Work Work Work!

We got our learning tower in the mail yesterday evening and we've been hard at work ever since!  L has really really enjoyed being able to watch me prepare and cook meals.  He watches everything I do very intently!  This morning he helped me do all of our dishes and he LOVED throwing the next dish in the water when I finished washing one.  I got him a rag and he started wiping off dishes too, then he wiped the counter and his learning tower.  Water was everywhere but it was totally one of those messes that are worth making!

We got a bath and got dressed and he helped me fold a little laundry.  By fold I mean that he took each article of clothing out and put it on the floor for me to fold.  :)  Yes, it's a little messy but it's not a big deal at all since I have to pull it out and fold it anyway!  He loves helping out around the house and I love having his company!

My husband and I have really been making an effort to include L in our daily work.  Partly because we want him to learn to manage chores and fun for when he's older, but mostly because we think that it's important to include him in pretty much every area of our lives.  Here's a picture of L helping daddy hang his shelves in his room!

After we finished folding laundry today we went to a local museum with my sister in law and her two youngest kids.  We had a great time and I completely forgot my camera!  L really enjoyed playing in the big ball pit with his cousins.  One of his favorite parts was the huge magnetic board they had, he really enjoyed sticking various objects to it and trying to pull them off.  We had a great day today!

Playroom

I've been getting a few questions about how I have done my playroom since we recently gave it a makeover.  So here it is!

This was a bookshelf that was left with the house when we moved here.  We painted it black and turned it sideways, my husband recently built the little shelves you see in there now, actually L helped him out and really loved the drill.  :) As you can see there are no battery operated toys, we're trying this idea out so all of the battery operated toys are currently in the closet, since we haven't missed them a bit I'd be willing to bet that they end up at Salvation Army within a month.

Here is our sensory bin.  I think most people probably have a Tupperware like this around the house full of stuff they don't need anyway.  If not, Walmart sells them pretty cheap.  Currently in the sensory bin is different colors of crinkly (shredded) paper from the dollar store.  I think I spent 4 bucks to fill the bin.  On each side of the sensory bin are pockets from an old shoe organizer I cleaned out and cut up.  L is really into pulling things out of pockets and putting them back in so he loves those.  I'm having problems getting the one on the right to stay up though, obviously.  I'll have to find something stronger.

Here is the bed area.  We took out the crib and placed the mattress on the floor so he can have access to it at anytime and can climb on and off of it himself.  There's also a little drum over there with a few different musical instruments that he likes to play with.  The mirror over the bed came from target and was 6 bucks, I also bought a suction bath container that hangs on the mirror and holds window crayons, when he's old enough I'm hoping he'll have fun drawing on the mirror.

Here is our felt board that I made.  Super simple and under 10 bucks for all materials.  I got a thick piece of poster board and a yard of felt fabric from Walmart and cut and hot glued the felt around the poster board.  Underneath is part of my cut up shoe organizer and holds some felt shapes I've cut out.  I bought a pack of craft felt with tons of different colored felt and have been cutting out various shapes, letters and numbers to come!  We are also hoping for a magnetic board from grandma and grandpa for Christmas to put to the left of the felt board.  So that is how we gave our playroom a cheap and much needed makeover!  I seriously have not had more fun with my son and I can our relationship has improved leaps and bounds.  He has free access to everything in there.  We also have the light box in the picture below in our living room and a ballpit there as well.  There is also talk of getting rid of the TV because the stand would make such a great art table, and the bins below the stand would hold all the craft supplies really well.  I'll keep updating as we make changes!

The past few days have been SO much fun!  I got a huge box from Sears for L and poked holes in the top to put Christmas lights in.  We've had fun crawling in and out of there and observing the different color lights.

We have also had fun exploring the kitchen cabinets.  He was beginning to get bored with the bottom cabinets so we let him explore the top ones haha.

We've also changed out the sensory bin to colored crinkly paper from the Dollar Store.  We have had quite a bit of fun with that.  We make it "rain" paper and I also hid jingle bells in there once for L to find.  He had fun digging through the paper and finding a bell.

