One bad apple...

At last we have returned. Talk about some serious blogging withdrawals! My God. So much happened and so few pictures got taken (by me), that I seriously don't remember most of it. In a nutshell, we all had a really great time. Thanksgiving was delicious, although I ended up handing over crafty projects to DH and his sister and did a good chunk of the cooking - which I'm pretty sure my MIL is more thankful for than had I merely occupied the kiddies - anyone can occupy children, but I guess not anyone can cook.

After that DH had the idea to swing upstate to visit some other family folk which went pretty well for our sort day stay... then came the bad apple. And I'm pretty sure this bad able is the reason I can't recall all the great fun we had (it may have ruined the whole bunch). We got tragically lost in the backwoods of PA for something like 5 hours, in the pitch black and pouring rain. Horrible horrible horrible. I now hate driving through PA way more than the Jersey Turnpike. In fact - while driving aimlessly with no clue where we were and no visibility I longed for the comfort of the Dwight D Eisenhower rest stop. Once I've unpacked and re-settled and what not I shall probably have more to say. Until then... the Christmas decorating shall commence! Soph and I are so so very excited.

Turnpike Ho!

We are off to NY for a fun filled week of family - well, fun! Wish me luck on the hellish lovely Jersey Turnpike (no offense Kate) - perhaps I'll get to post while there, but if not - "see" you all Sunday with pictures and stories galore!

The Westward Migration

Well, it would figure that no sooner did we buy a house and settle into it - we're moving. DH is being relocated to CA and we'll be moving in March, or perhaps May - depending on his schooling. As exciting as it is to return to CA, it's a bit overwhelming. It seems like we just finally got this house unpacked, and now we'll be packing it up again. Having been spoiled by owning our own home and having a huge yard and decent sized house, we're going to have to either a)find a super awesome deal on a house or b)downsize. At least this time we wont have to do any of the heavy lifting as that's all taken care of and paid for by the Army. So thank you tax payers for funding our move!

Unplugged Project - The Box Edition

Well here they are! The much anticipated pictures of our Unplugged Project - The Box Edition.

But first a word from our sponsors me. I thought it would be nice to incorporate some books into our unplugged project - so while at the library on Thursday I picked up Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and The Birthday Box by Leslie Patricelli. We had read Not a Box before, but it's cute enough and Soph didn't object. Soph really enjoyed The Birthday Box as well, but I think that's because she desperately wants to be 4 and therefore is mildly obsessed with birthdays.

Now on to the pictures. I must state that the pictures didn't really turn out too well - but you'll get the general idea. Oh and Soph also made a Christmas Box with some snowmen (very cute), but it's not shown. She's "hiding" it in her room and I wasn't about to start looking for it.

Here she is, working diligently. I bet pealing stickers is a pretty good exercise in fine motor skills. Conveniently it's one of her very favorite things to do.

I let her use my "fancy" markers to decorate her box. She was quite pleased.

Here are my box lids. The flash made the Christmas one unhappy, but the shined out part is just a definition of Joy.

The side of my box and Soph's box. She didn't stop at the lid, not the sides. She went whole hog and decorated the inside as well. No wonder she was occupied for so long.More sides. Exciting right?! You guessed it! More sides. But that's the last batch, promise. For you math wiz's out there, you may notice I left a side off. I didn't like it - so the poor guy didn't make the cut.

Well, hopefully you guys weren't too disappointed. After such a huge build up you were probably expecting something quite spectacular. Let's be realistic here - my skills are a "work in progress". Perhaps if I actually continue with my new interest, I shall have something a bit better to show. Although, if that's the case I may have to start charging - 25 cents per view seems fair ;). Tune in next week for - Being Thankful. (with a special guest appearance by, Thanksgiving Box!)

Leaves, and Legos and Cookies oh my!

Yeah so, in all honesty - my new obsession really monopolized the majority of my weekend. I figured since weekends are the only time I'm not out numbered, I may as well take advantage of it. We did do some stuff though - I shall recap.

