbook. It's like the energy is never ending during the day and every time I look up there's something else calling my name. I was actually fantasizing about carpet powder this morning. You know, the stuff that you sprinkle on, vacuum up and it leaves your house smelling wonderfully fresh? I need to have it!

I know that nesting is normal, but when I looked back on this post, it was only a week before I had the boys, not 17 weeks! Oh my gosh, only 17 weeks to go... but there's so much to clean!

What weirdo nesting actions have you caught yourself doing in the past? Please tell me I'm not alone!

Tot School - Blue and Sea Animals

2010-04-18T13:21:00.011-04:00

Tot School - Week 6 - Theme: Blue & Sea Animals

Owen & Eli: 19 months old

This week's theme was blue and ocean animals and the boys had a great time with some of the new activities that we tried. I think I want to incorporate more of the 'traditional' tot school activities next week, with more intentionality on fine/gross motor skills, but for now, these things will have to do!

We started the week with a bean and blue sensory tub. I added buttons, Easter eggs, pompoms, shovels and bean and gave the boys lots of blue containers for pouring. They wanted to play with this all the time, but not necessarily how I wanted them to play. I thought it would be fun to have a scavenger hunt for the blue items to put them into the blue muffin cups, but they just wanted to shovel piles of beans into the cups. Oh well, at least they had a lot of practice with transferring!

We had a couple fun snacks this week to tie into the theme: blueberry pancakes and blueberry banana parfaits, berry blue jello and shark shaped crackers, just to name a few.

I printed out some magnet pages from Making Learning Fun - the blue horse from Brown Bear, Brown Bear and the Whale and Octopus from the Ocean themes. We used blue do-a-dots, crayons and play-doh to fill in the circles, and we used flattened marbles on the white circles too. They have a hard time with the marbles because they want them to 'click' into place like a puzzle piece, which they don't do. Maybe velcro might be a better option because they can stick the pieces where they belong.

The weather was perfect this week for playing outside! I filled a giant Tupperware container with water and added lots of blue food coloring and smaller Tupperware pieces and they had a blast pouring and splashing.

I found a package of Sea Animal sponge pellets at the Dollar Store, the same kind that we played with as kids that dissolve into an animal shaped sponge. They really liked making the animals swim in the 'ocean' and we worked on color identification once they were all fully formed. I had to laugh when two of the 18 'sea animals' turned into a rabbit and a horse. I'm not sure how those slipped through!

A week of studying ocean animals isn't complete without watching Finding Nemo and going to the aquarium! They love Nemo, they were terrified at the aquarium... even by the clown fish! If they weren't in the stroller, they were clinging to us for dear life, so it was a bit of a challenge to get a good picture.

Overall it was a great week! We had friends visiting this weekend, so our learning time was less focused than it could have been, but by the end of the week they were able to identify certain animals and I think they are starting to be able to tell the difference between blue and green (from last week).

Next week is red, and I'm looking for ideas involving red items - from flowers to fire engines, send them along if you have any!

To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week, check out 1+1+1=1

Four Ingredient Fajitas

2010-04-13T20:12:00.004-04:00

Super simple. Incredibly delicious.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced thin

1 green pepper, sliced thin

4-8oz white button mushrooms, sliced

Montreal Steak Seasonings (McCormick)

Sprinkle the steak seasoning over the chicken about 30 minutes before cooking. Saute the chicken in a little bit of oil until cooked through. Add the peppers and mushrooms and sprinkle a little more seasoning on the vegetables.

When the meat/veggies were finished, I melted some mozzarella cheese on a tortilla and spooned some of the mixture on top. To quote Charlie, "This is good. I mean, this is really good." I'll take it!

As always, I'd love to hear your take on this super simple recipe. Use what you have in your vegetable drawer and spice rack and leave a comment!

Tot School - Nature and Green

2010-04-11T20:48:00.008-04:00

Tot School - Week 5 - Theme: Nature and Green

Owen & Eli: 19 months old

What a fun week! We started our color themes this week with GREEN (as well as nature, springtime and flowers) and the boys really seemed to have a good time. I started off by finding all the green toys in our house and also making a 'drop box' using green Popsicle sticks, pompoms and buttons. They loved putting each little item in the juice bottle opening and then dumping them all back out. We tried transferring the items into the bottle with the green shovel too, though they needed a lot of help keeping it steady. We looked through our color books (Shiny, Touchy, Smelly Colors and My First Colors Board Book) and the boys got really good at pointing out each item that I would ask them to identify. We built green block towers too.

For art projects this week, the boys used crayons and do-a-dot markers to color in the green frog from Making Learning Fun's Brown Bear theme. We finger painted using pistachio pudding (it's naturally green!) though the boys quickly realized that it was more fun to eat it than play in it. By the time I use real paint they are going to think that everything they paint with is edible! We used acrylic paint to make thumbprint flowers and talked about nature, flowers growing and colors.

