Water Wednesday: Painting with Water

This week I took the girls outside to paint with water on the sidewalk. I wanted the freedom to be able to go back in the house to check the timer for dinner or refill water cups, so we opted for the backyard rather than the drive way.

The girls each got a plastic cup of water and a few paintbrushes and we went to town on the paver stones. Nora seemed to like it but it didn't keep Janie as entertained as I would have liked. She ended up spilling lots of water on the pavement and then on herself.

After about 10 minutes, we ended up heading back inside as both girls wanted to come in and play. My plan is to introduce more activities with water each time we go out in hopes that they might spend more time outside doing all of the activities that we've tried together! Overall, I think they liked doing the water painting but for whatever reason today it wasn't as successful. We will try again soon!

Tasty Tuesday: Yogurt Berries

This week we made frozen yogurt covered berries. I got the idea from this website and it sounded simple enough for toddler hands to help with and also yummy!

I enlisted Nora's help since Janie was still sleeping. It was a rough start to her nap so she ended up sleeping until almost dinner time! I eventually had to wake her up so that she would actually fall asleep again for bedtime.

We gathered the supplies and set up on the kitchen island: raspberries, blueberries, vanilla greek yogurt, a cookie sheet, wax paper, and a spoon.

I showed her how to put a berry into her yogurt and then to spoon it back out onto the wax paper covered cookie sheet. I let her do the blueberries since the raspberries got a bit mushy when you mixed them around the yogurt, even gently. We filled up the cookie sheet and then put the tray into the freezer so they would harden. I told her they would taste like ice cream when we were done so she was really excited!

We ate them for "dessert" after dinner a couple hours later. They were very cold but yummy and everyone enjoyed them!

Scheduling Summer

I don't know about you, but I have found that my two little girls when they get bored of one another they will do one of two things: pick fights with each other or demand my attention. And that looks like gripping on to mom's legs while simultaneously whining either "mommy" or "up" which then turns into a jealousy battle between two toddlers, which usually ends in someone going to time out because they yelled at or hit the other one. And mommy gets nothing done around the house.

Summer is not hard at all really, but it tends to be hard for us only because it is such a change from our normal schedule. The good news is that it allows everyone to sleep in, get decent breakfast before heading out the door, and to spend more time with each other. The bad thing is that not one of us is used to spending so much time at home or with the others. So, this summer I decided to try and maintain a bit of a schedule for a few reasons:

1. To avoid those little arguments around the house over things like who gets the blue necklace and how many pretend cookies can someone carry around at a time.

2. To keep a shred of structure for the girls since they're used to having it 5 days a week.

3. To get us out and about and not stuck inside (which is wayyy easier than getting ready & out the door...)

4. To make sure the girls get appropriate attention from mommy (not that whining, crying, battling kind of attention).

5. To have some fun!

I kept it simple; one morning activity and one afternoon activity throughout the summer. I also am not holding myself to these things on a weekly basis. If they don't happen, they don't happen. That being said, here is the schedule I planned out for us this year:

Since nap times are a bit erratic and unpredictable for at least one of my toddlers, I tried to have something to go out of the house and do in the mornings. This not only gets us up and dressed but also is a more predictable time of the day. I left the afternoon activity to be something that we can do at home either before or during dinner prep, which I am totally planning on and excited for since my school year weekday meals consist of 30 minutes or less, easy prep dinners. Don't get me wrong - I still do easy dinners - but at least I can plan on cooking a chicken or something that might need more than 20 minutes in the oven or on the stove top.

I plugged in local library story times as well as our previously scheduled activities in the morning. We utilize two different local libraries which have two different opportunities for story time and such. We also have a summer pass to the movies on Wednesday mornings which is going to be perfect for hot summer days and something for us to look forward to! I left Fridays to be our opportunity to do the fun stuff like the zoo, the aquarium, the trampoline park, museums, and anything else that sounds like a fun place for a mama to take two little girls.

Using other suggested Pinterest ideas, I decided on the following schedule for the afternoons...

Make It Monday: make a simple craft
Tasty Tuesday: make a toddler friendly snack
Water Wednesday: do some sort of water activity in the backyard or possibly Splash Pad if the kids wake up early
Thoughtful Thursday: take on some sort of service project to just ingrain the idea of thinking about others
Free Play Friday: nothing specific planned

So, we're going to dive in this week and see what fun we can have!

Father's Day

This year we spent Father's Day weekend doing pretty much what we might usually do, but throwing in a few special things for Justin.

Nora and I crafted a beautiful trophy for him the week before and hid it in the closet until the big day. She loved painting it her favorite color and choosing all the different stickers from my stash to put on it. She chose stars, dinosaurs, and some bones to go with them. I helped her put "BEST DAD" on it and she insistently put the D's on backwards.

We made a breakfast of cinnamon rolls & eggs for Father's Day and Nora gave him his trophy and other fun gifts, including a favorite brew, caffeinated shave cream, bacon chocolate, and some cute little laser gun toys, one for everybody, for us to play around the house with, among other things.

My dad came over for doughnuts, per our usual Sunday morning tradition, and we went to visit Justin's dad for dinner. We had gone out to Justin's choice of restaurant (Buffalo Wild Wings) the night before.

Shout out to this guy! Happy Father's Day, dad.

Hopefully Justin feels like he had a good weekend of family time, man food, and even some fathering (we do in fact have two toddlers!) to top it all off.

We really appreciate all that you do for our family! You are the "best dad" that Nora & Janie could ask for!!

