I Love Mod Podge!

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I found these unfinished wooden animals at Michael's months ago and thought they'd make great baby gifts. Since then I've been trying to decide how to paint them. I finally decided to decopage them using scrapbook paper, and I'm so happy with how they turned out :) These 2 cuties will be headed to 2 sweet California girls soon!

Again...I am very frustrated by the off center picture. If you'd like to see the whole picture just click on it. Sorry!

Freezer Paper Stenciled Onesies

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I've been wanting to try freezer paper stenciling for months, but it was nearly impossible to find freezer paper! I finally found it (after about 2 months of looking), and I was pleased with how easy this project was. I stenciled these onesies for one of my best friends who is having her 1st baby girl in a couple of months. For a great tutorial on freezer paper stenciling go to My Montessori Journey.

These off center pictures are driving me crazy! I've tried resizing my pictures, but it doesn't help, so I apologize for the pictures :(

Learning to Sew

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My mom stayed with us for a few days last week, and we were able to get some sewing and crafting done on Friday and Saturday. O was very excited when she saw Guh-guh set up the sewing machine, and she was eager to help. She also ran to get her sewing block so that she could sew along with us.

Comparing and Contrasting her Duckies

A couple of times a week, O takes a shower with me. I shower while she sits on the floor of the tub and plays with her toys. Then I wash her. Quick and easy. A couple of nights ago, she was talking nonstop while she was playing, and I wasn't really listening. Suddenly, I started to listen and was amazed by what she was saying... She was holding two duckies, and this is what she was saying:
"This ducky have tail. This ducky have a tail."
"This ducky have on a hat. This ducky have on a hat. Both have hat. This ducky hat backerds (backwards). This ducky hat NOT backerds."
"This ducky have sunglasses. This ducky have sunglasses. This ducky sunglasses boo (blue)..."
My 1st thought was "where did she learn this?" Then I realized that she was comparing and contrasting her duckies in the exact same way that we compare and contrast the pictures on the same/different pages in her Highlights High 5 magazine. I thought that this concept was above her level of comprehension because she always says "mama do it" and won't say a word while I talk about the pictures. Evidently, she really WAS listening!
I'm so thankful for my blogs so that I have a place to record moments like this :) I've really got to start working on turning my blogs into books!!!

You May Have Noticed...

that things on this blog have slowed down a bit lately. However, I do have a really good reason, I promise! O is going to be a big sister!!! She is SUPER excited, and she has already decided that I am having 2 babies, and their names are Mimi and Buddy. She is planning on nursing the babies (although I REALLY think it's just 1!). She loves to hug, kiss, and pat my belly. She has a great stethoscope, and she loves to listen to my tummy. She tells me that she hears the baby laughing and crying, and she says that HER belly says "All aboard the choo-choo train." Silly girl :) I've been extremely exhausted for about the past 5 weeks and very sick for the past 3. Hence, the slow down! O has done a great job taking care of me. She loves to do little things to "make mama feel bettah."

Helping Daddy

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O had the greatest time helping her daddy put together a fishing rod stand yesterday. She insisted on only using the "niney" screwdriver :)

Sorting Toothpicks

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The idea for this activity has been on my mind for a while, so I was glad to finally pull it together this weekend. To complete the activity, O turns the dial on the side of the toothpick dispenser. Either a red or blue toothpick comes out, and she puts it in the appropriate toothpick holder. She LOVED this activity, and she did it at least 3 times in a row. I planned on also having yellow toothpicks, but I used tempera paint to paint the top of the yellow toothpick holder, and it immediately peeled right off. Another annoying thing is that the toothpicks are not uniform in size. Some go in easily, you have to put forth a little effort to get some of them in the holes, and others won't fit at all. I guess I should have tried each toothpick before introducing the work to O :( This will replace the plastic ice cube color sorting work on O's Montessori shelf. That work was too easy for her, and she was totally uninterested in it.

"School" with her Grandmama aka Duh-guh

My mom keeps O on Thursdays while I work, and they had their 1st school session together this past week. At first, I didn't plan on having my mom do "school" with O, but then I realized that my mom REALLY wanted to do it (she's a teacher who has had some Montessori training), and I was curious to see how O would do with her. I was happy, but not surprised, to hear that O did a fantastic job! She worked for about an hour, and her behavior was perfect. My mom was very impressed by how carefully O carried her work to her rug, and then cleaned it up when she was done and returned it to the shelf. O chose several activities that she's never chosen with me, which I thought was interesting. She chose: phonics pouches, water transfer with a sponge, shape sorter, animal/picture match, nesting dolls, jars and lids, and the mystery bag. After school they made homemade whole wheat chocolate chip cookies. Yummy!

