Tot Time - Orange

 

This is a fairly long post, but we did a wide variety of activities this week and apparently I had the camera ready to shoot pics of her whenever we did activities. 

Our theme this week was the color Orange.  R. enjoyed playing in the rainbow rice with various orange objects placed inside.  She really liked the orange screwdriver and also poking the orange pom-poms down under the rice. 

  

I recently bought R. this new Melissa and Doug puzzle.  It really amazes me how well she can do it.  She matches all of the pieces to the right spot.  She does struggle getting them turned exactly right, however this is getting better.

These are the lacing beads I purchased from the Dollar Tree last week.  They are a little rough on the inside and so the string sticks and makes them difficult to get on.  Hubby is going to take a drill bit to them to smooth them out a little.  R. likes to play with them, and I noticed that she does not like the yellow cubes.  She picked all of the other beads, but not the cubes.

 

 

R. loved playing with orange Play-doh.  She has played with it various times before but never really got into it.  This time she tore little pieces off and squished it. 

I made some stampers for R. to use with some orange paint.  I stuck foam stickers onto some left-over wooden blocks from a christmas present.  As you can tell she loved this.

 

 

I also let her paint with some porcupine balls. This was not as fun for her as I thought it would be.  She was finished fairly quickly and wasn’t a fan of having the paint on her hands.

 

She also discovered that it shouldn’t go on the face or in the mouth.  YUCK!

 

And as always, a favorite activity was placing sticks into the sugar shaker.  Orange sticks to be exact. 

And now for the photoshoot from Monday.  Every time I would say look at mommy or say cheese, this is what I got…..

 

 

Guess Who's coming to Visit

Guess Who's Coming To Visit...

For 6 Days

While The Rest Of His Family Goes To Florida..

It's R.'s Cousing L.

YAY

They are going to have

SOOOO MUCH FUN!

Red Head

I just realized that I had promised pictures of the new “RED HEAD” wall in our house and hadn’t yet put them up.  Red Head was the name of the color.  I love the way it turned out and absolutely love it with the dark wood frames and shelves that we have hanging up.

This picture looks a tad bit oranger then what it actually is.  Silly indoor lighting. 

I am still hoping to get a the saying: “Life is not measured by the amount of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away” to put under the long shelf.  I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It will happen sometime though.

So Much Love

 

It’s hard to imagine that you can instantly fall in love with someone who has just entered into your life, but none the less, you do.  I cannot explain how much love I have for my dear little girl.  There are not enough words to tell how much I love her.

The other night I received a text message from my friend Emily.  Emily’s daughter is living with Cystic Fibrosis also.  We became friends after her daughters diagnosis and have really relied on each other in times of frustration, tears, good times, and bad.  She has become one of my closest friends and is one that truly understands what I feel.   Her text simply said: “I am having a I hate CF night”.  Of course we have these days and nights everyday, but some are worse then others. 

So I asked Emily what was going on, what was up?  She proceeded to tell me that it seemed like everything she read was showing her how much CF worsens once a person hits their 20’s.  As always, I think about the good, the progression of all the treatments and medicines.  The things we do to prevent progression of the disease, and of course, how close we are to having a cure.  I totally believe each and every one of these things.  Each year the life expectancy climbs just a little.  There is hope for us.  Hope for my dear daughter.  Hope for Emily’s daughter. 

We finished our texting conversation, I said a little prayer for R. like I do each night before I fall asleep, and I closed my eyes to go to bed.  It wasn’t until the next night that things really hit. 

Instead of thinking about the bad things though, I started to think about how I need to savor each day with my little girl.  I need to play with her, watch her giggle, tickle her, hug her, kiss her, LOVE her.  I thought about how I need to show her I love her.  I know she knows, but I need to show it.  And not though I don’t show it, but I need to show it more. 

This winter has been tough….We have tried to keep R. inside/away from public places as much as possible.  We take her out in our yard, or sledding when it is warm enough, but we do not take her into any public place…restaurants, shopping centers, any place where there will be masses of people.  We have tried our best to keep her from getting sick with the flu, H1N1 flu, RSV.  So far we have succeeded.  But with this comes the feeling of being trapped in our house, having nothing to do, feeling like our toys are not sufficient enough to keep us occupied. 

And that all came into perspective the other night while I was thinking about how much I love my baby girl.  We have spent this winter moping around, watching TV, going through the motions, but not really enjoying every minute we have. 

I am ready for that to change.  I am ready to enjoy every minute with my daughter.  I am ready to sit on the floor and play with her, do puzzles, wrestle, brave the cold to go outside, read books, laugh, giggle, snort, and most of all LOVE.  I love her and I always will.  ALWAYS.  I am not willing to let another day go by where she grows up too fast and not realizing how lucky I am. 

I have a wonderful daughter.  I have the ability to keep her healthy by staying home each and every day with her.  I get to really see her grow each day.  I am not trapped in my house, in my living room, in this life.  I have her!  I am so very thankful! 

