Tuesday, September 13, 2011

What we've been up to



First of all, let me apologize for any mis-spellings that spell check did not catch, or any grammatically incorrect statements, or (my personal favorite) run on sentences.  Oh, heck, I take it back about the run ons...I like those and I'm so good at them!  :)  Well, it's been a while, so a quick recap, shall we?
After 10 weeks on Weight Watchers, I lost a grand total of 12 pounds! YAY!  and I continued to lose for a couple of weeks afterwards. So, 14 pounds down total.  However, right after that, I had to quit Weight Watchers, 'cuz.....WE'RE PREGNANT!  WooHooo!  In fact, right now we are 16 weeks.  This go-round has NOT been so much fun!  Nausea galore!  NOT NICE!  Nausea and naps, naps and nausea... and naps and nausea and nausea and naps....Which one did I have more of? Who knows! They're running neck and neck!  And still going strong...although nausea has ease a little, but today it's back. Boo!  This week's Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter N!
In pregnancy land, everything is going well, weight gain is slow and steady - which makes me happy. I would hate to just turn right around and put that weight right back on. I know, I know....I'm gonna gain, but I only gained 16 pounds total with little Lulu.  Little peanut's heart rate is nice and strong with every ultrasound. I am with a new obgyn.  We moved to our little town and we are about an hour and 15 minutes away from my old obgyn.  With little Lulu, I started out seeing my ob every two weeks, then halfway through, I went to every week.  Typically, you start out every month, then maybe the last trimester or so, you go to every two weeks (if you do at all) and then the last month, you go every week.  Sooooo....I really wasn't interested in spending 3 hours a week JUST DRIVING to unload Lulu and all our stuff for a 30 minute appointment - no thanks.  And, with that, I decided to choose a new obgyn.  We do not have one in our little town, but after asking around to a few girlfriends, I found one (covered under our insurance, too, no doubt, which was no small feat, considering we changed from humana to anthem bc/bs at the beginning of august) in the next town over, and so far, I'm lovin' her!
We also recently found out our renters in Arkansas will be leaving in November.  Which initially made me PUCK-ER!  But, turns out they did not pay the security deposit, so they'll be making half in November and half in December - so that means we only have to come up with half the mortgage - which is good.  We've put the house up for sale again, and according to our realtor, there are only a couple of houses in the area up for sale right now, and she says her phone is constantly ringing about people inquiring about renting, so those could be in our favor too.  We're gonna leave it up for sale at least until December, then start looking for renters.  Please pray with us that God's will is done in this and that we're taken care of one way or the other!
Also, it's kinda been on my heart lately to start doing tot school with Lulu.  She's picking up so much right now and has always been so smart! I've been researching it and reading about it and envying others online (hey, it's the truth here...:) ) I found these GREAT websites that gave me inspiration :
1+1+1=1
confessions of a homeschooler
homeschool creations
Several of these ladies have posted their tot school and preschool paperwork for you to print and use for FREE!!  And hey, that I can afford!!
 So, I have been pushing the idea around as we'll be starting school after we get back from this trip, or after this event, or..... So I decided (um, on Sunday), that we would start this week!  I've been looking and hunting and wishing...and just decided to take the plunge! I knew I wouldn't have everything ready, but if I waited until I did, I'd NEVER get it done!  SO, here we go!!
I started yesterday and I think she did really well!  Here are some pictures:

                     We started with Leap Frog's letters - A and a
                     We listened to the sounds that A makes.
Then, we added this Aa sheet in a sheet protector and practiced writing the letters - I helped the first time and she did really well, then when she was on her own, she just colored them - which is fine. Eventually, she'll learn to draw the lines herself. :)


Next, we talked about and colored things that start with A - alligator, astronaut, ant and apple.

Then we practiced drawing lines connecting a capital A with a lowercase a. So, we drew lines
from the big apple A to the big apple a, then to the basket Aa's and the apple with the leaves Aa's.  I helped with the first time, then she did a great job drawing the lines all by herself!  

This next page, I called out the shapes and she colored them when she found them.  Each shape has a picture of an apple or apple themed picture.  

