Park Play

We have had cooler temps this week, so we decided to take advantage and have a picnic at a park.  Instead of going to the park a few minutes down the road, we met Michael at a metro park.

We ate our dinner and then checked out playground number one.

I put Logan in the Baby K'tan and wore him for a while.

We started out at the playground closest to where we parked and ate. Then we walked a little ways to another playground.

This picture made me laugh.  We were trying to explain to Olivia that she needed to stay on the paths/on the mowed part only.  Michael was showing her his arm and telling her that he had some poison ivy and it was itchy and she wouldn't like it.  Logan was apparently taken back by the information!

Since Michael was holding Logan, Olivia decided to go ahead and attempt a slide on her own.

She was pretty proud when she got to the bottom.

Putting those gross motor skills to work!

Logan started getting cranky, so I put him in the stroller and we headed to the next playground.

Olivia did a lot of running.  She kept wanting to smell all of the wild flowers, but we made her stay on the path.

That was when my phone died.... and the camera didn't have the memory card in it.  But we spent some time at another playground.  Logan ended up falling asleep.  Olivia wanted to run down a hill with Michael.  They ended up doing that over and over while I pushed the stroller back and got the car.

It wasn't really the metro park "hike" that I had in mind, so I'm not marking it off of my bucket list.  But we did do a pretty good amount of walking.  Olivia had a great time.  It was so nice to take advantage of the beautiful weather.

A Week of Firsts

I woke up in sometime during the wee hours of Monday morning to Logan laying on his stomach.  Of course, he was in his crib screaming his head off because he was not so happy to be on his stomach.  How did he get on his stomach? Oh, he rolled there.  Apparently he then forgot how to roll back.

So I put him back on his back.  And so the cycle continued.  I think over all I had to turn him 3 times.  One of the times I just went ahead and fed him, because that is why he woke up.  He did sleep a portion of the night on his tummy, but not much.

He did nap for an entire half hour on his tummy on Monday, and slept half of Tuesday night on his tummy as well.  I was hoping that maybe the tummy sleep would be the answer to hour half hour naps.  Although, I knew from experience that it was wishful thinking.

That was Monday.  Tuesday started with his first tooth!  I even said something to Michael on Monday about it.  I didn't feel a thing, but he was being so clingy and whiny.  I think he has started the whole separation anxiety thing, but it seemed a bit more than that.

He's been drooling and shoving everything in his mouth for a while now.  Olivia did it for 4 months before she actually got her first tooth (at 7 months old), so I wasn't really expecting it. I was just throwing out reasons why he just wanted to be held. Sure enough, one of his bottom teeth has popped through.  I wonder when the next one will pop up.

Music with Miss Marlene

I first learned of Miss Marlene years ago when I took Little Man to a toddler theater.  It was basically a concert where she played kids songs and all the kids sang and danced around in this big open space.  She did such a great job.  We eventually signed up for one of her music classes at the local rec center.  I'm not always the easiest of critics when it comes to those types of classes, but I thought she did a really good job.  Olivia and I attended one of her toddler theaters, but the problem is that she plays at a rec center that is on the complete opposite side of town.

But.... as part of the summer reading program, so recently put on a little concert at our local library!

It was on a Saturday, so we got to bring Boppa along.  She seems to participate more when he is there.

a not so good selfie... but Logan enjoyed the music too.  Then he ate a bottle. 

holding Boppa's hand while she listens to the instructions

She really enjoyed the entire half hour.

It was fun for the whole family

We returned our library books, and then Olivia and Michael read while I chose a few new ones.

There is a cute little square where the library is, so we walked around and checked out that little toy store.  (This is the town where our condo is.  So those of you who may remember--everything has to be brick and white picket fences.)

Olivia loves flowers and couldn't wait to be up close to these guys.

After our time in the square we headed to Chipotle for lunch.  Olivia's kids meal came with tortilla chips.  She pretty much never has chips, so she was enjoying herself.  Then she said, "Look. I made a chip sandwich!"

Eating her chip sandwich.  Silly girl.

It's nice to get out and have fun little family adventures.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

That pretty much sums up my last week.

First, I was asked to teach preschool... by TWO separate places.  How random?  I actually talked to the director of one, just to weigh my options. But putting my children in full time day care (even if I am on site) wasn't really something I wanted to do.

Then Saturday night I was working and don't you know... I got held up at gun point.  I don't really want to go into the details here.  You know.  It's the internet and all.  But I am just fine.  They haven't caught the girl yet.  Here is the story (although, I actually didn't give her the money).

Michael and I were joking around about it the other night.  Seriously.  First I gave birth in an ambulance, and then I'm held up at gun point.  What else can happen in this year?  Michael said maybe a bomb threat.  I told him not to say that.  He responded, "Oh, I'm sure you'd remember something you saw on TV one time and you'd have it diffused in 5 minutes with no problem." Ha! 

 

I like to tell a good story, but this is getting ridiculous!