Tot Time - Pink

Sticker Art

This week I let R. try to pull the stickers off of the backing herself. This was a little frustrating for her, but she eventually worked it out and made some progress. She had the most difficult time with the larger stickers as they tended to rip when she tried to pull them off.

Pipe Cleaner in Sugar Shaker

R. really enjoyed this one. She has taken if off the shelf almost every day this week. At first she wasn’t sure what to do with the pipe cleaners but after a little assistance, she got the hang of it.

Apparently I was really bad at taking pictures during her tot time this week. We also played with the sensory tub filled with lentils and all things pink, the pink bucket filled with all things pink, wood blocks, 2 new Melissa and Doug Puzzles, Tag Junior & Curious George Colors Book, Fisher Price Ball/Bowl Stackers, and her new pink pots and pans that she got for Love Bug Day from her daddy. She also enjoyed painting with a potato masher and pink paint, bingo dotter painting, and coloring with pink crayons.

She has also been busy working on bead lacing. I found some sets of wood beads and laces from the Dollar Tree – So I bought 4 packs. This activity is tough for her. We will keep working on it.

Hopefully next week will be a more picture-filled tot time blog. I don’t know why I didn’t snap more pictures this week. Oh Well.

Yummy Mac and Cheese!

    

Enough Said!

A little of This A little of That

 I know, enough Love Bug Day pictures already.  But I promise, this is the last post. 

On Love Bug Day, My hubby and I went out to eat and left R. with her favorite sitters – The A family!  She loves them!  She always has a ton of fun there.

Back up a few hours or so I guess.  She woke up in these love bug day jammies!  

Of course, we then had a photo shoot in her love bug day clothes.  Her God-parents Kristi and Dane sent her a package for Valentines Day and it included this super cute shirt.  It says I heart Kisses. 

This one is one of my favorites.  I love that R. is getting over the not wanting to sit for pictures.  Now when I pull out the camera she looks at me and gets the biggest grin – You couldn’t tell that we take tons and tons of pictures here!

Last night, R. helped her daddy with the laundry (Well I should say that they switched the laundry and brought the clean, dry stuff upstairs for me to fold. )  R. got to ride in the laundry basket on the way back upstairs.

And there it is.  A little of this and a little of that.  Very Random, Very Cute, Very much the end!

Tot Time: Red and Valentines Day

 

This week we worked on all things Red, Valentines, Hearts, and Love…….Lots of Love

Dress-Up

R. Played dress-up.  Last fall after Halloween I picked up a handful of costumes for about $2.00 each.  She has a Tinkerbell, Snow White, Clown, Dorthy, and this Pirate.  Of all the pretty frilly costumes, the pirate was by far a favorite. 

 

Dot Paint Art

We also did a dot-paint heart with our red dot painter.  She loves these and the dot painters come out each week.

 

Sensory Tub – Oatmeal with all things Red

We filled the sensory tub with all things red.  A red bowl, red cup, red spoon, red fork, red glittery pom poms, red porcupine balls and the normal scoops and tongs.  It still has oatmeal in it.  She is really getting the hang of scooping with the spoon. 

Color Box - RED

We also have the “Red Box”.  This is similar to all the other ones.  I did put a rolling pin from her playdoh toys in it.  She is really liking discovering the colors.

Gross Motor – Snow Play

R. spent some time outside with her daddy while he scooped the snow from the driveway.  The snow was about 3 inches deep which is the deepest she’s walked through.  Usually we just go walk on the culdesac  after they plowed so the snow is pretty much packed down!

 

Heart Sticker Art

R. worked on her fine motor skills by pulling stickers off the page and sticking them to a heart shaped paper.  She loves this activity.

Placing Colored Sticks into a Sugar Shaker

R. has  a very easy time with this activity.  She very simply places the sticks in the jar.  We have done this using a container from dried onion flakes before, but I decided to give her a little variety and offered her this sugar shaker instead.  It only has 1 hole in it and it has a metal flap that falls over the hole.  Holding the flap up to put the stick in was the most difficult part of the activity. 

 

Other Activities

We are adding the red flash card in with the blue and green ones that we have been working on.  No, I don’t just sit her and do flash cards with her, but every once in a while I lay the colors we have worked on out on the floor and ask her for a specific color.  She is right about 75% of the time.  She very much enjoys flipping the card or handing them to me as she picks her card.  Of course this activity is a short lived one and only lasts approximately 2-3 minutes.

R. also enjoyed playing with her “Big Ball” and Fisher Price Little People.  She also had her Mr. Potato heads (She has 3 of them) out along with her musical instruments and stacking/nesting cups. 

As always she plays with puzzles, reads books, and runs around the house like a crazy little girl!  It’s time for some nicer weather soon!  This cold and snow is getting old!

We were kind of off on our structured activities.  I also had out a sun-catcher to make from contact paper and tissue paper, but that did not get done, also, our red bird for our “Brown Bear Book” did not get finished this week.  I may hold off on doing the “Brown Bear Activities and just make a week of it after we get through the colors.