On the first day of Christmas...

Before getting to the meat of my post, I just have to share a rare find: Jillian is SMILING!

My poor girl isn't happy unless she's being held (help!) so I rarely get to take a photo of her while she's smiling. Isn't that a cute smile? And please let's not forget the legwarmers. melt...

I had a friend ask me today if I had any ideas for doing a 12 days of Christmas activity with my kids. Funny enough, I have a few ideas that I have bookmarked and have always wanted to try out, but haven't had the opportunity to do so. Until now...

I got the book out a couple of days ago and looked it over again. These follow along with the carol, "The 12 days of Christmas".

Traditionally the 12 days starts on Christmas and ends on the 12th night, January 6th. La Befana's night.

Anyway, I promised her I would get the list posted so here I am. All through the house not a creature is stirring not even the spouse! (I just made that up! Clever, no?)

1st day: Make an ornament for the tree out of salt dough and paint a bird.
2nd day: Read a story about turtles or make a game of slow/fast (like red light/green light).
3rd day: Learn a few French words and use them throughout the day or cook something French.
4th day: Practice phone etiquette. (Never hurts to start early, right?)
5th day: Go out for donuts. (Get it, golden rings???)
6th day: Dye eggs. (It's not just an Easter activity.)
7th day: Make origami swans.
8th day: Make chocolate milk. (Or hot chocolate)
9th day: Do some new dance moves.
10th day: Pretend to have a knighting ceremony.
11th day: Use a bubble pipe to make TONS of bubbles!
12th day: Make a drum out of an empty Kleenex box and a balloon.

There you have it! Looking back at my list I think I WILL do this. Only thing is, we are packing up to move the first week of January. I might as well give it a go, right?

Fall Camp: Days 2-4

I had great intentions of getting Day 2 up in a timely manner and then I remembered that I had BUNCO with the church mom's group!

Then we had a rough day yesterday and Dominic ended up napping through camp so we missed yesterdays activities. So this post will have days 2-4.

Day 2:
We read "Fall Mixed Up" and "Five Little Pumpkins". For our craft we painted pumpkins using the kid's fists and thumbs. So cute! We rotated the papers around the table so that each child has all the pumpkins on it! One of the kid's didn't want to get messy (say WHAT??) so there were only 4 little pumpkins on our paper.

Day 3:
Read "Thanksgiving Cats" and "The Great Turkey Race". Cute book!! In lieu of a craft the kids were to participate in our own relay race and contest.

Day 4 (today):
We read "The Night Before Thanksgiving" and "Green Soup". The first book was really cute!! For our craft we traced the kid's hands and foot to make a turkey placemat. I LOVE this!! We added googly eyes to the turkey and if I say so, it just made the turkey's look all the more adorable.

Tomorrow we will have the last day of camp. Bittersweet, as usual. We will take an official group camp photo to take home. We have two stories picked out to read and the craft is still up in the air, although it was originally supposed to be a scarecrow, which we may still do.

As usual, camp has been a lot of fun. The kids did really well with storytime and crafts. I think 2.5-3 years is the PERFECT age for our camp. We're really trying to help them learn to listen and sit attentively.

I'm already thinking about the next camp session to take place possibly in January. Themes are plentiful, but will most likely be international, sports or transportation. Which do you prefer???

36 weeks and my mind is STILL running on high

This is my self portrait taken yesterday in a state of creativity. I was tired of the same old belly shot so I thought I'd try it from different angles. I dunno...I'm kinda liking this one for some reason.

Anyway, the school year is rapidly coming to a close and my neighborhood group is beginning to wind down. I will continue to be the coordinator for our playgroup and I'm starting to compile a list of activities we can do this summer to keep us all from losing our minds. Here are some of my ideas so far:

** Have a playgroup garage sale.
** Weekly picnics.
** Have a movie night.
** Host an etiquette tea party.
** Splashpark outings.
** First Tuesdays at the Art Museum.
** Pool parties.
** Potluck happy hours for mom's night.
** Day at the horse races.
** Putt-putt golf.
** Minor league baseball family nights.
** Arts/crafts themed playdates.

I realize some of these are lofty ideas, especially with me having a newborn on the way in 27 more days, but don't some of these sound so fun???

Spring Camp: Day Five (and my 101st post!!)

Wow, didn't realize that I'd hit 100 posts! And I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary of blogging. I should plan an update post just so we can see how far I've come in one year of my friendship odyssey.

Anyway, our last day of camp was yesterday and it was bittersweet. It is a lot of work to coordinate and plan a week-long camp, I won't lie. But it is so fulfilling when I see the little ones having a good time and giving the moms a chance to interact with other moms makes it all worthwhile.

