Our first week of Tot School

Our main objectives with this is

1) Getting her to learn letters, numbers, shapes, and colors

2) be more engaged with her as far as limiting tv/phone/iPad usage throughout the day for all of us

3) start incorporating bible lessons

4) work on fine motor skills.

First I made a trip to Walmart to stock up on some supplies:

Construction paper

Markers

Glue

Pipe cleaners

Popsicle sticks

Finger paint

Wiggle eyes

In addition to what I had already gotten from the Dollar Tree:

Flash cards

Cut-out letters and numbers 

Scissors 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to start focusing on one letter per week with her, so this week we are on the letter C.  We also started with the number 1 and our bible story was Daniel in the Lions's Den.

On Monday we added the Letter C to our wall with A and B and also added the number 1.  Our craft for the day was C made out of cotton balls for cloud.  And a coloring page of the number 1.

I had seen on Pinterest where you just give your child some pipe cleaners and a strainer and let them put the pipe cleaners through the holes to work on fine motor skills.  Sam loved doing this, she sat there for a good 20-25 minutes, we also worked on colors.  She actually did this every day this week.

Next we made a Caterpillar, gluing the circles on the letter C.  We also let her practice with the scissors which is what the squares are from, she wanted to put them on the caterpillar:).  We also went to the library for storytime and checked out a few books.

On Wednesday, she did some painting and then in nursery at Church we learned about Daniel in the Lion's Den and attempted making paper plate lions.  

On Thursday we made cookies!  She loves to help cook and bake and trying all the ingredients.  We incorporated the Letter C and counting as well.

On Friday, I was quite worn out from the week and Howie was working so we didn't work on anything in particular just reinforced what we had done throughout the week.

Some things I learned about all this through the week:

1. Pinterest is amazing 

2. We do the most on Monday's and Tuesday's when I have morning's off.

3. She takes really good naps when she hasn't had any screen time.

Toddler hairstyles!

One of the things I love about having a girl is getting to do her hair!  Every so often I get on Pinterest to get some new ideas on how to do Sam's hair and here's some of the stuff I've done.

I'll start with the most basic

The side pony, this is her daily hairstyle, easy and out of her face!

And then of course there are pigtails, another easy one but also ways to mix it up.  You can do a different part or just the top half.

This is where I started doing a little more and color coordinating the pony tails with her outfit:). This one just starts with a small pony tail and keep adding hair.

This one was inspired by my lack of ability to French braid.

Trying to get even more complicated, I discovered if I used a spray bottle to get her hair wet that it was a lot easier to get all those little hairs in.

I didn't get very good pictures of this

 one but I did a side part and then a couple of the pony tails back into pigtails.

This one I did the pony tails across instead of back and then into a side pony, super cute with the big flower too.

 

This one I can't take credit for, my sister in law managed to French braid Sam's hair.  She went along with her natural part on top and it turned out really good.

This was a new one for me, I divided her hair in 3 sections, twisted the three parts in a braid fashion, put that all in a pony tail and then did a braid down.

I've done some other ones but didn't get pictures but I'm sure as her hair gets longer I'll come up with some new stuff:)

Samantha's 2nd Birthday Party

Better late than never!

We celebrated Sam's 2nd birthday on May 29th, Memorial Day weekend.  

She has been really into Veggie Tales for a long time now so it was a no brainer as far picking a theme.  However, it's next to impossible to find any party supplies with that theme in stores.  So I scoured Pinterest for ideas and found some online stores that sold Veggie Tales stuff.

First up, the invitations, I found a pack of 8 online and since we only invited family it was perfect. (Of course I didn't get a picture of those)

I found reusable plastic cups, cake plates, and balloons online as well!

The hardest part was going to be the cake but thankfully my mom is super talented and was able to perfectly duplicate a cake I found on Pinterest!

For the rest of the decorations I just bought things with the basic colors and it mixed in well.

The birthday girl!  I loved this tutu over her swimsuit:)

She hated the waterslide😂

She loved this gift, Lambie!

All the kids playing.

Water slides!

Cake time:)

Overall it was a great day, celebrating our sweet girl with family!

Big Changes

Today marks a big change in our family.  For the past 2 years Howie has been working from home/taking care of Sam, and it has been a huge blessing!  Not many dads get the opportunity to be as hands on and you can really tell that Sam loves her daddy.

But today Howie starts a new job, working at an avocado distribution center.  So the next few weeks will be quite the adjustment for all of us, especially Sam as we have different people helping us with her.  It takes a village and I am so thankful we have that!  So when you think about it say a little prayer for Sam, that she doesn't miss her daddy too much.  

23 months old!

How is it possible for Sam to be 2 next month?!  She is in such a fun, noisy, busy stage right now:)

Howie took her to the dr 2 weeks ago to get some new medicine for her eczema and she weighed in at 26 lbs!  She has also finally gotten some more teeth, in addition to the 4 molars and 1 lower front tooth, the other lower front tooth and two front top teeth have broken through.  Also she is officially off breastmilk, she weaned herself around 21 months and just yesterday she drank the last bag of frozen milk.  Almost made it to 2 years but she's doing fine with whole milk.