My favorite activity this week was planting wildflowers with the boys. I found soil pellets, butterfly garden flower seeds and silver pots all in the Dollar Bin at Target! When you add water to the soil it grows right before your eyes. The boys thought it was so cool! We transferred seeds using spoons and then covered the seeds with our shovels. When the pots were finished, the boys played in the extra dirt and were in heaven. Boys and dirt are a match made in heaven! [As a side note, you're probably thinking I'm crazy for having them play with dirt in the house, but the laminate was super easy to clean and the were surprisingly good at listening when I told them to sit on the floor with their shovels. Plus... we're just renting ; ) ]

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our GREEN and NATURE activities this week. Next week we're focusing on BLUE and SEA ANIMALS - leave a comment if you have any ideas for us!

To see what other Tot Schoolers are doing this week, check out 1+1+1=1

Tot School - Easter and Ovals

2010-04-05T22:13:00.001-04:00

Tot School - Week 4 - Theme: Easter & Ovals

Owen & Eli: 19 months old

This was a pretty busy week! We started our Tot School activities at home and then travelled from Georgia to Michigan to spend Easter with family. Here are some of the things we did while we were still at home...

We continued learning about shapes this week with the shape of the Oval (since it's the same shape as the Easter eggs we would use so many more times this week). The boys put egg stickers inside the oval outline, and would even say 'uh oh' when they stuck it outside the shape!

They played with their Shrinky Dink Easter eggs all afternoon! (Here's the post where I made them) Looking at them, putting them in cups, pouring from one cup to the next, trying to string them on pipe cleaners and hiding them inside plastic eggs.

We used the plastic eggs to match the same colored pompoms too. They were so focused trying to open and close each egg!
We made Easter bunny hand print cards to send to the grandparents too! I first saw this idea on Tons of Fun but have seen many pictures of this craft since then too. She has some great ideas for other holidays that I'll be sure to make with the kids!

In Michigan, the boys participated in two egg hunts, painted Easter eggs and found their Easter baskets. I found a Melissa and Doug puzzle of farm animals that I'm going to use for a future Tot School theme and they got a Little People Around the Town book that I'll be able to use for lots of different themes too.

Since the boys are a little older this year, Easter was so much more fun! They weren't quite ready for the true meaning of Easter activities, so we'll be gearing up for that next year. This week's theme in Nature, Spring and the color Green. I have a couple ideas but not many days to get them done. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment!

To check out what other Tot School moms are doing this week, click here

Easter Eggs: Shrinky Dink Style!

2010-03-30T09:09:00.006-04:00

This week in Tot School we're going to focus on Easter, eggs, ovals and Jesus. I was trying to think of a way to show the boys decorated eggs and the shape of ovals without using real eggs and this is what I came up with.

I used a cookie cutter to trace the shape of an oval on the shrinky dink paper. Then I made two of each style egg. That way, the boys will each have a set of their own to play with, but we can also use them for matching activities in the future. I punched a hole in each egg before shrinking them so we could practice stringing them on pipe cleaners too.

I had forgotten how fun it is to watch Shrinky Dinks!! I did these ones while the boys napped to avoid them being around the oven opening and closing, but I sat there at the window in the oven and watched them work their magic the whole time. So cool!

Here's what they look like before and after they shrink...

And here's our finished set!

Tot School - Shapes Review

2010-03-27T10:39:00.008-04:00

Tot School - Week 3 - Theme: Shapes Review

Owen & Eli: 18 months old

Last week was supposed to be Triangle Week, but since we were struck with a terrible round of respiratory problems, breathing treatments, ear infections and puking, Tot School was on hold. Instead of pushing everything back, we pressed on this week with Triangles and the review of Circles and Squares. I mentioned in my first week of Tot School, I wasn't expecting the boys to be able to say 'circle' or 'square' and I wasn't even sure if they would get to the point of recognizing the shapes in such a short time, but they totally can!! If I show them two different shapes and ask them to identify one of them, they can choose the correct shape each time. It's pretty exciting to see the activities starting to pay off!

To focus just on Triangles, we used a few of the same activities that we had used for circles and squares so the boys already knew what to do. They could match the paper shapes to the outline (but I had to limit them to only two shapes; three seemed to be too many). We practiced using colored popsicle sticks on triangle outlines to create the shapes and we finger painted (with baby food) for a texture activity on our triangle sheets. Contact paper cleans up nicely! We tried out do-a-dot markers for the first time too, but they were much too excited to stamp as much as possible and couldn't be bothered to stamp inside the triangles.

As for the review of circles, squares and triangles, we played with foam blocks, using the triangle pieces as slopes for their cars and the cylinders for both color matching and filling the squares with the circles. We played with the shapes puzzle, matched lids for the pots, made balls with play-doh (not pictured), used flattened marbles to fill the white holes on the shape pages, and...

... the biggest hit was using Cool Whip and their shape sorter pieces as a stamper and finger paints. At first they didn't know what to make of it, but pretty soon they had a great time!

This upcoming week we're focusing on Easter (and ovals for the egg shape!) and we're travelling to Michigan to visit family. I'm looking for some toddler friendly Easter crafts, so please send me a link if you have any ideas!