Big Girl Bed

The wall color needs to change and new bedding needs to be bought, but someone doesn't seem to mind.

Tot School

Tessa is 27 months old

A lot of things to post this week, since it has been two three weeks since my last Tot school post.  Things have been a little crazy for T Bear.  Since our nanny is out on maternity leave and Grandma Linda could stay for only part of her time off, Tessa had to go to an in home daycare for the past two weeks, and she hated it.  She would cry and beg us not to leave her.  And it didn't get better with each time she went, it only got worse.  It wasn't that the daycare was bad in any way, it was a change.  And for a toddler that has oatmeal for breakfast, then yogurt for a snack etc... every day, change was NOT good.  Luckily she only went a total of 6 days (and I know if she went longer it would get better) but our nanny returns this week :)  And we will be happy to have our happy Tessa back!

Onto the week - 

We played grocery store a lot.  She picked the oatmeal out every time.

A tray I put together:  both sorting and fine motor.  I had two of each coins in the dish if she wanted to sort them (which she never did) but she loved to put them in the piggy bank and then start all over again. This has created a money monster of her, as any change she sees lying about is "MY MONEY!" (Sorry Papa)

We have the first cylinder block from Montessori Outlet.  She is good at it.  Too good.  I think it is time to pick up the second.

We found a lot of activities to do with her hands these past few weeks, and I could see her mood change instantly.  She had a hard time with this activity because she couldn't/wouldn't press down hard enough to really juice the orange, but she loved going thru the motions none the less. (and the juice was good!)

She also prepared the muffins for dinner with my parents one night.  I will ask her to put her apron on (a free pattern from Sew Liberated) when we are cooking, and she usually has to remind me to put MY apron on, too.  How easily I forgot that she is learning from me.

We did get a good rain this past week and we were happily playing in it until it started to thunder.  Her face in the picture is actually shock of the loud noise.  She refused to come back outside and look at the rainbow when it was all over.

More outdoor activities included staying on the line with her tricycle and going on nature walks, where she insists on picking up a seed pod for each person.

The glitter glue sticks are her new favorite art medium.  While she was doing it for the first time, she remembered she had seen a bug on he ground earlier.  She proceeded to find it again, pick it up and bedazzle it.  

We tried to make crayons as well.  Tried.  First mistake - I bought cheap crayons.  Second mistake - why did I think Tessa could participate in an activity that involved a large knife to cut up said cheap crayons (nothing happened, she was just bored)  Third mistake - I ruined the silicone molds.  IF I do this project again I will be using cupcake liners.  The cheap crayons came out dull and brittle.  They made a huge mess if you tried to use them (on your hands, on the table, on the floor).  They went in the trash.

Our Play-Doh kit came with these scissors.  They are much easier to use than her real scissors!

Hammering golf tees into Styrofoam.

Hammering nails into wood (I started them all).  My parents cut a few trees down in preparation for a pool in their back yard, and I asked my Dad to cut up some of the larger pieces to make stacking blocks. She loves them!

We took advantage of the open backyard before the pool people start to dig and played in the mud!  She didn't know what to do at first and was concerned that her hands were getting dirty.  Thirty minutes later she looked like this:

Check out more tot school posts at 1+1+1=1

California Poppy

Check out Natty By Design's blog today for a sneak peek at Tessa's new big girl bed!

Here

Gymnastics is fun

Summer Bucket List

According to the Farmer's Almanac, the last day of summer is September 22 which means we need to get going on my one hundred + one list.  Homemade slip n slide?  Check.

Have Patience

For the past year, I have been looking (almost daily) at the new home listings in our area.  We don't have to move, but since the market is so low it wouldn't be a bad time to move into a bigger place.  Less than 2 weeks ago, this home came on the market.  We fell in love.  We put an offer down.  And we lost.

All sorts of "what if" and "could have been" have been flowing through my mind.  And now I am so anxious to find the "right one" that everyone keeps talking about.  Even through Phoenix was hit pretty hard during the housing crash, we are looking in a specific area at a specific type of property, and there's not many that fit the bill.  So back to square one - checking the listing each morning and hoping to find our home.

Tot School

Tessa is 26 months old

We had fun with a lot of practical life activities this week:

Consequence of coloring with crayon on the window?  You get to clean it up (although she did not see this as much as a punishment, but fun, which is fine with me).  I think this week I am going to get together a cleaning bucket that she has access to.

We also had a lot of fun with art this week.  I picked up some crayola slick sticks which worked much better than crayons, although they are not washable, so we wore one of Daddy's old shirts.

I also made sidewalk paint and let her go to town.  It did stain the sidewalk blue for a few days, but you can't tell now (thank goodness)

We also tried print making again, which turned out how all our painting projects do - finger painting.  We cleaned up in the water table outside, which she loved!

Working on stirring instant pudding to use later on that afternoon to paint with.  This was T's first two step project.  We made it before lunch and used it after her nap that afternoon.  She has not had pudding before, so I was curious to see how long it would take before she realized that you could actually eat it.  Just like any project, it turned into finger painting and then it went in the mouth.  

Fun new toy of the week were some rocks we picked up at Kartchner's Cavern, which included Hematite, which is magnetic.  They have a very strong magnetic pull, and she performs "magic tricks" all day for us by lining them up and attracting them to each other.  The first time she played with them she went thru all the other rocks to see if they were "magic" too.  This was a great introduction to magnets.

Book of the week:  All the World by Liz Garton Scanion and Maria Frazee

We actually picked this book up from the library in Kauai, but I keep on forgetting to share it.  The world are calming and the pictures are beautiful!

See what others are doing at 1+1+1=1

And it begins

outfit by Tessa

Sassy

Someone is being sassy today.  I think it's the outfit.  It is circa 1983 or so.  She picked it out.

Also, have you heard of the website craigseasy.com?  It turns your craigslist search into a page with the pictures of your items.  Awesome.