Caribou Wild Berry Smoothie

Yesterday while daddy was taking a longer nap, we snuck out of the house and went to Caribou Coffee and got a Wild Berry Smoothie to share. I got one of these a couple weeks ago and let her have some and she loved it. After she was done drinking, she kept twirling (dancing) around the store to the music they were playing. She's been in love with twirling in a circle lately.

Easter Egg Hunt & Meeting the Easter Bunny

We had a couple of options of Easter Egg Hunts to go to. We decided to go to the one an area ECFE was having that was INDOORS. Indoors was the clincher. They had games to play, coloring sheets, a craft (which we never got around to), meeting the Easter Bunny, and hunting for eggs.

They had 3 huge piles of shredded paper that eggs were hidden in. Isabel loved playing in there. First se found her eggs & then turned temin for her goodie bag, but later we went back just so she could throw the paper and make huge piles to jump in.

She also met the Easter Bunny. She is timid around the Easter Bunny, but not completly scared like she is of Santa. She had to quick color a picture (before we left home) that she wanted to give to the Easter Bunny, which she did. She gave the bunny her picture, shook her hand, and stood by her for some pictures (but couldn't get a smile out of her.)

Poor girl has a big scab on her sore nose as a result of her headcold the last week.

She actually just fell asleep while I was typing this up & I had to take a short break to carry her up to her room. My little girl is so tired that she actually stayed asleep. Normally she doesn't transfer well and normally she won't fall asleep unless she is in her bed. She's still recovering from that head cold.

After the Easter Egg Hunt we went out for brunch, which was nice. Tomorrow, we are supposed to go by grandma & grandpa for brunch at their house, but we are supposed to get 6+ (up to a foot depending upon how north the storm tracks) inches of snow through tonight into tomorrow morning. They said on the weather last night that tomorrow morning is supposed to be the worst, guess we'll see.

We'll be spending Easter in WI with mommy's family.

Playing Catch Up

So, here are some pictures from today and yesterday. I haven't been taking as mnay pictures this week, partly because I haven't charged my camera batteries and my cell phone doesn't take as good of quality. All these pictures are from my cell.

The top pictures are from today. The UPS guy just dropped off the package from Little Tikes that I ordered. We bought a bounce house. It will work well for us both inside & outside since we have such a big house. We set it up inside right away today. She had so much fun, even if she is kinda sick & cranky. The only thing about having it inside is I am going to have to pt it away everytime because I don't want the cats to try & go scratch it and make tears in it.

We spent a little extra to buy this one with the attached shaded area. Last summer we used one at a friend's house several times and it was out in full sun and it would get quite hot for the kids bouncing around. And we do intend to have this outside, but it is also nice that we can use it indoors because then it becomes an all-weather activity. Hopefully this will help get rid of some energy on those rainy (or snowy) days that we are stuck inside. Plus it will be a fun treat for playdates.


These are pictures from yesterday morning (well, late morning, we did our baking in our jammies.) Isabel loves to help with cooking & baking and helps out every step of the way. Actualy, she usually disappears when I am actually putting stuff in the oven, so she mainly likes to help prepare something & then eat it.

I had a couple of bananas that were getting ripe and I just didn't want to make banana bread this week (I did that last weekend with the bananas leftover at the end of the week). So, I did a little searching online and found a recipe for Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies that sounded good. They are yummy and made 4 dozen cookies. I also melted & molded chocolates for Easter in WI, but I did that on my own. Isabel just kept stealing my chocolate & eating it.

Bowling

We met our friends Beth & Aleyah at the bowling alley today. Each of the girls had their own lane and Isabel was a bowling machine! She bowled 2 games within a half hour. Crazy. She would grab a ball, put it on the ramp, push it down & turn around and repeat. Usually while she was pushing the 2nd ball the pins were just resetting. Afterwards, we all went out for custard at Culver's. We might go bowling again this week with church for the March Family Fun Event.

A Nice Weekend

This to picture is from this morning at church. They had cake there for the March birthday. It was very chocolately & very messy and Isabel loved it very much. When we picked Isabel up from her classroom for "church school" she handed up these 2 colored on sheets of paper that were crumpled up. To anyone else they might just think it was trash, but tous, we know she has been making "snowballs" from crumpled paper or "paper airplanes" from folded paper, which sometimes resembles crumpled paper. After church,the three of us went to Timberlodge Steakhouse for lunch (my birthday certificate from them expired today). That was yummy too.

