Built-In Teethers are the Best (WW)
Category: Parenting
Wait, is it even possible to have a vacation with children? 😉 Just kidding. So my vacation was actually spending a few nights at my parents, who helped me immensely with my two little firecrackers. They absolutely loved spending time with gma and papa who loved spending time with their grandkids after much time away. My parents just moved back from Alaska and Im so happy to have them nearby! And by nearby I mean a little over an hours drive away but thats still much better than living in another state. 🙂 We took walks around the neighborhood, played in their fenced back yard (something I gloried in since I have to watch Emma like a hawk in our own unfenced back yard) with their two gorgeous dogs, and just enjoyed being together in general. Emma got to make cookies with her grandpa and Isaac was carried around by…
Weve been enjoying this remote control dirt buggy from Xenon Project for the past couple of weeks. It had been awhile since I had experienced the fun of controlling a speeding miniature vehicle! Seriously, I think I was 12 the last time I had one of these! If Im doing the math correctly, thats 16 years ago. Wow, that makes me sound really old. So Emma, at 3, got to experience this for the first time ever recently and boy was she feeling the high associated with it! She loves this toy and asks to drive the car every day. I was pleased with how quickly she caught on to the workings of the controller, too! Kids are so smart SO young nowadays! Well, maybe theyve always been this smart. 🙂 This is a terrific little buggy for the price, $19.99. I know that buying inexpensive can mean you dont…
Beginning June 28, 2011, Kohls stores will be featuring a new line of products for their Kohls Cares program! Youll be able to purchase Llama Llama books and plush animals, as well as two books filled with recipes for yourself for $5.00 each with 100% of the net profit going toward childrens health and educational initiatives worldwide. Im a huge fan of both Kohls Cares and the Llama Llama books, so this is a really fun post for me to write. 🙂 Thanks to Kohls, we received two Llama Llama childrens books, a plush llama and zebra, and two specialty recipe books for review. These are the awesome products youll find in Kohls soon! The Llama Llama books and stuffed animals are a HUGE hit in our home, let me tell you. Emma literally hasnt let them out of her sight since they arrived. Llama Llama sleeps with her every…
This is a special review because not only is fact memorization using music something Ive been working with my daughter on, its something I used very successfully myself when I was a kid! You may or may not know that I was homeschooled growing up. My mom found Audio Memorys Grammar Songs and it helped me SO MUCH to remember important grammar facts like the definitions of adverbs, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, and verbs, all with catchy songs that my sister and I learned and loved to sing. Of course, back then it was cassette tapes. Now she has CDs and DVDs as well! See a sample of the DVD version of the Verb song: Audio Memory doesnt just cover grammar there are also programs for math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), geography, history, states and capitals, and the Bible! Besides the Grammar Songs kit, I received States and Capitals Songs,…
Letters that can be played with, touched, and formed into words are a wonderful learning tool for children. Even the youngest toddlers benefit from being able to see and feel a letter in 3D. As someone who caught on more quickly in a hands-on learning fashion growing up, I enjoy having tools such as these foam magnetic learning letters from Learning Resources to teach my daughter her letters. This set is particularly nice in that each piece is made of a smooth, bendable, durable foam. They come in a plastic bucket and contain two sets each of both the uppercase and lowercase alphabet. Cool feature: The vowels are red and the consonants blue! Preschool Learning Game (Learning to recognize uppercase and lowercase letters.) For this game, use a cookie sheet, the refrigerator, or a magnetic easel. 1. Place all of the uppercase alphabet in rows with gaps between each letter….
This is a combination of the games and activities weve done over the last two weeks. First, I wanted to show you this Learning Resources Rainbow Peg Play Activity Set I bought with a gift card a few months ago. Emma LOVES it! It comes with a double-sided peg board (soft, light, flexible, kind of like corkboard I think), two shoe laces, and equal numbers of colored pegs. Kids can stack, sort by color, string them together, and play the games included in the instructions. This is a definite favorite. 🙂 Another thing I really wanted to try was dying rice different colors so easy and so rewarding! I went with two Spring colors, blue and green. Then I made a sensory tub, something Ive been wanting to try for awhile. I used an oversized hat box and threw in some things from the kitchen. There have been some minor…
I love Biblical fiction. Bringing the stories in the Bible to life, seeing the way things actually were and getting a glimpse into the minds and hearts of people who lived back then is priceless to me. I find myself thinking of the things that happened as just stories sometimes, forgetting that they were real. Then I read a book that really brings it to life. Its such a blessing! I have a real respect for authors that can tackle these events and make them real for us and Joan Wolf is no exception. In A Reluctant Queen, she brings Esther, one of my favorite Biblical people, to life. Ive read the Book of Esther many times but never tire of hearing about her courage and faith in God! She seems like such an extraordinary person, but reading A Reluctant Queen, it reminded me that she was just another person,…
I had no idea that this would be such a HIGH for me! When your little one tries and succeeds at something its so exciting. 🙂 Potty training was a BIG hardship for us. We tried. We tried again. I thought baby sign language and special potty chairs might help. They may or may not have. Every time we tried and there were more than two accidents (with no successful hits in the potty) in a day I gave up, defeated and sure she wasnt ready yet. Her third birthday came and went (last month) and I thought, It has to happen soon maybe I need to push harder. We had incidents that drove me to tears (taking her poopy diaper off in her bed). I wondered how I would survive and how in the world moms trained their kids in less than a week. HOW? And finally, after being…
My husband is a machinist. Accidents are inevitable, I just find myself hoping that hell never lose any fingers. Well, on Wednesday morning I got a mysteriously vague text from John that said, Ive really done it this time gonna need surgery on this finger. Then nothing. And he wouldnt answer the phone. Bad, bad, bad! So here I am, wondering if hes cut off his finger or WHAT. Finally he called me and told me he was at the doctor waiting to see x-rays to see if his hand was broken or what. He had gotten his right hand stuck in a machine at work (lathe) that he wasnt familiar with. Apparently he didnt realize the ON switch was on and was unable to get his hand out fast enough. A bar smashed into his hand at lightning speed and cut into his thumb, slicing the tendons. It also…