One of her favorite things to do now is read books, I'm so glad she loves them just like me!

She loves pointing out animals and babies in the books and as soon as you finish one she runs to get another one.

We also made our first trip to the beach this year and it was so much fun!  Long gone are the days of going to the beach to relax but I wouldn't have it any other way, so much more fun!  We went to St. Augustine beach where you can drive your car on the beach and it was so convenient.  

We already have 3 trips to the beach on the calendar in the next couple of months and I'm sure we'll make some impromptu trips as well.  I have to make sure and stay diligent about putting sunscreen on Sam since she has her daddy's skin tone she tans super easy even with sunscreen on.  

She has also moved up to the toddler story time at the library.  It's on Tuesday mornings and since I've recently taken Tuesdays off we should hopefully go quite a bit.  We've only been once so far but she seemed to enjoy it.

And she has moved up to the toddler class at church which means I've started teaching there instead of the nursery.  I've only taught one Sunday so far but I really enjoyed it! 

We've gotten into a pretty good routine at home where she gets to play outside a lot!  We usually walk to the park at least once a day and she loves to play on the back patio.  We're working on getting some grass back there so she can enjoy the yard too!

We just sent out invitations for her 2nd birthday party, just planning a small, family party with a Veggie Tales theme!  We're excited to have some family from back home coming down for it too!

Organizing Ideas!

Let's talk about one of my favorite things to do....Organize!

Our dilemma is we live in a 2 bed, 1 bath, 950 sq foot (no garage, very small attic) town home.  I.e. Little to no extra storage space:(

Every few months both Howie and I get in the mood to go through things, throw stuff out, and reorganize!  I've been on Pinterest the last week trying to get some new ideas for small spaces.  And unfortunately I didn't take before pictures but here are some after pictures.

Our goal here was getting stuff off the floor.  The three buckets on the bottom shelf were on the floor along with the broom and swiffer.  And the apron hook is new too.  This should work out really well because it means Howie won't need to move anything except the table to get the motorcycle through the house.  

There's more to this than meets the eye, I cleared off the top of the refrigerator but that entailed going through the cabinets to make more room (it's a never ending cycle!)

This was my favorite thing to go through, I've been wanting to for so long!  First I used an idea off of Pinterest which was to fold matching sheets/pillowcases and store them in one of the pillowcases.  You can't really tell in the picture but that's what's on the top shelf.  Next I folded and sorted all the towels, hand towels, wash clothes etc.  The last thing was to sort through all the random stuff that was piled on the floor.  So I used some baskets from Sam's room that weren't  being used and put Kona's stuff in one, and our different overstock things in the other two.  At work when there's a really good deal on toothpaste, body wash etc I try to stock up so we never have to pay full price for those things, the trade off being it takes up valuable space.

The last thing we tackled was the bathroom.  Our main issue is the only storage space there is a medicine cabinet, when we first moved in we bought this extra storage cabinet.  It works really well but it had gotten extremely messy!  There were so many bottles on the the very top it was ridiculous.  So we went through everything and threw a lot away!  I also wanted to try hanging stuff on the wall for even more space, not sure if I really like how the mirror and hairbrush look but we'll see.

Our last couple of projects include both of our bedrooms and the bar in the kitchen.  Hopefully we stay motivated to get it all done!

Any other ideas for small spaces?? Let me know!

The perfect day

Yesterday we celebrated 4 years of marriage and it might have been the most perfect day you could have!  

I took off work for a long weekend so we decided to spend all day Thursday with Sam since we are leaving her overnight with nana and papa Friday night.

So we headed to the zoo even though the forecast showed rain all day.  It only sprinkled a little in the beginning and the rest of the morning was nice and cool!  Sam loved carrying the umbrella around.

And playing in the water

We left the zoo around 12 and headed to lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet.  After getting Sam down for her nap around 1 she slept until 430!  I was having a major sweet tooth after she woke up so we headed to publix to get some dessert and ended up getting dinner from there too.  

We got home and decided we would just stay home for the evening so we went out to the back porch and played with Sam and Kona.  Sam practiced her batting skills and for a 2 year old I was impressed!  Had a little picnic outside then headed in to make cookies!  Sam loves to help bake although after she got her beater she had to take a book break

After baking we settled in on the sofa bed and watched The Land Before Time with Sam, which she loved.

Sam went to bed and we decided to watch another movie, we had a hard time choosing one but I had been wanting to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  Quite a sad movie but very good.

Today we leave Sam overnight for the first time and head to Amelia Island to celebrate just the two of us.

And that was our perfect day.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Our marriage would not be what it is today without the Lord.  I am so thankful for Howie and Sam more so than I could ever share in words.