DH and Soph raked leaves today. They were really adorable, the picture is not so great. In my defense I took it from inside the house, from our bedroom window - so there was a screen and glass involved. Before they could finish and jump in them it started to pour - lame.We also baked sugar cookies. Since Soph's doing well with the wheat allergy and it seems to be leaving, we made real cookies (well, without eggs or dairy) - they were tasty and Soph loves to bake so it was a swell time. She wanted to make gingerbread girls. I tried to explain the concept of trying to get more than one cookie out of each roll - I failed. She's not to bad at rolling out dough - although she really must have missed the memo that states - "Summer is over. It is now fall and barely 45 degrees outside - bathing suits and dresses are no longer suitable." *sigh* at least we stayed indoors. This was our first attempt at our Unplugged Project. Filling a box with legos. (Fun I know) Interest - gone. Thus begins the creation of a sword. I do believe the soul reason for the creation of the sword was to attack me, luck me. For any of you curious folk out there, the box was 5 legos deep. I did go on to fill it - mostly because I was trying to hog the Legos. A smile and a pat on the back to anyone who knows how many legos fill that box. :) And so ends a wonderfully lazy weekend.

The Fine Line

I do believe there is a fine line between "enjoyable hobby" and "addiction". It is quite possible that I am teetering on that line. Its not like I have time to decorate these boxes - but oh I love it so! I decided that in addition to the Thanksgiving Box, I wanted to make a Christmas Box as well. It is part of my mission to simplify Christmas and get back to what really matters. (I have a post in draft that expands on my mission, but it requires much thought, and well.... I've been too busy decorating boxes! No time to "think".) I believe traditions are important and since Soph is old enough now to begin to appreciate them, I thought perhaps we would start one. Every year I hope to put a few things in the box that really capture our Christmas that year (nothing big of course, after all, the box isn't a moving box) as well as a picture (or a couple pictures). Every year on Christmas Eve, I think it would be nice to open the box and spend time reflecting and remembering the happy holidays we've had. I might have to dig out some photo's of Soph's past Christmases, lucky duck little B gets to start out with the tradition!

I do suppose I'll hold off on posting the picture of my new box until Monday as well. And I must say, this may only be my 2nd box, but it's already much better than my Thanksgiving one. Perhaps that's why I'm not done yet - deeper concentration. :)

Unplugged Gone Wild

While trying to decide what we were going to do for our Unplugged Project : The Box edition, I was trying to think outside the box (pun intended). I thought it would be a good exercise in math and what not if we tried to see how many legos we could fit into a box. We guessed how many it would take and then started filling - let me tell you, the box wasn't very big, but man did it fit a lot of legos. Needless to say, about halfway through filling the box Soph was sick of the whole thing and as I continued to fill the box, she began snagging the legos as I would put them in so she could build a sword. So - then came my next idea. Well, why not decorate boxes. We went and acquired the goods (2 boxes from Michael's, one for her and one more me). I dragged out all of my craft supplies. You know, the ones that get put in hiding for fear that your 3 year old will ransack every last border/sticker/stamp pad/etc, and you will walk in a room one day to find that your couch is a distressed black beneath a mired of letters, flowers, and holiday paraphernalia.

With boxes in hand we dove into my supplies, and started digging out what we thought we thought would fit our themes. Mine, a "Thanksgiving Box"; Soph's, a sparkle pretty box. Well, she had a grand time. I let her use my special fancy markers, she was quite delicate. I started on my box - but being the perfectionist I am, nothing seemed quite right. Well - here is where the project went wild. Soph finished up her box after about an hour or so (Never has she been so involved in a project). But I wasn't done! I was determined to finish my box before night fall. Rather than neglect my children (tempting though it was), I put my project on hold.

Finally, DH arrived home. I fed them all, did the dishes, and then vanished into my room. Before I knew it, it was 5 hours later. I still wasn't finished - something just wasn't right. After much thought and a quick trip downstairs to make sure the family was faring well without me, I returned to my lair. My project was completed, and I was happily able to go to sleep.