Thrifty Thursday

I haven't done a thrifty Thursday post in a while, so I thought today would be a good day to start back. Last week I was too sick to stop at the thrift store after work (and you know I must have felt bad to not stop by at least for a minute!), and the week before that I took a trunkload full of donations and did not buy a thing! That felt good! Today I bought 4 children's books. At least one will definitely be for cutting up and using in projects, and I know that won't be a problem for me (I HATE to cut books) since it is scribbled in and a few pages are torn. I made sure it was in bad enough shape that I wouldn't mind cutting it up :) I also bought a baby doll car seat for O. She's REALLY into baby doll care lately, and she's going to love it. I can't decide if I should go ahead and give it to her or wait for Christmas. My last purchase was a potty seat with steps, so she can get up on the potty independently. I think she's going to love this, too!

Transferring Water with a Sponge

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O has really enjoyed transferring water with a sponge. This is an activity that we've done in the past, but we haven't done it in a while. After seeing Laura on My Montessori Journey's post about a similar activity, I realized that this would be a great work to put on our Montessori shelf. It was immediately a hit!

Making Music

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O had a great time making music on her banging wall this morning. We've had a beautiful week, and we've been spending about an hour or 2 outside each morning after "school." I LOVE fall!

Melissa and Doug Latches Board

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O LOVES her Melissa and Doug latches board! I've wanted to buy it for a long time, and I finally bought since I had an Amazon gift certificate. I'm glad that I went ahead and got it for her because after only having it one day, she's already pretty good at unlocking all of the doors (except the 2nd one which requires more strength than her little fingers have :) I introduced the board to her yesterday and put it on her school shelf this morning. It was the 1st work that she chose during "school." O asked if she could "play school" this afternoon (and of course I let her), and the only thing she was interested in was this board :)

Unschooling Fun

Now that O is talking nonstop and asking lots of questions, we're having a lot more opportunities to "unschool." Before she was talking, we told her about everything around us, etc. but now we really know what she is interested in, and that is so much fun. Her two favorite questions to ask are "What is it? or What's that is it?" and "What does that mean?" She is NOT satisfied with a simple answer. The girl wants DETAILS! Here are a couple of examples that I'd like to document just so I can remember to tell O about them one day :)
She asked Elliott what a light switch was. She wasn't satisfied that it was just a light switch, so he went into great detail telling her all about electricity. He took her outside and showed her the power lines and told her all about voltage and where the electricity comes from (he works for an electric company, so he was thrilled with her interest in this subject). I'm sure most of this was way over her head since she's just 26 months old, but she was really listening and paying attention to him. Since then she's talked about electricity quite a bit. This morning she told me about daddy showing her the power lines, and she said "daddy buys electricity at his office." She definitely has an understanding of not wasting electricity, which is something that she hears often when we make sure all of the lights are off when we aren't using them. When we were at her grandparents house this past weekend, she worriedly told me that they'd left a light on upstairs :)
O has also been interested in her veins in her wrists lately. Elliott also went into great detail explaining what her veins are and what they are used for. He must have also told her about bones, because she's been talking about her bones, too. This new questioning stage of her language development is SO much fun!
Oh, one more unschooling story...O LOVES for us to tell her her birth story, and we probably tell it at least 4 times a day. I realized last week that although O knows that she was born at X:08 pm (although she usually just says Xpm when asked) on a Sunday, she did not know her actual birthday. Oops! I told her that her birthday is July XX, and she has proudly been sharing that information with everyone she sees ever since then. She also adds in that July XX is her Guh-guh and her cousin, Emily's, birthday, too. Although she's a little confused about her cousin Emily, since she has two Auntie Emily's :) I've also told her that she was born in 20XX (I made sure to tell her this since I am always amazed by how many children in elementary and even middle school who don't know the year in which they were born!) O won't say 20XX, but she will fill in the X if I say 2000... She loves it when I ask her questions like this (She gets a sweet little proud grin on her face), so I'm trying to think of more. Let me know if you have any ideas :) Thanks!

edited to delete personal info at Elliott's request :)

A Crayon and Silicone Ice Tray Puzzle :)

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O has a great time putting the number crayons BACK into the silicone number ice tray. I would never have thought to use the tray as a puzzle, but she did and she loves it!

Montessori Homeschool- Day 5

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Today was day 5, and O did great! She was excited to have her daddy here for the 1st part of school, and he joined in when we did the mystery bag. We worked for about 45 minutes, and she chose: Mystery Bag, transferring water with a dropper, shape sorter, sound cylinders, and sewing block. She only stayed with the sewing block for a few seconds. I think I'm going to move it off the shelf and bring it out when I am sewing so we can sew together, and I'll replace it with a bead stringing activity which she loves. O did a FANTASTIC job with the sound cylinders, which surprised me since she didn't really seem to "get it" last time. The only negative behavior occured when O accidentally knocked over the glass of water when transferring water. She'd taken the top off the dropper and was trying to put it back when she knocked over the water, and she became frustrated and threw the dropper. She immediately picked it up and cleaned up the work. (Thanks, Christina, for the advice to not end school at this time. You made a great point!) We're working on her expressing her frustration with words, and she's definitely getting better, but she forgot today :) We finished on a positive note, and we're looking forward to tomorrow :)