School

Leilani has been wanting to do school since before Kindergarten was out, so we've been doing a light load over the summer. This week, we've started a regular work load. So far in our school, we've made a model of the Nile (the grass is growing, now!), made the Pharaoh's crowns and scepter, and written our names in Cuneiform on clay and Hieroglyphs on paper. We've read about the first nomads, wandering around and how they became farmers, how Egypt became united, and, of course, the first writing. We've learned a little bit about Egyptian myths. Leilani was quite fascinated by Set killing Osiris and Osiris coming back to life, by Isis getting pregnant off her dead husband (Osiris) and having Horus, who was born on Christmas. Actually, it's quite fascinating, because all the solar gods are born at the Winter Solstice. I find all the religious myths incredibly fascinating. (We're using The Story of the World Level 1 and the activity book that goes with it)

In science we're learning about all kinds of different animals - we started off by learning about habitat, migration, defense, camouflage, communication and conservation. From there, we briefly talked about how to know what a mammal is - if it's warm-blooded, has hair/fur, gives birth to live young (excepting the platypus) and has milk to feed it's young, it's a mammal. Leilani has been going around naming all the mammals. She, very wisely, deduced that we're mammals, since we have hair all over our bodies, are warm-blooded, give birth to live young (she has first-hand experience with this, having seen Natalia born last year) and have milk to feed our young-as she made that statement, she looked quite pointedly at me, since I was nursing Natalia at the time. I tell ya, I have one smart little girl :) We've also learned about Cheetahs, Elephants, Rhinos, Hippos and Horses.

Leilani loves her math. She'd do the entire book to the exclusion of all else if I let her.

In English, she's doing phonics, spelling, writing and language. I started off using Spelling Power, but it was a bit too advanced for her, so I found a list online. After I wrote out the list, I lost the link. But it's much better, more her level, and I think it will advance her to be abe to use Spelling Power next year. I got Hooked on Phonics, which she's loving - mainly because it's partly on the computer. We're using First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, we've learned the poem "The Caterpillar" and we're learning about nouns - common and proper. For writing we're using "The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease Level 1"...it's quite simple, days 1 and 3 are copying out sentences in her best handwriting, and days 2 and 4 are narration and I write it out. This is to help her learn to write well and learn to put her own thoughts into words, that way she'll be able to put her thoughts into words, then onto paper.

We're going to be reading a good number of chapter books out loud - we finished Little House in the Big Woods on Monday and started Charlotte's Web yesterday. The girls love me reading out loud.

So far, we're loving it, having lots of fun, and most importantly - learning lots of stuff.

The First of February

So today, to help me along in my no-yell challenge, I made this:

I went to Wal-Mart and found a frame on clearance, got some orange paint, glitter and ribbon. I painted the frame, glittered it up, made a bow and glued it on. Then I put some pink colored scrapbook paper and used the glass as a dry erase board and wrote "Raise your words, not voice. - It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."

After Natalia woke up, I put her in the stroller and we went for a little walk around the neighborhood. Only about twenty minutes, but it felt great and Natalia LOVED it. My new mantra is "even a small workout is better than no workout." Sometimes I feel kind of like "why should I work out, I can only do it for a few minutes" so now, I'm just gonna do those few minutes. I also bought a baby yoga book for Natalia and a Yoga ABC coloring book for Leilani - we'll do a new move each week and she'll get to color it in, too. I'm really excited. I've been wanting to teach Leilani yoga for a while and now I think I've found a good way to do it.

I had to go get a few things for Super Bowl Sunday...we'll be going over to some friends' house and obviously we'll need some vegan options. I got some vegan burger crumbles, daiya cheddar, salsa and tofu (to make my own vegan sour cream), and I'm going to try to make a dip my brother used to make all the time. It was fantastic and I can't wait to vegan-ize it. I'm also going to try veganizing one of my favorite soups sometime next week - cheesy bacon potato soup. I made a soft cashew cheese I'm going to use in place of the cream cheese, I have smoky tempeh crumbles (in place of the bacon), and soy milk powder to make the heavy cream. Anyway, back to Super Bowl Sunday - I'm also going to make chocolate chip cookie doozers. I'm pretty excited. Tomorrow, Leilani and I will be baking up a storm :).

