"Stop copying me!"

I've decided that whoever came up with the saying "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" was probably just a copycat trying to make himself feel better.

"There are seven days, there are seven days, there are seven days in a week"

For those of you who may not know.... I am a nanny. I am a nanny for an adorable little three and a half year old boy. I'm sure you'll hear many stories from our daily adventures together. However, because he is not my child, I am going to refrain from using his name/nickname. For the sake of this blog, I am going to call him "little man".

So my little man is always wanting to know what we are doing. Sometimes it's the first thing he says to me when I walk in the door. "Where are we going today Befany?" You see, we go somewhere EVERY day. He also always wants to know when are we going to The Little Gym (his favorite), or when are we going to soccer (a new class that is right up there with his favorites), or when is that mommy is going to stay home again? I try to use real every day language with him. He slightly grasps some of the "yesterday", "tomorrow" and "on Monday" talk, but still asks all the time. I decided it was time for a visual aid.

I really liked the Melissa & Doug magnetic calendar, but thought it would be too over stimulating for him to start with. So of course, I decided to make one! :)

Here is most of what I started with. I found that really cheap board at Michael's. I also bought paint to match the kitchen it will be hung in, stickers, velcro, a brown craft pen, scrapbook paper, little wooden pieces, and a hook to hang it with.


I didn't take photos of every step, but I tried to get a few photos of the journey. First I painted the wood a cream color. Then I cut the scrapbook paper and glued it inside the frame of the wood. I had bought the spray adhesive, but unfortunately the spray top was missing. After that, I cut out green rectangles and wrote the day of the week on each. I glued those down and then put a layer of Mod Podge on top. I chose these colors because this is going in their kitchen and I didn't want to use bold reds and blues. Also, green is little man's favorite color.

I had already painted the little squares cream. After that I glued on the stickers and printed pictures of the places we go the most. I put a layer of Mod Podge on their as well. This is a picture of them drying.
I used the little circular sticky velcro. I wanted it to be interactive so little man could have ownership in his day. I plan on teaching the days of the week, seven days in a week, and terms like today/tomorrow/yesterday. I also added a brown ribbon in order to hang it up with. This is what the finished product looked like.
A closer look....
Here are some of the extra's. I think I'm going to buy one of those plain wood boxes at the craft store and have little man paint it. He loves to paint, an then we'll have a cute place for all of the extras.
I sent pictures to K (mom boss) and she sent me THREE emails back freaking out about how fabulous it is. I can't wait to put it to use.

Noise

My husband likes background noise.
I do not like ANY excess noise.
Do you see the problem?

For the past two years, much to my dismay, we've been sleeping with the bathroom fan on. Michael has been saying forever that he wants to get a white noise machine. Well, he finally got it. He turned it on last night when he came to bed. I thought it was loud, obnoxious, completely unnecessary, and growling at me. He said, "It's just a little 'white noise'. You don't even hear it." I said, "Ooooooh, I hear it. It sounds like a roaring ocean". He just laughed at me.

Oh the joys of sharing a bed......

Here I am

I'm going to attempt to become a blogger once again. I was writing on xanga quite frequently for a while, but got out of the habit and had no desire to get back into it. Over the past few months, I've been told on numerous occasions that I should "start a blog". So here I am. I am planning on writing about all the things that interest me--hopefully sparing you all from the boring day to day details of my life. I don't want this to be a diary, but something a little fun, and maybe even a little informative.

You may or may not read about the following points of interest:

• cooking and my obsession with collecting cookbooks
• anything having to do with kids--places of interest to go, fun crafts to do, educational ventures, etc.
• funny stories! I can't help it. I'm a story teller! :)
• crafts I enjoy-scrapbooking, card making, and any other random craft I may be trying at the time
• my husband--just because he's awesome and I love to brag about him so much
• books I am reading
• fun ways to save money
• referbishing old items into new fabulous ones
• decorating
• pet peeves

Enjoy!