L loves to play piano with his feet so we've been indulging him lately and we've also spent quite a few days outside.  One day L was covered in mud (my husband and I were pretty muddy too) because we were all wrestling in the mud and leaves.  He also had a great time learning to balance and move around on a log, it's funny how much kids learn from little things like that.

A Thanksgiving Letter to my Son

L,

Today and every day I am so very thankful for the person that you are. Thank you for your love, persistence, fighting spirit, and fun nature!  Thank you for fighting me when I began to fall into the conventional method of parenting with too many illogical "no's."  Thank you for being persistent in your fight, I fear that if you had not fought I would have turned into a "no" mother instead of being transformed into a "yes" mom.  Thank you for teaching me to question myself before telling you no, I have learned that so many no's are so unnecessary!  Thank you for teaching me to slow down and have fun!  Thank you SO much for teaching me that life is not about having a clean house, looking good all the time, or having children who are "seen and not heard."  Thank you for teaching me that life is about making messes that are totally worth the clean up, being loud, and enjoying this moment.  Thank you for teaching me to trust you, thank you for showing me that you know your limitations better than I ever possibly could!  Thank you for teaching me that the sound of children is the sweetest, most amazing beautiful sound and the traditional "seen and not heard" approach to parenting creates miserable children and parents who miss the entire point of living.  Thank you for fighting me so hard that I was nearly at my breaking point as a mother and forcing me to look into other options as a parent.  Had you not been such a fighter I would have never looked.  I love everything about who you are, at a year old you are already so much wiser than I or most people that I know.  I pray that I only encourage your growth and never stifle it like so many in our current society do.  I know you will grow to be everything you want to be, but I have a few little tips.  Never lose sight of the kind of person you want to be.  Don't get so caught up in the daily drone that you forget to stop and have fun!  Always remember that it is NEVER too late to start being the kind of person you want to be.  True happiness spreads like wildfire so if you are unhappy it usually only takes one small change to start the cascade of changes into a joyful life.  Thank you so much for being the amazing person that you are, I am so lucky that you have chosen me to be your mother...for that I will be eternally grateful.  I love you so much.

Just another day in paradise :)

My husband and I have spent the last week or so running errands and going places, it's been so busy.  We both agreed that the rest of the week would be spent taking it easy!  Today was so wonderful.  We all gathered in for some play room time which is always amazing.  We changed out the sensory bin and put in some "magic snow" that I had found where you just add water and it forms this snowy gooey stuff.  L was not a fan, he touched it once and I think it grossed him out or something lol.  I took him on a piggy back ride through the house and he really seemed to love that.  He cracked up the whole time.

  We also had some "waller" time on the bed.  L and his dad love to wrestle and I'm picking up some fun moves from playing with them.  :)  I think the cutest moment today though was when L put his own bowl in the dishwasher after lunch.  I was starting to clean up the dishes and he decided to help!

I also caught a really cute moment where he was exploring the kitchen cabinets again.  That used to be his favorite activity and he hasn't been doing that for a little while, I was glad I got a picture of it today.  :)

Busy day

This morning and afternoon was really busy, but once things settled down we were able to get in some fun time!  We put up the Christmas tree today and it turns out that L is scared of it!  lol He won't go near it at all.  I hope he gets used to it!  We ended up in the playroom so we could avoid the living room and the giant scary tree haha.  He re-discovered the aquarium gravel in his sensory bin.  He had been ignoring it for the past few days and I was getting ready to find something new to put in there.  He had a blast though!

He also had a great time with his mirror that I put up at naptime!  I was super excited to find this mirror at Target for 5 bucks.  I got a little suction shower basket and put it on the bottom corner to hold all of his window crayons and markers.  He's a bit too young to appreciate window crayons and markers but I sure have a good time drawing on the mirror!  He enjoyed looking at himself and kissing himself in the mirror.

Playing with the mirror quickly turned into pushing his elephant walker around again....  :)

I'm so glad that he has taught me the importance of slowing down and playing even on the busy days!  He is such a wonderful person.