This afternoon, Isabel & daddy went outside to fly her kite. We bought it this winter (& I've kept it well hidden so she would forget about it) and today was the first day that it was appropriate to take it outside to fly. I think the neighbors wanted to join in on the child-like fun that was happening in their backyard (they have a big back yard witht he trees far enough away & no powerlines, making it perfect for kite flying.)

This is from yesterday (you may have seen these ones on FB already) when Isabel & mommy met Carrie, Kyle & Gavin at River Bend Nature Center. Isabel had such a fun time there. We try to foster a love & creativity of nature and I think it is working. She got so dirty, which I don't mind one bit. It it stains the clothes, it's ok, she has enough that Iwould have something stain-free to wear if she needs to look presentable. And nothing was homemade by anyone, so Let Her Play!

Here is Isabel & her buddy Gavin on top of a pile of logs. He calls her Bel. He just over a year younger than her and just a couple months older than her cousin Blake.

Next week is a usual busy week of yoga class, gymnastics class & ECFE class. The big event this week is registering Isabel for preschool on Thursday evening. We plan to go bowling this week too, maybe a storytime, and maybe a playgroup at our house.

MN Children's Museum

We went with our ECFE on a group visit to the MN Children's Museum today. It's such a big place with so much to do. We had only been there one time before when Isabel was about 9 months old and at that time we stayed solely in just one of the areas. This time we got to a few areas, but probably could have stayed there all day from open to close to be able to really get to go to all the areas and enjoy everything.

Isabel enjoyed getting to see Clifford the Big Red Dog and Emily Elizabeth. She watches Clifford everyday. She really wanted to climb on Clifford like they do in the cartoon.

Yesterday

She was funny yesterday. She wanted me to take her picture, so she handed me the camera and said "Take my picture" and did some posing. Ususally she is telling me, "Put that camera in your pocket."

Yesterday we checked out a (new to us) library & their storytime in the morning, and then after naptime we went to a playdate. About a half hour into the playdate she noticed a candy dish filled with lollipops and wanted one. When I told her no she got upset & alligator tears started falling and asked to go home because she was sad. The mom put on a video, which distracted her, and the candy could be forgotten about and the playdate could continue.k

First Day Above 60 Degrees in 2009

The weather report has it being low-mid 50's today, but I think it is already there and it's only 9:30, so maybe it will be another great day.

We were outsife yesterday from 3:30-7:30. It was great. We played with chalk, rode on toys, (pretend, she does a lot of pretend play these days) roasting of blueberries, played a lot in the sandbox, picked up sticks, filled bird feeders, payed with bubbles & grilled/ate supper.



I have one stubborn little girl. Last week we had to leave gymnastics early because she decided she didn't want to listen and wouldn't change her mind. Well, yesterday evening it was time to clean-up toys since she made a huge mess in the house. She didn't want to and decided to say "I'm sad." and go upstairs. So, I decided to threaten throwing the toys away & see if she would come. After a while she did and helped pick up some toys but didn't want to touch the toys I had in the garbage bag. I gave her several chances to take them out & put away, but she refused. So, I had to follow through and bring the bag outside. After a while I told her the garbage guy comes the next day and I would let her put her toys away since she had been so good since coming down. She refused. Then I told her that she could no longer get new toys if we throw away all the old toys. I asked her if she ever wanted new toys again and she said she did and then I told her that we have to take care of our old toys first and asked if she wanted to take care of her old toys and put them away. Finally! She said yes and put the toys away. I was afraid she was gong to continue to call my bluff and I would be ruined. Idon't think I could ever bring them back with out her remembering the trash guy was supposed to have taken them. That girl has such a memory on her.

Yeah! It's warming up!

Isabel picked out that she REALLY wanted to wear the red dress today, so I had to warm it up a bit. I thought it made her looks like Minnie Mouse a bit.

It was so nice to be able to spend some time outside. And tomorrow is supposed to be nicer yet. I am so ready for winter tobe over, but isn't everyone. We got air put in the tires on the bikes, the jogger stroller, and the burley. I bought the burley at a rummage sale a couple year ago and haven't used it. We got it all hooked up to the bike, so I think we will get a lot of use out of it now. Isabel is starting to get a little tall for the toddler bike seat and Andy wants his bike back; it won't work on my bike (but the burley does) and he doesn't trust himself riding with her on the back. Mom is safer.

