J-E-L-L-O

Well, I've taken the plunge! Into homeschooling that is...as much as a 3 year old needs/wants, which for us is only about 15-30 minutes a day. We haven't been doing anything too extraordinary and in truth it's not all that different than what we would normally do other than that we have a specific time set aside that is a little more focused and we call it "playing school".

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I have been trying to think of some fun ways to learn and this one came to me last night. Bug hasn't been too interested in writing her letters. She will do it on her own every now and then but if I ask her to do it she digs her heels in. So I decided to try to do something fun to help her practice writing her letters. This is what I came up with...pudding!

We got through the entire alphabet and she listened well and cooperated! No frustration! She is not too big on sitting still so any time I can get her to sit still and focus on an activity it is a success.

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Proudly displaying "her" letter.

I would show her how to write the letter in the chocolate and then she would copy me in the vanilla. I was worried that we weren't going to have enough vanilla to make it to the end of the alphabet since she was eating so much but we made it....barely. :) After we did all 26 letters I let her play in it while I checked my e-mail.

I got through all my e-mails and looked over to find this.

Give em' an inch and they'll take a mile! :)

Who says ya shoudn' have instant puddin' with J-E-L-L-O!

P.S. I think I found a new, more organic tanning creme. After I got all that pudding off her arm it was a nice bronze-y shade. :)

Peas and Thank You

Good news! Last weekend when we were at Grandma and Grandpa's we tried the Gerber applesauce and Boo actually ate it! Half of one of those little tubs, which is about half a tub more than she's ever eaten. :) We had given her "natural" applesauce before and she didn't like it...maybe the Gerber stuff is a little more mild?

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AND the best part was that the applesauce seemed to unlock a love for the Gerber foods. The previously rejected sweet potatoes and squash were accepted later in the week! Score one for Mommy and Daddy!

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So since our food ventures have been going so well for the past 6 days we decided to bring out the peas today!

We had a good start...mouth open, nice big bite!

And...it went downhill from there.

A little bit dropped on the tray so we decided to let her explore the foreign substance in the hopes that it would awaken some pea-lovin' taste buds.

She looked like she was performing a scientific experiment.

And she quickly discovered that it wasn't any better from the fingers than it was from the spoon.

We didn't have the heart to push the issue.

I guess that would be "Peas and NO thank you!"

Big Girl

Look what I found when I went into Boo's room yesterday!

She is getting so big already! I just glanced back through our old blog and as far as I can tell K didn't pull herself up on anything until about 9 months. She also got her first top tooth at 9 months so I guess Boo is just all around ahead of the game...at least comparatively in our little family. As you can tell from the video, Boo was quite pleased with herself!

Look for a crawling post soon! I think it is literally going to be any second. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, she can go backward, spin around, and go from sitting to on her tummy to back to sitting, all things that K didn't do until around 10 months so it seems early to me. She's definitely on the brink!

Weekend

We spent the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's. I didn't get any pictures though. Guess I was just to busy enjoying the peace and quiet of the farm. We went over to Auntie Nae's on Saturday because she was having a garage sale, but other than that we just relaxed and hung out.
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Our only problem was that we lost K's shoes right before we left. Grandma and I spent half an hour looking for them but eventually we just left them behind and K had to go shoeless into Target and Panda Express on the way home.

Well, I'm going to get off here and go enjoy some time outside. The past two days have been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and 75. Perfect. I wish the weather would stay like this for about two or three months. Is there anywhere it's like this year round? If there is I might have to move. I'm lovin' it!

Watermelon

Boo is still not excited about the baby foods. I'm not really sure what to do about it. The only thing she likes is the oatmeal, so the only way I can get her to eat any fruits or veggies is to put a couple of teaspoons in her oatmeal...any more than that and she won't eat it. I think it is partially a texture thing for her. She has started to gag on her pureed foods...even the oatmeal. However, she is loving regular food. I'm not sure why I have to give her pureed foods anyway. Isn't it basically the same thing? But when I asked the doctor they said to keep pushing the baby foods.

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We're trying, but in the meantime Boo is getting to try a lot of other things. Her favorite is bread. She loves to eat little bits of bread from our sandwiches, hamburgers, even pizza crust. She loves those carbs. :)

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I finally got out the little mesh bag we used with K and by using that we have introduced bananas, plums, and watermelon. The watermelon was her favorite. I thought it was going to be so messy and drippy but when she was done the thing was empty and there wasn't a single drop on her bib! She sucked up every bit of juice she could. :)

Yum.

A little hard to hold, but worth the effort.

Has anyone else had this problem with baby food? It seems odd to me since K loved baby foods and would eat a whole jar in one sitting. It's funny how they show such differences even at this young age.

The Cheese Stands Alone

This is a video that I took a few weeks ago and never put up. K was watching it yesterday and it made me laugh. You can really see her intense personality coming through her song. She almost sounds hostile. She had a mission to complete by golly...she was going to sing that song! So funny.

Canadian Vacation Eh?