Anniversary

Today was our five year anniversary.  In some ways it's hard to believe we've been married that long and in other ways it feels like we've been married for a lifetime.  We spent the day doing a lot of window shopping and getting ideas for Christmas presents.  We did get a sheet of plexi-glass to make L an outdoor easel with.  We are both super excited about that.  We also went to a birthday party for D's cousin's little girl.  She was born four days before L and was still in the hospital when L was born.  As the birthday party was winding down L began to get understandably upset and was ready to get home.  We had an hour drive home and he wasn't really too happy about that.  After we got home and settled and he filled his belly a little bit he was in a much better mood.  The three of us headed to the play room for what would be the best part of the day.  :)  We started out by pushing cars and trucks around (one of L's favorite activities).

After the cars got old we played on the felt board.  He loves figuring how the felt shapes stick to the board and he's doing such a good job of it!  He walked around the playroom FOREVER pushing his little elephant walker.  He went over to his instruments and made some wonderful music with all of the little shakers.  He also pulled out rubberbands and feathers from his pockets I set up for him.  He's starting to really enjoy putting items into containers so he spent a good bit of time pulling out rubberbands and putting them in his music container.  We could not have dreamed of a better anniversary.  :)

Outdoor adventures

Today we went to the park with L's cousins.  We won't have very many more pretty days so we wanted to enjoy the opportunity while it lasted.  He started out the day crawling around inspecting leaves and rocks and eventually wanted to hold on to dad's fingers and walk around the park.  He had a great time.  When dad got tired he put him in the baby swing and of course L loved that.  He was laughing and grinning the whole time.  After his cousins arrived he got out of the swing and crawled around on all the gravel around the swing set.  Not much going on today, but I wanted to write a little about the park because we had such a great time.  :)

Today we had a lot of fun playing with the felt board that I made for L.  I had cut some shapes out of different colors of felt and he had a great time trying to stick the felt onto the board.  :)

We also worked on our color recognition.  We had bowls full of pink, green, and yellow items.  L had a great time pulling out individual items and exploring them.  He would also look at his item and then look at each of the three bowls, almost as if he were mentally categorizing his item haha.

We also made some more edible finger paint!  I had a shower curtain liner down this time and it made cleanup so much easier!  I need to get some more food coloring, currently all I have is blue and green.  He still had a great time smearing the paint onto the shower curtain and eating what was left on his fingers.

  I just love watching the wheels in his brain turn!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Today we got out the Christmas decorations!  As I brought boxes down from the attic I could tell that L was anxious to see what was in them!  So I didn't finish getting all of them down before we started exploring them!  L enjoyed pulling ornaments and figurines from the boxes and "inspecting" them.  I plugged in a string of lights and he really like exploring those, but his favorite thing was a little snow globe that lit up and played Christmas music.

After putting out most of the decorations a box full of packing peanuts that I had for fragile decorations became a great impromptu sensory bin!  He really enjoyed pulling all of them out and throwing them.  Afterward he wanted to walk on them :).  He isn't walking alone yet but he's really into holding onto fingers and trying to walk on different surfaces.  We kept putting the packing peanuts in a pile and he would walk over them every time, I guess he just loves to feel different textures on his little feet!

Cousins

Today L's two cousin's came over for a play date of fun!  The corn meal in the sensory bin was killing my sinuses (I did not expect it to be quite that dusty) so I changed it out and put different colors of aquarium gravel in it.  L and his older cousin had a blast playing in it!  They also played with drop boxes and puzzles, well pretty much everything in the play room.  The aquarium gravel looks so cool in the sensory bin with all of the different colors! I'll have to post pictures soon.  We also played in the ball pit for a good bit of the day today.  L's favorite game right now is to get in the ball pit and roll me a ball, I'll say the color of the ball and toss it back into the pit.  He will then pick a different color and we repeat the process for quite some time.  :)  Today was a little more difficult than the days we have been having.  L was pretty cranky and I think it's from teething, hopefully that won't last long!  I've also been looking for more creative vegetable recipes lately.  At 6 months I started making him pureed vegetables and he loved them.  Now he will not eat puree's because he wants to feed himself.  I want to encourage his independence and autonomy but I'm having trouble coming up with a variety of vegetables that I don't need to puree for him to eat.  I think he's getting tired of the same things over and over, lately he's only been eating the meat portion of his meals.  I'll have to do a little research in this area.  :)

Corn meal and jingle bells.

