Tot School? Sure, Why Not.

This is our first week back to a regular nap time, healthy dinners, and Mother's Day Out!

Yay for normalcy!

We still haven't officially begun any new Tot School activities. I am really excited to get started, though! Walmart was having a big sale on their toys this past week, so we snatched up some wooden blocks, kid-sized kitchen gadgets, and even an art easel! I can't wait to get it all set-up so we can get back to our ABC's and 1,2,3's.

Daddy has been doing a little Tot Schooling of his own with Lorelai...we cleaned out our office this past week so we have it set up with a tv and an old-school Super NES. This is what lesson plans Shawn has been working on:

(Please excuse picture quality...these were taken with the trusty ole point and shoot)

If you look closely, you can see that she is holding the duck hunt gun while watching Bambi.

Nice.

Every time Thumper came on the screen, Shawn would say "Shoot the bunny!"

And she would.

I think it's funny that Shawn thinks outside the box...it's one of the things I love most about him, however odd the subject matter is! :)

He also took up teaching Lorelai the important skill of playing Super NES Mario...

or "Cheerio" as she calls it...I have a video of her playing, but I can't remember our youtube username and it takes too long to load straight to the blog. :(

That's all I've got for today!

Tot School? This Week? HAHAHA

Lorelai is 26 months...

and we have done Nothing, and I mean Nothing this week.

We have survived, recuperated, and laid on the couch watching tv, too weak to do too much.

We are, of course, better now- but definitely too late to start a new activity or learn a new letter this week. Little Miss can now recognize a Big A and Little a, and most of the time a Big B and a Little b, although she has trouble singling them out in words.

That's it! Just wanted to post some kind of progress and keep up with the theme!

And now, a picture. Because a picture is worth a thousand words.

What happens when you mix Crayola bathwater color tablets, a two year old, and a daddy who is 4-5 feet away playing on his laptop??

You see where this is going?

Too cute for words.

Th Wedding Massacre of 2010...

It started out a cold, wintery day. Wedding bliss was in the air as we decorated the Heights Historic Firestation Ballroom. They had just informed us the night before that the heater was out, but we weren't going to let that get in the way...it was already warming up as we hung little silver ornaments and pink jewels from the branches of silver tree limbs.

None of us could've guessed what was going to happen next...

dum Dum DUMMM.

Okay, but really. It started out a great day. Decorating, plan making, breakfast eating, and then lunch came. Mom didn't feel good and was the first (of the day) to get sick. She got through her little sick-spell and we kept on with the day, making sure not to mention to Leslie that mom was sick so that she didn't come down with any psychosomatic illness right before the ceremony. Efforts were wasted, Bride got sick. It hit her about two hours before the ceremony, and it hit her hard. She managed to get dressed and emerge from the dressing room long enough for some pictures, then went back to the bathroom. We mentioned to Pastor Tom that he may want to wait until we gave him the "go ahead" for the ceremony if he wanted the Bride to be present. I'm not sure if we even had to delay the ceremony...maybe by a few minutes? But there she was, fully dressed and smiling as it if had never happened (minus the candy cane she was sucking on through the ceremony, reception, etc...) I started getting cold sweats and shaking about halfway through the ceremony, made it through some post-ceremony pictures, and then could barely stand. I truly have no idea how Leslie was able to do it.

My poor, poor sister!

Here are some pictures of the reception that morning after we had decorated...

Maybe someday this will be funny, but right now, it still feels like a bad dream! I remember very little of the ceremony, and even less of the reception. My apologies to everyone who caught this bug....it is really the most contagious bug I have ever heard of. The official count is up to 17 people right now, and counting as the sick ones spread it even further.

Here are a few gems I captured in the Bridal Room waiting for her to recover...

how did her hair stay so perfect??

a sad, pathetic face to show how you truly feel?

how about a little smile?

There now! That's better!

(maybe the smile's a little too big? kinda scary? oh well.)

How someone SO sick was still so beautiful is a mystery to me.

Leslie and Chris- it can only go up from here!

Hope you were able to stop vomiting long enough to enjoy Mexico!

(and everyone, once again, on behalf of Lorelai....or Shawn....or even maybe me....SORRY!)

Rehearsal Dinner

Nothing exciting, really, just a few pictures of the rehearsal dinner at Star Pizza!

The infection-spreading begins...
I love these....Lorelai's reaction to the necklace Leslie and Chris gave her for being their flowergirl...

Love the green lighting in the place, don't you?

These were, of course, before all of the REAL fun...

My New Obsession...

Okay, so I stumbled upon this new website the other day while too weak to walk but too awake to sleep and yet not vomiting. and- I LOVE IT. I am desperate to start feeling better just so that I can get started! I think this will be my first project:

http://knockoffwood.blogspot.com/2009/12/plan-you-asked-pottery-barn-kids.html

Just the drawers- hoping I can scale them to fit under my current coffee table.

I haven't mentioned this new obsession to Shawn, I'm curious to see what he'll say. My guess is something to the tune of "You are too clumsy! You'll lose a finger the first week!"

My genius plan is to ask him to show me how to work the power tools.

Get him involved...make him feel like he's in control....

MUAH HA HA.

A post on the wedding massacre of 2010 to follow shortly.

"Tot School" or something like that.....

Lorelai is 25 months, 3 weeks

So in my effort to post on this blog once a week, I've decided this would be a good place to help me track my progress in what I am loosely referring to as "Tot School." (I am going to put her age at the top to help me track when I did what...) I found this blog http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/ and thought that it would be fun to start implementing some type of learning activities each week. My ultimate goal is to be able to convince Shawn (and, in doing so, convince myself) to let me homeschool Lorelai- atleast her first few years, and then maybe private school if we feel it isn't right for her/us. I was homeschooled for a couple of years (sixth, seventh, and half of eighth grade) and while I personally hated it, I'm hoping that if we start early enough and have some friends that jump on the bandwagon, we can create our own little co-op. SO, on that note, we started a new sensory activity last week that Lorelai looooooooooves!

It is just a large mixing bowl, 2 lbs of pinto beans, and two measuring cups.

Simple things in life, my friends.

I showed her how to scoop with one hand, and pour the beans into the cup that was in the other hand. We sat there for about thirty minutes and she thought it was so much fun.

As she was playing with it, I would make comments like "You are scooping with your right hand!" or "You are holding the bowl with your left hand!"

And guess what? She now knows her right from left.

Thanks to cousin Daniel, we are now teaching her to apply right and left to things other than her hands (ears, legs, eyes, etc) and I'm pretty convinced she is off the charts smart.

Sorry, I had to say it.

Full scholarship to Rice, anyone?

This week we are getting familiar with the letter A. I figure this year we will learn a letter a week and just become comfortable recognizing it. We will work on what sounds the letters make and more advanced things next year. I think we will also start to incorporate shapes and colors, although she already knows ALL of her colors and a few shapes (square, triangle, circle).

We are also getting ready for Auntie L and Chris's big day which is rapidly approaching. This Saturday seems to be racing towards us, and amazingly enough, I think we are pretty prepared! We only have a few things left to do to get ready, but nothing huge or stressful.

Which is just weird. Weddings are suppose to be stressful, right?

Am I the only one that had three full-on nervous breakdowns while wedding planning?

Of course, I'm a pretty good wedding planner and had I been able to be the bride at my own wedding and have an extra one of me to help me plan, I think I would've been much better off.

Well, that's it for this weeks post. I need to go wake up the little baby monster and get started with our day!