We Had a Wonderful Day!

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! O was very excited this morning when she came upstairs and saw her crown and everything else. She immediately tried to cut her cake, but it was a little difficult. She insisted on having goldfish crackers for breakfast (along with bananas and raisins). After breakfast we went to storytime at the library where she had fun dancing and singing. She was very excited that dada went with us to the library. We signed up for swimming lessons, then headed to the water park to meet up with our family and friends. O took a short nap on the way to the water park. She was very excited about her "choc-choc" banana and the delicious homemade peach ice-cream that Aunt Mem made. We played in the pool and relaxed in the lazy river for a fun-filled 4 hours. What a great day!

Happy Birthday, O!

Happy Birthday, O! I can't believe you are 2! Its almost 1am, and Elliott and I are busy getting ready for O's birthday. Elliott is putting together her kitchen set that we bought in February. I set up her place at the table with her birthday crown (its missing the ribbon, but we'll finish it before her party on Sunday), wooden cake, birthday ring, and her 1st birthday block puzzle.
I taped balloons to all of our chairs. She is going to be SO EXCITED when she wakes up in the morning and sees everything. We have a busy day planned for O (storytime at the library, picnic with family and friends, and then swimming and playing in a small spray park), but I'll try to post pics tomorrow night :)

Baking Bread and Making Butter

O and I made honey oatmeal whole wheat bread in our bread machine this morning. She loves helping to pour the ingredients into the machine. She also helped cut the butter. She tasted the honey again, and she really liked it this time. She kept sneaking bits of it while we worked.

After she woke up from her nap, O and I made butter! We had leftover cream from making ice-cream, so we decided to give it a try. To make butter you need a jar, a marble, and whole cream.
O put the marble in the jar and held the jar while I poured in the cream. I closed the lid tightly, and we took turns shaking it. O shook it 2 or 3 times then tried to open the jar. She REALLY wanted to see the marble, and she got upset when I wouldn't let her open the jar. She got over it when I turned on the music and started dancing while shaking the jar. She helped some, but I did the VAST majority of the shaking :) After about 10 minutes, I couldn't hear the marble anymore. I poured off the liquid, and we had butter!
Here's a piece of the bread with the butter. The marble is still in the butter :) The bread looks a little deformed, but it tasted good. The butter was delicious! O wanted to just lick it off her fingers, but I convinced her to have a little bread with it. We used the whole jar, so we had to make another jar to share with dada!

Our Daily Schedule

Since a couple of people have asked about our daily schedule, I decided to write a post about in case anyone else is interested :) We are currently in a state of transition with our schedule, and it is changing daily. O and I used to sleep until around 9 am, and she went to sleep around 9:30, but we are waking up earlier (7:30), and she's going to sleep earlier (8:30) starting yesterday. Elliott's is on a new schedule at work, so we are all trying to go to bed earlier :)



So...we start our day with getting dressed, brushing teeth, doing a little light cleaning downstairs (the bedrooms and laundry room are downstairs, and the den and kitchen which is really just one big room are upstairs). Then we go upstairs for breakfast. Its amazing how long this all takes. This morning we finally finished breakfast around 9am. O plays with her toys while I fix breakfast. She primarily has wooden (puzzles and cutting food) and open ended toys (ex. bilibo, felt board, and rainbow stacker) and montessori type materials, but she does have a couple of plastic toys (Mr. Potato Head and dollhouses that a friend just gave her). I put her toys in a toy rotation because we realized early on that she plays better when she doesn't have "too much stuff" (whenever there's is clutter O always says "too much stuff. clean up!") The problem with the toy rotation is that once the toys are gone, I forget about them, and they often don't come out of the closet for months and months :)



After breakfast we either go play on the beach, read books, or play with her toys. Occasionally, we'll do a few montessori activities. It really just depends on what she wants to do. I was surprised that she hasn't wanted to go on the beach lately, but tomorrow I'm going to insist that we go out. I know she'll love it once we get out there. I like to take morning walks with her, but its usually too hot at this time of year. We eat lunch around 11:30 or 12:00, and then she naps for about an hour and a half to 2 hours. This is when I blog and clean the house. When she wakes up, we usually read books for about 45 minutes to an hour. Reading books is her absolute favorite thing to do, and I love to read to her. Then we do a little housework (washing and folding clothes, etc).


