Spontaneous Matching

O has really been matching everything lately. She had a monkey book and a small plastic chimpanzee in her Easter basket, and when she took the chimpanzee out of the egg she put it up to the book and said "match." Last night when we were reading a book, O noticed that the baby bear in the book had a cup. O was also holding her cup, so she put her cup against the picture of the cup and said "match." Today while I was sewing with my mom, O got out her playdoh and picked up a playdoh container with an orange lid. She said "orange, match," and she ran to match it to an orange key on her little piano. At my sister's house, she matched felt to thread. I LOVE this! Its so cute, and I don't want to forget any of it. I'm so glad that I have this blog to keep track of things.

Slicing Eggs

O was so excited to slice a boiled egg for her breakfast this morning using her Grandma's egg slicer. The whole time I was peeling and rinsing her egg, she kept saying "egg, egg, egg..." She loved being independent and cutting it "all by herself." I hope we can find our egg slicer when we get home!

Spring Break

Regular readers may have noticed that things are a little slow on Chasing Cheerios this week. O and I are on Spring Break, and we are at her grandparents house for the week. We had a wonderful Easter (its my favorite holiday). She's been having a great time playing with her cousin, and I have a few activities planned (I'm just not sure if we'll get to them). Hopefully, I'll get to update the blog at least a few times this week :)

Mama's Milk

Sorry for another book review, but I wanted to share this beautiful book, too. Mama's Milk shows beautiful pictures of mamas (animals and human) nursing their babies accompanied by rhyming text. O loves to see the pictures and says "mulk" lovingly as we read. She especially likes the picture of the mama nursing the baby in bed while the daddy sleeps. Its a great book, especially for nursing mamas to read to their little nurslings :)

Vincent's Colors

O's grandmother recently gave her several books, and this is one of our favorites. The text is from Vincent van Gogh's letters to his brother about his paintings. I love that O is being exposed to "real" art. She loves to label all of the people in the paintings as either "mama" or "dada." We enjoy talking about the different colors and objects in the paintings. She likes the paintings of flowers, and she likes to sniff them. Its a great book that we just wanted to share!

O's Easel

O's grandmother recently gave her an easel that belonged to O's Uncle William when he was a little boy. We put it in her porch playroom today, and she enjoyed painting on it with water. She's still a little short for it, but she seemed to really enjoy herself (and after yesterday we are keeping all water play outside for a while). I was glad to see that it has a chalkboard side (although I'm not especially fond of chalk), so that she can paint with water on it. For a great post on easels look here. The comments were especially interesting. Thanks, Grandmother, for sharing William's easel with us!

Painting with Gumballs

I've been wanting to paint with gumballs ever since we painted with marbles and today seemed like a good day to give it a try. I poured the paint into 2 bowls, and O dropped a gumball into each bowl. We shook the bowl around to coat the gumball with paint, and then O poured the gumball into the box.

Then we shook the box around (our piece of paper was in the bottom) to move the gumball around.

Here is the finished product. Its not nearly as nice as the marble painting, but it was fun!

After we finished the first painting, O enjoyed dipping the gumball into the paint and dotting the paper with it. She also painted with a stick for a while. It was great to paint outside!

20 Months old!

My O baby is 20 months old! It seems like every month goes by faster than the last. She'll be 2 before I know it :(

Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

We have really enjoyed reading Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom this week. Its such a fun book to read. O loves to look at all of the letters on the pages before the story begins. The first time we looked at the letters, she quickly pointed to the Os and said "O." Then she pointed to the lowercase o and said "baby." She then pointed to the capital O and said "mama." The most surprising thing was when she pointed to the D and said "dada." I thought it was just a coincidence, but she points to the D every time we read the book and says "dada."

Dyeing Easter Eggs

We had lots of fun dyeing Easter eggs after supper tonight. O was fascinated, and we made quite a mess. She especially loved stirring up the dye and lifting the eggs out of the mugs.

After we finished dyeing the eggs, we did some fingertip painting with the leftover dye. O dipped her fingers (well, her whole hands really) in the mugs and them made dots on a paper towel and baby wipe. She said "dot, dot, dot" as she made dots (the girl loves dots).

Too Much Water

O had a great time playing with water today. She soaked it up with a sponge and then squeezed it out, and she drank the water from the measuring cup.

Then she decided it would be a good idea to pour the ENTIRE container of water over her head and all over everything. There were about 2 gallons of water in the container and all of it headed towards the lowest part of the room which is behind the refrigerator. I just found out that it even leaked through the ceiling downstairs. Hmmm. Maybe we'll play with water on the deck from now on.

Bowling Fun

I've had the containers for a while intending to use them as terrariums. As you can see that hasn't happened yet, so I thought they'd make for a fun bowling game. O and I are not so good at bowling. We threw beanbags at the bottles and rolled a ball at them. As you can see from the pictures, O's aim is way off when she threw the beanbags. Unfortunately, my aim was not much better when I rolled the ball at the bottles (or maybe I'll blame it on our uneven floor!).

Everything has its Place...

And if its in the wrong place, O will tell you about it. In this picture she is pointing at a chair that had fallen over and was in the wrong place. She's saying "uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh," which she continued to say until I stood the chair upright and put it back where it belonged. What a funny girl!

Easter Egg Hunt

O and I had an Easter Egg Hunt this morning since it is such a beautiful day. She didn't understand why I was spreading her eggs all around the yard, and she was a little upset about it. Once we started looking for them and putting them in her basket, she really enjoyed herself.

Open Book

I've been tagged by my blogging Mama friend at Montessori Mama to blog on an "Open Book Meme."
These are the instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it at page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence/ phrase.
4. Blog the next four sentences/ phrases together with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.
6. Pass it forward to six friends

Here it is:

Sing to the tune of This Old Man as you sprinkle:
Sprinkle time, sprinkle time,
Now its time for sprinkle time.
With a shake, shake, shakey shake...

Can you tell I had a book filled with toddler activities right next to me when I did this? How predictable... I tag:

Shannon's Sharings
Walk Beside Me
Megret
A Gypsy Caravan
Raising Maisy
Let's Explore