Our friends Carrie, Kyle & Gavin came over for dinner tonight. We did a cheese fondue with lots of dippers (ham, green apples, baby red potato quarters, asparagus, green beans & crusty bread). It was pretty yummy. And then we had french silk pie for dessert. We went outside to play in between the meal & dessert, so it was nice to get out there again & play & move around.

Updated Slideshow

Checkout the updated slideshow at the top. I decided since her 3 year birthday is coming up in a couple of months, I would do a slideshow of every month from birth to three. Obviously, I still have a couple months to fill in yet. The first 2 years I made a concentrated effort to take her picture on 20th of every month because I had this photo album I was using. The last year, I didn't do that but I take enough pictures that some days I did take one on the 20th and other months it was the day before or after, so close enough. I decided to go with all the pictures I took rather than anything professional.

Craft Day

Today was a craft marathon. Actually, as I work on making these collages and updating the blog she is coloring with daddy. She just can't get enough of arts & crafts today. There is a different collage on FB that has these pictures & more.

The first picture is of an Octopus TP Craft. I believe I posted a link to it when I discussed the theme of the month. It's great for couting how may legs there are.

This one is an egg carton caterpillar. That idea came from Babycenter.com. Thanks to Auntie Phanie for sending us this idea.

This one was my idea. I found a shamrock template online and printed it off, cut it out and she brushed on glue and then placed dry split peas all over it.

That was it for my ideas for today, then she decided he wanted to do some drawing & stamping. She also got out the play-doh and we played with that for a while.

Glimpse of Spring

It was just shy of 50 degrees for a high here today and the sun was shining all morning & into the afternoon, until we decided to go to the park. It would peak out every once in a while.

Anyways, I woke her up from her nap & asked her if she wanted to go to the park and she was so excited and asked if we could ride bike. Luckily there was still air in the tires, so we could. It was nice to go for a little bike ride. We met our friends Caitlin, Amelia, & Gavin there. When they re-built our park they were smart about it and built up the play area, so it was not muddy. Then we came home and played in the driveway & yard. We were outside for a total of 3 hours. And then later (after we cae back from going to a fish fry) we played tag by the porch light and garage lights for about 20 minutes.

Isabel loves playing tag these days. She also learned how to play Red Light, Green Light and started teaching her a very basic version of Simon Says (just the simon says part, no leaving it out & trying to trick a person.)

Lately she has been helping me figuring out what she is saying by empasizing a letter. An example: she told me "let's sing the clown song" and I said, "the clown song?" And she says, "No! ClouD....duh, duh, duh, D, cloud" She has done that several times and it just amazes me when she sounds out the letter I am mistaking and tells me what letter it is. Seriously, if she isn't reading words already she probably will be. I try to see if she can red words or just memorizes every book we read to her, but I can't tell. She tells me she doesn't know what a word I point to is, but I'm not so sure. She's the type that studies things until she can perfect it and then all of a sudden does it and you are just amazed.

Disney on Ice

We went to see Disney on Ice today at the Target Center. Our seats were really close, which was so nice. Isabel says she wants to go back another time. We went up with our friends Kara & Calista. Things can get really pricey at something like this. We bought the girls these Cinderalla Cups with a sno-cone in them and that cost $10. Our friends bought a plastic bucket of popcorn that cost $8. The popcorn was actually in a bag (in the bucket) and was more than could fit in the bucket if you took it out, so they gave Isabel the leftover from the bag which was about 1/4 of the bag. She didn't even finish all of that. It cost $6 for some cotton candy with a mask (we didn't buy any, they were just walking around the stands selling them.) Plus there were lots of other treats & snacks and lots of themed toys & t-shirts. You could easily go broke. Ticket prices are $11, 16, 23, 42, or 65 each. Ours were at the $23 level.

Anyways, we did have fun. She loves Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck, probably because they are a big mouse & big duck. I don't know if she has ever seen a cartoon. She was definitly more drawn to the animals characters than the people characters. She has seen very little of Disney movies so far, so this wasn't about seeing her favorite characters. If that was the case we would need to see Word World, Clifford, Curious George, Super Why, Bob the Builder or Dragon Tales (yes, we pretty much just watch PBS.) So, when we go to the Children's Museum in a couple weeks she will be super excited because they have a Clifford exhibit there.

Bowling

We went bowling again. This was her third time bowling. We were able to bowl 2 games without her getting tired at all. She is getting stronger and carrying that 6 pound ball (even with a Cheetoh in hand) is getting much easier. It's the carrying a 6 pound ball from the ball return to the ramp is what tires her out. We had a lot of fun. It was just the two of us. She actually bowled a 90 on her first game with a strike (which you can see that video on Facebook). Her second game was a 77. She did have the bumpers and a ramp to use, athough I don't think I would bowl much better with both ether.