By this point I know you're all dying to know what this box must look like- but I guess you'll just have to wait until Unplugged Monday to find out. ;)

The approach of turkeys and comas

Ah yes. Thanksgiving. As it quickly approaches I find myself quite thankful that we live far enough from family, and are anti-social enough to not have a full thanksgiving at our house. As much as I envy the beautiful displays in magazines and the idea of a "perfect" thanksgiving where the bird is a golden brown and the mashed potatoes are creamy and delicious - the truth of the matter is, regardless of the fact that I am a pretty good cook, and a darn good baker - when it comes to birds I am definitely not skilled. So! I shall brave the massive amounts of dog hair, and the very full house - and shall go to my in-laws for our first Thanksgiving at their place since DH and have been married. I figured, since I don't actually have to cook, or really do anything other than smile and be my delightfully charming (and modest) self - I should gather up some ideas of crafts to do with the kiddies to keep them out of my MIL's hair while she does the cooking. With 5 kids in the house ranging from 7 months to 7 years, I'm sure she'll be quite thankful for that. My challenge is finding several projects that can span the ages - lucky for me the Internet is chalked full of resources. Here's what I came up with -

The ever popular paper roll turkey. Simple enough for a 3 year old - yet still entertaining for a 7 year old. And what Thanksgiving would be complete without children running around in Pilgrim hats? Exactly. Perhaps I shall acquire some good stories about the history of Thanksgiving to read to the kiddies as well. I have several coloring sheets and what not to print up as well - maybe if I'm feeling extra inspired later on, I'll come up with some games to play as well. We'll see.

After all is said and done - I look forward to the L-tryptophan induced coma that my child will hopefully fall into.

Fun filled fall

So we had our fall fun adopt-a-park clean up with our new homeschool group. Very very fun. Soph had such an awesome time learning about nature and mostly running around in circles. After going on our nature walk, the kids made bird feeders. I made almond butter so Soph could participate, she had a great time. All the the people in the group are so nice and considerate about her allergies, and they really go the extra mile to make sure she's not excluded. This is new for us - when Soph was in preschool, they use to sit her at her own table by herself and not let her participate in anything they thought might perhaps cause a reaction. They wouldn't tell us when there were parties or such, so often she was left out. So, needless to say we are VERY excited to have such wonderful people to spend time with!

Here are the kiddies making their bird feeders.Me and B while on our nature walk. The picture worked out well, as it's both B's and my best "side". The walk was a bit over a mile I believe, but with all the stopping to look at neat things, and chasing my wild child - it sure felt like a lot longer! If I had been thinking I would have strapped B to me! I do believe my left arm is extra sore strong now. Soph and her new friend found some really large leaves while on our walk. They were having so much fun together we lost the rest of the group for a bit (notice you can't even see them in the picture, and that's quite a bit of path!), but it's ok because they were busy being trees. We wouldn't want to interrupt the imaginative process, would we? Soph was having such an awesome time, she pretty much refused to leave. I had to drag her to the car. As a result, we ended up missing gymnastics. She was really upset about it and I felt horrible because I know how much she loves it. Perhaps next time when I say we have to leave or we wont make it _(fill in location we're headed to)_, she'll be a little more cooperative.

Unplugged Project : Red

For some reason my blog went on strike and wouldn't let me post yesterday. So this is a day late. Sorry folks!

For our red Unplugged Project I had tons of ideas of things to do. Red collages, nature walks in search of red, scavenger hunts... the list could go on. Alas, Soph really wasn't into it. She loves to cut, so I thought she'd be up for cutting up old magazines - No, I ended up doing that myself. Then I thought perhaps she would want to glue them to paper because she loves making massive messes with glue... nope. The city tore up our sidewalks to fix the "walkways and driveways" so we had nowhere to walk to do our nature walk.

What we ended up with was a race through our house. The contenders, my mom and Soph. Little B and I were the refs. They had 2 minutes to find everything/anything red that they could on our 1st floor. They each made a pile of their findings. Well, the race ended, and I ascended up the stairs to change Little B - all the while hollering down the stairs not to clean up, and to count them, find the largest and smallest, and other assorted tasks that could stem from all the red objects that had been gathered. Well, when I returned - they had cleaned up. So sorry folks, no pictures. Hopefully the box adventures will go more smoothly - after all, what kid isn't always up for playing in/with/on/around boxes?

