girl or boy?

Gender is one of those things that we just seem to know and take for granted. Tristan was very quick to remind me the other day that that too, has to be learned. When we were working our making our family last week, we were talking about Mommy being a girl, Daddy being a boy and Tristan being a boy. Tristan kept telling me I was a good boy. :) Ryan, my husband, kinda laughed and said, "Well, you are working on G next week so maybe you should work on what a girl is!" I think he was right!

So we have been talking about girls and boys, picking them out of books and I have been interjecting gender comments in casual conversation. It is amazing how just talking to your kids about everyday life, is so important! Improvement has been made, but as always, there is still more room.

The Letter G!

This week was supposed to be G week. We are going to extend G into next week as well considering today is Friday and we just got started!
Here are some ideas for the letter G...

glasses
glass
goat
grasshopper
glue
glove
goose
grapes
gavel
gate
globe
gift
guitar
garden
golf
golf ball
granola
grilled cheese
green
goldfish
garbage
girl
game
ghost
gingerbread

Field Trip idea- grocey store- call ahead of time and see if they will allow you and your child to view the back part, deli areas etc.

F is for Fish

Tristan loves Finding Nemo. This obviously looks nothing like Nemo, but he still enjoyed making his fish. He found a box of beads in my craft things and wanted to use those to glue on. I had planned on using sequins and other sparkly things, but this is what he wanted. Fine with me! I think he did a really good job.

F is for flowers

One thing I wanted to do was to plant some Mums. We finally got around to taking out the ugly dead plant and replacing it with a nice pretty yellow one. Tristan had a blast. He LOVES to be outside and get dirty so I figured this was the best option for an F activity. Nothing spectacular was planned, but there was still a lot to be learned!

I encourage you, if you do not already, to include your children in your everyday activities such as cooking, cleaning, gardening etc. It can be tough and you need a lot of patience, but it is well worth it. Have fun!

SO MAD

Now I am just MAD. I downloaded my copy of Extra Special onto the tablet and not ONE of the pictures showed up! What in the world! Please dont download it yet!!!! I will let you know when they have the glitch fixed. So frustrating....

IT IS LIVE ON AMAZON

My book, Extra Special, was finally put into eBook format! I am so excited!!!! It is currently on Amazon and can be downloaded onto almost any electronic device! It is so cool to see how technology works. Be sure to tell your friends :)

You can order your copy here!

I need some feedback so be sure to let me know what you think! Also, if you do purchase it, and like it, will you leave a positive review on Amazon.com so others will see it? Thanks you guys!

<-------OR you can click here on the box to go right to it :) Thanks for your support!!

F is for family

My son became super excited about making our family today. This, of course, excited me! We had a lot of fun! I had precut some simple clothes for him to make us with. This creates good conversation about gender and articles of clothing. After he put our outfits together and glued them down, he was excited to do the heads. He did not, however, want to give us hair.... which is why we are all 3 bald. I asked him to tell me some things about the picture and our family and I wrote it on the page at the top. This is one of my favorite things he has made. I think the main reason is because he was so excited about his family.  :)

"This is Tristan, Daddy and Mama. It has Beamer too! Thank you for loving me, Mama." -Tristan

The clothes were made from random fabric pieces I had around the house. I could have made the faces or heads to have Tristan glue down, but I wanted it to show more of his work. It everything had been pre done, I was afraid it would take away from that.

AGAIN....

The computer drama continues... My tablet seemed to just suddenly break today. It is always something with technology around here! Because of that, I won't be able to get the pictures of our lovely F crafts up until I can get a hold of my husbands computer. This one for some reason wont let me upload pictures to it.... Ahh....

On a totally different note, I have a book signing on Saturday in Fredericksburg, Va from 9-5 for my book, Extra Special! It is called Heartwood Days Festival and it is a very large festival for kids (and their families). There will be food, rides, vendors, freebies, crafts and much more! It should be a great time! We are praying for great weather because the hurricane seems to want to send tons of rain that way. NO NO NO!!! :)

F ideas

Here are some SIMPLE ideas for F week!

• Make a trip to your local fire house and meet the firemen! You may want to call ahead to make sure they are available.
• make a visit to a local farmers market
• visit a farm
• paint with feathers instead of brushes
• make fruit salad
• make french fries (YUM!)
• Fruit smoothies/shakes
• plant flowers
• paint flower pot

F week!!!

I am really excited about F week! Last week was an absolute struggle for ideas and time.... we really did not get to do too much. Now after this long weekend with friends, we are ready for F words! Can't wait!

Here are some F words you might want to do something with...

family
friends
farm
fish
five
fire hat
fireman
fire house
fence
feather
father
fan
flag
flower
fork
four
fox
frog
fur

and I am sure there are many more!

Tristan and I will be starting with the word FAMILY.  I am excited about the idea I have! I hope to have it up by tomorrow.

Happy Crafting and Learning!

Another Elephant Idea

I really wanted to take the time to make elephant ears and a trunk for Tristan to wear. He is not really into the whole "dress up" thing, but I figured it was worth a shot. We have company coming and it has been a hecktic week, so time has slipped away. I wanted to share this idea below incase you were interested (from ask.com).


ELEPHANT TRUNK AND EARS - this was posted by Sherri Osborn.




I really want to make the nose turn up. I was thinking if you cut the paper towel roll into small sections (about two inches long) and punched two holes in each side, you could tie them together with pipe cleaners and bend it up. I have not tried this, but in my head it seems like it would work! Then you could spray paint it gray. If you do give it a try, let  me know how it goes!

E is for Elephant

Tristan has really started to enjoy watercolors. I think he mostly likes the splashing in the rinse off cup, but whatever, it is fun! I am not the best drawer, by any means. When it comes to certain things, I have to trace. Tristan wanted to paint so I pulled up a big pic of an elephant and traced it with silver paint pen. Then he painted it. He also painted the E and e that I had drawn for him.

Below is the final product!

I am not sure why it is so fuzzy... sorry :(

E is for ELMO!!!

One of my lovely facebook friends passed this along. I really wanted to make sure you all saw it! And to make it even better, IT IS FREE!!! :)


FREE Personalized Elmo Song for Your Child

E is for....

I am a little slow with E week. We have had so much going on (that I never see ending) and I am trying to create an actual routine/daily schedule. I have yet to succeed with the schedule thing... Anyhow, we have started E activites. We mostly talked about the letter and tried to find it places. Tristan loves to "write words" using my computer so he tries hard to find letters. Its great! I wanted to provide a list of E words that could be used! Thanks to my friends on facebook for helping to create this list!

Elmo (more on this later)

envelope

energy

elephant

eskimo

elevator

eat

exit

eggplant

eggs

elf

empty

easel

E is hard!!! I like elephants and you can do some cute things with them so Tristan and I will start there :)

stay at home mom

I never knew how busy a stay at home mom could be! I wouldn't change my job for anything, and I am so thankful God is allowing me to stay home with Tristan, but I totally underestimated this job! I find that I am more tired than ever and I drink more coffee. ;) 

One thing I have decided, partly because it is the teacher in me, but also because I see the benefit in it for my son as well as other children, is to set up field trips. I am going to be a part of two mom groups this upcoming year. One, MOPS, which I think most people know about, the other is Moms and More which is through our church. I am really excited about both of these opportunities. It will be great for me to be involved with other moms as well as for Tristan to have some social interaction. I want to set up these little field trips for those kids involved. So far I have these places on my list...

Fire Station

Police Station

Library (although we mostly all go there already) (story hour??)

Post Office

Kitchen in a restaurant

Bank

and maybe some others.... any ideas of places for toddlers? (preferably FREE) :)