Tot School

M&M is currently 42 months old & Bubba is 13 months old

We finished up our snow/winter theme this week because I didn't get everything done last week that I wanted to do. We've never made homemade playdough before, but I've been wanting to do it for a while. I'm hoping this year to make it once a month to go along with holidays/seasons. We made "snow dough" this month. I got the recipe from Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie. We added glitter as well, but we added a touch of almond extract instead of vanilla to make it smell good. I got this idea and the idea to use cookie cutter letters to make the word snow from Counting Coconuts. M&M had fun using buttons, beans, ribbon, fake jewels, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks to decorate her snowman. She made a baby and daddy one. 

I planned on doing the letter A this week, but didn't get all of the things done that I wanted to again. After a year of blogging about these activities with M&M I've figured out that it's okay if I don't get everything done. I don't have to do something just to blog about it. Maybe we'll get to it this week, maybe not. But either way that's okay.

Anyway, what we did do was an activity with animals. We went on a stuffed animal safari. This idea came from Mom's Marbles. (Can't find the exact post.) We started out by making these binoculars out of toilet paper tubes and wrapping them in construction paper. While M&M was decorating it with stickers I took some of her stuffed animals and placed them around the house. When I told her that she needed to hide in my room while the animals came out and hid, her eyes got so big and she said, "We're just pretending, right?" M&M LOVED this activity! We took turns "hiding" the animals and then finding them. She got a real, but really inexpensive, digital camera for Christmas and she had to take pictures of every single animal. (The elephant is hiding in my, new to me, sewing machine that I just got. I'm so excited to start to use it!)

 

Another activity that we did involved the alphabet. I saw this on The Activity Mom. I wrote each letter of the alphabet, upper and lowercase, on a paper towel tube. Then M&M would match them by putting the stickers onto the written letter. I just realized that The Activity Mom and I used the same stickers, haha.

 

I was trying to do some activities with Bubba so I gave M&M a jar of 15 bean soup and told her to

sort the beans. I wanted to just give her a small bowl of them, but she insisted on having the whole jar. Well, this didn't last very long. I'll try it again some other time, some other way.

I introduced Bubba to the sensory tub after seeing it on the early one-year-old page on the Productive Parenting website. He really enjoyed sticking his hands into the beans and putting them back and forth between the jar and the plastic container. Once he did this for a fair amount of time. I stopped him when he started throwing them around the room, though. That was enough fun with the beans for one day.Then I gave him a bag of pom poms to take out of the bag and touch....and then throw. He also helped daddy do the dishes by putting the clean dishes daddy just put away in the cupboard back into the the dishwasher. Then he helped close the dishwasher when daddy was done....well almost. (I realize that beans are a choking hazard for one-year-olds, that is why I was next to him every second, watching his every move.)

This is my year!

At the beginning of this year I have the same things on my list that I want to do better at that I have had the past 3 years. The difference is I have a plan this year instead of just saying this is what I want to do.

One, I still have about 10 pounds of baby weight that I would like to lose. My baby is now 1 so I think I've procrastinated long enough. My goal though is not necessarily to lose weight, but to live a healthier life. I've gotten away all of my life eating whatever I want whenever I want without the ill effects of gaining weight. That is now different after having two kids. I am not fond of vegetables, but there are some pretty healthy ones that I will eat, problem is I just don't make myself do it. I like fruit, but don't eat enough of it. I like carbs. Bread, pasta, cake, cookies, etc. Not so good for the losing weight side of things. I'm not going to do anything drastic like go on a no-carb diet, but rather just eating the right things and doing portion control for the other things. I will go through a whole day sometimes and realize I've only eaten cereal and a sandwich because I'm so busy getting my kids breakfast and lunch among everything else that needs to get done during the day. Then at dinnertime I binge, eating until I am stuffed. Then eating something again before I go to bed so I can go to sleep without feeling like I'm starving. That is all going to change this year.

This past week I've made a conscious effort to eat fruits and veggies. I also made myself sit down with my kids to eat lunch instead of trying to get stuff done while they are occupied eating. After a small healthy lunch I got a small glimpse of how much energy I could have during the day because I wasn't dragging by late afternoon before my husband gets home.  (BTW I hate the last hour before my hubby gets home, it drags on forever! Does anyone else ever feel that way?)  