Random/ Weird Fact Tag

Well it seems I have been randomly tagged by Binary Blonde for a late night tag. Thank you NaBloPoMo for yet another reason to avoid sleep.

• Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Random and/or Weird Facts About Me

1. I love the sound of rain pattering against my window late at night.

2. I have over 50 books out from the library right now, and I'm not sure where half of them are.

3. I find it the hardest to sleep when I'm the most tired.

4. I'm addicted to flossing my teeth.

5. I hate carousels, they make me sick. My dd loves them - this is unfortunate for me.

6. I love "useless" information, and seem to retain it better than anything "worthwhile".

7. My #1 pet peeve of the day is being asked constantly and repeatedly, "Yeah, but, are you sure?"... gah!

So, now I shall take Binary Blonde's lead, and shall use the fantastic NaBloPoMo Randomiser to select the targeted lucky seven -

ladylanguage

three little birds

My Second Life as a Verb

Life in Freedom

Creative Treasures

CityMama

Who Said Anything About Common Sense?

Weekend Adventures

My mom came to visit us in Charm City. Always fun. So we actually did quite a bit this weekend. Somehow I did not manage to capture most of these moments on film. Oh well. C'est la vie.

We did have quite a bit of fun though. Lets see... we all went out to lunch, and Soph went on the Carousel several hundred times (ok, it was 3, but it sure felt like more than that). We went to LakeShore for their Make and Take Crafts on Saturdays - Soph made a recipe card holder and had a grand time. We went to a Greek Festival downtown. We attempted to make turkey cookies to decorate at the Preschool Co-op tomorrow, but they failed miserably. The flour we used was just not up to par. These cookies were SO bad, that I'm almost to embarrassed to even mention them! So, after all that - we made a sheet cake and used the cookie cutter to make little turkeys. That worked out just fine. We did a mock Thanksgiving dinner tonight which was quite tasty - although I think we'll be eating left overs up to and past the real Thanksgiving. While I had my KitchenAid mixer out, I figured it would also be a good time to make our first batch of Pumpkin Bread... so we had that for dessert. All in all, aside from several emotional breakdowns (aka tantrums.... both mine and Soph's), several massive spills, DH almost setting my kitchen on fire, and other various other unpleasant isolated incidents, we had a nice weekend... Here are the few photos I do have -

While doing some last minute cleaning the day my mom arrived, I let Soph have at her windows with her window markers. I figured I had to wash them anyhow - may as well keep her occupied and thrilled while I got to vacuum. Worked like a charm. Soph and Little B were playing dress up together. I'm pretty sure that B was not a willing participant, but such is the life of a 7 month old with a big sister. It seems she would have preferred to have been Cinderella than... buried in Soph's clothes. While I was washing the windows (which by this point were covered in marker and quite colorful), Soph went to the bathroom. Well - imagine my surprise when rather than using the bathroom, she had opted to clean it. Well, I appreciate the eagerness to help - but that container of soap you see... well it was full when she started. And for those observant folk, yes she did change from Tinkerbell to a ladybug ballerina. After all, if one is going to clean, they may as well look their best and be graceful, right? This was the only picture I snagged while baking today. It was while making our tragically horrible cookies. Soph is very good at scrapping down the sides. She even put on her apron to keep her "pretty dress clean" - and yes... that is a summer dress and the high today was 44 degrees. I really think my child is in denial that summer is over. This upcoming week is super busy with Co-Op, art class, adopt-a-park clean up/party, gymnastics and what not... so expect a fun-filled post to come! Oh and of course there is Unplugged Monday! Which we're still working on - it seems that Soph really just isn't feeling it this week. We shall see if it works tomorrow. I had tons of ideas, but she really just didn't bite on any of them! More on that later :)

My budding photographer

While attempting to finish the project of organizing Soph's room I kept her occupied by allowing her to take pictures. I was so amazed that the pictures were actually pretty good that I felt compelled to post them here. I think perhaps one of those indestructible cameras that are a bit more little hand friendly will be on the list of potential holiday gifts. I made a resolution to myself not to buy anymore junk toys - every toy that comes into our house is going to have some educational benefit... lucky for me, I do believe a camera falls into this category :)

I know- quite a messy room... while "organizing" I figured it was a good time to get a freecycle bag going. Yup... this is B... She really likes taking pictures of B. I think it's because they're best friend sisters. (That is my knee though) And what kind of artist would she be without a self portrait?

