Happy Sunday

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Happy Sunday

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Jesus Loves Me

Brennan loves singing. He can sing "Jesus Loves Me" better than this when I help him, but I thought this was still pretty sweet. And on a side note, the bath water isn't always this high. He was throwing a fit about it being turned off and I might've given in and let it get really high; he could barely sit up in it.





Translation:
"Jesus loves so, Jesus loves, Bible, loves so, Amen!"

Zoo!

I shared one picture of our trip to zoo with my Mother's Day post, but wanted to share some more. We had a gorgeous day on Saturday and decided to head up to Roger William's Zoo in Rhode Island. We've taken B before, but not since he's been walking, so I knew he'd be even more into it now. He had a great time and must've worn himself out because he took a great nap afterwards. Momma might've slept a little too!

Hope you enjoy the pictures. He sure does make some funny faces!

Tubby Time

Kyle is working late tonight, so it's just been me and B all day. We had a great day. We didn't even leave the house and he probably watched too much TV, but he's been in a super good mood and took a really good nap, which helps make these single-mom days much easier! Tonight at bath time, I decided I'd take some pictures since I haven't done tubby pics super recently. Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day Sunday!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mamas out there; especially my Momma!

Here's Brennan's verse for the week. Thought it was appropriate for Mother's Day! :)

And a picture of Brennan and me yesterday at the zoo!

Tot School - 27 Months

We didn't pack quite as much into our Tot School this week, but I still managed to capture some of the fun we had.

Basketball:
We got this basketball hoop for B right before Christmas. He still uses it on an almost daily basis. It's great because it's adjustable and can grow with him. We've already raised it several times. This week we had lots of fun making baskets with a bunch of different types of balls! I love this action shot!

Sound Exploration:
We also explored sounds by playing with a bunch of different whistles. Unfortunately I only have the one picture, but we had a bag full of different kinds and B enjoyed blowing them all!

Physical Activity Cube:
The physical activity cube was certainly the hit of the week! He has played with this thing every single day. I posted this video earlier, but wanted to share it again. After playing several times, he was able to recognize the action the cube was landing on. It blew my mind. This kid is really smart!

Ordering Numbers:
We put numbered popsicle sticks in order by sticking them in homemade play dough! B really liked this too. He didn't want to stop at 10, so we kept going up to 20. He's been able to recognize and put numbers up to 20 in order for a while now, but just this week, he really started saying his "teen" numbers much more clearly.

I'm linking up this week over at 1+1+1=1 and No Time for Flashcards. Be sure to stop over to see more great ideas for your tot!

Dear Brennan,

You are 27 months old! You are changing so much right now. It's fun (and sometimes frustrating) to see your little personality developing. You continue to do really well with potty training. We had one week during this past month that was a little rough, but we made it! Most days you are accident-free. Occasionally you'll have a little accident still; those seem to happen when you haven't had a BM for a few days. In fact, that seems to throw your whole mood off! You now have all of your baby teeth too! You're such a big boy!

As I type this now, you're already waking up from your nap. That's one thing that has been frustrating about this past month; you're not taking as long of a nap for me. I am thankful you still do nap because I have many friends with kids around your age that have already stopped napping. I'm not ready for a napping strike yet. I'm not sure why you're not sleeping as long all of sudden. I know our silly pets can get pretty loud sometimes and that might be part of the reason. One of the challenges of potty training is that I can't just let you lay in your bed too long once you do wake up because I don't want you to have an accident. I guess Momma just needs to change her attitude and be happy you do sleep for a little bit instead of being grumpy that you're waking up earlier than you used to.

Most mornings you've been waking up earlier than normal too. Not sure why, and again I know it's later than some kiddos sleep, but I've been one tired Momma lately. Your whining has increased greatly during the last month, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. I know it's just a stage as you keep learning new words, but my oh my it's frustrating. You have also thrown a few tantrums. Thankfully they've been at home and have all been at night around bathtime. I think you're just worn out since naps aren't as long anymore. It's definitely been a challenging month!

I'm hoping the whining starts to subside because you are using so many more words now. You are finally speaking in phrases and it's so cute. I had started a list on my phone of all the new things you're saying, but now there are just too many to count. Some of my current favorites are: "wildcats, here we go, love you, help please and help Momma, thank you, and outside".

Even though you can be whiny and clingy at home, thankfully you are usually an angel when we are out of the house. We still go to the same places as usually (aquarium, children's museum, and Target mostly). We also went to your first movie this month! I think this coming week the weather is finally going to be consistently warmer. It's still been in the 50s most of the time and so we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time outside. You love being outside and Dadda built you a new sandbox that will be tons of fun this summer!

I am having fun watching your imagination grow! At the children's museum the past two visits, you have made up a game all by yourself! There's a mat with four different colored squares. You take a ball and call out a color, then try to throw the ball onto that color. It's super funny to watch. Lots of times you have a very short attention span. You will only do an activity for a few minutes before saying "all done" and wanting to move onto something new. If something keeps your attention more than five minutes, that means you really like it!

