Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Worldess Wednesday

We moved back here to the hometown I grew up in 3yrs ago.  At the time Sawyer was about 4.5 mo old.  His birth buddy (cousin born pretty close to him) was about 6.5 mo old.  At the time he was a giant baby something like 18lbs and she was also about 18lbs but again she had two months on him.  This is what they're relationship looked like:

Now I hunted and could not find what I was looking for.  This picture doesn't really show what I was trying to show.  He was petrified of her.  Screaming bloody murder if she looked at him, petrified of her.  This went on for several months.  And in hindsight was kinda funny.  At the time it made our playdates interesting.

This is what they're friendship looks like as of yesterday:
They play very well together and Sawyer is NEVER afraid to stick up for himself. lol

Muffin Tin Meal: birds nest snack

Yes, I know, it's Wed.  But to be honest this is the first moment all week I've given my poor blog any thought other than "Oh I should snap a pic of that to put on my blog."  What's even more ridiculous is we did this muffin tin activity LAST week so there's really no excuse. hehehe  Last week my younger boys were working with the letter N.  So we made yummy chocolate birds nests.  Great timing too because peeps were on sale for 50% off.  You know me, I love a sale.

Without further ado:
 I gathered the supplies near the microwave.  Melted the chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave.  I sprayed the pans while they melted.
 Colton used his giant boy muscles to stir in the chow mein noodles.
 Then (and obviously I don't have a picture of this part) we took spoons and spooned the chocolate chow mein mix into our muffin tin cups.
 Then we added little whopper eggs and peeps chicks to our nests.
 They turned out really cute and colorful and the kids loved the project.


So you should totally try this easy and fun snack if you're ever doing a birds or nest unit.  It was a little messy.  You should've seen Sierra, she was pretty well covered in chocolate.  And I may or may not have given her some straight up whoppers and peeps to keep her little hands out of our trays while we worked.  I'll never tell.  I will tell you though that I'm linking this up once again with Muffin tin Mom so go check out all the other great muffin tins this week!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Angry toddler

I have to say that I LOVE this picture so much.  It might make me a cruel mama but I think she is so totally cute when she's super angry.


And one of my oldest monkey.  This is a new game KOJ got to play with the kids and they love it.  Kayd built this track himself (the track can be built in different configurations).


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tot School Tuesday: Princess starts learning stuff

Sierra is finally at an age where she will do a semi-directed activity for a bit of time without me literally standing over her.  She's also stopped eating the tips off of markers and mostly stopped eating crayons.  She just LOVES to do whatever her brothers are doing and I've been long waiting this time in her little life when she would be old enough to do some fun activities.

This was Colton's activity but we have two boards so he shared.  She can't actually get the rubberbands on yet but she loves to try.
Now school in our home is pretty laid back until 1st grade.  Even then it's probably still more relaxed in it's pace than, well, anywhere else.  So Sierra isn't being grilled on her colors, letters, or numbers.  I'm just giving her her own little tot trays to keep her busy while I work with Kayd.  Each week she'll have three new activities in her bins (new over last weeks anyway lol).  I also print off extra copies of whatever I've printed out for the two younger boys in case she feels like joining in with that too.  She also has puzzles along with crayons and coloring books in drawers in the living room at all times (we school in the living room).

This week for her tot trays she gets to enjoy:



An empty cinnamon container that I washed out and some pipe cleaner pieces.  This is a great fine motor activity for her.  She got really frustrated that she couldn't get the pieces back out on her own though.  Even the boys wanted to play with this one.


Her stacking cups.  These cups stack, nest, and can be snapped together to make rolling ball shapes (and yeah there are 7 of them missing but I'll find em eventually lol).  They have the little holes there in the top (bottom?) so I put the jar of pom poms in with them so she could put them through the holes. 


And in the third bin I put her color wonder markers and paper.  I love this stuff.  She can color with markers like her brothers without coloring all over everything.  It's worth the cost to me.  I've got enough pen, pencil, and marker on my walls to last a lifetime.

I got these bins at walmart and I love that the lids lock on and she cannot currently remove them herself.  This makes it easier to store them in the living room on the bookshelf where I had been reserving space.  I also have room to add two more shallow bins or one more deep bin as time goes on and I need to give her more to keep her occupied.


Tune in next week to see what else our little princess tot gets to enjoy at "school".

