Sunday, March 20, 2011

Little Reader

Luke is big fan of books. He loves to have us read him story after story... when he'll sit still for that long, that is. Lately, he's taken to picking up books and "reading" them on his own. He'll sit there, flipping through the pages, looking at the pictures and babble to himself. It is adorable. I would love to know what is going through his mind whenever he is 'reading' on his own. We're hoping this love of books and reading continues for a long time to come!
After bath-time reading...
..Early morning, pre-breakfast reading...
Nap time reading....
And some self-help reading!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Getting Crafty

Last Monday was a cooler, rainy day. Luke and I desperately needed a new form of 'indoor entertainment'. The kitchen was already a mess and cleaning it was already on my To-Do list during Luke's nap time so we simply added to the mess, you know, for fun! Last year I came across a recipe for making edible play dough. Nothing fancy- just oatmeal, water, and flour- ingredients I have in the pantry at all times. Luke loves "helping" me bake/cook so he had a great time mixing up all the ingredients.
Once everything was well mixed we had fun shaping the dough into balls, snakes, pancakes, etc. Luke really got into beating the mass of dough with his spoon - getting out his pent up aggressions perhaps?
Once Luke lost interest in the dough and had moved on to some other toy, I got creative and shaped a few airplanes (Luke's latest obsession) and beads (I figured they'd be good for working on hand-eye coordination). The cool thing about this play dough is that you can bake it, so we baked our planes and beads for about 3 hours at 225 degrees, making them rock solid and paintable.
A few days later Luke had a blast painting his new "toys". Thankfully we have non-toxic, washable paint because it was everywhere once Luke was done being artistic. If I had thought ahead I would have had him paint them outside since it was a nice outside and would have made the clean up much easier. Oh well.
Carefully studying his painted bead
This picture is terrible quality, sorry. You can still see Luke is looking strangely like the Joker from Batman with the lovely paint marks around his mouth. Yes, he thought it was more fun to paint his mouth after awhile. Thus, the lack of a paint brush in this picture- the brushes were taken away by mean ol' mom. But that didn't stop the fun, oh no. Luke simply rolled the beads around in the paint using his hands. Creating quite the mess but having a marvelous time!
The finished product!
Please don't judge my terrible painting skills when it comes to the airplane. We'd already had one airplane crash land into a pile of crumbs on the kitchen floor so I wasn't going to try extra hard to make this one look nice, knowing it is just a matter of time before it's in the trash. :) But I'm ok with it! I got three crafty activities that Luke loved out of this, plus painted 'toys' for him to continue to play with... all for very, very cheap. I'm definitely not complaining!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

You Know You're In The 3rd Trimester When...

  • Your belly button "pops" and every Tom, Dick and Harry feels the need to inform you of it.
  • You lose your ankles and gain a chin (or two)
  • Your maternity shirts (which were once too loose, baggy and long) are now verging on being mid-drifts.
  • You are constantly asked when you're due - you give them the due date and hear, "Wow! Are you sure there's just one in there?!"
  • You can no longer get up from any reclining position by yourself. Rather, you roll around like a turtle on it's back until someone has mercy on you and pulls/pushes you up.... OR your husband stands there watching and laughing at your predicament and futile attempt at using stomach muscles that no longer exist.
  • You put 'Go to Frugos' on your daily To-Do list.
30 (ish) weeks pregnant
Yay for the 3rd Trimester! Only a few more weeks to go - ready or not!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Snakes and Pancakes

The past few weekends have been on the cold and rainy side which meant that our activities were limited to what we could do indoors. Play Dough to the rescue! We've tried playing with play dough made of oatmeal, flour and water before - totally not the same. It's not nearly as squishy or moldable and even if it is safe to eat it tastes nasty so Luke wouldn't want to eat it anyway. The real deal is much better... we could play for hours! Luke loves squishing it in his fist, making balls and then flatten them into pancakes, rolling out snakes, and much more!
Surrounded by his collection of pancakes
oh, so happy!
loving the snakes
Proudly showing off his pink snake
All that play dough playing certainly works up an appetite! Mmmm, grilled cheese!
And for dessert.... :)