Jan Brett Matching Cards

Thanks to Mom over at What Do We Do All Day? for this idea! I printed these animal matching cards from Jan Brett's website last night and laminated them this morning for O. She was feeling a little fussy and overtired when I first showed them to her, but she cheered up when she saw the picture of the "orse." She rode a horse at an Easter party last Saturday, so she's into horses these days. We had fun matching the cards, and we are looking forward to matching them again soon. I think O will also like matching 3d animals to the cards. Since she enjoys matching so much I have plans for a few more homemade matching games- mommy/baby matching using pictures of animals and mommies and babies that we know and a family and friends matching game (thanks for the idea Auntie EB). The family and friends matching game will be great because it will help O remember family and friends that we don't see very often. I think that I'll use 2 different pictures of each person instead of an exact match to make it more challenging and fun for her.

Felt Cookies

Since O will be getting a kitchen set for her 2nd birthday in July, I decided to go ahead and start making felt food for her. I had a great time making these cookies (with my mom's help because I CANNOT do a decent blind stitch!), and they were super easy to make (except for the blind stitch). O doesn't get to eat cookies very often. In fact, I think she's only had one chocolate cookie in her life, but I know she'll love pretending to eat them. Next on my list to make are fried eggs, pancakes, bow tie pasta, ravioli, linguine, cheese quesadilla, cupcakes, carrots, carrot slices, banana slices, bread, tomato slices, lettuce, cheese, etc. I think all of those foods will be fairly easy to make and then maybe I'll branch out to the more difficult items. If anyone has any experience making felt food, I need all the suggestions and advice I can get. I found a few pictures and patterns on Crafster that I'll use as inspiration, and I'll also look at pictures of felt food at Etsy for ideas.

We're Home!

O and I are finally home after more than a week away. We had a GREAT time at her Grandmama and Grandpa's house, but we are glad to be back. O was super excited to see her daddy, our cat, and her toys and books. I'm ready to get back into our routine!

Color Matching

My mom has a fun game where you match different colored bears to dots on a card. I thought O would love it since she loves to match, and she loves dots. She matched one or two bears before getting bored and moving onto the next thing. We'll try again tomorrow to see if she is more interested in the task.

Our Doll Family

Here they are! Dada, O, and Mama. O has had lots of fun playing with them. She wore Mama and O in her back in the sling, and she had O get her milkies from Mama. Very cute!

No Spill Bubbles

I gave O some no spill bubbles for a late Easter present. She's had fun being able to be more independent with blowing bubbles. (I usually don't let her hold the bottle because I don't want her to spill it and waste it). Now she can carry the bottle around and blow bubbles independently, and she's practicing her fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination while she has fun!

Sewing Dolls

I was inspired by the beautiful dolls made by JojoEbi and decided that dolls would be a great Spring Break project. After I made the first doll (with my mom's help, since I am a novice), I decided that O would LOVE to have a family of dolls. Today we worked on the Dada and O dolls and finished the Mama doll. My sister was excited about the dolls, and she quickly made one for her daughter. Hopefully, I'll have a pic tomorrow. We've had a great time making them and working together. My mom, sister, and I all have different things that we like about sewing, so its good that we can work as a team. We are going to try to have monthly sewing/craft days.

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 :(