100 Books Accomplished

So when I started my blog back over the summer I had what seemed like an impossible task of reading 100 books all children should read before going to 'school'. Well, it seems that I have in fact finished that list - I just seriously slacked off on marking them off... so - In it's entirety, here is the list of 100 books all children should read. For the sake of "recommendations" I have coded them, green are favorites (or well liked enough to read over and over), yellow are ok but I wouldn't go buy it, and red are "why is this book on this list". If I can't recall it well enough to code I left it black :) (after all I'm getting old, if I don't write it down or take a picture I can't be sure to remember)

1. Where’s My Teddy? Alborough, Jez

2. Miss Nelson is Missing Allard, Harry

3. Happy Birthday, Moon Asch, Frank

4. Ten, Nine, Eight Bang, Molly

5. Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing Barrett, Judi

6. The Three Bears Barton, Byron

7. I Like Myself Beaumont, Karen

8. Madeline Bemelmans, Ludwig

9. The Mitten Brett, Jan

10. Clifford, the Big Red Dog Bridwell, Norman

11. Stone Soup Brown, Marcia

12. Goodnight, Moon Brown, Margaret Wise

13. Mr. Gumpy’s Outing Burningham, John

14. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Burton, Virginia Lee

15. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Carle, Eric

16. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed Christelow, Eileen

17. Miss Rumphius Cooney, Barbara

18. Freight Train Crews, Donald

19. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type Cronin, Doreen

20. Today I Feel Silly Curtis, Jamie Lee

21. Strega Nona De Paola, Tomie (This gets a brighter green because we love Strega Nona so so much)

22. Bed Hogs DiPucchio, Kelly

23. Are You My Mother? Eastman, P. D.

24. Feathers For Lunch Ehlert, Lois

25. Go Away, Big Green Monster! Emberley, Ed

26. Olivia Falconer, Ian

27. Lunch Fleming, Denise

28. The Magic Hat Fox, Mem

29. Corduroy Freeman, Don

30. Millions of Cats Gag, Wanda

31. The Three Billy Goats Gruff Galdone, Paul

32. Barnyard Song Greene, Rhonda

33. Is Your Mama a Llama? Guarino, Deborah

34. A First Picture Book of Nursery Rhymes Harbour, Elizabeth (Illustrator)

35. Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse Henkes, Kevin

36. Where’s Spot? Hill, Eric

37. Bread and Jam for Frances Hoban, Russell

38. Is it Red? Is it Yellow? Is it Blue? An Adventure in Color Hoban, Tana

39. Miss Mary Mack Hoberman, Mary Ann

40. Rosie’s Walk Hutchins, Pat

41. Harold and the Purple Crayon Johnson, Crockett

42. Splash! Jonas, Ann

43. Jump, Frog, Jump! Kalan, Robert

44. The Wolf’s Chicken Stew Kasza, Keiko

45. The Snowy Day Keats, Ezra Jack

46. The Caterpillar and the Polliwog Kent, Jack

47. Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock Kimmel, Eric

48. Leo the Late Bloomer Kraus, Robert

49. The Carrot Seed Krauss, Ruth

50. Over in the Meadow Langstaff, John

51. The Story of Ferdinand Leaf, Munro

52. Tacky the Penguin Lester, Helen

53. A Color of His Own Lionni, Leo

54. Frog and Toad are Friends Lobel, Arnold

55. Froggy Gets Dressed London, Jonathan

56. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom Martin, Bill

57. All By Myself Mayer, Mercer

58. Guess How Much I Love You McBratney, Sam

59. Make Way for Ducklings McCloskey, Robert

60. Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore! McPhail, David

61. Martha Speaks Meddaugh, Susan

62. The Jacket I Wear in the Snow Neitzel, Shirley

63. The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash Noble, Trinka

64. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Numeroff, Laura

65. Amelia Bedelia Parish, Peggy

66. The Kissing Hand Penn, Audrey

67. The Rainbow Fish Pfister, Marcus

68. The Little Engine That Could Piper, Watty

69. The Tale of Peter Rabbit Potter, Beatrix

70. Good Night, Gorilla Rathmann, Peggy

71. Curious George Rey, H. A.

72. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Rosen, Michael

73. The Relatives Came Rylant, Cynthia (It wasn't bad, we just didn't get it... perhaps it was over our heads and really is phenominal)