Tonight we made one of Leilani's favorites - tacos! I use TVP (instead of buying veggie crumbles, it's so much cheaper!) and we used crunchy shells since Leilani specifically requested them. Also, Leilani's school is doing a Read-A-Thon and Leilani needs sponsors! We're going to read 20 minutes a day for the whole month of February (since, ya know, we don't ALREADY do that - averaged out, anyway) for a total of 560 minutes for the month. She's going to read at least five of those minutes, then I'll read the remaining 15 or less. Hopefully, by the end of the month, she'll be reading most of it. That's my personal goal, anyway.

Tomorrow, it's on to baking!

Advent: Days 18 & 19

Yesterday our Advent package was paper snowflakes! I found some templates on Pinterest and the idea to use coffee filters. Since we don't drink coffee and my dad left a bunch, we only have a ton of coffee filters. Today's package was another book. Yesterday and today's packages kind of got jumbled into today, as all we did yesterday was open the package. Leilani and I made some snowflakes before she went to school, and while she was at school, I made a bunch more and hung them up above the TV. Leilani was enchanted when she got home from school.

Leilani's been a bit worried about how Santa's going to get in since we don't have a chimney, so I found a "Santa Key Poem", attached a bow and key to the card I wrote it out on, and Christmas Eve we're going to attach it to the door. We're also going to sprinkle the reindeer dust out that Leilani made at school a couple weeks ago. She's very excited about that.

We all have colds over here, so we have the humidifier going with the VapoSteam stuff in it, meds galore, and sniffles, coughs and watery eyes. Not much fun, but thank goodness for those boogie wipes. I always thought they were a waste of money and just some goofy thing, but they're the only thing Natalia doesn't scream at having wipe her nose. And I don't blame her, they feel at least a bajillion times better than kleenex!

Advent: Days 16 & 17

Yesterday just flew by - Leilani and I made the gingerbread house in the morning, followed by yesterday's advent package - paint-your-own ceramic mugs. Actually, that took up most of the day. We went over to some friends' from works house last night. Leilani and the little girl are now bff's.

This morning started off like any other school morning - getting lunch packed, getting all of us dressed and ready to go out the door. Until it came time to actually go out the door. Then I couldn't find the diaper bag (which has my keys). It wound up being locked in the car. Natalia was asleep when we got home last night, so I tried very carefully not to wake her (I didn't) so she could get unexhausted and not have an even later night. So it was a win on that front - not so much on the whole getting to school front. Leilani wound up staying home and we did some projects, made sticky pecan rolls and orange rolls (for Christmas and New Years Days respectively). Natalia had a lovely poo blowout - all the way up to her neck. This was the first bath she didn't like. The whole thing lasted 30 seconds - just long enough to get her cleaned up.

Our advent project today was making snow globes. Leilani made one and I made one for Natalia (since she's a bit young to be messing with glue and glitter and such). It was hard for Leilani to wait for the glue to dry. I can't believe how quickly December's going and that it's almost Christmas!

Advent: Day 14

Leilani woke up feeling so much better. She went to bed really early and all that sleep really helped (isn't sleep amazing). Anyway, I gave her some more meds and she went to school. She really didn't want to miss school.

Leilani opened the Advent package before school. She was a bit confused because it was two pine cones. I explained that when she got home from school, we'd spread peanut butter on them, roll them in bird seed and hang them up outside for our feathered friends. She was quite excited.

After dropping Leilani off, Natalia and I went shopping. It took an hour, but I got everything on my list (YES! I remembered it!) except the two things Super Wal-Mart didn't have - dates and currants to make the Christmas Pudding. I hate WalMart, I really do, but the price is right and it's mostly a one-stop shop. I had to get Natalia a highchair, the kind that you put on a dining chair, since we could never find the missing part to Leilani's old highchair. Natalia seemed to enjoy sitting in there with her food.

Leilani loved it too, because they could eat a snack side by side.

I love it because now Natalia can actually feed herself, do painting, etc and be contained.

Our Advent project got derailed. I cannot find the bird see ANYWHERE. But I bought some plaster ornaments for Leilani to paint and wrap for her teachers. She's quite excited and can't wait for Monday to take them in. So even though it wasn't our original project, she's still having fun.

