Tot School: Thanksgiving Week

G is 20 Months Old
This Weeks Theme: Thanksgiving!

We had a nice relaxed week. We did manage a couple things here & there, but it was Thanksgiving week after all!!

Playing with her number's mat.

(And making me laugh because right now, every number is "nine?".)

Having fun dumping the colored noodles.

(I finally got smart and put some towels down too!)

Using 1+1+1=1 Printables.

We traced the lines together; then G decided to color the rest of the page too.

Then we counted the Mayflowers

Coloring some Thanksgiving prints

Thanksgiving!

I was not my typical paparazzi self on Thanksgiving; I was too busy cooking my first turkey dinner.

I did manage to snap a shot of her watching the parade.

And playing her drum along with the marching bands.

How She's Growing 

It seems like we're noticing more & more words, at least versions of words. Hey, we know what she's talking about sometimes, so it's a start. I've now come to realize that "Ci" is her pacifier. And in my book being able to call it a cutsie name is an indication that it's time to go. I keep telling her that 2 year olds aren't allowed to have them, so by March we need to have said goodbye. Now I just need to hold up my end of the bargain.

Every beverage is "juice", which makes it really confusing when what she really wants is milk!

She's going through a growth spurt and I'm so curious to know how tall she is right now!

We've always had G help clean up her toys, put her diapers in the garbage & her dirty clothes in the hamper. She loves to help empty the dishwasher and take trash out on Tuesday nights. She's a very clean little girl...which she didn't get from me. She's been known to follow me around in the kitchen shutting the pantry doors behind me and checking to make sure the fridge is shut all the way.

This week she'd gone outside to play, and brought some playground wood-chips in on her shoes. As soon as she noticed the "mess" on the floor, she went into the cupboard, pulled out the broom and swept up the pile. I hadn't even realized there was a mess on the floor until I saw she was sweeping it up!

She decided to continue sweeping, and I snuck this shot of her sweeping my bathroom

Mom's Favorite Shot

When I worked for the portrait studio, we had a series of portraits we needed to take. The 2nd shot was always referred to as the "signature" shot. Taken from a high angle, as that's the view parents see of their children most often.

I never truly appreciated that method until I took this...

I'm very happy to have captured the memory of my "little" girl.

That expression just makes me melt too!

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Tot School: Fall

G is 19 months old
This Weeks Theme: Leftover Week!
(We didn't really have a set theme, just some left over fall projects & printables.)

I didn't manage many pictures this week. The week started out with a lot of activities outside the house (a visit to Excel by 5, and a playgroup meet up at a local bounce house place). I didn't get any pictures during this fun, because we discovered our small digital camera was damaged after it jumped out of my purse, and I feel so awkward bringing my DSLR to the types of places we went. Typically, when I discover something has happened to one of my cameras, or pictures accidentally get deleted, I get mopey & take a camera sabbatical. Hence not a lot of pictures this week.

Tot School Activities

Coloring is still a huge hit around these parts. I actually started leaving out some coloring pages & crayons in her little desk trays. Throughout the day she would periodically go color and then move on to other things. I think she appreciated a bit of the independence.

Pushing pom poms through different size openings on a recycled restaurant cup.

Using the Lakeshore Color Discovery Boxes to sort objects into the correct colored boxes.

As she was sorting, if she was heading into the wrong direction I would say "Noooo...is that red?" She would giggle and put the toy were it belonged.

I've now caught her saying that to herself as she does her puzzle or plays with her shape sorting toy. If she picked the wrong slot she'll say "Noooo" and then go to the right place.

Gluing tissue paper leaves.

In true up cycling form, we then used her artwork to decorate an empty bread crumb tube to mail some pre-Thanksgiving, Christmas cookies.

(Mom, if you're reading this, you can look for this in a mailbox near you soon.)

How She's Growing

We are definitely jumping head first into pretend play around here.

Dress up has been something she's enjoyed for awhile.

Now, much to my delight, she's really started taking an interest in her dolls.

We even bought some toy baby bottles, after her Minnie Mouse took a mouthful of sippycup juice the other day.

This shot cracks me up, cause I'm pretty sure every mom has had a late-night feeding, or two, like this.

Favorite Books

G is really into animals & their sounds. G didn't really give us much of a chance to read many books other than Say What? and Baby Says Moo. 

Mom's Favorite Shot

Look at how curly this girl's hair can get!!!

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Tot School: Purple & Veterans' Day

G is 19 Months Old
This Weeks Theme: Purple & Veterans' Day

G has LOTS of military in her family: Her Daddy, both Grandfathers, 3 Uncles and that's just the tip of the iceberg. As a family we are very proud of our military. Though we don't typically live on a military base, she will be able to say that for a small part of her life she did. I will probably always make a big deal out of Veterans' Day in our family, because I believe that Vets are very important people.

Of course, because of Veterans' Day, Daddy has a short work week. So we didn't get a lot of tot school accomplished. We did manage to visit Excel by 5 one day.
Here's what we did for the rest of this week!

Coloring the Purple Heart, purple

This picture cracks me up, because she looks so disheveled. Her hair is a mess, her sweater is falling off one shoulder and I've never seen her make this face before. It doesn't even look like her!

Pretending to color the Veterans Day medal with foam crayons.

Our project this week was a major success. We made an American Flag out of hand prints. I wasn't too sure how she'd take to having the paint on her hands, but she loved it! I was able to tell her where to place her hands and she did it.

After the flag was done, she wasn't quite ready to be done with art projects. So she "painted" a napkin with water & a brush.

Since Daddy was home a lot this week, he let her go at the tub of colored noodles.

For Veterans' Day we also visited the USS Alabama. You can read about our day here.