74. Grandfather’s Journey Say, Allen

75. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go Scarry, Richard

76. Where the Wild Things Are Sendak, Maurice

77. The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss

78. Duck on a Bike Shannon, David

79. Gregory, the Terrible Eater Sharmat, Mitchell

80. It Looked Like Spilt Milk Shaw, Charles

81. Caps for Sale Slobodkina, Esphyr

82. Imogene’s Antlers Small, David

83. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble Steig, William

84. And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon Stevens, Janet

85. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat Taback, Simms

86. Who’s Counting Tafuri, Nancy

87. Pigsty Teague, Mark

88. Polar Express Van Allsburg, Chris

89. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day Viorst, Judith

90. Lyle, Lyle Crocodile Waber, Bernard

91. Farmer Duck Waddell, Martin

92. Mouse Paint Walsh, Ellen Stoll

93. Noisy Nora Wells, Rosemary

94. Knuffle Bunny Willems, Mo

95. I Went Walking Williams, Sue

96. A Chair for My Mother Williams, Vera B.

97. The Napping House Wood, Audrey

98. Owl Moon Yolen, Jane

99. Seven Blind Mice Young, Ed

100. Harry, the Dirty Dog Zion, Gene

And there you have it. I see that there are quite a few (too many perhaps), that I don't recall well enough to have a solid opinion of. And for the most part... they were all pretty good reads - There was only 1 of all 100 that we found to be a total waste of time, but perhaps that's because at this point "finding" colors is a wee bit below Soph. While looking through it I believe her words were "Mom, this is boring, I need something with some action". Alrighty then! *side note* I have accomplished 1 of my goals. Yay me!

Coming Attractions -

I have so much to post about, and so many pictures - yet so little time! Hmmph - now that I think about it I'm not quite sure where all the time goes, right now I'm thinking that the answer is dishes and diapers - but I know surely there must be a better answer than that.

So, I have come up with a list of things I hope to accomplish this weekend blog-wise - here goes

First, I realized just now as I looked over our list of 100 books that we actually have read just about all of them. So, hopefully I'll archive the list as a reminder of our accomplishment. As if that wasn't outdated enough on it's own, I've been to the library about a dozen times since updating our current library books - surely there are people out there thinking I forgot how to get to our library, rest assured this is not the case. I'm just lazy. :)

Also, Soph has taken quite a liking to photography, she has been taking pictures like crazy on my camera, and they are surprisingly really, really good.Especially since her hands aren't quite large enough to hold the camera in position and hit the trigger, yet she somehow manages. I'm going to try and post her pictures as well.

Then of course there is "RED" , our unplugged project!

The list could continue, but why finish the list when I can just get to it? Eyes peeled everyone! These next few days are going to be (hopefully) some very fun-filled posting days! ;)

Unplugged Project : Haiku

Soph and I really had no clue what to do for our Unplugged activity. We tried to think of a fall related haiku, that did not happen. Then we made some food for Brenna together (OK, I made food for Brenna while she "taste tested" it and told me she was glad she wasn't a baby anymore - in reality she just really doesn't like broccoli, and I can't change that. I came up with a haiku about that, but it really was mostly blah. Then, DH and Soph found a ladybug crawling on our front porch railing. It was caught in a piece of Halloween fake spiderweb and couldn't really move because it's little legs were all tangled. Well, they sat and spent about 15 minutes freeing the little ladybug. Then Sophia went on to tell me how this little ladybug was her new best friend and they were going to be best friends always. Then she tried to kiss her new friend. Bad idea. Ladybug friend was almost a ladybug snack. After being nearly loved to death, the little ladybug flew to a nearby leaf for a snack of his (or her) own, and Sophia and I went to acquire a ladybug habitat from Lakeshore... Thus my inspiration for our haiku! I had her illustrate (with my help of course)-

Little Friends (by Me & Soph)

Little ladybug

My new best friend forever

Until you fly home

The process - The finished product -

I'd say weekly.... but...

