Making Finger Paint

I've been planning on making finger paint with O for weeks, and we finally did it today. O really enjoyed it, and she learned about colors and mixing colors. She loved to squeeze the food coloring into the mixture, but the most fun was stirring the paint. We used the easiest recipe I could find - 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of cold water and food coloring. It was a little thicker thank I would have liked, and it didn't spread very well. We put O in the bathtub with paper taped to the walls for her to paint on. She wasn't too impressed. She had more fun putting the lids on and off the containers than she did painting. She was a little distressed when she accidentally got a handful of paint, but she enjoyed painting her tummy after we talked her into it. I think we'll try watercolor paint tomorrow.

Phonics Bags

These phonics bags have been in the works for a while now. I bought the bags from Michael's a few months ago, but I was in no hurry to make them since O is still so young. Since she's showing an interest in learning letters and enjoys reading to herself (scanning a book while saying "ra, ruh, ra, ra, ra, etc." --VERY cute!), I thought it would be a good time to make them an introduce them to her. I printed the letters onto iron-on transfer paper, and my mom cut them out while I put O down for a nap (thanks, mom!). Then I started ironing. It took a while, and I didn't have the directions, so the 1st 10 bags don't look so good, but I eventually got the hang of it. I'm somewhat pleased with the result. Now I just have to fill the bags! I have a mini book with pictures of things with that particular letter in each bag (a few books have more than one letter, so each bag does not have a book) that came from a set of books that my mom gave O. Other things included in the bags are small plastic animals - dog, penguin, seal, turtle, frog, dinosaur, etc; finger puppets- giraffe, pig, etc; pink pipe cleaner, wooden acorn, and blocks. I have lots of bags to fill, so if anyone has any great ideas of things to put in the bags, let me know!

Activity Kit

I started getting Activities Kits from the library again this week. Here is a picture of O doing one of the activities from the kit.

Playsilks

My mom and I finally gave O the playsilks we dyed for her. The original plan was to give them to her for Christmas, but she already had so much that we decided to wait. We are going to have lots of fun with these!

Cooking Supper

O and my mom cooked supper tonight. They made cheese tortellini with tomato sauce and spinach. Yum!

112 Books!!!

My mom and O read 112 books today!!! I was surprised when I called to check on them and my mom said that the only thing O wanted to do was read books (she's still recovering from an illness and the long day of traveling home from our recent trip), and they had read 54 books. By the time we got home, the number had more than doubled. Wow! O loves to read, but I didn't know she loved to read that much. My mom has lots of patience, but her throat is a little sore now. O and I usually read 20 to 25 books a day, and I thought that was a lot, but I guess I was wrong! Thanks, Mom for reading endlessly to my baby today!

Painting with Water

I've been feeling guilty lately that O is 18 months old and has never painted. I know painting with water isn't really painting but I thought it was better than nothing. It was also an easy activity to take with us on our snow skiing vacation. I forgot to take paintbrushes, but luckily O's grandmother had a couple of make-up brushes that she let us use. O had lots of fun, but she was concerned later when she saw blue and green paint stains on her hands.

O Loves Snow!

We just returned from a snow skiing trip. O was too little to ski, but she had a great time sledding! It was the first time she ever saw snow, and she was a little unsure at 1st, but she had a great time once she got used to all of the extra clothes!

Clothes Pin Activity

Today O learned to put clothes pins on the side of a a tin can. She liked this activity, but it wasn't easy. She had to really concentrate to get the clothes pin lined up and on the can. Her favorite part of the activity was running back to me and looking at her picture and saying "dada" because she likes to show the pictures of her activities to her daddy each day.

Thursday's Activity

This is the activity I'm leaving out for O to do in the morning. I'm working tomorrow (I work one day per week as a School Psychologist) and my mom will be keeping O. This activity is from a Melissa & Doug shape puzzle set that we gave O for Christmas. She liked it a lot, and its been at my mom's house since Christmas, so I think she's going to be excited to see it in the morning.

She Loves Shells!