Two, exercise. Obviously this goes along with eating healthy. I'm not one to go to the gym to workout. I almost feel like I have to get in shape before I go workout at the gym so I feel like I fit in and don't pass out in front of everybody. I've found my solution for this as well. Wii Active. This "game" is your personal trainer and has preset workouts with the option of making your own custom workouts. I've never been athletic or into sports or anything so I don't know how to exercise. This tells me what to do and how many reps I should be doing it. And I can do it in the comfort of my own home where my only audience is a 3 1/2 year old who looks even sillier than me doing the exercises. M&M likes to watch and sometimes participate in what I am doing. I also like this because if she sees me exercising everyday she will know that it is an important part of our lives. Caution: Do not do this around children who do not know how to keep out of your way! I thought it was great when both of my kids would just watch me workout so I didn't have to worry about what time of day to workout. There was an incident and I could have seriously hurt my little boy. Don't ask, I already feel like a horrible mother.

Third, coming closer to Christ. I never got into the habit of reading my scriptures everyday growing up, thinking that I could make it a habit later in life when I'm older and have a family of my own. Ha! Little did I know as a teenager that I would be busier now than I was then. As soon as I put Bubba down for his nap the first thing I do is read my scriptures and/or an article in the the Ensign. M&M will sit with me and look at pictures in the Friend  or another magazine. This has been especially good because she will ask questions about what is happening in the pictures and that will lead to more questions because she is a 3 year old and that's what they do. I end up spending a lot of my time telling her stories about the gospel. It's been a special time for us as I realize she's getting older and eager to learn all she can. As I come closer to Christ I know that it will help me be better in all other areas of my life, whether it be being a mother, wife, Young Women leader, friend, etc.

Every once in a while I will post updates for my own sake.

Tot School -Snow

 M&M is currently 42 months old

It's good to be back doing Tot School again. I took a 3 month break because I was getting overwhelmed. We also had a lot of things going on during October, November and December so I decided to just do holiday crafts and such.

Anyway to ease ourselves back into doing Tot School again we just did some winter crafts this week.

Our first craft was a snowflake made out of white paper lunch bags. When I saw this idea here I really liked it because it was 3D. They are really big though. I love making things to hang on our light fixture over our kitchen table because that's where we spend most of our time.

We made the button snowflakes that I've seen all over blogworld. The one that inspired me the most was the Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie blog. I don't mind doing something that many others have done especially if it's easy, fun and I already have all of the supplies for it. M&M really liked putting the buttons on in whatever order her heart desired.

I saw this really cute idea on the Frugal Family Fun blog. They put wax paper on their feet to "ice skate" around the house! I knew this was something we had to try. M&M did not want to do it on the carpet though. She insisted on doing it on the tile floor. She would purposefully slide and fall on her behind.

Another craft we did involved paint and tongue depressors. I originally saw this idea in the Oriental Trading Company catalog where they sell kits with all the supplies. I wasn't about to pay for a kit when I already had all of the supplies at home. To make it I taped together 6 tongue depressors, turned it over and had M&M paint it black and white. I drew a line and told her the top needed to be black and the bottom half white. She tried really hard to keep the paint on the right side of the line, but of course some carried over. It doesn't matter though because she then painted one more tongue depressor black and we glued it on over the line. We glued googly eyes on and then used a round sponge brush to paint the mouth on. I drew a carrot shape for the nose and she painted it orange. I try really hard not to do things for her when it comes to crafts because I am such a perfectionist. I resisted the urge to make her put the mouth further down and round it more.

 I didn't get to all of the things I wanted to so we might do some more next week. I have a plan to continue with the letter of the week until we get through the rest of the alphabet.

Side note: Bubba (12 months old) decided to do his own activity. He took this bag of crackers out of the box. Then took the crackers out of the bag and put them in the box. He was at this for a little bit just rearranging the crackers from the bag to the box to the floor and back again. He likes rearranging things, but his favorite thing to do right now is walk and try to keep up with M&M. Now that Bubba is able to do more stuff it has me thinking about what I can do with him Tot school-wise. I'm not there yet, but I'm just gathering some ideas.  I did find this great site, Productive Parenting.com, with activities for each age group and there are a ton of ideas!

