Happy Valentine’s Day!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Abby’s Birthday Parties
Because of my Dad’s chemo schedule, we had two separate birthday parties for Abby. The first one was for the Shurtleff side of the family on the 6th.
The Setup
Adam was SO excited to help blow out the candle.
Abby wasn’t quite sure about the flame!
Yummy!
Opening Presents
Adam was so kind in offering to help his sister open her presents.
She got lots of soft and cuddly things.
On the 12th was the Gardner family party…
Setup #2
Cake #2….I got lazy the second time around
Opening Presents
Still unsure about that flame!
More yummy!
Although having two parties was a pain, Abby had a great birthday spread out over an entire week!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Deja Vu
Abby at 11 months
Adam at 10 months
It’s fun being reminded of Adam when Abby does something similar!
Dang, Adam was blonde!!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Happy 1st Birthday Abigail!
This tiny newborn,
is now this little girl!
Our sweet Abigail Elizabeth came to our family one year ago today and we can’t imagine life without her!
1-year stats:
Weight: 17 lbs. 15 oz. (7th percentile)
Height: 28 in. (25th percentile)
I’m not surprised that she’s only gained 1 pound in 3 months. She is one active baby! She’s practically running now, even though her legs can’t keep up with her upper body! :)
Looks like she’ll be rear-facing in her car seat for a while still. Adam was 20 lbs. 7 oz. at 1 year so I immediately switched him to front facing. It doesn’t seem to bother Abby much to face backwards since she has her brother to see and play with so I’m not in too big a hurry (especially considering that it will require buying a new car sear for either her or Adam)
We love how her little personality is starting to come through. She is so deliberate about how she plays with toys and likes to study things.
She LOVES books and is constantly saying, “buh” and bringing one to me to read to her.
She loves all things stuffed and soft. She squeals whenever she sees a doll or stuffed animal (or picture of a baby for that matter)
She loves to eat!!
(She is signing ‘all done’)
Most importantly, she LOVES her big brother!
Here they are playing in a tent at Nana’s.
It’s so fun, but sad, to watch her grow into a toddler. This year has gone by way too fast!
And just because it’s fun…..here’s me!
I should dig out pictures of me at 1 year and see if we still look alike.
We love you Abby-Girl!!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tot School
- Adam is 38 months old -
I struggled this week with Tot School. We were reading “The Runaway Bunny” and did a few activities but then I lost interest. It seems like I go in cycles. I’m either excited about it and have a great week, or I’m burnt out and wind up not doing anything. I guess that’s the beauty of this age…..I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to. However, if I don’t do anything all I hear all day is, “Is it Top School time? Let’s do Top School!”. Not to mention he gets bored of his regular toys.
Here is what we did do!
Bear Puzzle from Melissa and Doug
And yes, he is Buzz Lightyear, as he was several days this week!
In true Adam style, he grew bored of doing the puzzle and decided it was an airplane and the bears were inside going on a trip.
Cutting paper using these scissors.
Stefanie from Life With My Giggly Girls suggested them to me and they are great! Adam has struggled with several other kinds of scissors and these are so much easier for him to use.
aka "Open and Close Pins” which actually makes perfect sense!
Counting Bears
I have had my eye on these Counting Bears for a while now. I should’ve bought them sooner because they are a huge hit with both kids!
Adam played with them for like 45 minutes the first night!
Sissy getting in on the action
And finally, Adam watched Speekee a few times.
Speekee is a subscription-based Spanish program that was made in the UK. It’s a total immersion program so it’s entirely in Spanish, but you can turn on subtitles. It got really good reviews on The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew so I signed up for the free 2 week trial. I’m still unsure how I feel about it. It’s not great quality, it’s cheesy, and Speekee is kind of creepy, but it’s a great way to expose Adam to Spanish. And from what research says, exposing kids to a second language (including ASL which we’re already doing) can help them learn the language easier, and with a better accent, later on. I also have several CDs with Spanish rhymes and songs that I bought when Adam was a baby and only used a few times. I decided I may as well play them during lunch and play time a few times a week instead of the regular kids music/Mommy music I normally play.
The subscription is $7.50 a month but I would want Adam watching an episode (around 15 minutes each) 2-3 times a week to make it worth it. So, maybe when I become more structured with preschool, we’ll give it a try again.
That was our Tot School week. Let’s hope I can get my act together for this week. Adam is more entertained and productive when I do it. How do you non-Tot Schoolers keep them busy during the day? He (and let’s face it….I ) get so bored of the same toys! I can’t wait until Spring when we can go outside!!!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Having Fun with Webdings
I have been slaving over Abby’s “first year” photo book and today Adam was watching me add in some dots to one of my pages in Picasa. He asked if he could do it, so he chose a picture, a background, and then got to work with webdings and wingdings!
