Cleaning a narrow vase

I haven't posted in years. Life got away from me and I had another baby.


Now that we are all cought up here is a tip for cleaning out a narrow vase. I always keep an old bottle brush around.

But at times even that doesn't reach. Instead you can pour some uncooked rice in with some water. Swirl until clean and dump the used rice in the trash.

Yuck!!

So much better

Sugar and Spice Baby Shower

This was several years ago... But I never ended up posting it.  Brooklynn has become one of Emmalynn's best friends.  Here was the shower we threw her...

It is that time in my life when all of my friends are having babies (myself included), and thus I am throwing and attending a lot of baby showers.  One of my best friends is due with her sweet baby girl Brooklynn (Emmalynn’s soon to be best friend)  We threw her a sugar and spice baby shower. 
Decorations:
She loves orange and pink, so we decorated the backyard and tables with a plethora of orange and pink ribbons.  We draped them from every place we could and had them running down the tables.  We also had small vases filled with gerbera daises in pink and orange.

The food:
We had some sugar and spice food served family style on all of the tables.  We put the food on beautiful serving platters. 

The favors:
We had a candy bar set up for guests to fill baggies as their favors.  Of course all the candies were in pink and orange.  We had cute headbands decorating the containers, and little shoes and socks as decorations.  Instead of a cake, we had cake pops for people to enjoy.

The Games:
We had several games. 
Name that baby!- For one of the games, guests submitted their baby picture ahead of time and we all had to guess which guest went with each picture.
Hair bow draw- each guest was asked to bring a hair bow, and one winner was picked out of the bucket.
thank you drawing-  Each guest wrote their address on an envelope and a winner was drawn.  This makes it so much easier for mom to write her than you notes.
Gift Bingo- blank bingo sheets were given out and guests fill in the gifts they thought Lindsay would get.  As Lindsay opened the gifts, you would mark your sheet and the bingo winners got a prize.
The prizes:
We had sugar and spice candy bouquets for the winners. 

Toddler Easter Lunch Hunt

A fun idea for Easter lunch is to hid their lunch in Easter eggs and let them hunt for their lunch.  Kids want to make their lunch out of their Easter eggs anyways… so I decided to be strategic about it.  Hide things in the eggs that you WANT them to eat.  Em had a BLAST.

Fill them with any lunch items that they like (that would fit in your eggs)

Ideas to fill eggs:

• cut up string cheese
• cut up deli meat
• meatballs (without sauce)
• pizza rolls
• cut up hotdogs
• freeze dried peas or corn
• grapes
• blue berries
• black berries
• peanut butter crackers
• cheddar bunnies
• pretzels
• granola bars cut into bite sized pieces

Easter Ornaments

I made first did this project with my second grade class and they came out awesome… unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures :/  I had them make a cross and stone, then we painted them with colors that represented different things.  (Black for sin, red for Jesus’ blood, white for our sins being washed away, pink for new life, etc.) 

I decided to make some ornaments with Em to give away as little Easter gifts to my family.

First I made a salt dough. 

• 1 c. flour
• 1 c. salt
• 1/2 c. water (or less)

Combine the salt and flour, then add water a little at a time until you get a dough consistency.  It shouldn’t be tacky.  If it is too wet, then just add more flour.  Kneed the dough, then roll out about 1/4 in thick and out your shapes.

Em had more fun cutting the left over dough pieces than she did the cookie cutters :)

Put the shapes on parchment paper and use a chopstick to make holes in the dough

Now you have a few options on drying them. 

1. You can let them air dry for about a week on a wire rack (for air flow)
2. You can bake them low and slow.  This can take several hours though.  This is what I did the first time…. and it worked really well… but took 3 hours.  oy.  that was a late night.  Try 225 and check every half hour.  This may be good in the winter when you have the added bonus of heating your house with the oven ;)
3. You can microwave them!  Start with 3 min, and then do increments of 20 seconds until they are done.  Even if they are still not totally hard, they do harden more as they cool.  This is what I did this time.  Great for impatient toddlers.  Doing it this way, your ornaments won’t stay as perfect, they may rise unevenly.  But that didn’t bother me for this project.

Then you are ready to paint!

