Randoms

This post is going to be completely random. Mostly for my memory than anything else. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't read it ;)

We are working on manners with Penny. Some of my favorite things that she says are "meeeee mama!" (Please mama) and "meh ma'am" (yes ma'am). Her "meh ma'am" is so enthusiastic! She's gotten really good at saying it almost every time I ask her to do something. My favorite? When she says it to Delilah. =)

(I love her messy face! P.S. most of the pics are random too!!)

Delilah is OBSESSED with drawing/coloring/crafts of any kind lately. The first thing she asks for when she wakes up every day is usually to do a craft or to draw. Major tears when I tell her no. She's getting very good!

I love this picture below because (in my opinion) it shows how creative and smart she is! In her words "this (the orange part) is a tornado and the wind is blowing around all the other stuff I colored". Her speech therapist told her about tornados the other day because it was one of the words they were working on. Very smart little girl!

 

 

No matter how many times I tell Penny that she is a big girl now that she's two, she insists that she is a baby. She'll say "nooo! My baby!" I love to scoop my girls up and hold them like babies and sing "baby Delilah" or "baby Penny". Of course Delilah resists it and says "no, I'm a big girl!", whereas Penny comes to me a few times a day, says "up mama!" and then says "my baby!" because she wants me to sing to her. LOVE!! Please stay my baby forever, sweet girl.

 

Delilah is my little ballerina. She dances all day long (when she isn't drawing, of course). Patrick's dad was in town yesterday and stopped by for a few minutes and the girls put on a ballet show for him. It was adorable! He ate it up. When we are out grocery shopping or running other errands, Delilah usually dances her way thru the store. It's precious! She also does different dance moves and says "look mommy! I did a pirouette!" (Or some other term she's heard on Angelina Ballerina)

Since this is my little corner to brag on my kids and talk about how wonderful they are, I have one more story to share. The other day, the girls and I were shopping at Target. There was another mom with her little boy in the same aisle as us. The boy picked a bag of cookies and handed them to his mom. She read the back of the package, put them back on the shelf, and simply said "Sorry, you can't have these." Delilah gasped and said "Mommy! He's allergic to peanuts just like me!!!!" The other mom asked her "are you allergic to peanuts, too?" And Delilah said "yes!" Instant friends. Lol. We chatted for a few minutes. Delilah told her all about doing preschool at home and told her about how she's not allowed to tell people her name anymore (haha, we've had issues with her giving too much information to complete strangers! Lol!! I was pretty proud of her for cluing in to the fact that the other boy was allergic to peanuts by his mom's actions. So smart! Love her!!

 

Stay tuned for Week Two of Preschool at Home...Letter B! Coming soon.

 

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Crazy, Wonderful Perfection

Yesterday during school time we read a book all about the letter B. In it, the little girl put all sorts of things that start with B in a box. One of those things was a baby baboon. (Stay with me here, I'm going somewhere with this.)

 

Later that day, Delilah was wound up and running wild all over our house. She kept screaming a random phrase at the end of sentences, in the middle of sentences, and just at random. Patrick and I kept looking at each other going "what is she saying??"

 

I finally realized she was screaming "BABY BABOON!!" Examples: "Mommy, can I BABY BABOON have a snack?" "Mommy, I can't find my socks. BABY BABOON!!!" Then of course, there was the wild running around and yelling BABY BABOON at random. We were in stitches, it was hilarious!

 

After one particular incident of her running in our room and yelling BABY BABOON at random, Patrick and I looked at each other and one of us said "She is so weird!" and we just giggled. Then we looked over at Penny sitting in the floor trying her hardest to put on a pair of bloomers. She stood up, had both feet thru one leg hole, and started hopping around our room, laughing and squealing with glee. She was so proud of herself and she thought she was so funny!

 

Now, when we say our kids our weird we don't mean anything negative by this. We find such joy in their wonderful uniqueness. All of the silliness, hilarity, and laughter that fills our home on a daily basis is something I pray never goes away. As my girls get older and more aware of other people's opinions of them, I pray that they never lose their unique sense of self. They are both so wonderful and perfect exactly how they are, how God created them. I know that the world will try to steal this from them, lie to them, say "there's something wrong with you, you're not wonderful, you're stupid, you're too different, you don't fit in". I almost cry just thinking about that happening.

 

I guess I'm saying all this to say, speak truth into your children, speak love. Tell them how precious they are, how wonderful, how perfect. Enjoy and embrace all their quirks and the things that make them wonderfully them.

 

 

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Preschool at Home-Week One

Well, I survived my first week of teaching Delilah at home....just barely! I was up until 1am every night getting things together and making sure I had everything ready. The reason I was up so late is because I am still building up a variety of games, activities, worksheets, and so on. It will get better once I have a two or three week rotation of activities to pull from!

Here is how things were set up the night before our first day. It has changed a little bit already! Every day I am learning what works (and what doesn't!).

 

Delilah woke up very excited to start school! Penny was excited, too, even though she didn't really know what was happening.

 

 

The first day, Delilah practiced writing her name, we did a number matching game, and made an "A is for Apple" craft with finger paints! We also did a speech activity.

 

Penny scribbled on her name worksheet, played with beads, and also made the apple craft! It has been a challenge finding things to keep her busy while Delilah works, but I'm not giving up!

The girls had fun singing the Abc's and pointing at the letters on our alphabet poster. And, of course, snack time is always a hit!

 

On Wednesday, we made "a is for applesauce" muffins for breakfast. Delilah loved helping!