The girl has too much energy tonight. We played a good 20-minute game of tag running around the house. She finally gets how tag works. She loves to play tag and hide-n-seek. And she was just jumping on her trampoline and now her & daddy are throwing & kicking a beachball.

She has such a good imagination. We went shopping at Kohl's this evening and the whole time we were there she was carrying around an Easter basket they had for sale and was pretending to pick apples throughout the store. When it came time to leave I told her we were not buying it because she had an Easter basket at home and I asked her to give it to me. She asked if she could out it down herself and I told her she could. Then she puts down the basket and says "I'll just leave all my apples here." And we walked a few steps and she ran back and pretended to grab something out of the basket and said, "Just one more apple." Then pretends to take a bite and says, "It's so crunchy. It's so tasty." Then after we get in the car she pretends one more time to take a bite and says, "That was a good apple."

March Theme: Numbers

I have to say, that our theme of the month is really good for her. We did colors as a theme in December and it really helped her get past confusing purple & blue. The January theme of winter really helped her experience & learn about winter sports & the importance of feeding the birds & basic properties of ice. February was all about fruits & vegetables and she is loving watching her pea plant grow and every time she eats a fruit or vegetable she identifies the seeds in each.

So, this month we are learning about numbers. I am hoping the repetition of numbers this month will help her learn the order of the numbers in the teens. She counts 1-13 just fine and then skips to 16, as if 14 & 15 don't even exist. And sometimes she skips 17 too. Usually 18-20 are ok. We haven't counted much past 20 just because there hasn't been a lot of opportunity to count things that high, plus I think she needs to learn the teens first and then we'll work on the twenties. After that I think it will all come together and she just has to learn her tens and can figure it out.....but that's the big picture.

Some fun print offs to use this month:

Clifford 1-20 connect the dots
Count & Color (15) Dogs
Caterpillar Felt Board (I previously printed this out & attached felt to the back, so I will get this out to use, which we never really used when I made it)
5 Fish in a Bowl Coloring &Activity
Clown with 6 Balloon Coloring Page
Octopus Craft
This website has a bunch of number crafts. I think I made do the one to ten chart and maybe a couple of the number jigsaws.

Here are some number songs:

I will get out her number flashcards to help this month and I know I have some preschool math workbooks that we will get out & work on, as well as a Garfield math computer game that was in her stocking at Christmas. Also, we have a few of number puzzles (0-9 for one of them and 1-20 for the another, and a long catepillar one that counts 1-10, oh and a Big Bird one that is counting 1-6), so we will make a point of playing those often this month.

As for book, we already have the first one from the library & it is a GREAT book for teaching counting:
Grapes of Math
The Very Hungry Catepillar (we have this one)
Ten Apples Up on Top
One Gorilla
One Frog Sang
20 Hungry Piggies

I will also look through our bookcase to see what other ones we have to use.

And I am sure I will come up with some other things too.

Mommy & Me Saturday

Well, today was mommy & me day (wait, isn't that every day?) Anyways, we started out the day by doing some grocery shopping, then we headed to godmother Jessi's mom's house. The three of us (Jessi, Mary & I) were making these paper roses for Jessi's wedding in June. My job was to cut out all the pieces while they assembled and painted. I haven't gotten to see the completly finished product because the paint needs to dry and we left around 2:30 so that I could get Isabel home to take some sort of nap, which I successfully managed. Actually, we both got a nice nap.

Anyways, for dinner went just down the road to Subway and shared a sandwich and then went to Cabela's for an hour. She says it is a zoo there, so I tell her to call it Cabela's Zoo. It bothers me to have her think it's a real zoo whn other than the fish, everything else is dead. But we had fun and since things are are opposite parts of the store she gets to get rid of some energy, and to play in the tents we have to go upstairs & back down again.

I took this plain black t-shirt from Target and created it into something fun & special with some DMC floss, a needle & buttons. I thought it turned out nicely. Isabel wore it today and she got compliements on it, then I owned up to it being my handiwork. I did it yesterday while she was napping; it took about an hour and 15 minutes.

Tomorrow it will be church and working on removing more wallpaper from the kitchen. Daddy will be here to help this time, so hopefully it will go quicker.