You can thread your ribbon using a paper clip

You are done!  These are super cute with a little note or poem attached.

Raising a toddler that reads

Now let me start this post by saying that I am by no means an expert on this subject.  I have one GIRL, and I just know what has worked for me…. and what I know from my years of teaching.  Girls and boys are very different…… boys tend to be much more active and rambunctious…. but I do think these things would also work for them.  My girl pretty much never stops moving when she is awake…. and she now LOVES books.
One of my baby’s favorite things to do is read.  I knew from the time that I got pregnant with her that I wanted to read to her each night and wanted to develop a love for books.  My husband hates to read, and only reads to acquire knowledge.  I love to read for pleasure and don’t particularly like reading for knowledge.  lol.  My hope is she will be a mix of both.  When she was first born I tried reading to her each night…. and it was a no go.  She hated it.  She wanted quiet nursing time.  There went my plans for her to be a book worm.  Slowly and through experimentation I learned what worked for us. 
Here are my tips….
1. Find what works for your family.  If reading at night works for you…. great!  My kid hated it.  We read casually all through the day during play time.
2. Don’t stress it.  We will sometimes read half a page of a book and then she has moved on.  That is fine!  Take a whatever goes attitude.  Don’t feel like you need to finish a book… or even the page that you are reading.  When instilling a love of reading into an infant, it is all about experimentation and exposure.  Sometimes we will read the same book five times in a row with her sitting in my lap…. other times I will read half a sentence while she is running around before she rips it out of my hands. 
3. Simply playing with books counts.  Looking at pictures.  Opening and closing the books. Turning the pages.  Remember this shouldn’t be a stressful thing for you or baby.  It is fun. 
4. Buy baby friendly books.  While they are young board books and indestructibles are your friend.  (see number 3 for reasons why)  We keep all of her books on an Emmie size shelf where she is free to pull them all out, step on them, turn the pages, etc.  They are her books.  any books that I want to keep nice stay out of reach until she is older. 


5. Get books that have few words.  Babies have short attention spans.  One word on a page?…. great!  we will read that one word and then sometimes point out things in the picture.  Like… Brown.  The monkey is brown.  A monkey says *insert monkey noise that I can’t spell* (below is a picture of an indestructible book.  It is water and tear proof.  You could even take these in the tub.  Bath time may be the best time for reading for your family if that is the only time baby is in one place at one time. (see number 1)

6. Touch and feel books are awesome.  We have several.  Pat the bunny is a favorite which is why it is practically falling apart.  Again…. I let her play with the books, turn the pages, etc.  so I expect them to get warn.  I will probably buy her a new one soon to replace this one.
7. Books that make sounds are also fun! While I read Em will push the buttons (not the correct button for the page… but meh… who cares.  Again the fewer words on a page the better.

8. Babies love to see pictures of other babies.  These baby face books are a favorite.  They are short and she loves seeing the messy kids. 

9. Experiment with different kinds of books.  Huge books, tiny books.  Books that come in a box. 

10. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. Ask for board books for birthdays and Christmas.  If you are going by my tips and letting baby play with, step on, pull off a shelf, they are going to get messed up. So, if you only spend a few dollars on the book, you are more willing to let this happen. Check your local dollar store, the dollar section at target, garage sales, thrift stores, department stores when there are sales. Sometimes the most random book becomes a favorite. Also, check out scholastic! Yes those book orders from when you were a kid. I'm pretty sure you can order online even if your kid isn’t in school... or just find a friend that is a teacher and order through them. We got a ton of our board books though there.

http://www.scholastic.com/home/

12 months…. my baby is officially ONE!

I can’t believe it.  I think I am in denial.  My baby is one year old.  I started to get emotional around her birthday.  How could so much time pass already?!?  I only just got back into my pre-pregnancy pants.  I miss my little squish who had the tinniest little cry and loved to snuggle.

Weight: 19 lbs 15 oz (25th percentile)

Height: 29.8 in. (75th percentile)

My long and lean baby

We had a lot of fun doing a smash cake photo shoot.  She wore the romper that she wore home from the hospital :)  Who needs a bath when you can just hose them down with the sprinklers. 

