Blog redesign

I've had a lot of fun "decorating" my blog. I went through a lot of sites that offer free templates/backgrounds and found one I really like on The Cutest Blog on the Block. I had also seen all of those 3 column blogs out there and thought that would be great for organizing all of the things that I wanted to put on the sidebars without having one big long strip on just one side. I had gone through thinking about having someone I know do a custom site for me, but I knew that if I looked hard enough I could find a way to do it by myself. I found a great tutorial on how to do it on a certain website, but I can't find it now. I feel really bad because I can't give credit where credit is due. I did find the exact same instructions on The Cutest Blog on the Block though for those that are interested. It's really pretty simple. If I can do it, then anybody can do it. I'm going to look into how to change fonts as well.

I got my "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me" and "I belong" buttons from One Cute Blog and "My Families are Forever" blinkie from The Cutest Blog on the Block as well. I didn't use anything from Simply Fabulous Blogger, but it has some really cute backgrounds as well. If you are looking for a change or want to upgrade your blog check these sites out.

I feel empowered that I can do some of this stuff on the computer and find that it is very fun and rewarding. I think that if I could do school over again I would have enjoyed taking some classes on graphic design. Even though I am done with school I can still continue my education through the internet, books, community classes, etc. I am grateful for all of those out there that are willing to share what they know.

Tot School

M&M is currently 35 months old

Tot School was pretty non-existent this week, but we did do a few things. With a sick little girl, we really didn't feel up to doing much. I'm still trying to figure out how to best make this work for us as well.

I made an I Spy Bottle this week. I've seen these are several blogs and thought that it would be something I could handle making. A few weeks back we made colored rice. I don't have any pictures of that, but here are some pictures of what I did to make the I Spy Bottle. I pulled this out for M&M, but it didn't work out. She wanted to open it up and take everything out. I hadn't glued on the top yet so I'll bring it out again next week and see what happens after I glue the top on. To find out better directions on how to make this click on the links.
Since that didn't work I had a few more activities up my sleeve such as tracing M&M's body outline onto poster board. I found this idea here. She really liked this a lot and I knew she would because she asks me to trace her feet and hands all of the time.
We had just painted her toe nails so she had to add in the purple on her toes.

She added the details and I was so impressed to see that her drawings actual resembled body parts. She told me the oval below the head is her "tummy and there's another scribble that is her heart. I love the hair that she drew.

She wanted to draw a doctor. I guess since we were doing stuff about the body she thought we needed a doctor around. I was so impressed with her picture! This is the first time that I could actually see a person in her drawing.
M&M L.O.V.E.D. this next activity. We played hide and seek with letters. (Scroll down after clicking on the link to find the actual activity) Sometimes with things I have a hard time getting her to finish it, but with this we played it twice. To play I put cards with letters in a paper bag. She would pull one out and then go find it. You can make this yourself or print them off from the link above. I didn't really hide the letters I just put them around the room and she would have to go find the right letter. While she waited for me to hide the big letters she lined up the cards in her playroom. After she found them all she wanted to hide them so that I could find them. She kept saying that this was her "letter factory." Compliments of the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD she is beginning to understand the sound that each letter makes.
Then we made a contact paper collage. I taped contact paper up on our window and then I gathered up some crafty items such as: feathers, beads, pom pom, confetti, gemstones, and foam shapes and put them on a plate. She loved doing this and got everything put on with a little help from mommy. It looks green because of the grass in our backyard.

We had some good ol' playdough fun as well. I brought out some laminated letters but she only did two of them, which is fine.
Lastly she wanted to use the "counting thing" as she calls it which is my ice cube tray. She wanted to count balloons this time. That led to sorting them by color and then we did the same thing with pompoms.

So after doing this post I realized we did do a lot this week, but I guess it was just pretty sporadic.

Need ideas

M&M's birthday is next month and in the past I've just gotten her regular toys, but this year I want to get her something educational and to use as a tool for Tot School. I want to know what some of your children's favorite toys are that they play with a lot and keeps them busy. I'm thinking about Melissa and Doug things, but there are so many to choose from.

Thank you!

Chicken Mozarella

My husband is so excited that I tried out a new recipe this week. I found it here and chose it because it looked really easy, but good.

Chicken Mozarella

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts halves (about 1 pound)
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Healthy Request® Condensed
Tomato Soup
1/2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning OR dried oregano leaves, crushed
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese


Place the chicken in an 11 x 8-inch (2-quart) shallow baking dish. Stir the soup, Italian seasoning and garlic powder in a small bowl. Spoon the soup mixture over the chicken. Bake at 400°F. for 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle the cheese over the chicken. Let stand for 5 minutes or until the cheese melts.

This was a huge hit and I will definitely be making it again.

Pot Roast Recipe

My hubby made dinner for me today for Mother's Day. He made this recipe that we both absolutely LOVE! It's fast and easy and super delicious. My husband made it so it has to be easy. Hehe. Anyway, I've made this recipe a lot and thought I would share it. This is the actual recipe that I have, but I will share my tips on how we do it. Sorry, I don't have any pictures to show the steps or anything.