O's grandparents brought her some shells from their recent trip to the Bahamas. She has had a great time exploring their shapes and textures and sorting them into this egg carton (a muffin tin would have worked better). She also had lots of fun bringing the shells into the kitchen and putting them into a water pitcher and then taking them out and putting them back in the basket. This went on for a while!

18 Months Old!

O is 18 months old! She has really grown and changed so much in just the last few weeks. She is repeating so much of what we say now, we really have to watch what we say:). Her absolute favorite activity is reading! We read at least 20 books per day, and I think she would do nothing but read all day if we let her (she's a lot like her mommy). She loves to go for walks and play outside on her slide. She loves to play with playdoh, and she gets so excited when she sees the playdoh container. She's gotten really good about telling us when she has to go to the potty, and she is wearing "panties like Marg" all day except when she is sleeping or when we go out and about. She gets to choose whether she wears panties or diapers, and she chooses panties 99% of the time (she smiles like it is so funny when she is given the choice of what to wear). When she tells me that she has to potty, I sometimes tell her to "try to hold it until we get to the potty." She crosses her arms over her tummy quickly. I guess she is trying to "hold it," and I bet she is wondering what in the world she is supposed to be holding!
On Saturday I burnt my arm when I lifted the lid of a pot of soup on the stove. O and Ell were in the kitchen, too, and I guess Ell said something about how I should have been wearing an oven mitt. Ever since then O has been bringing me the oven mitt whenever I go near the oven or stove. She says "hot, hot" as she brings it to me, and she backs way up whenever I open the stove (sometimes all the way across the room). Every time she looks at my burn she makes a little crying sound (I didn't cry btw, but Guh-guh taught her to make a crying sound over hurts), and I tell her that its a burn and mommy is ok. Whenever O sees a mark on her leg from the elastic from her socks or panties, she thinks its a hurt and makes the same crying sound. I think we've finally convinced her that it doesn't hurt that its just a mark. Its pretty funny.
O calls all letters O, all numbers 2 (do), and all colors blue (boo). When you ask her how old she is she holds up both of her pointer fingers and says "do." I say "Slow down, girl. You are 1!" When you ask her her name she says "O." She also says "Ohhhhh" often when you tell her something that she didn't know. She picked this up on Christmas Eve when Elliott said "ohh" to something and she's been saying it ever since.
O still loves her milkies, and last night she tandem nursed her baby doll and monkey. It was very sweet. She no longer gets milkies during the night, which is very upsetting to her. We put a timer on her lamp, and we tell her that she can have milkies when the lamp comes on. When the lamp comes on she sits straight up in bed, claps, grins, and signs and says "milk, milk." O thoroughly enjoys helping out in the kitchen while in her Kitchen Helper. It is great because she can stand in it and see everything that I am doing even when it is something that she can't participate in (such as chopping carrots).

I Just Can't Believe It...

The UPS man just dropped off ANOTHER Kitchen Helper!!! I called last week to let Guidecraft know that a piece was missing off the 2nd KH that they sent, and they sent another KH. All I needed was a small metal piece, and they sent the whole thing. That company really cares about customer satisfaction. I will definitely buy Guidecraft products in the future!

Washing Windows

O loves to wash the windows with the window washing set that her Grandmother gave her for Christmas. Her technique isn't perfect, and she need assistance with the spray bottle, but she sure does have a lot of fun!!!

Shape Puzzle

O enjoyed her shape puzzle on Monday. She can put the circles in quickly and easily, but the other shapes take a little more concentration and effort. We had a very busy Monday. We took a brief walk (it was cold and windy, so we came home quickly), played outside on O's slide, collected acorns, rocks, and twigs for the "I Spy" bottle I'm making, played with playdoh, colored, walked the line (well... I walked the line and O just kept falling in the wa-wa! She clearly doesn't get that the purpose is to NOT fall in the water! What a silly monkey.), transferred water with the sponge, did the straw activity, O helped wash dishes and cook breakfast and supper while in the Kitchen Helper, and we read at least 30 books. Phew!!! I was tired by the time dh got home!