Challenges:

We have officially entered the tantrum phase.  Sigh.

Em still is a huge Momma’s girl.  She cries when daddy picks her up.  It is even harder because she LOVES Lan’s friends.  Dave is her best friend.  She absolutely loves him.  I think part of the problem is that she has started associating daddy with being taken away from mommy since he leaves with her in the morning and takes her to his parents.  My new plan is that he will start getting her in the morning and from naps and bring her to me.  That way he isn’t the one always taking her away from mommy. 

I am so tired of pumping at work and am trying to wean Em from breast milk while I am away.  I would like to still nurse her in the morning, after work, and before bed…. but I am so over pumping.  Getting her to take milk has been a big challenge.  She doesn’t like the bottle and only my father in law can get her to take my pumped milk… and that is with a lot of difficulty.  We have been trying to get her to drink cow’s milk at home and it is a no go.  She will take a few sips and then get mad that it isn’t water.  She LOVES water.  We have tried bottle, cup, sippy, and straw.  I am hoping that eating dairy products and nursing will fulfill her dietary needs… because getting her to drink milk is like we are torturing her.

Em’s new tricks, triumphs, and favorites:

Em has started blowing kisses and waving.  It is pretty much the cutest thing ever.  She will also copy you and try to snap and try to make indian noises with her mouth and hand. 

Her two top teeth cut finally

She has become an expert walker.  She now prefers to walk over crawl.  In fact she got caught under the coffee table because she was determined to walk out but was too tall.  So she was crouching and trying to walk.

Things that I love:

She is starting to notice all kinds of things.  She pointed out the stars at night.

She will point at things that she wants.

She loves to read and will bring us books that she wants us to read to her.  I have read Pat the Bunny so many times that I was able to recite it to my class by memory. 

We spent her birthday as a family.  Lan and I took the day off.  For breakfast I made her funfetti pancakes.  A real treat since I rarely give her junk food.  We first went to the Library and then the Park.  She loved the fish tank at the library.  We had an amazing time.   I also enjoyed going through her old photos and reading her birth story again.

 

We had such a good time at her birthday party.  It was the perfect weather.  All the kids loved playing in the play house on the grass.  Tons of friends and family showed up to bless our baby girl.  I did an owl theme, which is how her nursery is decorated.  I had so many ideas on things I wanted to do… and only got a few of them done.  I was the only one who knew the things that I didn’t get to… and in the end it doesn’t matter.  We had an amazing time.

I am so proud of what a smart, silly, sweet baby I have.  I love her more than I thought possible.  This year has gone so fast.  I love watching her grow and develop her personality.  Each new stage brings so much fun and excitement, but I grieve the stage that we have left.  I can’t wait to see what the next year will hold.

11 months

so I never weighed or measured her this month…. mommy fail.  Im also over a month late with her blog post.  Better late than never.

Challenges:

Em was teething a lot and for about four days would eat very little.  She only wanted to nurse and wouldn’t take a bottle.  She was visibly loosing weight.  Poor baby.  I took off work one day so that I could nurse her more often.  Being a working momma is hard… and when your baby needs you ad you can’t be there for her… it absolutely sucks.

Em’s new tricks, triumphs, and favorites:

This month was filled with a log of big firsts.  Em loves to slide and can go down by herself. 

She will point at eyes in a book and say the word eyes. 

She will tickle Elmo’s tummy to get him to laugh. 

She will kiss animals and pictures in books…. and occasionally your nose when you ask. 

She LOVES Jamba Juice.

Her favorite books are Pat the Bunny and Eat (filled with pictures of babies eating)

She also took her first steps.  the first one she took for dad while I was in the other room cleaning.  He says it didn’t count because she took the step and fell.  We then sat down as a family and she took another step.  I was so afraid that I would miss this first and I am so glad that she did it at home and not at Ohm and Noi’s house (grandma and grandpas). 

Things that I love:

I love watching her take her first steps. 

I love that she points to pictures in books.

I love how much she needs me and loves me. 

I love how silly she is.

I love that she is forming favorites.  She loves to read and has favorite books.  She has favorite toys too.  She loves to play with fake food and she is at the age where we can really pretend play.  I will pretend to drink from a cup and then so will she.