He thought it was hilarious to push a letter and get something else up on the screen. I ended up letting him fill up a word document and now he’s carrying it around like a prized piece of art.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Eating and Eating and Eating
Abby has become quite fond of table food and is eating A LOT these days! I give her what I think she’ll eat and she wants at least one or two more helpings!
Swedish Meatballs and Noodles…yum!
I thought Adam was a slow poke at eating, but this girl is always the last one chowing down.
Last One at the Table
One week from today and she’ll be 1! Her party supplies came in the mail the other day and now Adam asks multiple times a day if it’s her birthday party now. I think he’s just excited to “help” open her presents and blow out her candle!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tot School–”The Snowy Day” and Snow/Winter Theme
- Adam is 38 months old -
This week for Tot School we focused on the book “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats and used Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and a few wonderful websites to have lots of snowy fun!
This is one of my favorite books that we’ve read from the Before Five in a Row manual. The illustrations are colorful and the story is all about a little boy’s adventures in the snow. I had planned this unit several weeks ago when we had a lot of snow, but it quickly warmed up and melted away. I’ve been waiting and waiting for snow and when we woke up to 2 inches on Tuesday, I pulled out everything and we got started!
We also read a few books from the library:
“Snowy, Blowy Winter” by Bob Rackza
“Millions of Snowflakes” by Mary McKenna Siddals
“The Mitten” by Jim Aylesworth
And sang, “Once There Was a Snowman” which is a favorite children’s primary song in our church.
I meant to remind him of the ASL sign for ‘snow’ but completely forgot!
I downloaded the following activities from Homeschool Share.
“S is for Snow” Letter Search
Adam marked all the letter s’s.
He glued pieces of paper to make a snowman and if you look closely, you can see little twig arms and buttons.
After reading “The Snowy Day” 5 or 6 times, we practiced remembering the story by putting these cards into order. He didn’t understand what I was asking him to do at first, but once we got started he could choose between two cards and remember which one came next and which one was later in the story.
I used Carisa’s Winter Fun Tot Pack for the following:
Snowflake Halves
The colored version was a cinch, but he had to really focus and look carefully to match the black and white snowflakes halves together.
Snowman ABC’s
He matched alphabet magnets to the letter on the snowman
Snowflake Matching
These next activities I got from a website called Musings of Me written by a mom named Michelle. She put together a huge winter themed preschool pack and posted it all for free! Having other people do all the leg work sure makes my job a little faster and easier. Thanks Michelle!
“W is for Winter”
Adam used pom-pom magnets on top of a cookie sheet to fill in all the dots. (I made these by simply gluing pom-poms onto round craft magnets)
Snowman Counting
Adam counted the stars on the snowman’s belly and then placed the corresponding numbered hat onto his head.
He counted and matched correctly up to number 7 and then needed my help keeping track of the stars while he counted the 8-10 cards. I was pleasantly surprised that he identified all 10 numbers correctly on the hats (only needing help distinguishing 6 from 9). When I “tested” him a few weeks ago, he only knew 1-5 and 7.
Using a snowman hat to sing, “Once There Was a Snowman”…his idea!
Snowflake Sizes
Adam sorted snowflakes into large, medium, and small piles
While sorting he said, “Large Diet Coke!” as he put a large snowflake into the pile. I guess I run through McDonald’s for their $1 drinks too often while running errands! After that, he just wanted to pretend that the snowflakes were food and put them into lunch boxes.
Using our snowflakes to sing a song I made up based on a children’s Primary song called “It’s Autumn Time”. The song is about snow falling so we lightly drifted threw the snowflakes around.
“The Colors of Winter”
He lost interest after only 3 pictures. Coloring is not his idea of fun most of the time.
Instead we hopped around holding one of the pictures. Don’t ask me why.
“Winter Things Counting”
We did two fun art projects this week that I saw on Confessions of a Homeschooler under her Arts & Crafts/Christmas drop-down link.
Cotton Ball Snowman
Popsicle Stick Snowflakes
Messy!
On the one day when the snow was still on the ground, Adam got to stay up past his naptime and play in the snow! We made tracks, snow angels, and hit the snow off a tree just like Peter did in the story. He LOVED being outside!
There was a recipe in the back of “Snowy, Blowy Winter” for Snow Ice Cream. Adam loved it but my husband and I thought it tasted like snow….not very appealing. It was fun though!
We had a great week and my Mom even got in on a little Tot School one day. Here she is reading “The Snowy Day” to Adam. Oh how he loves his Nana!
Whew…what a long post! I do these posts as a way to remember what Adam was like in this moment in time so pardon the length and picture overload!
Go to 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School ideas.
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