Today was totally awesome.  We started out the day with our normal play in the play room (puzzles, cars, etc.) and then L found the pocket of jingle bells I put out last night while he was sleeping!  He pulled all of them out and we went crazy with them!  We rolled them all over the floor and hit them and clanged them together.  I would have never known that so much fun could be had with jingle bells!   A few hours later we were beginning to get bored so I started looking for something new to add to the sensory bin.  I found an old bag of white corn meal and it was perfect!!  It felt like fine sand.  As soon as I poured it into the sensory bin L crawled right into it and started playing!  He sifted it with his hand, rubbed it around, and threw some into the floor.  We were both covered in white powder by the time we were done playing!  We had a great day together today.  :)

We have hit a few pretty awesome milestones lately.  He can now stack 2 blocks, he is beginning to work simple shape puzzles (he can get most shapes but a few still give him trouble), and after playing with his cars today he put them all away before moving to the next toy without any prompting.  I've never prompted him to clean up after himself, I've just tried to model good habits so I hope they're catching on!  I also made a felt board tonight for his room and I cut out some felt shapes for some awesome play.  I hope to get it hung in his room tomorrow.  

Awesome activities.

It's been a while since I've done anything with this blog, but I'd like to pick it up again so I'm going to write about the activities my 12 month old son and I have been doing.  On Friday we played in a bin of oatmeal, flour, rice and water...tons of fun!!  He had a blast squishing and throwing the goop and the clean up was so much easier than I originally thought it would be!

We also made edible fingerpaint out of yogurt and food coloring.  He had a blast painting my floors, and I'm so glad it was edible!  :)

He and I also had a blast in the pool of beans we set up a few days before his birthday party.

‎"I really am your gift. I am not just a little person who needs to be "raised" and taught, and taken to activities....I came to the people in my life to bring a message: slow down. Feel. Be. Over and over again. When you do, you will notice immediately, that I am not an obstacle to your work, or inconvenient to your daily life. Instead, you will come to appreciate my honesty, humor, presence and love." - Bruce Scott

Fall fun!

A couple of days before L's party we decided to rake up some leaves as a play invitation.

He played in the pile for a while and had a great time, but ultimately decided that the stairs in the background would be a much more awesome way to spend the day.  First he inspected individual leaves and crawled around the yard exploring and then he ended up the steps.  He crawled up and down them over and over again.  He's so persistent and I love that about him!  When he wants to learn something or achieve a goal he will let nothing stand in his way!  That quality alone will serve him well in life.

Birthday Bonanza

I can hardly believe that my little man is nearly a year old.  We had his first birthday party yesterday, and it was so much fun!  We set up a ball pit, a pool full of beans, and a tub of water and blue food coloring in the living room.  We had shovels and sand toys in the bean pool and funnels, cups, and magnetic fish with a fishing pole in the water tub.  All of the kids had a blast!  It's amazing just how awesome child directed play can be.  There were no "fights" or squabbles over toys, instead there were two little boys who were working together on a common goal:  get the beans from the the bean pool and into the water.  Another little boy quietly shoveled and dumped beans on his own and my little boy did a little bit of everything.  :)  Yes, there was quite a mess to clean up, but I was surprised at how quickly and easily it all cleaned up.  I can't remember how many times I answered the question, "Did you really think this one through?"  or "You won't be doing this again will you?"   Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy when I'm setting up the activities that we've been doing lately but I'm always surprised by how much he learns, how much fun we both have, and how easily the messes clean up.  Now we make more messes than ever, but my house is also cleaner than it's ever been!  I love this.  Anyway, back to the party...we also had a bubble machine that was a pretty big hit.  I think everyone had a great time!