I love the way Canadians say "Eh?" at the end of their sentences. It seems so funny to me. And the way they pronounce some things like about sounding like "ah-boot" and sorry sounding like "sore-ee". And that rubber bands are "elastics" and napkins "serviettes". I'm sure the way we talk seems funny to them since everyone we met asked where we were from. It was obvious we weren't locals. :)

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So...our vacation...traveling with kids is just not easy. Things were SO much easier when we were only two...not that I would want to go back to those times without our precious girls, but for traveling purposes it sure was a lot easier. We left on Thursday about 1:30. Since the girls always nap from 2:00 to 4:00 or 4:30 we figured we'd go then and they would sleep on the way there. Yeah. Good plan. Not so much. They finally did fall asleep but it only lasted about half an hour before they woke up again. So we stopped, got a snack, and tried again. S did fall back to sleep for the last 20 minutes or so, but they were both awake when we got to the border. Which actually worked out fine because we were stopped for a random check and had to get out of the car while they looked through our stuff. It probably looked like we were trying to immigrate to Canada since there was about 1 square inch of leftover space in the car. Traveling with kids also means bringing your entire house with you everytime you go somewhere. :P

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Thankfully, after the border we only had about 12 miles to go so we were soon at the condo checking things out. One of the families arrived just a few minutes before we did so we took a while to get settled and then headed into the town to get some dinner. It was a very touristy town so we picked a restaurant and hoped the kids would do okay. Hours and hours spent in the car with little to no naps and the excitement of being with little friends did not provide for the best behavior in a restaurant with cloth napkins. :) But they didn't do too bad and we weren't kicked out.

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After dinner we headed to the grocery store to buy all our fruits and veggies for the weekend (you can't bring them over the border) and the other family arrived. We all went back to the condo and let the kids wear each other out before bed. One of the bedrooms had two bunk beds and we made the attempt of letting K sleep in with her friends. At about 10:00pm we gave up on that idea and moved her to the bathtub in the master suite, where we ended up. Yes, we made our child sleep in the bathtub. :) And we made our other child sleep in the closet. We tried to have Boo out in the room with us but she turned over and fussed about every five seconds and in the PeaPod, which is made of tent material, it sounded like some giant rustling bear was in the room. So we moved the PeaPod to the closet and happily closed out the rustling sounds.

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The next morning the kids were even more excited to see each other. Group vacationing is really just one big sleepover! Fun for everyone. :) One of the families gave us their bumbo that their daughter has grown out of. We didn't have one and Boo loves it!

The girls playing games.

Friday was the only really nice day on the 5 day forecast so we decided to take advantage of the last real day of summer and spend it at the lake. The guys made a tee time and us girls headed to the lake with all the kids. We drove the 45 minutes to Lake Christina, where T and I visited on our Anniversary getaway in July. It is a perfect beach. The kids could walk out about 30 feet and still be only waist deep. Great for wading. I don't think I got a picture with all 6 under 6, but here are five of them. They are ages six, three and a half, three, two, one and a half, and seven months.

All girls and one boy! Poor guy. :) At least he's the oldest!
All the kids were fascinated with Boo. She wasn't so sure about them. :)

This is one of the best things about group vacationing...the kids entertain themselves! All I had to do was sit on a blanket with S and watch K playing with her friends. They had a blast!

Boo had a pretty good time herself.

I think it's time to put away all the fun summer outfits. :( They are so much cuter than winter clothes! I'm not ready for long sleeves and jeans! No fun.

Girlfriends.
That was the night that the illness began so the next morning we were pretty slow getting up and around. Boo went down for her morning nap and we went out behind the condo to the little creek. it was so pretty. There is a ski resort about half a mile from the condo so we were definitely high up in the mountains. It was a beautiful spot.

Posing.

I thought this picture was so cute! I wish it were a little clearer, but I was standing up on the bridge.

I just threw some tennis shoes on with my skirt since I didn't think we'd be gone very long. A group of us ended up going on a hike along the creek. I definitely would have done better with jeans, but it wasn't too bad. :)

After naps we went into the town. They had a really cute little toy shop there and several candy shops. We let the kids pick out a treat. K picked this lollipop. It was actually one of the smallest ones!

While we were there Boo cut BOTH of her top teeth! That would probably account for the fussy, rustly sleeping. Poor thing. At least we got them both out of the way at one time!

I didn't really take any pictures of the condo. Here's one of the main floor living room.

Saturday night was another night of sickness, so Sunday was pretty relaxed too. We packed a lunch and drove to a nearby town that was supposed to have some good shopping. The town was pretty dead on a Sunday. They even had all the stoplights blinking...like there wasn't enough traffic around to even have them on. We took a walk along the river. They had some gorgeous flowers.

It was pretty cold and windy. Boo didn't want to stop for a photo-op. "Uh, can somebody pick me back up and wrap me up in my blanket again??"

We walked around for a bit and then decided to head back since it was so cold.

We stopped at a park and let the kids play for an hour and we were going to have our picnic lunch but the wind was so chilly that we ended up going back to the condo and eating there. We had a nice relaxing day of naps, reading, playing games, eating, and we ended with some hot tub time and a movie after we got the kids to bed.

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It was Sunday night, or rather Monday morning, that T and I got sick so we literally spent almost the entire day in bed before stumbling to the car and driving home as quickly as possible. It really was a fun vacation though and I'm so glad we did it! Maybe we can do it next year and hope that nobody gets the flu!

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I think K would probably rank it right up there with one of the best vacations ever!

Sounds like a pretty good time, eh?