 

Making Popsicles

We rarely have popsicles around here.  I just don't buy them.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times Olivia has had one.  Michael bought a box of 20 back in March when we got the stomach bug, and we still have over half in the freezer.  I thought that since Olivia loves to help do everything these days, making our own would be really fun for her.  Plus, eating them would be a fun treat.

When I was growing up, we always had pudding pops at my grandma's house.  I thought it would be fun to make some red, white and blue pudding pops for the 4th.

I have no idea why, but I bought the big box of pudding mix.  Which was WAY too much.  Olivia helped make the pudding, and then all she wanted to do was eat it.

I separated it out and she helped mix in the colors.  That was the end of my picturing taking of the process. Mostly because it got messy and I needed both hands, but also because Olivia aborted the mission in favor of eating lunch and a bowl of pudding.

We enjoyed our popsicles before heading to the fireworks.

Since the vanilla pudding was more of a yellow color, they weren't exactly red, white and blue.  But they were close enough.  Tasty too!

We also made these raspberry limeade popsicles. 

Olivia crushed the raspberries while I cut the lemon.  You were suppose to use a lime, but I just got a lemon instead.

Logan didn't want to be left out, so he sat in his high chair in the kitchen so he could see us.

 There was so much leftover that I actually used another set of popsicle molds that I had.

The pictures of her trying them the next day turned out kind of dark.  She wasn't sure at first if she liked the sour of the lemon, but she took a second lick and decided that it was yummy. She ate the whole thing.

We have a few more recipes to try, but so far this has been a fun little summer treat for us.

Abracadabra--A Library Magician

Last week we actually made it to a 10 o'clock program at the library.  In fact, we were actually quite a bit early.  Yes, I am patting myself on the back for the accomplishment! :)

 Olivia didn't mind that we were early.  She grabbed some books and started reading.

The program was a magician/balloon lady.  I actually thought there was going to be more with balloons than there was.  Olivia was only mildly interested, but we sat through the entire half hour session.

One great thing about having an intense book lover for a child, was when the program ended and all the kids swarmed the play area, she just wanted to grab more princess books.  We sat and read for about a half hour while Logan napped in his car seat.

When he woke up and needed to eat, she decided she would go ahead and play.

It was perfect because then she had the whole entire play area to herself!

She is amazed that there are TWO libraries, and she has already asked to go back!

Fine Motor Skills--Squishy Bag

You may have noticed that we actually do a lot of fine motor skill activities around here.  When it comes to using small pieces, placing small items in a hole, etc Olivia doesn't have a problem.  The reason why scored slightly below average on fine motor skills is because of her writing.  I already knew this, so it wasn't a big surprise to me.  I'm sure you are wondering how that might be since she spent 3 hours coloring the other day.

One of the things they had us do on the ASQ was draw a straight line. Then have the child copy what you did and draw a straight line.  She did this with ease.  Then you were suppose to draw a circle and have them do the same thing.  I already knew this wasn't going to go down the way it should, but I gave it a try anyway.  On the ASQ they gave picture examples of what would constitute a yes and what would constitute a no.  First of all, it took a lot of convincing for me to have her even attempt it.  This is what happens every time I broach the subject with her.  She finally did it.  It starts out looking like a circle, but then she just keeps scribbling over and over and the circle looses it's shape. Which is a "no" in the ASQ book.  Ask Olivia to draw a picture of a person (or any object really) and you are likely to see a slight look of panic along with the phrase, "I can't. You do it."  Truthfully, I don't necessarily think it's an ability thing.  I think it's a confidence thing.  Mixed in with a "if I can't do it perfectly then I just won't try" attitude that she may have gotten from one of her parents (cough, Michael, cough).

But... it's still my job to try to get her where she needs to be.  That is going to take a mixture of confidence building along with practice and exposure.  The good thing is, I had multiple students over the years who had the same need for their work to be perfect or "right".  So this isn't my first time dealing with this. (Although, sometimes it doesn't make it any less frustrating.)

How do you teach someone to want to draw?  Especially when they already have it in their little head how things should go.  We have drawn on her easel.  We have drawn on a magnadoodle.  We have drawn on paper.  We've used crayons, markers, pens, highlighters. The girl has definitely been exposed.  So I looked up different activities to do to help.  We've already done the tracing with her fingers.  And as a teacher I know all about drawing in salt, tracing on sandpaper, etc.

I saw an idea to make a squishy bag and have them "draw" pictures using their fingers.  I thought we'd go ahead and give it a try.

The directions said to use a clear hair gel from the dollar store.  I don't go to the dollar store often, so I just bought the cheapest clear hair gel I could find. (Which didn't end up being much more than a dollar.)

We poured it in a gallon sized bag and added glitter and food coloring.

and squished it all around

I think I was suppose to put a white paper underneath, but I forgot.  I showed her how to draw a circle and then had her attempt it.  It was actually harder than I thought it was going to be.  Maybe my gel was too thick?

I don't know that she ever really drew a shape, but she attempted to run her finger around like she knew what she was doing. :)

Then she just squished the stuff around and played with it.

She said, "Look.  It's a comfy couch!"

Hopefully next time we can at least get a circle drawn. :)