Advent: Day 10. AKA The Day From Hell

I woke up wth a migraine, for the fifth day in a row. But, after a tall glass of chocolate soy milk and some tylenol (I don't dare take anything harder since I'm nursing), the headache seemed to be subsiding. Then, on the way to school, things took a turn for the worse. The truck started behaving badly. I had the pedal FLOORED and barely made thirty miles-per-hour. Once we got to school, I was afraid to turn the engine off, but Leilani needed me to take her in, and I was hoping that if I turned it off, it would work better after I turned it back on. Only, it didn't turn back on. So I called Jeremy. He got there after what felt like FOREVER! We ran to the auto-part store but they didn't have the part at that moment, but would have it by ten. I took Jeremy back to school for the Kindergarten Dads and Donuts.

While Jeremy and Leilani did crafts and had donuts, I ran to Wal-Mart to get some shopping done, then back to school to pick Jeremy up and go back to the auto-part store. I dropped him back off at school, came home and thought he'd get the truck fixed, go back to work and I'd hang out at home, make some seitan and cutlets, take a nap with Natalia and play with her. But it wasn't in the stars today. I barely got the seitan mixed when Jeremy called and said I needed to come back to pick him up again. We made two more runs to the auto-part store, then the trucks alarm went off and we couldn't get it to stop. Jeremy told me the other key fob had the button for the alarm, and could I run back home and get it? So I did, only it wasn't the right fob (in my defense, it was the only fob in the drawer). We called the insurance and went to a mechanic to see if they could fix the truck. The insurance paid for a tow truck, so we went back to school to tell them we were going to have the truck towed and that the truck would be there some time today. Then, we went back home. We turned on to the street and got a call saying that the tow truck was already there. By this time, it was a little after 2:00, so I decided we ought to just stay at school, since we'd had zero luck with trying to go anywhere else all day. But the tow truck needed us to follow her. We got to the mechanics and I dropped Jeremy off, because if I left right then, I'd get back to the school just in time to pick Leilani up. I was there with just minutes to spare.

Leilani decided that she didn't want to see me, so hid around the corner. The school counselor went and talked to her, and she came out. I told her we needed to go pick up daddy and told her all about the tow truck. She was in as bad a mood as I was, so it wasn't a particularly fun ride to get Jeremy. After we picked him up, we went home and I had to bake the seitan, and figure out a new dinner. I'd been planning on using the seitan, but since I was gone all day, I couldn't get it baked. So, today's dinner will be for tomorrow. Fortunately I had some Shepherd's Pie frozen that I could pull out and throw in the microwave and have dinner ready in 15 minutes. Of course, we blew a fuse or something, and now thde microwave isn't working.

After dinner, Leilani opened our Advent package. Homemade green finger paint to make handprint trees. Leilani's response was hilarious "Oh wow! It's green....stuff." But she and Natalia had fun putting their hands in the funny feeling paint and making Christmas trees.

The day may have gone horribly wrong, but it's ending nicely. If only this headache would go away. And tomorrow's going to be the strangest day of my life - Leilani's going to have to ride the bus because I won't have a car.

Advent: Day 9

Leilani is loving school again. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. The kindergarten workbook I bought her is her new favorite thing to do, even over watching movies! She's been doing math, social studies, science and writing all day. And she's having a blast! We finished the Magic School Bus chapter book today. Leilani loved learning about the Solar System - as we taked about the Voyager space probe, I told her that her cousin A, G and L's great-grandpa worked on the Voyuager's systems and that it just left our solar system the other day. She promptly declared that she wants to build one. I told her she can do anything she wants to, if she puts her mind to it :) She also read me two stories today!

Our Advent project today was making salt dough handprint ornaments. Natalia wasn't very cooperative, but we managed to get both girls' handprints. I was going to dry them in the oven, but changed my mind and we're letting them air dry - that way we don't have to turn the oven on and can save on electricty *smile*.

I finally got a decent night's sleep last night, and my three-day headache seems to be subsiding. Finally. I'd almost forgotten what no headache feels like.

