Cleaning for the Holidays

Josie loves water play, but the cold weather makes it impossible. So, I see mopping as a chance for Josie to get some water play. I wouldn't normally write about it, but this time was more exciting than the last. I like to give Josie a bucket with water in it and a rag. I've worked on teaching her how to wring out the rag, but she usually only gets the top half. This led to many puddles on the kitchen floor. After Josie slipped twice, I put some socks on her for traction and kissed her all better. Then, as I was walking around the table, I slipped on one of her puddles and fell down. Being 6 months pregnant I was really worried about landing on Josie and maneuvered myself away, but ended up landing on my knees. Ouch! What surprised me was Josie's reaction. Toddler and mom switched roles.
"Are you okay? You okay?" Josie asks.
"Yeah, I just hurt my knees. Ouch!" I respond.
"Oh. Kiss them." And Josie kissed both my knees to make me feel better.

I'll be honest, the kisses didn't stop the bruises from forming. But the kisses did make me feel pretty special. I guess that's why a mom's kiss works better than a band-aid for my little Josie.

Vinyl Phrases

For Christmas this year I made some special vinyl phrases for my sister's family. Here they are:














For my brother-in-law who served two tours in Iraq. He's a real hero.
The words above are white vinyl, the picture is just low quality.




For my nephew Slade, who's a boy scout.
















For Sofya, who's growing up way too fast.


























Now, to make those into something like my Family blocks you follow these steps.
1. Cut wood to size of paper.
2. Sand wood
3. Paint back, sides, and a little of the front with black paint (you can use any color you want)
4. Modge-podge paper onto wood
5. When it's dry, modge-podge over the top of the whole thing

As for my other adorable nieces and nephews, they're getting homemade quilts.



















This quilt is quilted with the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"

Advent Calendar

I've been looking for a neat Advent Calendar that I could make for Josephine this year. She can already count to 12, so I thought a calendar would help her practice. While at Thai Pan Trading with my awesome mother-in-law I saw something that sparked the idea for my Christmas Countdown calendar.

It took us a little while to throw the whole thing together (we were making 4), but I thought I'd give some simple directions on how to make it.

Supplies:
1 cookie sheet
Green paper for Christmas tree
Decoration for bottom of tree
25 large clear glass rocks (see last picture, may also be known as vase gems)
25 1-inch circles
Numbers 1 through 25
25 magnets
Hot glue gun
Modge-podge

1. Buy a cookie sheet. We bought the largest silver cookie sheet that Wal-Mart sold, we were a little concerned about 25 large rocks fitting.

2. Cut out a tree. We took parchment paper and drew a stencil for the tree, then we used 1 1/2 sheets of 12 x 12 paper to make the tree. If you're not sure whether your tree is big enough try putting all 25 rocks on.

3. Decide what you'd like at the bottom of your tree. We were originally going to put presents under the tree, but found this snowman paper at JoAnns.


4. Then modge-podge your tree and snowman to the cookie sheet. Allow the bottom glue to dry before modge-podging over the top, otherwise your paper will bubble. Also, we didn't modge-podge where their was no paper because it peeled off easily and didn't look the best.


5. Cut out 25 1-inch circles. We used several different sheets of paper. Some we cut out by tracing the rocks, and some we had the Cricut cut out. As you can see, in the end we had way more than we needed, but this allowed us to pick and choose which circles we liked best to go on our rocks. For fun we made a gold glitter star to go under the number 25, that way we'd have a star at the top of our calendar.


6. Cut out the numbers 1 through 25. I also had my Cricut do this. However, if you don't have a Cricut you could use number stickers or have your printer print the numbers directly on the paper you'll be using for your circles.

7. Modge-podge over the circles, place your number (unless you're using stickers, and then you should reverse these steps), and place the rock on top. Allow to dry. Pay attention to your numbers, we had someone end up with two 16 rocks because they weren't paying attention.

8. Hot glue magnet to the back of the rock. We bought a 52 magnet pack at Wal-Mart for about $3.

9. To hang the cookie sheet we drilled (using my husband's titanium bits) holes in the top lip and ran a ribbon scrap through it. Another option could be using a picture stand.

I wish you success with your own Christmas Countdown calendar.

p.s. It doesn't have a title on the cookie sheet because we couldn't agree on what it should say, or how to do it. But, I have future plans of placing "Countdown to Christmas " at the top of my cookie sheet.

Cultivating Genius

We have a family here in Boise whom we really enjoy getting together with. It helps that they have a child exactly Josephine's age. A month ago we were over at their house and I found some flash cards in their book drawer and Josie, her friend, and myself started going through the pictures. Josephine really enjoyed this, so we decided to get her some flash cards to look at. I was a bit disappointed with what I found, and started to make my own. I took my handy-dandy cricut and cut out shapes in different colors so we could practice learning them.

Josephine has really enjoyed the focused one-on-one time this brings. She likes the discussion, the sorting, the quizzing, and the new words she's learning. It's funny to hear a two-year old say "rectangle". Over the last month she has learned her colors and can identify them about 90% of the time. As for her shapes, she knows how to say about three of them, but can match two of the same shape. This is the rewarding side of parenting.

As for the not rewarding side of parenting: four hours of sleep Monday night. I wondered why I couldn't stop crying and when I counted my hours of sleep I realized the answer. It doesn't help that I'm six months along and can hardly sleep anyways. Throw in a toddler who got enough REM during nap time and welcome to the dark side.

We also managed to get pink eye the week of Thanksgiving. Not only do I have three people staying here for a week, but tomorrow we'll be surrounded by family of all ages. Awesome!

Now that I'm writing about it, it all puts a smile on my face, even the bad stuff. Funny what makes the heart grow fonder. Or perhaps I'm just impressed that I'm still standing to tell the tale.

Water Painting

When there are small breaks between events (like lunch and nap time) it's helpful to have small activities easily available. We have a random/art drawer and today she decided to do some water painting.

After she finishes her art we hang it on the bottom half of the fridge so she can remember, talk about, and share her art with the whole family.

I really enjoy using all my daycare experience and my Elementary Education degree in my mothering. It helps me feel purposeful. When Russell and I bought our home I felt unhappy staying at home with Josephine. About the same time I picked up the book Contentment by Maria Covey Cole. What a heart changing and eye opening read; it was what I needed at that moment. My copy is all marked up, here's one quote:

"She is truly happy who can see and appreciate the beauty with which God has ordained the commonplace things of life" Joseph F. Smith.

My new goal is to appreciate the small moments, like when Josie tries to feed Elmo her baby's bottle through the T.V. It's enjoying the small moments that fill my lamp.