Slim but Saucy Pot Roast

3 lbs. pot roast, trimmed of fat (I've used all different sizes of pot roast up to 3 lbs.)
2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 med. onions, sliced (I usually only do one onion sometimes as well)
8 oz. can tomato sauce (we actually use two cans to make more sauce)
4 oz. can mushrooms (we don't like mushrooms, so we don't put these in)
1/2 tsp. oregano
1 can cheddar cheese soup

Place roast in a large crock pot. Mix all ingredients together and pour over roast. Cook on crockpot's highest setting overnight. Serve over rice or noodles.
We actually don't cook it overnight, just start it in the morning and it works just fine too.

If you try it out let me know how you like it!

Tot School- Letter B week

M&M is currently 35 months old.

I started doing letters this week in Tot School and I decided to start with the letter B because I had so many fun things that I had planned for B.

We started with counting buttons and then sorting them by colors because M&M picked out the ice cube tray from the closet and wanted to use it.

Then we played with balls by bouncing them into a basket. (I saw this somewhere, but I forgot where because it didn't require me putting anything together so I didn't save it. If it was you, thank you for the idea!)

Next we read Brown Brown what do you see? by Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle and did some activities that I found here. These activities are for a lapbook, but I didn't do the whole lapbook because I have a hard enough time as it is just to get everything printed, cut out and put together for any activity. We did the coloring animals mini book, the heads and tails matching, and the size sequencing. She had a hard time with the size sequencing because she didn't understand what exactly I was trying to tell her to do so I showed her instead. I'll do some more size sequencing activities with her later to see if she can do it by herself.

Then we glued B's onto a big B. To do this I typed about 15 capital and lowercase B's into a word document, changed the fonts and colors for each of them and then printed and cut them out. I cut out a big B from construction paper and put dots of glue on it for her to place the printed out B's on. I will probably be doing this for each of the letters because glue is such a new thing for M&M and she loves to do it. Again I forgot where I got this idea from.

We also played with teddy bears and sang "Teddy Bear Teddy Bear." I can't find where I found this song, but if you want the words just leave a comment. For family night we bowled using a little toy bowling set. We did all of these things in one day, and I had big plans for the rest of the week, but what we did get done was pretty spread out because of other things that came up.

But here are the activities that we did the rest of the week:

We made contact paper butterflies. This was a lot of fun and it turned out so cute. One lesson that I learned from doing this though was that I need to have all the materials for an activity already to go before we start. I'm working on doing some sort of workboxes or Tot trays that I will have all of the materials for one activity ready to go so that we can just start so that M&M doesn't have to wait for me to cut out anything or whatever.

We also made banana bread. Now I don't claim to be any sort of amazing cook or baker so we used a box and mashed up one banana to add in.


One more B activity we did was gluing beans on paper to make B's.

We also did some other things that I had bought at an educational store. She tried out a Geoboard, that I saw on here. A Geoboard is used for math geometry things, I think, but I use it as a fine motor skill builder. She has to put the rubber bands around the little pegs. She really liked doing this and probably could have done it longer had she not kept letting go of one side of the rubber band and it would snap her other hand.

She also tried out Tangrams. Also seen here. A math thing as well, but she uses it for shape matching. She had a harder time with this because she's working with the same shapes, but in different sizes. I was trying to get her to do this stuff alone while I got some stuff done, but she wanted me to do it with her.

That's if for this week. We didn't even get to half of the things that I had planned for B week, but that's all right. We had fun and that's all that matters.

Schedule Board

I was in need of a visual representation for my 3 year old to know what would happen during each and every day. I also wanted her to be able to feel like she was choosing some of her own activities for her to practice independence. This is what I came up with:


I put words with pictures with each activity that I could possibly think of in a word document, printed them off and cut them into strips that were the same size. The things that would be done every day I printed in blue ink and the ones that are optional I printed in red ink. The ones that are required I glued onto the posterboard before I laminated it. At first I was visualizing just doing one column down the side for each day, but then as I got the strips printed off they were too big and had to work with the whole poster. The bottom of the middle column is where I put the activities I choose for the day before M&M sees the poster at all. Then she comes and puts the activities where she wants them. If there's something that I really need to do in the morning for instance I will either put it there beforehand or try to persuade her that's what we should do. My days are pretty flexible for the most part because I don't work or anything so this works out for us. I have only implemented this for a couple of days now and we definitely have not followed it exactly. With a 4 1/2 month old anything can happen and I have to consider his needs as well as he is not on a regular schedule yet. This is mostly for a reference if I need it to keep M&M on track. If there's something she doesn't want to do, like do her hair, I tell her we can't do anything else on the schedule until that is done. This has stemmed from her not even wanting to get dressed in the morning. She would stay in her pajamas all day if I let her. It might have something to do with the fact that for 9 months while I was pregnant I didn't get dressed unless I was going somewhere that day because PJ's were just more comfortable to be in while pregnant. Oh well, we are getting back on track now.

I am thinking about doing one for myself for her to reference as well so that she's knows the things that mommy needs to get done during the day as well. If she would let me exercise in the morning that would be so wonderful.

If anyone is interested in using the strips of paper that I have used just leave a comment and let me know and I will put a link up on here.