Advent: Day 5

Today was late start Wednesday. I usually try to do a special breakfast, but this morning, instead, we made more cake batter fudge. On a whim, when I saw an empty ice cube tray, I decided to use it to harden the fudge in and then I wouldn't have to do any cutting and would have even portions - it worked great! You can just pop them out like ice cubes, and there aren't any more uneven pieces *grin* I also made some bread dough for dinner tonight.

Our Advent package today had a clear ornament, a marker, and some glitter. We put the glitter into the ornament, and used the marker to write the year and some of the highlights from the past year on to the ornament. It was kind of a hodge-podge of ideas I saw on Pinterest and growing up. Leilani had a blast helping me remember big events.

Our "short list" of things we did:

Niagara Falls
Florida
Cleveland Zoo
Columbus Zoo
USS Cod
Cleveland Aquarium
Natalia was born
Marine Week Cleveland

After Natalia and I dropped Leilani off at school, we went to pay the water bill, then to Wal-Mart to get some allergy meds and warm clothes for Natalia. She only had one pair of warm pants that fit her, and two sweaters. Now, however, she has 4 warm outfits, 2 sweatpants, 2 new sweaters, house shoes, and fuzzy snow boots. I got Leilani a new sweater, too, so she and Natalia could have matching black sweaters with unicorns and hearts on them; and they now have matching house shoes. Leilani was pretty excited to see that when she got home. Natalia and I also went to the library and put lots of Magic School Bus books and movies on order. They're Leilani's new favorite things, and I like that they're teaching her science :)

Today in class, Leilani made the December calender with the school schedule.

Advent Calender

I've made a kind of Advent Calender I found on, naturally, pinterest. I used the idea of getting a bucket and wrapping up things to do each day, trying to use things I already had so as to not spend too much money. In that strain, we used the packing paper left over from our move, red and green folders we've had for a looonnnggg time, and things lying around the house made into new things.

Each day, we're going to do something fun:

1 - bake cookies
2 - bake brownies
3 - make fudge
4 - play with the Veggie Tales nativity set
5 - make a "year in review" ornament
6 - read a book
7 - red and green playdough
8 - indoor snowball fight
9 - hand print ornament
10 - handprint Christmas trees
11 - Christmas jokes
12 - letter to Santa
13 - read a book
14 - make pine cone birdfeeders
15 - make gingerbread house
16 - make coffee mugs
17 - make snowglobes
18 - make snowflakes
19 - read a book
20 - Christmas bingo
21 - go Christmas light hunting
22 - make gingerbread cookies
23 - read the Christmas story
24 - Christmas Eve box

We're looking forward to having lots of fun this Advent season.

Natalia's First Thanksgiving

We're stuffed to the gills over here - tofurky, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, sweet and salty roasted chickpeas, and pumpkin pie. Not only was this Natalia's first Thanksgiving, but it was her first plate of food. She enjoyed playing with the plate more than eating the food off it. After she dropped the plate a couple times, I quit putting any food on it and she didn't even notice the difference; she just kept happily dropping it, smiling every time she heard it go plunk.

We started off our day with fresh baked cinnamon rolls. Leilani ate one and a half, and Jeremy ate three (I ate two, but we're not telling anyone), so I'm thinking everyone liked them. That was kind of sealed when I was told they were better than my moms. That made me happy *grin*.

The tofurky got mixed reviews. I liked it, Jeremy didn't, and Leilani loved the fact that she could call it turkey and yet it didn't need a turkey to be killed for us to have it. Natalia just threw hers on the floor, as she did all her food.

The mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and dinner rolls were a huge success. Natalia actually had a bite of the potatoes, and a gnaw on the roll. The pumpkin pie and coconut whipped cream were a huge hit, too.

I printed off some Thanksgiving coloring sheets for the girls. Natalia pretty much just banged her crayon thing on to the paper and tried to eat the paper, and Leilani lost interest after a while. A very short while, but at least we got a few cute photos.

After dinner, and before dessert, Natalia settled in for the traditional "after Thanksgiving dinner nap". All that plate dropping, crayon banging, watching mommy cook and nursing really wore her out.