We then played "find the fruit" - we'll have to work on this one!  Some of these were hard!  They were whole fruit - we have some pictures in our first words books, but most of those have the fruit and then a picture of the slice.  So, we need practice!!!  We can repeat it again later this week. 

We then colored an apple.  RED is also the focus color this week - that's why in almost all pictures we're coloring with red. Can you tell she likes circles - that go "round and round and round"? :)
Then, Mama made up this sorting game.  I bought a sleeve of colored pom poms to use for sorting and magnets about a month ago at Wal-Mart for $1 on clearance.  I poured about half of these in an empty sour cream container I kept to recycle.  I grabbed an empty frosting container left over from my cake pops from this weekend's Chicks N Chocolates  The top just happened to be RED, so I told her to put all the RED pom poms on the top and all the other colors in the container.  She did pretty well - without my help!  She missed a couple, when we got in a hurry and tried to do them a handful at a time. But, overall, she made Mama proud!!   




See....so proud of herself! After we got all the RED pom poms out, we counted them. EIGHT!

Then, we lined all the pom poms up!

Then we put all the pom poms up and put the top on the container and of course, we had to SHAKE IT!


I made this counting toy today. I'm planning to use it later this week.  I stole, er, um, borrowed the idea from a blog I've been stalking, but can't place it right now.  If I find it, I'll add a link. I want to give credit where credit is due!

 I found this water bottle ice cube tray at goodwill.  I paid 99 cents for two - and didn't even know it was two until I got home and started to wash it a day later. Surprise!  These used to be able to be found at the dollar store, but I haven't seen one in several months, since I found the idea online, so when I found it, I grabbed it up quick and in a hurry!  I was able to share the second tray with a girlfriend - who actually wanted it for ice! We already had the labels and the Qtips, so this counting craft cost a whopping 50 cents!!

I forgot to do our memory verse yesterday during "school", so we added it later.  We went to church with Daddy to fix some stuff (guy terminology).  We practiced our verse then - for about 10 minutes.  We reviewed it at supper and again when we got home before bed.  We picked this verse:
ASK AND YOU WILL GET.  This was adapted from: Matthew 7:6-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

This morning, as soon we woke up I asked her, and she was able to repeat the verse! And not only her part, but she prompted me with the rest of the verse! YAY for memory verses!

We did tot school again today- she actually asked for the As!  As soon as I cleaned her up from breakfast, she asked!  So, we repeated some activities and added new ones.
On this apple, I asked her to color the A's red and the a's blue. She did it almost all by herself.  She did "forget" 3 lowercase ones, but when I prompted her, she colored them all on her own.
And this was our finished product - sorry for the flash - it is in a sheet protector so we can do it again later this week.  Look how well she did!! 
 We also stamped capital As and lowercase As with RED ink and these tiny little alphabet stamps I have for scrapbooking. We'll have to continue to work on this - she doesn't stamp the whole letter - usually just part of it.  It will come!

 And here's our craft for today - just whipped this completely out of left field!  Macaroni art!!  To cut down on some of the frustration (and mess) I only put glue on part of the A at one time.  We did this in about 3 "tries".



I really think she enjoyed it!!  She is so particular too - she can only do one at a time.  If she picked up more than one macaroni noodle from the bowl, she had to stop and put all but one back!  Then she acted like she was pushing it into hot glue - she had to hold it in place.  I kept telling her, "it's okay, you don't have to hold it down.  Just push it in the glue one time and get another macaroni."  Then she kept getting glue on her finger and little princess expected me to wipe her finger down every time!  It was hilarious!!  So prissy! I love it!

I looked up apple picking last week, hoping to do that when we started the letter A week.  Unfortunately, Texas apparently has NO place to pick apples! Darnit!  But....we are going with Daddy on a work trip this week to Harrison, Arkansas.  And guess what I found online - an orchard about 16 miles away!!  So, I'm hoping that we can pick some apples - you know, since "a is for apple"!






I'm planning on making this apple craft 
later this week - but it will probably be on paper instead of a bag!  I think it will be fun!





We ( and by we I mean me) are also going to make this cute apple - complete with worm!

The Picky Apple ButtonI borrowed this from Cara at the pickyapple blog.  We may do this, in addition to gluing strips of paper in the shape of the letter A.

Well, goodnight blogland!

*Summer*

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