Friday we had 4 campers and one had to leave early as he was not quite ready to listen to mommy. :(

We:
*Sang our welcome song.
*Read 10 Little Monkeys.
*Sang "The Itsy Bitsy Monkey".
*Read What do you say when a monkey acts this way?
*Sang "Five Little Monkeys".
*Our first craft required the kids to recall the last story we read. (They had to put three pictures from the story into the correct order. In reality this craft was still a little over their heads, but I did test it out on D beforehand orally and he aced it. I guess the photo part was too much.)
*Our second craft was to decorate a jointed, cardstock monkey with their name, stickers, glitter, colors, etc.
*Then I gave out their awards (everyone got an original one) and their bags with all of their crafts and songsheets from the week. I found the bags in the dollar spot at Target and thought they'd be PERFECT:


I didn't get many photos from Friday. It seemed to be a busy day even though there were only 3 of us there, ultimately. Here's a photo of most of the books we read this week. **Not all are represented.


I did put together a slideshow of the week and have them burned to discs ready to deliver this coming week. I did this for the first camp and got many thank yous and even one sweet compliment, "You made me cry!". Course I set it to music and that always makes the slideshow a bit more sentimental.

I have a really fun mommy playdate on Wednesday with my neighborhood group. We are attending a home tour/auction in the morning and it's a Derby theme! I bought a hat at Target this afternoon and still have to try it with my dress. I have to drag out my maternity dresses and see what I've got!

Spring Camp: Day Four

Technically, day four was yesterday but I was all alone all day yesterday and had little to no time to update. I am having a bout of pregnancy induced insomnia tonight so this will have to do.

Today we had 4 campers and D was the only boy. Lucky kid! Again, we had a great day.

Today we:
Sang the welcome song.
Read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear".
Sang a song.
Read "At the Zoo", a cute little book I found at Half Price Books.
I sang a song all by myself, since no one has ever heard "The Animal Fair".
Did our craft. Created a circus train using a square paper plate, yarn and an animal cut-out. CUTE!
Had our snack.

Here are some photos from this afternoon:


Busy at work coloring his elephant.


So proud of his creation!!


All 4 circus cars.

Check back tomorrow for the last day of camp. So sad it's over. Since Miss Jillian is on her way in just 60 days now, I'm pretty certain we won't have another camp for at least another 6 months. And even THAT is iffy!

Spring Camp: Day Two

Today was an awesome camp day! All 6 campers showed up, ready to go! They all wore their shirts and we took the cutest group photo outside beneath the big oak tree in the front yard. Miraculously we were able to catch some shots of all 6 kiddos looking in the same direction at the same time!!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read "Who's in the Jungle".
Danced to the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Read "Rumble in the Jungle".
Craft #1: make a lion face on a paper plate.
Craft #2: put the spots on the giraffe. (The kids LOVED this craft!!)
Took our photo.
Had our snack.

Here's a few photos of our day:


Working on our giraffe's.


Working on our lion faces.


The complete lion faces.

Check back tomorrow for Day 3!!

Spring Camp: Day One

Today was the first day of our Spring Camp. It was a short-handed beginning as only 3of the 6 enrolled campers were able to make it today. G is in school on Mondays so I knew he would be out, G has afternoon swim lessons on Monday so she was out and A had to stay home b/c they are having hardwoods installed and the job has taken longer than the quoted time.

That's okay, we had a great time, just the 3 (6) of us!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read Maisy Goes to the Farm.
Sang a finger play song.
Read Click Clack ABC.
Sang a sing-along song.
Did our crafts; shape animals and coloring book fun.
Had our snack; cereal bar and yogurt with fruit juice.


Eating a snack.


Our crafts abandoned as we take a snack break.


Check back tomorrow for another update of camp.

Happy Birthday, Dr.Seuss!!

Today we hosted a playgroup to celebrate Dr.Seuss' birthday. D just loves the book, The Cat in the Hat, so I was more than happy to indulge him in some birthday cake. Anyway, the teacher in me really wanted to celebrate with the school children!!

There were 6 of us scheduled to attend, but only 3 of us were able to make it. Boo! Oh well, more cake for us!!! HA! Here's some of the fun we had:


Our colored hat creations.


An inside view of the Cat in the Hat birthday cake.


The cake table.


The cake all ready to cut in to!!


I asked the kids to wear something red in honor of the Cat. We read the The Cat in the Hat(well, most of it), colored our own hats and sang Happy Birthday!

All in all, a great playdate.

When the cat's away, the mice will play!

Yesterday we had a full day! Two events to attend.

First up was the invitation from L to join them at Barnes and Noble for some storytime activities. We had such a great visit and the boys loved playing afterward with the train table set up. It was so cute to watch them parallel playing nicely with each other. I just love watching Dominic as he interacts with other little ones.

Of course we had to buy three books! We bought a Yo Gabba Gabba board book, a set of dinosaur seek and find placemats and a How-to book showing how to draw Marvel super-heroes. The last book is actually meant for our sponsored friend, Francisco. He is 11and loves to draw. I will copy off some instructional pages and send them to him in our correspondence. I think he'll get a kick out of that!

After a LONG nap (2.5 hours!!!) we were off to playdate #2: the recipe swap. I made caprese bites while D was napping and then assembled them prior to walking out the door. We met two new faces at this meetup. C and her 6 month daughter O were just too stinkin' cute! And C made the most fabulous pineapple crumble!!! YUM-O! I've already hit her up for the recipe. Her printer died before she could print out the recipe.