We went through our Thankful Tree and saw what we'd been thankful for over the past month. Here's our list (in no particular order), followed by pictures from our day:

Leilani:
-the world
-the sky
-the Christmas tree
-the water, sun, stars, snacks and ants
-the "Jonah" movie
-having a house, my sister & mommy & daddy
-my sister Natalia, my mommy, and Pippin
-our backyard
-for getting the mail
-the backyard
-the trees
-for our Christmas tree again
-for the hike
-the trees
-the sunshine, hugs from mama, and sister kisses

Me:
-schools
-Leilani had a great first week at school
-Natalia napping in the car
-family time, our beautiful hike and the Moby
-Leilani learning and getting worksheet practice
-Leilani's 1st day of school and getting time with Natalia
-doing crafts with Leilani
-my two beautiful little girls
-being able to make choices
-naps
-sleeping in
-my friend and her help and advice about schools and family, right when I needed it
-the amber teething necklace and technology for getting things taken care of
-a good nights' sleep
-putting up the tree

Leilani's Thanksgiving Book

The Thanksgiving book they made in class today (and I would never have come up with something like this) (also, page 5 wouldn't scan, but it had a fish, an ear of corn and said "Friendly Native Americans showed the Pilgrims how to catch fish, pick berries and plant corn")

(insert imaginary picture of fish, corn and a berry with the text "Friendly native Americans showed the Pilgrims how to catch fish, pick berries and plant corn")

Leilani's also been singing this little ditty they learning in school today

Way up high, in the apple tree
Five red apples smiled at me
I shook the tree as I could
Down came the apples, mmmm, they were good

Pretty much non-stop, but she sounds so cute when singin *smile*

Leilani's been having a fantastic time. And I've been using the extra time to a)keep my sanity, b)play one-on-one with Natalia c) clean, and d) get my Thanksgiving baking taken care of. So far, it seems to be a win-win for all involved *smile*

Thankful Tree

I made another project I found on Pinterest. I just went off the picure on the pin, didn't actually go to the website it was from, but if you want to check out the original, it's here. I'm doing mine a bit different, since I don't have the time to sit down and cut out all the leaves at once, we're going to put the leaves up each night and I'll cut them as we need them. Each day during November, we're going to each write something we're thankful for and tape it up, then on Thanksgiving, we'll go through them and see what we've been happy about over the past month.

Show-and-Tell Saturday

Natalia has started doing this hug thing. She puts her arms around my neck and holds tight, it's so cute. She also knows who she wants and when. Like if Jeremy's holding her and she wants me, she'll lean as far away from him as she can and reach for me. Or if he's holding her and trying to give her to me and she doesn't want me, she leans into him and away from me. Or vice versa. If she wants you to pick her up while she's sitting on the ground, she'll lean far forward and put her arms behind her, almost like she's trying to take off. She's a bit sneaky, too. Like if I put her down to go take care of something really quickly, she'll send up a cry like she's hurt or scared to get me to come running and give me the hugest grin when she sees me. Almost like "you've been punked, mama". She also gave her first kiss Thursday night. As soon as daddy got home she went to him and puckered her lips and leaned forward.

Leilani's adding 1's, 2's and 3's and seeming to love it. She's also blending a few consonanats with short vowels. She learned five new sounds this past week. We made an obstacle course on Thursday using our little exercise trampoline, kiddie picnic table, kiddie lawn chairs and small slide. We jumped on the trampoline, went over the picnic table, weaved in and out of the chairs and went up and down the slide. Afterwards we made a strawberry banana smoothie. Leilani's new favorite game is sliding down the stairs. She's pretty fast! Nothing like stairs to keep a five-year-old occupied.

I decided to scrap the sourdough starter. It was too much work, especialy since using the breadmaker I can throw together a loaf in three minutes while holding a baby, then push a button, and forget about it. For where I am right now, it's what works.

I did some stuff I'd pinned on Pinterest...the girls' bathroom has a jungle/safari theme, so I cut out silhouettes of a giraffe head, lion head, parrot and monkey to put along one wall; then I cut out elephant silhouettes to put on the other wall. Once I get my camera charged I'll see if it's working (it, too, got water spilled on it) and get some photos of the finished project.

I made baked potatoes with broccoli and "cheese" sauce for dinner - quick, easy and cheap :). Leilani loved the sauce, she was eating it by the spoonful.

We're slowly getting through the boxes. The kitchen, living room and dining room are box-free. Finally. I have about six boxes left in the library/school room. I've found a few more toy boxes, so the playroom nearly has all its toys in it. I've been working on a cleaning schedule to keep the house clean, something nice and easy so I'll actually do it.