Well I had the best of intentions of posting at least weekly. It seems, however, that after posting our Unplugged Project, that I totally forgot to post all the other stuff that had gone on! So rather than a weekly update, this will be a photo journal... in no specific (and definitely not chronological) order, although I did try a little to have it flow. Here goes nothin'! We have a calender in our "preschool" room, however I wasn't thinking clearly and put it on our back door... needless to say it has seen better days. I acquired this one and rather than have the whole month set up to start we are doing it together each day. So we have one calender that gives the whole picture, and one that goes piece by piece. Hopefully she'll develop a better sense of how long a month is and what not. It seems to be working well. Hopefully it will help with number recognition as well. She's pretty amazing at looking at a group and just spouting out how many there are and she's good at adding and subtracting, but not so much with saying which one in a group is the number 7, 9 etc. After nearly 7 months of having raspberries blown on her tummy, arms, legs, face... any inch of baby that there is... Little B discovered her tongue... and how to blow raspberries of her own. She spends about 70% of her day blowing raspberries, and is quite content in doing so. It's quite funny to watch - since most of the time she ends up cracking herself up. Silly girl! We enrolled Soph in an art class for preschoolers. In addition to acquiring the calender, I also scored some "frames" for her artwork. The one on top is the "piece" she did in class, it's water color that she textured a bit with sand or something... the nice lady that runs the class framed that one. The one below it was one of our early finger painting adventures. We thought it would be fun to have an art wall. I think this shall be the wall... although that might be changing soon - it might not be big enough. One of the reasons that my DH is the greatest is he made pumpkin (excuse me... Jack-O-Lantern) pancakes for Soph for Halloween. They turned out pretty cute and decently tasty too... the only negative - they turned Soph's face blue from the food coloring. That's OK though :) Small price to pay. 22222222 (that's was B's toe's contribution... I thought I'd leave it) Soph was Dorothy for Halloween. She put her costume on at about 10am and had me do her hair and she refused to take it off all day. Needless to say her hair wasn't so pretty by trick-or-treating time. Oh well. She was hilarious though, running around like she was on speed 'n such. She asked one man if there were peanuts in the candy and he was like "um, I don't think so I'm sorry" and she said "oh I don't like peanuts, I'm allergic, so this is good"... poor guy looked so confused. She definitely was high energy that night. I'm almost sorry I missed it - I only did the top half of our block with DH and the kiddos, then I had candy duty. yes... my living room is a mess. I know. But lets all look past the mess and see the really awesome Alphabet activity mats :) Sophia loves them. They come in quite handy when I'm attempting to feed B, do dishes, etc. The other day we lined them all up in alphabetical order and she hopped from A - Z telling me what she was hopping on as she was landing. If she knew what letter it was she told me, if not I told her. Then after that got old I "hid" the letters all over (except the kitchen), and then I would tell her what object and letter to find and she would run to it and bring it back to the box to put away. It was a very productive game. Soph wanted to color a Wizard of Oz picture after Halloween was over... alas, here she is... coloring. Exciting I know. I'm addicted to coupons. And clipping them. I usually sort through and take out the ones I want, then I clip the rest of them and either give them to our neighbor to pick through or in days of past I was part of a coupon train, and I would just mail them along. Well after I finished ours, Soph wanted to help me cut the rest of them. She did a good job of keeping her thumb up and scissors out.:) Can you tell whose pile is whose? I'm usually the moon foam police. I don't like the mixing of the colors - only because a)they're hard to pick apart and b) there are no single colors when she wants them... tears usually follow. Prior to the addition of the white I asked her why she was mixing up the blue and green. She told me she was making a flat globe and it was the Earth. Cool. Then I saw the glob of white headed towards the "Earth". I asked what the white was for on the globe and she said that it was from space and the white was the clouds. Rock on Soph.