Next week, Isabel & I and a couple of friends are going to go see Disney on Ice at the Target Center. I won a 4-pack of tickets. Daddy wen to pick them up today, so I haven't been able to check yet how good of seats they are.

Project Day

We have had a busy morning. We were supposed to have a playdate, but we rescheduled that because of the weather we are expecting. So, I planned some projects with stuff I had here to keep us busy this morning.

The first project was painting wth puffy paint on a t-shirt. I picked up this t-shirt earlier this week on clearance at Target. I actually picked up a few because I was planning on customizing a couple, one to give Isabel for her birthday and one for a friend's birthday. Anyways, this was an extra one that I was just going to have her wear plain, but decided to let her have fun with it. I traced around her hands with the puffy paint and she squirted on the other spots & then used her fingers to spread it around. She waned to wear it right away, but I told her it had to dry and she could wear it tomorrow.


The next project was based on the book Seeds, Seeds, Seeds that we have been reading. One of the projects in there was decorating a cardboard picture frame with bean seeds. So, we did just that. The glue was drying faster than she could stick them on so she didn't get all of them on. In the book they put in a picture of the bear with the grass seeds he grew. I think I will take another picture of Isabel soon with her plants. She has one pea plant growing and we are still waiting on the beans and any other peas. She had planted 3 seeds in each.

Last night I made her some flashcards of stages of seed growth, as featured in the same book. They are suppsed to put them in order. We were playing with them this mornig and were just working on naming the parts.

Our final project before lunch was stamping some cards. We each did our own. She was so excited o do some stamping. I don't stamp often and I don't get creative with the cards. I pretty much just stamp an image. I just don't have time with a toddler to cut out lots of other piecese of paper/ribbon/embelishments to make really creative ones.

She had to set them out to dry as well. Not that they needed drying, she just thought they did.

The snow is really coming down right now. It will be interesting to see how much we really get.

From Monday....

This is a picture I took Monday with my camera phone. Monday was a nice Mommy/Isabel day. We went to the gym and afterwards we went to the library and played for an hour (& got new books). What you see pictured is on ONE of the bins (of two) of blocks that we made into a playhouse/castle (usually what she calls them). They have lots of toys there. It's so much fun to go there and just play sometimes.

We played with the dinosaurs for a while too and she would make them go "Rawr!" because that is the sound a dinosaur makes, but when I would make them fight she would pull them away and say, "No, they kiss!" and would make them kiss. Then she lined up all her mommy, daddy, & baby dinosaurs to watch a concert. She has really started to get quite an imagination.

Today, I watched her "call" grandma & grandpa and have a whole conversation. Mostly it was about mommy's birthday (she's obsessed with birthdays these days since we just made a card for grandpa's birthday, then left grandpa a voicemail saying Happy Birthday and then yesterday we went to a birthday party for her friend Aleyah.) So, she's got birthdays on the brain.

Playing Outsid

I decided we better get outside & play today and enjoy the somewhat spring-like weather and nicce sunshine before we are house-bound tomorrow. They are predicting 8+ inches for us. Yuck! I am guessing our playdate for tomorrow will have o get rescheduled.

Anyways, we went out with chalk & she "drew on mommy"; she thought it was hilarious to draw on my shadow and them she started jumping on my shadow and thought that was funny too. We played in the rocks and I wrote numbers on all the (top) layer of landscaping rocks in the driveway. It was a good way to help her with counting. She does good with 1-13, but then after 13 she always skips to 16. So, we gotta keep praciticing so she stops discriminating against 14 & 15. BTW - we have 52 landscaping stones around the top layer.


She asked me to make a hopscotch and she tries do that as best as she can. And four-square too, but we just hop around that, we haven't graduated to using a ball with that yet. And then there was jumping in the puddles, which she had a lot of fun with. I got a good mid-air jump picture. Of course, a change of pants was required after playing outside. I managed to get all my birdfeeders refilled as well. I actually got to them before they were all empty -- lucky birds!

After tomorrow all our chalk creations wil be covered with snow & ice.

Making a B-day Card for Grandpa

Gramps has a birthday on Monday, so she was coloring a card for him. I took a little video of her (actually it's almost 2 minutes long) as she colors & we sing Happy Birthday. The above picture was taken after the video when she wanted to say "Cheese!"

I also did a video of her singing the clean-up song with me.

We had a good day today. We went to gymnastics open gym this morning and this afternoon we had a friend over for a playdate and the girls played wonderfully together. I think it helps that they are almost the exact same age, there was no one bossing around the other one.