100th Post

Well, todays my 100th post here. I wanted to do something amazing and awesome for it, butt couldn’t think of anything particularly flashy, so I’m going to go through 100 highlights from my posts. Yesterday involved some drama, Leilani spilled a cup of water on me, Natalia, the floor and the computer. I didn't have any computer for the second half of the day. Fortunately, my hubby managed to fix it and I still have a computer!

Here's my list:

1. Natalia was born, a nice, healthy, eight and a half pounds.

2. I had a lovely home water birth

3. Leilani got to help catch Natalia

4. We went vegan

5. Princess “Camp” and all the crafts we did with it

6. The girls dressed up as mermaids during “camp”

7. I started cross-stitching Natalia’s birth record

8. We got to watch the helos land downtown for Marine Week

9. We stayed in a nice hotel for Marine Week

10. Because of my hubby’s position for Marine Week, we got to do all kinds of cool things – go out on the tarmac, go on the baseball field, drive places instead of having to walk there, and see the airshow from the air conditioned vehicle

11. Leilani enjoyed climbing through all the big equipment at Marine Week

12. Leilani got to play with some Marine bomb-sniffing dogs and met a police dog

13. The wreath laying ceremony at the Traveling Vietnam Wall, it was incredibly moving

14. All the new, fun foods we’ve been trying since becoming vegan

15. The fact I can go through and remember all the things I’ve been thankful for over the past months

16. That I have a record of a lot of the funny things Leilani has said

17. Seeing the fun we had on our stay-cation – Leilani loved the lake waterpark

18. Having the memories written down by the pictures, so they’re not just pictures and I don’t have to wonder what was going on there