 

Delilah worked on writing her name and the letter A, matched up and counted different colored beads during math time, and made an alligator! Delilah was so excited every time she wrote a letter correctly! We also worked on speech, and later that afternoon, Delilah had speech therapy. Her therapist, Mr. Carl, said he could tell we had been working at home! Yay! She is improving every day.

I didn't get any pictures of Penny on Wednesday, she was a little wild and all over the place! She did a lot of coloring and played with the beads, too, and did some puzzle games.

Thursday we didn't do any school work because the girls had their 2 and 4 year check up (they went great, by the way).

Today (Friday) we woke up ready to go again!

Delilah did her name sheet again, played a Lego pattern matching game(math), and we played bingo for speech time. She worked on final /g/ and /k/ sounds (at Mr. Carl's suggestion) and she did great! I didn't take any pictures of her working today!

I found Penny a "pre-writing" worksheet on Pinterest, but she was more interested in scribbling on it, which is fine! She'll get there. She did great sorting colored beads into the same colored cups! She also played with a sack of red toys. There were a few different colored toys in the sack that I wanted her to sort out. She didn't quite get that concept, so we will keep working on it! I do think she can recognize the color red after this week, though, which was my main goal for her.

 

For their craft today, the girls colored letter A's and then glued them to construction paper. Then we used our fingerprints to make ants on our a "anthill". Very cute!

 

We also made "ants on a log" for a fun snack today. I'm going to try to do a themed snack once a week, probably on Fridays. I used graham cracker sticks, almond butter, and mini chocolate chips. It was a hit!!

 

 

 

Penny did a great job using a knife to spread the almond butter!

Delilah worked very hard writing her name this week, and she really improved. I wrote her name on a dry erase board and had her copy it. We've been working on keeping the letters in a straight line. She did a great job!

Here are all the crafts we made this week.

 

We had a lot of fun this week! I'm so thankful for this opportunity to teach my girls at home.

 

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Labor Day Weekend

We had a great Labor Day weekend! Our great friends, the Mims, came to visit and we had so much fun!

They got in pretty late Friday night. Poor Penny didn't get to wait up for them, but Delilah did and she was SO excited to see them!

The theme of the weekend seemed to be FOOD and lots of it. Saturday morning the girls and I woke up before they did, and Patrick had to leave pretty early for work. I fixed biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then we all loaded up and went to the mall! Carla and I thought we were going to have to trick Jamey into keeping the two older kids so we could go shopping but he wanted to go, too, so we all went! All six of is were in our Bama gear and we got the funniest looks and lots of ROLL TIDE's!!! It was fun. We introduced Austin to Build-a-Bear and he was a fan! If only we had been in Alabama, he could've made an elephant with a Bama jersey on! The girls had to take the Sully monsters they made a few months back (they were recalled) and they got to pick anything in the store for free. They picked giant My Little Pony's.

 

About an hour before we left the mall we realized we could get around a lot easier by letting the kids ride like this.....

We had to rush home to watch the Alabama game. We ordered pizza, made homemade strawberry ice cream, and the kids really enjoyed yelling "touchdown" and "roll tide"! They were so cute!!

 

 

Sunday we were blessed to hear the testimony of Marc Mero at church. His story was very inspiring and I think many lives were changed! I'm thankful for people like him who allow God to use them to bring glory to Him!

Here are our Bama babies before church! The only time they sat still!

 

That afternoon the kids did NOT take naps, one who shall remain nameless pooped on the floor of our guest room, and we got to play outside! Finally caught the sno cone truck after missing it all summer (it always come by while we are eating dinner!). I think Austin had fun with all of our pink toys. After the picture below I got out a pair of pink crocs and he didn't want to take them off! Penny called them "Austin's shoes" the rest of the weekend and tried to get him to take them home! Lol! I made homemade chicken and dumplings for dinner and Austin fell asleep while they were watching Cars! He was worn out! So sweet.

 

Monday we had a lazy day at home. Jamey got up and fixed buttermilk pancakes and we just let the kids play and enjoyed spending time together before they had to leave. They left after lunch and later that afternoon we went outside so Penny could try out her new bike that she got for her birthday! We ended up going on a family bike ride, then we came home, put the girls to bed, and Patrick and I had a date night at home, complete with perfect grilled steaks and s'mores and we watched a movie.

 

 

We had a GREAT weekend and already miss Jamey, Carla, and Austin so much! We look forward to seeing them again soon.

 

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The Two Year Old

Penny's birthday was last Monday, almost a week ago now! I think she had a great day!

I always go in the girls' room on their birthday and sing them "happy birthday" when they wake up. I think she enjoyed it =)

 

Penny had presents from us to open on her birthday, just like Delilah! She LOVED opening them. Delilah was pretty excited about everything Penny got, too.

 

 

 

Penny had ballet at 10, but we managed to squeeze in a VERY fast trip to get Dunkin' Donuts...our fave!!

 

Yes, those are PUMPKIN munchkins you spy. My girls didn't like them. That's okay, more for me!

 

We didn't get to take Penny out for a special date because Patrick had to work all day, but the girls and I had a great day going to their ballet lessons and playing with new toys! They are loving all the gifts they got. When Patrick got off work we took the girls to Chick Fil A for Penny's birthday dinner, since it is probably her favorite place to eat! She got her own kids meal for the first time, got to eat her chicken nuggets without us cutting them, and then got to have ice cream!

 

Big sister taught her how to dip her "fry-fries" into her ice cream =)

Overall, I'd say Penny had a great birthday! Here is her birthday poster.

I love my sweet 2-year old!!

 

 

 

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