I noticed that one mother in particular has a rather rambunctious son. He is constantly taking toys away from other kids and upsetting them. He did it to Dominic a couple of times, but I was always right there to intervene. She seems pretty oblivious to it all. She sits politely chatting while her child is being the group bully. This bothers me to no end and for two reasons.

1. As a former teacher I see that this behavior only escalates with no consequences are given for said behavior. They become the kids who don't realize that they are doing something wrong because they are never reprimanded at home. It makes the teacher's job so much harder to deal with when there is no support at home.

2. Children need to know that there are boundaries. Personal space. I'm sure he wouldn't like it if Dominic came up to him and just grabbed a toy away. Children, especially boys, have a pecking order. The bully shouldn't be allowed to be the top dog all the time. It should fluctuate accordingly.

I also struggle with watching as Dominic loses a toy to someone and he's not sure how to take it. He will often look at me incredulously as if to say, "did you SEE that???" I commiserate and then offer him another toy. Why should he have to continue to find another toy? We all know that toys aren't fun until someone else is playing with it, right? It would be a non-ending game!

Anyway, I am just venting about this situation. It's not going to get any better as the boys get older. I'm just going to have to get used to the fact that some days D will be the one pushed around and some days (not too often, I hope) he'll be the one doing the mischief.

First "Date"

Well, today was a busy day for D and I. We had not one, but TWO "dates".

The first "date" was with our neighbor, M and her son O. O is four months older than Dominic and he's always up for an impromptu playdate. M emailed me last night about us meeting at the mall for some window shopping. Dominic and I got there around 10:15 and noticed that the local library branch was having a Toddler Storytime session at 10:30. We decided to sit through it.

To be totally honest, it was pretty fun. I've noticed that when there are a lot of kids around Dominic tends to hover and cling to me. He was definitely paying attention to the lady running the event, though. After about 20 minutes I was ready to bolt. There's only so much positivity I can take at 10 in the morning. Looking around, I found that I was trapped! Strollers and children and moms on the floor were blocking me in. So we had to tough it out.

M asked if I wanted to go get lunch at a local haunt. It was such a beautiful day and I decided I wouldn't turn down any invitations unless absolutely necessary. So it was off to the restaurant. We sat outside and the boys had great fun coloring and making a general mess.



M is probably one of the most interesting friends I'll ever have. She was born in South Africa and lived there until she was 22. She moved to London where she lived for 6 years and met her husband. They moved to the States and have been here since. Her sister still lives in South Africa. She has the cutest British accent! As a mom she is much more laid back than I am. We went to Oktoberfest this past September and her son was actually eating sausage and sauerkraut! He was only 16 months old at the time!!!

D fell asleep on the way home. I was able to securely remove him from the carseat, take off his shoes and get him in bed without him waking. Two hours later we were on our way to our next "date".

This time it was off to the park. I had emailed L and her son A on Monday about possibly getting the boys together sometime this week and she suggested that we meet at the park that's close to her house. We accepted and were on our way to meet them.

L and her family had just returned from a vacation in Destin and I was anxious to hear all about her trip. We had been to Destin the week before and she had emailed to get our suggestions for places to eat, etc.

I found out a few tidbits about their trip. They loved the city. She enjoyed laying out while A was napping. She likes crab. I found out that they like to bike.

While we were there two other neighborhood playgroup girls showed up with their sons. One of them is pregnant and due in June. I hate to say it, but seeing her is just a visual reminder of the miscarriage I had in November and I know it's kind of put a mental block on me getting to know her. So I told myself to get over it already and started to find out more about her. Basically I found out that she was an elementary art teacher before having C. She is an A&M grad and graduated from high school in 95. So she is two years younger than me. Not exactly the most interesting information but three things more than I knew before.

On the way to the car I ran into J and her two sons, I and V. I met her at Starbucks over a year ago and for a while we would talk shop while my husband and I sat outside with our dog, Annabelle. My husband knows her husband and we were introduced when they showed up to get a coffee and ran into us. She knew me before baby and watched as I grew each month and would give me friendly motherly advice. A few months after Dominic was born she found out that she was pregnant again. Their weekly trips to Starbuck's slowed and eventually came to a stop.

She goes to my church and we've run in to them a few times after Mass. It was really good to see her again and we spent some time catching up. I hope to run in to her again soon. Maybe this time I'll be brave enough to ask for a phone number or invite them over to swim. Today I felt like I had stepped out of my comfort zone enough and didn't really want to accost the poor lady with my desperate attempt at including myself in her inner circle.

I did manage to get an invitation to join L and the other two playgroup gals this Friday at a local library event. Even though it's a public event we'll be meeting there so I guess I would call it a "date". Would you?

Oh, I almost forgot: The neighborhood playgroup needed a new coordinator for the toddler group and I volunteered! I got it!!! This should help me remember names and be more involved. Yeah, me!!!