After that we go back upstairs and have fun! Today she kept asking for "more activteees" and "more games!" She likes to toddler activity bags a lot, and I'm planning on making more soon. I am a little concerned that she's getting too dependent on me for entertainment, so I'm trying to make sure she has plenty of independent play time each day (and the Montessori work helps with this a lot, since most of it is independent work). She loves playing in her rice pit out on the screened porch, but its usually too hot to go out there in the afternoon. She really hasn't shown much interest in her Montessori work lately, and I think that is because its out on the shelf all of the time. I need to have a place where I can limit her access to it, so it will be more appealing to her. Elliott and I are planning on building a shelf (hopefully this weekend) that will be the Montessori shelf. It will have casters so I can turn it around during "school time," and then turn it to the wall when we are just hanging out and playing. I think our Montessori time will go MUCH better after we have this in place. I'll post pictures once I have it all set up. I'm VERY excited about this, and I can't wait to be more organized.



Back to the schedule...O has her afternoon snack around 4 or 5, and then we try to go outside and work in the garden and check the mail. If its not too hot, we'll play for a while. Yesterday, she had a great time chasing me and riding her tricycle around the yard. Once we have a fence, we'll spend a lot more time in the yard (it makes me nervous for her to be so close to the lake, and I can't take my eyes off of her for even a second).



We eat supper around 7ish, and then she plays or reads books with dada for a while. Then its time for a bath (or a quick shower with mommy) and bed.

I have a list of activities (baking, arts and crafts, etc) that I want to eventually do with O, and I loosely plan to do 1 or 2 things each day. I LOVE reading toddler/preschool activity books and searching for ideas on different blogs. Google reader makes it so easy to read blogs quickly and star the items that I want to go back to, so it has helped me get much more organized. Thanks for the comments, and let me know if anyone has any questions. I've got to go steam the kitchen floor now :)

Thanks for all the Nice Comments!

Thanks for all the nice comments lately. I really appreciate hearing from you and knowing that people actually read this blog :) I try to respond to most comments and all questions, and I usually just answer the questions in the comments section of my own blog. I don't know if people actually come back to see if their questions have been answered, but its a quick and efficient way to responds to that's what I do :) I really try to not use the computer when O is awake, so my computer time is limited and do everything as quickly as I can. So thanks again!

Making Homemade Birthday Invitations

I decided that it would be fun to make our own invitations for O's upcoming 2nd birthday party, and I involved O in the process as much as possible.
I bought a pack of cardstock, and O painted about 10 sheets (over several days) with her dot painters. She kept asking to "paint more intations." I added a few dots on several sheets because she said she was "done!" after putting only a few dots on a sheet :)
Then I cut each sheet in half and folded them. Notice her feet in the top right hand corner. She was VERY excited to see her feet in this picture!

Then I typed out the invite and printed it, glued it to blue construction paper (her favorite color), and glued the construction paper to the card. The next step is stapling the cards closed and addressing them. That's the hard part because we don't have a stapler, and I only have about half of the addresses that I need. We've had lots of fun with this project, and it was great to have O so involved in planning for her own birthday party!

We're Back!

Our 5 day vacation to the Bahamas turned into a very scary 30 minutes in a very small plane. As we were taking off from the airport, I was thinking that we were crazy to be taking our small child in this very small airplane. After about 15 minutes into our flight, I noticed that we were turning around. Shortly after that my FIL told us that the alternator was out, and we were turning around. We lost all electric power on the flight, so there was no way to tell if the landing gear was down. Elliott made about 30 calls trying to get through to someone (cell coverage isn't the best in the air) to see if they could tell us if the landing gear was down and to call the airport to let them know we were coming in for an emergency landing with no electric power. We weren't able to find out if the landing gear was down, but we were able to notify the airport that we were coming in. I wasn't terribly concerned until I realized that we were having trouble maintaining altitude. Then it was time to land. As we were coming in for a landing, we still didn't know if the landing gear was down. We were all hoping, praying, and wishing that we would touch down with the landing gear and not the belly of the plane. O was in her car seat across from me, so I just held onto her feet. I can't even describe the relief that I felt when we touched down...we made it! I think we're done with small planes. It'll just be commercial flights for us from now on!!!