19. We went through the submarine downtown, Natalia slept the whole time while in the Moby

20. Getting to visit Grandma Olalah.

21. The goofy rhymes Jeremy told his grandma

22. Showing off my vast book collection

23. Making dresses for Leilani and me

24. Making barefoot sandals for Natalia

25. Leilani playing in the rain and gathering flowers for us all

26. Watching Leilani at the parade on the 4th of July

27. Watching Leilani and Natalia both enjoy the fireworks that night

28. Leilani and Natalia cuddling, always super cute

29. Sharing some favorite movies with Leilani

30. Natalia starting to seriously suck her thumb.

31. Watching Food Inc

32. VBS and watching Leilani become more independent

33. Skyping with family

34. Getting loads of new diaper covers

35. Getting to take walks during VBS

36. Natalia liking her swing

37. Leilani learning so much on starfall

38. Natalia playing on her playmat

39. A Day in Pictures

40. Reviewing some thoughts from my previous blog and realizing how much I still don’t know

41. Doing loads of school with Leilani while she enjoyed it

42. Arts and Crafts with my girls

43. Making Leilanis’ sensory jar

44. Playing with my girls

45. Co-sleeping with them

46. Picking all the flowers before going to Florida

47. Dad helping us drive down to Florida

48. Getting to Florida and seeing all the family

49. Meeting cousin L for the first time

50. Watching the cousins all play together

51. Leilani learning to swim

52. Getting to spend the day with Uncle Jeff and family before he deployed

53. Natalia getting to meet Grammy Mandy

54. Cousin cuddles

55. Getting to dress all the girl cousins in matching outfits

56. Photo shoot with some of the cousins in shirts our cousin gave them

57. Sophie guest blogging

58. The cousins getting to bathe together

59. Introducing Gracie to some of Leilani’s favorite movies

60. Natalia got to try her cousins’ bassinet and Jenny Jump-up

61. Exploring new vegan foods with Sophie

62. All the baby cousins getting held by their aunties and uncles and PawPaw

63. Trying to do a Shrek marathon

64. Makin vegan Oreo truffles

65. Playing on the beach

66. Natalia’s beach blow-out…got me, the moby, and my swim suit

67. Accidentally eating some of a different blow-out. Definitely memorable

68. Leilani and Natalia watching movies together

69. Making myself use up all the food stuffs I already have so as to not waste
money

70. Being able to share my heart

71. The realtor’s visit – ugh

72. Going down to Columbus to see Uncle Dorr and family

73. Officially starting school

74. The new curriculum finally arriving

75. Natalia starting to grab everything

76. Walking and exploring

77. Finding things to help with PPD

78. Randomness

79. Leilani learning to type her name

80. Getting to read lots to both girls

81. Making cloud dough

82. Getting to dress Natalia in Leilani’s baby clothes

83. Natalia’s sensory play

84. The Yummiest Art Lesson

85. Natalia eating real foods

86. Experimenting with our school – one benefit of homeschooling

87. Leilani “reading” to Natalia

88. Finding my lesson plan book

89. Getting new running shoes and a new diaper bag

90. Going for a jog on Labor Day and Natalia loving it

91. Trying to teach Leilani to ride a bike

92. Finding out Natalia loves avocados

93. Getting to document funny things, like in this post

94. Leilani is a Sparky!

95. Using Leilani’s floppy seat for Natalia

96. Leilani writing her name by herself

97. Getting to see how much we’ve all grown

98. Leilani making a bread sculpture

99. Orders being finalized! We're heading west.

100. Getting better from our head colds - hurray for orange juice and pinterest (I found and made "vicks" diy shower discs, and they worked great!)

Art Day

Friday is art day. Today Leilanimade an edible bread sculpture. I think she's a bit excited for winter, because she made a snowman. Sort of. I had to help her make the circles, and then she put raisins all over it. I think it's supposed to have eyes and a mouth and buttons, but I'm kind of guessing. Anyway, she had fun and got to be creative and play with her food. Win all the way around.

Sunday

It's been a few days since I last posted. We've been pretty busy, though :). On Friday we did our art lesson. Leilani did a pretty fantastic job if I do say so myself.

Her fox - she decided he was angry because someone was stealing his food.

After that, we ran to the grocery store (we go through milk like crazy) and got The Lorax. I absolutely LOVED that movie!

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, It's not going to get better. It's not. - Dr. Seuss

A good reminder that this world is the only one we have, and we need to take good care of it or it'll be gone. Unable to support life. Not to mention, it was cute, too :).

Natalia is definitely sitting up on her own for short spaces of time. Her balance is getting pretty amazing. I think she's skipping the whole "rolling over" thing - she has zero interest in that, but is desperate to try to crawl. She gets her arms under her, her head up, and her feet go crazy. She also does the "superman" an awful lot. And, she never stops jabbering - she and Leilani are like two peas in a pod in that respect.

Saturday we went to Blockbuster to get some movies. Leilani got her favorite: Puss in Boots and Jeremy thought she might like Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Boy, was he right! She couldn't stop running around, saying things like "Lucy just went into Narnia!" "Narnia's my favorite place in the world!" and "Aslan is my favorite lion!" So, safe bet that she enjoyed it *grin*. Jeremy and I got a couple movies - J. Edgar - which was rather dry and boring. We wound up stopping it and putting in the movie we got especially for me: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Would you believe this is my first time watching these movies? Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it, except the place where the disc froze, that was aggravating. Oh, and I had a difficult time with R-Patz, mainly because I have trouble seeing him as anything other than a sparkly, vapid vampire. Even though it didn't follow the book exactly, I definitely enjoyed it. After having (finally) read the books a couple times each, it's fun to see them brought to life.

Today we all slept in again. In a strange reversal, Jeremy was up long before Leilani. Natalia slept in until ten for the first time in a long time! I'm going through our food. The other day I used my second to last can of beans and made oodles of seitan...we had pot roast Friday, tacos yesterday and will finish it all off over the next week. Today I made green olive tapenade pasta and used my last can of beans...it made a rather creamy sauce. Jeremy used the vitamix and made basil-lemonade to go with it. Natalia loved the pasta sauce- even with its red pepper flakes! And Leilani drank up her lemonade. I just love when she actually eats/drinks stuff that's good for her. It's not that she's picky, she just doesn't have time for things like food.

Awana starts back up tonight. I can't believe Leilani's a Sparky!

Jeremy's going to be out of town for the next week, so I might not have much internet.

I managed to catch this moment, I thought it was incredibly sweet!