Swim Lessons

I drop Nora off at Primrose every day throughout the school year. Even there, where she knows the people and the kids, she struggles with saying, "goodbye, Mom!" and carrying about her business. I know that this is partly her age and partly her just being difficult for me, but I have been nervous about having a drop-off class of any kind because of this. And because the times I have tried to leave her in Sunday School at church have been pretty much disastrous.

Needless to say, I prepped Nora for her first swim class A LOT. We talked about where mommy would be and what mommy would be doing and what Nora would be doing and what would happen afterwards. She seemed alright with it but I just didn't know how day one would go. Well, day one went just fine. We were running a bit behind and got there just as class was starting (which probably helped) and they grabbed her by the hand and off she went! There were no tears or hesitation and when class was over, she was a happy little girl. YES!!!

Swimming in the pool!

Day two: we got home and prepared to go to swim class. She was happy. We prepped for everything yet again. We reviewed her teacher's name. We got in the car and were not 2 minutes from our house when we got a phone call that swim class had been cancelled. This broke her little heart. But, it told me that she really did love her swim class. She has gone every day and been just happy as a clam and I have been so proud! Her first week's progress report was good and it seems as if she is much more comfortable in the water.

Sad about not having swim classes...

Janie was a trooper during 5:00 pm swim classes... outside.

Sometimes a little bit of a challenge...

Justin took her to the pool over the weekend to practice swimming and blowing bubbles and all of that in between her 2 weeks of class.

Week two went smoothly until the very last day. I don't know for sure why she had a change of heart, but she would not get into the pool. Her swim instructor and I finally convinced her to go play in the playground part for the last 8 minutes of her 30 minute session. I'm assuming it was mostly the tropical storm that had blown in the day before and made a cloudy, misty, and cooler swimming environment but it could have been because mommy didn't take her or that Grandma had been at the house, or that she woke up too soon from her nap or maybe that going everyday for two weeks just got tiring - who knows, really.

My big girl at the pool!

Bye-bye swim class!

The important thing is that she was happy as we were leaving and seems to really have enjoyed taking swim classes. She has gained some new skills and we are thinking about signing her up for some more permanent weekly classes in the fall to keep her going. All in all, her first "big girl" class was a success!

We got her dance outfits in the mail last week and Nora is very excited about starting dance classes in another couple weeks here. I am crossing my fingers that it goes just as well!

Summer Week Two

We are just wrapping up our second week of summer! This week I taught VBS in the mornings at our church, we had nap time, and then swim lessons, so there was not a lot of time for us to block out our days. I took Janie with me to church (she stayed in the nursery) and Pops spent a lot of quality time with Nora in the mornings. A few things at work came up in addition and so Mimi helped out a couple of afternoons as well.

Over the weekend, we went on a family outing to Home Depot (woo hoo!) and to our town square to get a smoothie, play at the fountain, and our very first visit to the library to check out books! The library experience was one I won't forget for awhile. They were both very excited about the books yet neither one of them knew that they couldn't just pull the books off the shelves. So Justin and I frantically tried to put back books as quickly as they were coming off the shelves. Once we found the lovely box of board books that was not organized and meant for little hands, things calmed down for a minute. Each of the girls picked out two books and we attempted to head out the door for home, but not before taking a family trip to the restroom (oh, toddlers...).

This is how we have to walk everywhere. 

Janie wants to walk around just like her big sister.

Since mommy was busy all week with meetings and VBS, Nora spent a lot of time with Pops. They went to the library story time, her very first movie at the theater, to see fishes at Bass Pro Shop, and on a train ride! Janie pooped out about 5 minutes into the car ride home from VBS every day.

Best pic from Pops of Nora at the movies!

We also took our family visit to the dentist! Nora had her first official teeth cleaning and did AWESOME. I had to make three appointments for next summer - goodness gracious!

We also wrapped up swim classes this week! 

Now, I am looking forward to being able to plan dinners, go to some fun activities in the mornings together, hopefully accomplish a few things at home, and play in the afternoons with the girls! 

Summer Week One

Our first week of summer was not nearly as eventful as the rest of our summer will be...

I had the girls attend school for one additional week, mostly because I was not sure if I would want or need to be in my classroom wrapping things up and I also like to reserve the time to attend trainings if I need to. I did get some training in this week but I did not end up working in my classroom so I got some things done around the house!

We started the weekend celebrating Pops because he is officially retired! The girls and I met him for frozen yogurt while Mimi attended high school graduation. They loved playing around the fountain, as usual, after eating their ice cream.

This is from Dad's birthday, but thought I'd throw that in there!

Happy Retirement Pops!

We had our usual doughnuts on the weekend with Mimi and Pops, but I was not teaching Sunday School so we were able to go out afterwards together. Nora likes the jelly-filled doughnuts and Janie likes it all. I know this will surprise no one but she can really chow down on some doughnuts.

Mimi & Janie

Pops & Nora

I spent some time in Nora's room this week trying to update her room into a big girl bedroom. We had done the bed transitions but hadn't really been able to get to moving around furniture and arranging her room for a toddler. I was happy to do that and build her a little canopy in the corner of her room for her to play with and read under.

I still need to update a few pictures...

Nora in her canopy!

I played with a few other things in the house, did laundry, ran errands, had some alone shopping time, attended trainings, and then had to make a few calls and a visit to the pediatrician at the end of the week, which put a stop to my home projects. Long story short - what I thought may have been another allergic reaction was actually an icky virus that she is now recovering from. We also started attending Nora's swim classes daily, but I will blog separately about that experience.

Wacky Wednesday (dress up day) at Primrose!

My new little herb plants for the kitchen.

We are looking forward to a little bit more freedom next week with our days!