Yay!

O's No Sew Tutu is featured on the Crafty Crow! The Crafty Crow is one of my favorite blogs that I try to check everyday, so I was surprised and excited to see my O on there today! Check it out if you get a chance. The Crafty Crow is a must read for anyone with children!

Cheerios and a Free Book!

I was very excited when I saw that the Whole Grain Cheerios at the Dollar General came with paperback books! I'm sure the other customers thought I was a little strange when I pulled out EVERY box to see which book came with it. I bought 2 boxes because I thought the books pictured above looked interesting, and we can never have too many boxes of Cheerios! I'm excited that Little Quack's Bedtime is also in Spanish since I try to read at least one Spanish book to O each day. Other books that were packaged with the Cheerios included Olivia and the Missing Toy and The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

Summer Concert

We took O to her 1st concert Friday night, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She LOVED playing in the sand, and she danced a little, too :) There were lots of kids there, and they were all so cute jammin and rolling around in the sand.

O was "swimming" in the sand

Helping Pack

O was ready to pack for our vacation, and since I had lots to do to get ready I let her do her own thing.
She was very busy taking everything out of her drawers. She attempted to fold each item, but quickly moved on to the next thing when she was unsuccessful. She was very proud of attempt at "packing for beach." After she cleaned out her drawer she was insistent that we were packed, and she was ready to go :) I kept sneaking glimpses of her just because she was so funny to watch. She was very focused, and this kept her busy for at least 30 minutes :)

Magazines for Toddlers???

I'd like to get O a subscription to a magazine for her 2nd birthday which is in July. I'm trying to decide between Highlights High 5 and Your Big Backyard. Does anyone out there in blogland have any advice or opinions about these magazines??? I'd appreciate any input/suggestions that you have. Also, if anyone knows of any other good magazines for toddlers, I'd love to know about them. Thanks!

I Have So Many Plans...

I have soooo very many things that I've had planned for O that we have just not gotten to do lately. I've been so busy with getting our house and yard ready for our family reunion (that we held here last Sunday), and then with finishing up my school year at work, that many of our activities have been put on hold. This summer I plan to do LOTS more painting with O. I've been seriously slack about letting her paint, and I feel lots of guilt over this. I'm also working on a fabric matching work for her, and I plan to make the red rods, sandpaper touch boards, and a listening matching work in the near future. There's just so much to do that I can't think clearly enough to decide what to do first!

Sometimes She Just Amazes Me!

O sat next to me on the floor looking at all of her new books, while I was cleaning them. She picked up Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone? by Iza Trapani, opened it, pointed to the 1st illustration and said "teapot." My mom and I looked closely and didn't see a teapot, so we were a little confused. Then I suddenly realized what she meant...Iza Trapani also illustrated one of O's FAVORITE books, I'm a Little Teapot. Somehow she recognized the similarities between the illustrations and associated the 2 books together. Wow!

Today O and my mom read Marcos Counts by Tomie dePaola. When they were reading the book, O pointed to the word mama and said "mama!" Like I said...she amazes me!!!

Yippeeee, Skippy!

Tomorrow is my last day of work for the school year! I only work one day per week (occasionally 2), but I'm still excited about being finished for the school year. O and I will have a whole extra day to have preschool, do arts and crafts, play on the beach, bake, work in the garden, etc. Although I have to admit that I do really like my job, and I'll probably miss it just a little bit :) I do lots of different things as a School Psychologist, but my job consist primarily of evaluating children who are suspected of having learning disablities, observing children who have been referred to the Autism Team for a possible evaluation (this is one of my favorite parts of the job since my interest in autism is what led me into the field of school psychology in the 1st place), and developing behavior plans for children. We'll also miss our weekly visits by Guh-guh, but I'm sure we'll see lots of her this summer!

How Do You Blog?

I try to spend as little time on the computer as possible when O is awake, so when she's asleep I blog as fast as I can. I throw out what I want to say and upload the posts quickly. Sometimes I'll start a few posts and finish them later. I find it to be MUCH easier for me to post lots of short blog posts instead of one long post about several things. It just helps me organize my thoughts to do it this way. I almost never proof read (I really don't like to read what I've written), and I rarely go back and read any of my posts. I've always just assumed that my mom and Elliott would tell me if I make any glaring grammatical or spelling errors. I just mentioned this to my mom, and she informed me that I make errors ALL the TIME and she thought I just didn't mind! Ugggg! So...sorry about my poorly written posts. Hopefully, my mom will let me know if I have any errors from now on because I'm not going to start proof reading :) So...How do you blog???