How She's Growing

We've heard a few words this week, including "nice" and "baby". Baby isn't really a new word, but we haven't heard it in awhile and now it's clear as day. And of course, she doesn't say 'nice' in terms of being nice to other people. She'll draw on her magna doodle, hold it up & say "nice". Or at times like last night, while watching football I said "Nice!" after a good play and she repeated. Good thing I don't exclaim other things too loudly while watching football!!

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Veterans' Day

To Honor & learn about those who served, this Veterans Day, we ventured to Mobile, AL to see the USS Alabama.

The USS Alabama is at a Battleship Memorial Park which is also home to the USS Drum and several military aircraft.

I haven't been on very many ships turned museums, the only other being the USS Constitution in Boston. (Where you can't.touch.anything.) So I found it pretty cool that you were able to sit & stand at the guns on USS Alabama. Personally, I would have been peeing my pants seeing this thing pointed towards me with all it's guns blazing.

However, the coolness factor ended when you could actually climb inside the BIG guns.

(Truthfully, it never occurred to me that someone had to be IN there to work the guns. I thought someone pushed  a button elsewhere.)

This would be Tyson, taking my little precious baby into the gun turret. I went in, for approximately 15 seconds. I freaked out, got short of breath, couldn't open my eyes and left faster than you could imagine. I was genuinely interested in seeing in there. But, I'm woman enough to admit that I had goosepumps and this place was seriously haunted; I couldn't be in there.

Turns out, I was right.

It didn't help that I spent the entire time we were on the ship nervous that G was going to jump off the edge. I realize this is an old battleship, but couldn't we put an extra railing around the outside for safety of the wee ones?

On to happier times, we wandered through a large hanger. I didn't snap many pictures in there, because I think military planes are flipping cool. I did take a picture of an old jeep, because seeing it made Tyson giddy.

Next stop was the USS Drum. I wasn't sure how I'd do in the sub, after the turret incident. It turned out to be pretty cool.

None of these museums are federally or tax-payer funded. The Drum was rehabbed with donations through a local Submarine Vet group. Some of these Vets were on the sub and it was nice to see them. Tyson was able to chat with some fellow sailors, one of whom even served on one of the same carriers Tyson had.

Here is one of the torpedo rooms.

Pick a rack & get comfy kid!

This view is from the desk of the USS Drum, you can see a handful of the planes on display.

It turned out to be a beautiful day, and a great way to remember those who served. I hope we are able to continue visiting places like for many Veterans Days to come.

Tot School: Green & Leaves

G is 19 Months Old
This weeks theme: Leaves, Fall & Green
(because it's just now starting to feel like fall here - and even then most the leaves are still green.)

It is getting more & more difficult to take pictures during tot school activities. As G is getting used to the routine of tot school, she likes me to be more involved. Coloring with her, doing the projects with her. Which is great, I love it. But if I stop for 2 seconds to take a picture things will start ending up on the ground. She's quick. But here is what I WAS able to capture this week.

Activities at Home

She received a new toy from one of her Grandma's. She loves this thing.

She's gotten pretty good at it too.

I don't usually let her take out her bucket of tot school 'toys' and just go buck wild. One day she insisted and this is the mess than ensued.

We put leaves on the tree, using this printable from 2 Teaching Mommies Leaves Unit.

We tried leaf rubbing, with some leaves we gathered earlier in the week during a walk.

But it just turned into a coloring session...

In fact, most things just turned into a coloring session. Hey, the girl knows what she likes!

The leaf & scarecrow sheets are ones we received during a previous visit to Excel by 5.

New Words

Me - Probably because her favorite book this week has been Incredible Me. (I love the book too!)

My personal favorite - 'Goooo Giants!'

Mommie's Favorite Photo

There's nothing spectacular about this shot, just my little girl's first time Trick or Treating...and she LOVED it. So much so, the next morning I had to explain we can only go door to door to get candy one night a year.

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Pinterest Creations: October Edition

It's sweeping the nation - and I got swept up into it too. Actually, Pinterest was a dream come true for me. I used to keep projects I wanted to try or ideas for my future home on a multi-page spreadsheet. Well I just deleted the last page, thanks to Pinterest. I'm visual...and now I get a picture, not just a link. For proof that this system works better for me, I actually CREATED some of things I've had marked down. (Of course.....having more time at home vs when I was working full time has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.)

Here's what I made, via Pinterest, in October:

First up - after the applesauce disaster of 2011, I was still in desperate need of some apple comfort. So I got bold and tried this Apple Cake with Vanilla Carmel Sauce.

Mine didn't end up as pretty as hers, but I'm pretty sure it tasted as good...if not better.

Satisfaction tastes pretty good.

Plus mine was served on a Mickey Mouse pizza plate. Really, what beats that?

Now, onto the Halloween fun. I was not allowed the privilege of bringing down my 6 boxes of Christmas decorations, 2 boxes of Thanksgiving decorations or  1 box of Halloween decorations. So if I want this place to be festive...I need to make it.

First up were these Bleeding Candles. This was on my "Must Do ASAP" list long before Pinterest came along.

However, don't be like me and buy cheap candles from the dollar store. Because their candles are actually white, therefore ruining the whole idea. These were only burned once so I didn't lose the effect. Next year I'll get *real* red candles and do it again...the right way.

These Spider Sacks were a lot more frustrating to make than I anticipated them being. But I like how they came out. So, much like giving birth, I will forget the discomfort & aggravation and do it again next year.

Last but not least...Halloween Dinner. Mummys. Yummy.

My Mummy has red eyes, not yellow...cause we're a ketchup household.



I have more stuff planned for November. So I'll see ya next time I want to gloat about my semi-creativity!

Oddly enough - I found this image on Pinterest too! You can find the original here.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: The view from my kitchen sink

Would you like a closer look...

Don't we all have days like this, sitting in traffic?