Tot School - Introduction

I stumbled up on the idea of tot school about two months ago and immediately decided that Henry and I are doing it. I'm starting to think that I missed my life's calling to be a teacher. Tot school is fun structured learning for toddlers. Its basically like a preschool for toddlers. One reason for doing it, other than I think its a ton of fun, is to make sure Henry doesn't fall behind his daycare peers. Daycare centers are so amazing at teaching young children their colors, numbers, Spanish, and a whole host of other skills, I think its very easy for a child at home to fall behind. Transferring balls from one bowl to another using a scoop -- our first tot school activity. My biggest inspiration has been 1+1+1=1 . Its an amazing website with a great way to start a tot school program. Through this program, a few of my new favorite tot school blogs, and of course pinterest, I have started to gather supplies and set up a "classroom."  I have done a few ...

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Excuse the Dust, Oh and POTW

Sorry about the layer of dust that has settled on this blog this week. A couple weeks ago I got a JOB! Yes, you read that right. But the catch is its a part-time stay-at-home writing/editing job. I work in between naps, at night, and all the other little times I would normally blog. The last couple of weeks I have been in training, but this was my first week with all of my responsibilities. So, its taking me a little bit to adjust, find balance, and figure out when to get everything done. But I'll get there. And I promise some good posts are coming! So here is the long awaited POTW. And the winner is Morgan! Morgan says: "She was just laying like that. Its not like anything happened. It's just how her face looked."  Sometimes, Lexi's lips just get stuck to her teeth. She always looks so mean, but she's just as sweet as ever. New pictures are up! We are adding a one line description of each picture to go with the picture options. Vote! Oh, and Clic...

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DIY Toddler Crayons

I have tried giving crayons to Henry a few different times, but he always tries sticking them into his mouth. I'm afraid he's going to bite down on one and choke on a small piece. I set out to get some toddler crayons. Do you know how expensive those things are?! Were talking between $7-$9 for 3 crayons! Well, that's insane.  So, I decided I would make my own. I bought a 64 pack of normal crayons for $3 at Target - which makes 9 toddler crayons. They are so easy to make. All you need is a muffin tin, and some crayons! Here's how: Preheat the oven to 250 Remove the wrappers from the crayons. This is way harder to do than I remember from my childhood. I found it was easier to just put the crayons in a bowl of warm water. The wrappers just fall right off.  Then break the crayons into pieces and place into a muffin tin. I used a regular size, but you could also use a mini-muffin tin. I separated the crayons by color, but you could do any c...

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We are not the 95%

We are not the 95%. See 95% of babies outgrow their acid reflux by their first birthday. Not Hen....not even close. Its been 5 months now since I've dedicated a post  to Henry's reflux. At that point, Henry was placed on his current regiment of medication -- two 15mg adult capsules of Prevacid per day mixed into his food.  As his first birthday approached, Morgan and I were really excited to try to wean Hen from his medication. Things were looking really good. Hen was only spitting up about every other day, and was sleeping through the night. He had zero signs of pain. We started with his morning dose, hoping that if all went well we could get him off the medication completely. After only a couple days on just one dose Henry started waking 4-5 times a night screaming in pain, spitting up all day long, and was much much crabbier.  So, he went back on the twice a day dose, and immediately all the new symptoms stopped.  Ugh. For once, I just want to write an u...

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Robot Birthday Party

I mentioned awhile back that I was feeling the pressure to throw a giant birthday party for Henry. Well, we had the party on Henry's birthday and it turned out great! I think it was a good balance of being cute, but not crazy big or over-the-top. I made most of the decorations, and I will shamelessly show them off here! I apologize for the totally crap pictures. I need a nicer camera. The birthday banner: I made it by individually cutting each circle, then taping them together with scrap booking tape. The letters were made using a Circuit machine. Then I punched holes in each circle with a 1/8"  punch. Then I strung them each on a large piece of string. They are just taped to the wall. The highchair: I individually cut by hand each of the pendants. Then I punched each with the 1/8" punch. Since I needed flexibility to go around the curve of the chair, I hand tied a little ribbon between each piece. Then I taped a small piece of streamer which I cut up the ...

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12 Months Old!

Well, its official. Henry is a year old. No more whining about my baby getting older. Now he's just old to begin with. But at least he is still tiny. We just got back from his 12 month check up, and in the doctor's words he is "perfect" and "very advanced." Yay!! This morning he was 28.5" long which is 18.3% for his age, and he was 20lbs 3 oz which is 13.6% for his age. So, he's small. He still wears size 3 diaper, and wears mostly 6-9 month clothing (he is just starting to move into12 month). This month Henry has continued to sleep great! He sleeps around 10:30-11:00 hours a night and takes two 1:15-1:30 naps per day (that is until last week, when he started fighting naps, I'm hoping its just a phase). This month he has completely stopped eating purees, except to take his reflux medication with. Reflux is going to get its own update soon -- promise. Henry is also still nursing, but we are now going to start to wean -- also getting...

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