PS. I JUST noticed how colorful she looks.  She and Colton had done their do a dot pages with bingo markers before I snapped these pics.  Those things have a great range of splatter when you bang them down hard enough. lol  And never fear, it all came off in her bath last night.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Muffin tin Monday: going green

So it's April.  Which apparently sparks lots of "save the earth" and "go green" campaigns.  I have a green muffin tin lunch to share.  But I have a confession to make.  We actually had this muffin tin meal in honor of St. Patrick's day back in March.  BUT blogger wasn't working for me so I didn't get to post it.  So let's all pretend that it's in honor of "earth day" and "going green".  Mmkay?  Great!


So I served green pasta.  Now a mother who cares about ultimate health and nutrition would've gone and bought spinach pasta.  I just added green food coloring to the boiling water with the pasta.  I served it with a bit of butter and cheese.  I also added green food coloring to their milk and cottage cheese.  I served naturally green broccoli and grapes though.  It was a while ago now but I'm pretty sure it was a hit.  Check back next week to see the fun "nest" snack we're going to make in the muffin tins.

As always I'm linking up with the Muffin Tin Mom for Muffin tin Monday so head over and check out the other great tins this week.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Blogging exile!

I'm back!  WOOT!  I've been attempting to blog for the past month but I could NOT get my blogger dashboard to load and today it loaded!  YAY!

So much has happened in our little world in the last month.  I know we had at least one more muffin tin meal I didn't get to post about - I'll put it up on Monday.  And Easter happened.  Lots of cuteness there.  I'll put some pics of that in this post.

And now that I am finally able to access this I can't think of a darn thing to post about.

I suppose I could post about the toddler stage of life.  Hello, my name is Samantha and I am the mom of a toddler.  I have been the mom of a toddler pretty much non stop for the past 5yrs.  One might think that I would be pretty numb to the toddler stage by now but I am not.  The toddler stage includes some total cuteness and some seriously challenging moments.

For example - adorable toddler is doing something so completely naughty but they have that toddler eye twinkle and tiny toddler grin.  The cuteness of this moment is obvious but the challenge is NOT laughing at the cuteness.  I have at least one of these moments EVERY day with Princess.  (We do not really call her princess in real life, we call her Sis mostly.  Sissy, Sierra, and Colton's favorite nickname which is oddly starting to catch on - Sierry, but I never call her princess anymore.)  Oh and I do still call her baby girl.  Of course that is beside the point.

Ten things I wouldn't trade about my toddler:

1 - watching her explore her world and discover new things about it.
2 - watching her learn independence even though it can be super maddening if we're in a time crunch and she insists upon putting on her OWN clothes or socks and shoes (she does the socks pretty well actually).
she was certain she could put her own dress back on after lunch. lol
3 - watching her love her brothers.  She wakes up from a nap and runs straight to hug a brother it's totally adorable.
4 - her wanting to be included in what we do.  Again it has it's maddening moments but it's also kinda sweet that she wants to do "school" when her brothers do.
5 - reading with her.  She loves the touchy feely books esp and lift the flap books are also a big hit with her (if I can keep her from ripping off all the flaps of course - see challenge!).
6 - tickle time.  she tickles her own belly and that right there is totally priceless
7 - Snuggle time - sometimes I am so touched out I could live the rest of my life without another human being grabbing at me, but her snuggles are still just so wonderful.  Laying with her head on my shoulder, sucking her fingers, and snuggling.  Thank goodness she's a small child.
8 - her communication - someday she's going to speak clearly and in full sentences, but for now the few words she does say, and most importantly grabbing me by the hand, dragging me where she wants me, and pointing at what she wants does the trick.  And it's so darn cute.  This morning I got up to get myself breakfast but she clearly wanted me to follow her, so I did.  Into the bathroom.  Where she climbed into the empty bath tub and waited for me to turn on the bath.  Seriously?  Words could not have made that any more clear. Needless to say my baby girl is freshly bathed.
9 - her helpfulness - she loves to help me clean.  She loves to help with laundry and sweeping and emptying the dishwasher.  She does the work of three brothers. hehehe
10 - The toddler stage ends!  It does, I see in my boys that they are past the toddler stage.  And while I'm enjoying the toddler stage, I won't lie, I'm happy that it doesn't last forever.  There IS too much of a good thing.

And now without further ado here are some pics from Easter:
Toddler Tude!
My beautiful children.
my beautiful children and handsome husband.
And one more of my baby girl:


So if you have a toddler make sure to give them extra snuggles today because toddler hood feels like it will never end but it WILL end.  It really will.  Don't ask me what comes next because I hate to burst hopeful bubbles.