My Birthday Weekend

My parents came from Indiana this weekend to celebrate my 28th birthday! It was great having them here. Maddie loved playing with her grandma and grandpa and it was also the first time my dad got to meet baby Michael. We ate out, hung out at the house, did some shopping, went to the park, played in the pool in the backyard, killed a snake (well my dad and Matt did), played games and just had a great time together! Here are some pics. to highlight their visit!



Mom had a lot of fun playing with Maddie!

Maddie and grandpa on the monkey bars!

We call our sweet boy Little Buddy. When i found these socks I just *had* to buy them!

Me and my sweet Moo-Bear!

Watching a ladybug crawl on her arm.

Grandma and her sweet grand babies!

Grandpa and his grand babies.

Grandpa bought her these sunglasses and she loved them. She wore them all weekend!

Don't you love her outfit? Swimsuit, tutu and heels. What more do you need?

Trying to get a good picture, but Moo-Bear was being goofy.

This is only the 2nd family picture we have taken since little buddy was born!

Tot School

Moo-Bear is 25 months

This was a very busy week at our house. On Monday we went to the zoo with our MOPS group. It didn't go so well. I think Moo-Bear was still tired from our quick trip to LR so she was very whiny, etc. So, we didn't end up staying very long. Her favorite part was feeding the giraffes. Unfortunately, we did that first and then she thought we got to feed all the animals. Of course, that brought many tears when I had to repeatedly tell her we didn't get to feed any more animals. Anyway, my parents came on Thursday and are leaving tomorrow. With all that we only got 2 days of Tot School in and even on those days we didn't do much! But, it was a wonderful week anyway!

The big bear at the zoo. He just paced back and forth. poor thing was so sweaty :(

Moo-Bear and her good friend watching the animals!

My Little Buddy. He was such a good boy at the zoo. Hardly fussed at all :)

She also loved watching the elephant do tricks. It hopped on 3 feet, turned in circles, and waved bye-bye with his trunk!

Me and my sweet girl enjoying the zoo!

She thought it was so cool to feed the giraffes :)

I love how you can see the goldfish in her mouth.

Since we went to the zoo on Monday I decided to find some zoo things for her to do. I had these foam zoo stickers from Hobby Lobby and I put one on a file folder and she matched the other one.

I got these animal print craft sticks (I think Hobby Lobby) and then used old yogurt containers. She had to sort them by pattern. She did pretty well with this, but I think I gave her too many sticks b/c after about 20 she just wanted to fling them around the room!

A close-up of the activity!

We pulled out the golf tee, again. I tried to get her to put blue on one pegboard and red on the other, but she didn't want to do that. Someday (when I have time) I am going to make this golf tee activity from Fun Frugal Mommy for her to do.

finally, we got out the Noah's Ark Little People to play with in the rice. I figured these were animals we saw at the zoo and something fun for her to do!

She kept eating the uncooked rice ;)

Playing with the Little People.

I had to include a picture of my little man. He doesn't do Tot School yet, but this was his first time in the jumperoo. He likes it as long as big sister doesn't bounce it for him :)

Hope everyone had a great week with your tots! For more great ideas check out 1+1+1=1.

Wordless Wednesday

Tot School

25 months

I feel like I say this every week, but we really didn't do a lot this week. I am teaching VBS at church so I had to work on getting things ready for that. Also, Thursday the 3 of us had to go to the dentist, which was 45 min away so we didn't get anything done that day. Finally, on Friday we made a super quick trip to Little Rock, AR (about 6-7hr drive) to pick up a truck my hubby bought off E-bay. We have come good friends that live there so they went and looked at the truck, drove it around, and took it to their mechanic. So, we knew we were getting a good vehicle. We stayed with our friends Friday night and spent the day with them Sat. We were going to come home Sunday morning, but they had plans Sat. night so we decided to just drive home. We got in about midnight and boy were we tired. The kiddos did pretty well. There was a little crying from my little man, but not bad at all. Today, I let Matt sleep in and then he let me get a 2.5hr nap this afternoon. I still think I may go to bed early tonight. Anyway, on to the few things we were able to do this week!

This is just a picture of how I set up my "tot trays". I really didn't want to buy trays when I had something that I could adapt and make work so we went with this toy organizer. It gives me 12 activities I can put out for Moo-Bear and we are really working on putting one away before we get another one. Sometimes she gets int o the "school room" when I am not looking and gets a few out, but I try to only let her do this when I am with her. Anyway, it is working for us right now :)

We ended up doing the letter B again since I didn't have much time to pull anything together. I had a tub full of buttons so I pulled some out and had Moo-Bear sort big and small. She did great!

I got this idea from The Belly of the Whale. I just cut a slit in an old coffee container and had her put buttons in it, like a piggy bank. We tried counting as she put them in, but she didn't like it too much.

And more buttons.

Apparently she really liked this one because she kept getting it off the shelf :)

We worked on a number puzzle I got from a friend: Free!!!

We played with some spring stickers!

And finally we glued buttons onto a butterfly.

This next week we won't be doing much either because we have a lot going on. We are going to the zoo tomorrow, I need to do more VBS stuff, and my parents are coming for a few days to celebrate my birthday, which is Wednesday. But, we will sneak some things in here and there when we have time! Check out 1+1+1=1 for some more great ideas on activities to do with your tot!

Wordless Wednesday

Giveaway!

A Mommy Talks is hosting a giveaway for $50 to CSN stores. There are so many neat things you could purchase from these stores so go to her blog and check it out!

Tot School

24 months

We didn't get quite as much done as I had planned this week, but that was ok because Moo-bear was really into reading books so we did A LOT of that (no pictures since she was on my lap while we were reading).

Here she is sorting large, medium and small butterflies. I got this activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She liked it ok and did well with it, but she would only do it one time and then she wanted nothing to do with it!


We also did the do-a dot sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She really likes to use her bingo markers. She doesn't get that she is supposed to put the dots on the circles, but that's ok for now :)

I have seen this idea in many places and it looked easy and fun. She colored a coffee filter and then we sprayed it with water. This made the colors bleed and it looks really neat. When it dried we scrunched it up in the middle and tied a pipe cleaner around it. I don't have a picture of the final product.

This butterfly magnet sheet also came from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She loves to play with pom-poms, but this activity didn't keep her interest for very long (there really aren't many activities that do).

I bought these butterfly sequins and we just played with them. She loved it. I think I got them from Wal-mart.

She loves playing with these little chicks. I got them from Oriental Trading Company. She is supposed to use the tongs to transfer them from the bucket to the paint tray,m but she usually ends up using her fingers.

I made this game for her because we are really working on colors. I just covered some boxes (mac and cheese, baggies, etc) with construction paper and cut a slit in the top. Then I cut some rectangles from construction paper and laminated them. She just puts the colored rectangle in the corresponding box. She liked it pretty well!

She loves looking at pictures so I printed some off of our family and laminated them. I had her matching them. It was pretty difficult when they were just all on the table so I think i will make a file folder game out of it. That way one set will be stationary and she can just place the match on top.

My girl loves pom-poms. I put one of each color in each muffin cup and gave her a handful to sort. She did this much all by herself. One time she took the whole baggie and sorted them all correctly!

I just put some magnetic letters on a cookie tray and we talked about them and moved them around. It must be hard work (we like to go to Sonic happy hour!).

I had this bucket with some wooden shapes in it so I cut holes in the top for each shape and made our own shape sorter. It was lots of fun!

We pulled out the playdough and our spring themes cookie cutters and made some shapes.

Finally, I hid butterflies in a bowl of uncooked pasta. She had more fun eating the pasta, but that's ok :)

Check out 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas!!