Are You Planning on Turning Your Blog into a Book?

I am!!! I 1st started blogging when I was pregnant with O, and my other blog is a VERY detailed account of O's daily life. My intention from the very beginning was to somehow turn it into a book. In fact, that was the primary reason that I even started blogging. I love to take pictures and document O's life, and it so much easier to do that on a blog instead of in a traditional scrapbook. I've made several photo books using Snapfish and My Publisher, but both of these methods require lots of time and uploading of photos. Imagine my excitement when a highschool friend started her own company, Scrapbook Blogger, which slurps your blog and makes a book for you! I've already uploaded most of my 1st blog and some of Chasing Cheerios. After trying Blurb (and finding it very complicated and time consuming for this time strapped mama), I was amazed with how simple Scrapbook Blogger is. Its also EXTREMELY affordable. Its much less expensive than traditional scrapbooking, and I believe its cheaper than Snapfish and My Publisher (although I haven't actually calculated it on paper). O LOVES to look at photo albums each night, so I really can't wait until we have books of the blogs to read with her. I'm also excited to have the blogs turned into books because I think it will be a great memento for O when she has children of her own. I hope that she'll see the different activities that I've done with her and try them with her own children. Check out this interview with Ashley, founder of Scrapbook Blogger, at More Than Just a Mom.

In Loving Memory of Sophie Socks

Our cat, Sophie Socks, who adopted us 3 and a half weeks ago died today. She showed up on our doorstep 3 and a half weeks ago, and I expected her to go back home at anytime. She decided that we were her family, and she stayed. She was the sweetest, friendliest cat we have ever met. She loved O, and O loved her (although O often did not know how to handle all of the attention Sophie gave her). On Tuesday night Sophie was her typical friendly and fun self. On Wednesday morning she was lethargic and had labored breathing. I called the vet and made an appointment for Friday, but I was fully expecting her to just get better. We gave her water with a dropper Wednesday night because we were afraid that she hadn't been eating. On Thursday, I had to go to work, and my mom was worried enough about Sophie that she decided to go ahead and take her to the vet. It was our 1st experience with the vet in our town, and my mom was not impressed. We brought Sophie to my mom's house on Friday, so her vet (who comes to her house) could see Sophie. Since he doesn' t have an office and therefore no x-ray machine, he couldn't make a definitive diagnosis, but he did give Soph a vitamin shot. On Saturday Soph seemed to feel better. She still had labored breathing and we had to continue feeding her about every hour and a half with a dropper, but she was walking around and seemed to want to be near us. I really thought she was going to get better. My mom took care of Soph while O, Elliott, and I went on our Mother's Day camping trip. We have an appointment for her at a different vet for tomorrow, but mom felt like she needed to take her today. The vet today told her that Soph was really, very sick and since she's such a small cat that she would probably not survive surgery and it would cause her more suffering. She recommended that we put Sophie to sleep. So Sophie Socks is no longer suffering, and we miss her terribly. We are so thankful to my mom for helping us take care of Sophie Socks and for taking her the vet for us. I am devastated by her loss, and I can't stop crying. We had such plans for this wonderful, sweet cat. O loved playing with her in the yard, and Soph even rode in the pedal boat briefly with us. Elliott and I were looking forward to taking her out in the ski boat in a couple of weeks, so she could be our boat cat. O incorporated her into our family, and whenever she talks about "mama, dada, O, Grace," she always includes "Socks." O even tried to write our names in the sand at the beach this morning. She wrote "mama, dada, O, Grace, Socks." We are so thankful that Sophie Socks came into our lives even though we didn't get to have her long enough. We'll miss her for a while and remember her forever.

Entertaining Herself

I don't usually get on the computer while O is awake, but I decided to give O a chance to have some independent play while I blog. I thought she would fuss and want my attention, but that was not the case at all. She's been reading books and playing with her bear puzzle. I think she really likes having this time to herself. Looks like mommy might get a little more time for blogging :)