 

 

Pencil and notebook holder

During my little blogging break I made two colored pencil and notebook holders for my nieces. My sister provided this adorable material and she was happy to hand the sewing part over to someone else. With (A LOT) of help from my mom and her amazing sewing machine, we put these together. It really didn't take too long to do. I used the instructions found here, but added a few things like handles and a stitch at the bottom so the pencils wouldn't go down too far. I have some material to make one for M&M, I'm just waiting on a sewing machine. My mom is sending her old one down to me and I'm really excited to have one in my home so I can go and sew whenever I feel like it! When I make one for M&M there are a couple of things I would change from the instructions like putting the ribbon to close it more in the middle and making the pocket inside not as tall.

Catch up on Christmas stuff

I found this post that I had saved from last month and forgot to post it. I plan on making a book out of this blog one day and so I would like to have all the activities that we have done on here so that they can get into that book.

M&M is REALLY into puzzles lately and she is very good at them. The Dollar Tree and the $1 spot at Target are great places to find perfect-sized puzzles for 3-year-olds If I do the edges she can most likely do the inside all by herself. She just needs a little guidance once in a while.

We also made gingerbread cookies and decorated them. We had A LOT of fun decorating them and I loved to see the creations M&M came up with. (If you look hard enough you will find one that is very inappropriate.  My husband and I had a good laugh over that one.)

 

 

We made jingle bell bracelets and necklaces as well. These were a hit. Anything that makes noise is good to go with M&M. 

Thinking about the New Year

I stopped doing Tot School with M&M back in October and decided to just do holiday crafts and activities until the beginning of the year. I want to start up again on January 4th. This means that I need to be planning now so that I can be prepared. My problem last time was that I was trying to plan a week at a time every weekend. I've built up a stash of go to activities, and I have more I want to make and get supplies together for. I just need to organize them now and plan out which weeks I'm going to do what theme. I'll continue with the letter of the week because once I start something I can't stop halfway through. I'm took M&M out of the preschool she just had once a week and will use that money to get her in a dance class because I just think she would just LOVE that. She still goes to a preschool two mornings a week. I need to keep her in some sort of school until she goes to Kindergarten in two years so it's not such a shock to her to be away from home especially since where we live doesn't give us the option of going half day. It's an all day kindergarten.

I'm really excited to start up Tot School again! Since Bubba isn't sleeping as much during the day as he used to and he really likes to get into everything that we are doing now, we will probably end up doing Tot School during his naps. We'll also continue with holiday and seasonal arts and crafts.

Although most of this blog will center around activities for toddlers there will still be recipes, crafts and photography mixed in. I'm actually working on something right now, but I can't post about it until after Christmas. I'm just looking ahead because we will be out of town for Christmas and when we get back it will be the New Year and there will be new goals and resolutions to start up!

DIY Christmas Chimes

A few years ago my sister-in-law introduced us to Christmas chimes. We had a lot of fun with them trying to play the songs together. This past Christmas my dad made a set of chimes for each of us kids and our families. I've been so excited to use them this year.

What are they you ask? Well, I will try to explain them the best that I can. They are pipes cut to different lengths. When hit with a stick they make different keys. A picture may help at this point.
My dad has them labeled as to what key they will play. They are also labeled with a number.
Each sheet of music has the numbers on it that need to be played for the song. Make sense? I hope so. The picture below will probably help.


These are a lot of fun to do in a group even with young kids. You can either copy the songs and hand them out or I have seen them transferred onto one of those huge pads of paper that are used in classrooms. My dad even made the sticks with the red balls on the ends.

I have many Christmas songs to go with the chimes but there are also other songs as well. (See below)


Now, my mom sent the directions to me over e-mail, but I have never shared anything over the blog before and I don't know how to do it. Can anyone tell me what to do? I will update this post once I figure out how to do that. Then if there is enough interest I can see if my parents have a digital copy of the songs so that I can post those as well.