The Yummiest Art Lesson

We started school today with art. I mean, when you're going to be finger painting with chocolate icing, why would you wanna wait? The lesson originally called for chocolate pudding, but I had no pudding mixes and couldn't find a vegan recipe using ingredients on hand, so I switched it out. Leilani loved it. The making it, the painting with it, but mostly the eating it. She first covered the paper, then used different kitchen utensils to make designs. I used the icing as an excuse to make cookies *grin*. (don't bother looking for the logic here, there is none)

Todays lessons had lots of coloring, which you would think is a good thing, right? Nope, Leilani is NOT a fan of coloring, at least not when it's "color the picture" or things like that. She much prefers freeform :).

Natalia "helped" in the kitchen. She was in the moby, trying to grab everything. Natalia and I had a nice lie in this morning, then a nap for her/rest for me this afternoon.

I'm having us go through all the food in the freezer, fridge and pantry instead of buying food. I really don't want to move food all the way across the country when we move next month. So tonight we're having leftovers I froze from a couple weeks ago. We're also going to have salad with homemade dressing :). I really do feel so virtuous using everything up *grin*.

Cloud Dough, Cleaning, and Happiness

I can't wait for fall! I pulled out some of Leilani's fall baby clothes and dressed Natalia in them today. It made me so happy - until she poo'ed and it went out her diaper a teeny bit. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy it for a bit.

We started off the day with some couscous and brown sugar/cinnamon. It was quite a hit :). After Leilani got all her school done we went to WalMart because Leilani needed some new pants. While we were there, I found some super cute skirts and shirts for the girls to match. They won't be wearing them until October or so, since they have the rib bones, candy corn and other halloweenish things. The skirt is pink with black lace over it. I can't wait to dress them in it!

After we had lunch, I made some "cloud dough" as a nice sensory game for Leilani. It's just like the stuff at childrens' museums. Leilani's been having a blast with it.

After she was done I asked her to put the lid on and sweep up her mess and she did it without any argument, really very cheerfully. We had a nice talk about being good while we were in the car. She asked me, "mommy, do you want to make me be good?" I think I shocked her when I replied "no!" I went on to say "I want to guide you to make good choices, telling what the options are and let you make the choice." She really is a mature little girl, and I've found that when I respect her autonomy and talk things through with her, she usually does the right thing because she chose to. Being able to make the choice makes all the difference in the world!

I got some scrunchies while at WalMart to make a little sensory game for Natalia, too. I'll wash them, we'll use most of them for Leilani's hair, and then the others will be in a container for Natalia to explore the different textures and colors.

Learning to Read

Today has been focused on learning to read. Saturday, Sunday and today we've done two lessons each day from the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I have this week all planned out - we'll just see if it goes the way I'm hoping :). Each day we'll do one big cleaning project and one big packing for Florida project. I'm also trying to eat through everything in the refrigerator, so I don't waste money or food.

We did lots of school, got the living room all shiny and cleaned, and started prepping for our trip. Then, in the interest of not wasting food, I roasted up a bunch of vegetables that were going to go bad soon, blended them all together in my vitamix, boiled some noodles and had delicious pasta :) I did make some vegan faux parm - just pulse 1/3 cup of nuts in the blender until nice and powdery, mix in 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Tightly covered, it will keep in the fridge for about 3 weeks. Not that any of mine has ever lasted that long :).

I put Natalia in her Bumbo seat and she played for a little bit. I put the tray on and some toys on there. I think, though, that Natalia was more interested in leaning to the side and chewing on the tray than anything else.

Yesterday we did some crafts, Leilani thoroughly enjoyed that, we read about Samson and watched VeggieTales, some of our favorites :)

Pictures from yesterday and today:

Sew Much Fun

We started off the day by running to WalMart because I wanted to get the girls some flower-y headbands. While we were there, I got some material to make Natalia some barefoot sandals (you can find the directions here) and some material to make Leilani a summer-y dress. I've been wanting a bright summer-y dress, too, so went ahead and got some material for me. Needless to say, Leilani was very eager to get home :)

We made a quick stop at Trader Joe's on the way home - we needed some more ice cream, bananas and trail mix :)

After we got home, Leilani was rarin' to go...she wanted me to make it all and make it NOW :). It took a while, between changing diapers, feedings and all to finally get it all done, but I made the barefoot sandals and both dresses. Things do take so much longer with kiddos :)