Again this month, I've seen great improvements in your climbing. At the mall play place, you can do so much more independently now! You can climb the stairs to the slide and move yourself onto your bottom and slide down all by yourself. You have started climbing on many of the things there. You're also much more independent at the playground now and love all the slides there; even the tube slide! Sometimes you'll still throw a fit when I make you climb up the stairs at home, but I just hold my ground and you eventually climb up.

I've been trying to give you lots of choices and to let you do as many things independently as possible. Your underwear and overnight PullUps are where you can reach them and you pick those yourself. I've also been letting you pick out your own shirt in the morning. You rotate between four shirts; three Mickey shirts and a Thomas the Train one. You get your own breakfast from the cabinet each morning and I let you "brush your teeth" by yourself before I do it for you each night. Sometimes you say, "B do" when you want to do something by yourself.

Now that you're in a big boy bed, it's nice because you like to read books in there with Momma. I love reading with you and I think it's super sweet to read in your bed together. Speaking of your bed, I think you must be the only child that sleeps with nothing in your bed; no pillow, no blanket, no stuffed animal. It's just you and your binky. That stinky binky that we need to get rid of, but Momma isn't ready for you to give it up if it means giving up nap time! No way!

You'll have some changes coming up soon. Dadda is about to go back to a submarine and will be gone for four months! It will make for an interesting summer to say the least. In September you will start going to school two days a week. You'll be in a little toddler class with seven other two year olds. It's only for 2.5 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I think it'll be good for you and for Momma.

This update has gotten long, but I just don't want to forget all these things you are doing each month. It's so fun to go back and look at past ones. l love you to the moon and back!

Love,
Mommy

Here are two pictures from today!

Good morning!

The sun is finally out - we're at the playground!

Physical Activity Cube

You'll probably see this video again this week with my Tot School post, but it's too cute not to share. I made this Physical Activity Cube for B. He LOVES it. Probably because he gets to throw it around! Each side of the cube has a different action for him to complete. After doing it several times, he started being able to recognize the action that it landed on! It's pretty wild to watch him be able to read them.

Happy Sunday

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Tot School - 26 months

We did Tot School again finally! Brennan is currently 26 months old.

It's been ages since I've planned out a week of Tot School, but decided to do it again this week. I am so happy I did. Having pre-planned activities helps our week run much more smoothly. It definitely reduces both mine and Brennan's frustration and boredom. Here are some of the activities we did this week!

Color/Shape/Number Run:
I cut out seven different shapes on seven different colors of cardstock and numbered them 1-7. I taped them around the living room and shouted out a color for Brennan to go find and bring back to me. He LOVED this activity. He asked to do it over and over and over again. The game leant itself to many variations since I could rehang the pieces and shout out a number or shape for him to find. No matter which one I shouted, as B was bringing it to me, I would ask him about the other attributes. It was a great review for him and got out some energy. I even ended up taping the shapes up and down our hallway so he could run even further to grab them. This game would be great fun to play outside too, but our temps have still be too chilly!

Mega-Block Patterns:
Since Brennan spent literally ALL MORNING doing the above activity, we just talked about patterns over lunch. I used the blocks to make simple ABABAB patterns and had him tell me what would come next. He made a few mistakes at the beginning, but seemed to grasp the concept by the end. We will definitely be reviewing this more. Later in the week he was playing with his Mega Block on his own and made a blue, red, blue pattern and called it by that name all by himself. I was pretty impressed!

Fun With Action Words:
I got the idea here. When I introduced it, I just flipped all the actions words over and let B choose one. Then he performed that action. His favorite was spinning!

Mancala:

I didn't think B liked it that much at first, but he then asked to play with it again multiple times throughout the week, so I guess it was a hit. I only let him play it with my supervision because he still occasionally puts small objects in his mouth. We worked on putting one marble in each cup. Then I had him close his eyes and I secretly put two marbles in one of the cups and once he opened his eyes, he had to to find it. I can't remember where I saw this idea, so I don't have a link to give them credit for it. He also enjoyed using the measuring spoons to scoop the marbles.  

Moon Sand:
On Monday I made my first batch of Moon Sand. We played with it a little on Tuesday. I made mine with too much baby oil because it's not as crumbly as it is supposed to be. Probably because I was thinking the name was moon dough instead of moon sand. Our is pretty doughy. B wasn't that into it.

Toilet Paper Bowling:
I tried to be sure to plan plenty of active activities for my active little guy. If you're on Pinterest, you've probably seen Pumpkin Bowling. I decided we didn't see to wait until Halloween to have fun bowling over toilet paper rolls. We experimented with different types/sizes of balls. We tried rolling them, but throwing them was more fun. Brennan liked stacking all the rolls up. And of course knocking his tower down!

Animal Charades:
I wrote down the names of several different animals, put the slips of paper in a fun light up cup, and then had Brennan draw one out at a time. I read him the word and he mad the animal sound. He seemed to have fun, but the activity didn't last very long and he hasn't asked to do this one again. Below he's being a monkey and a rooster.

Don't Let the Balloon Touch the Ground:
I haven't seen or heard Brennan this excited in a long time. Boy it's always the little things that bring them the most joy. He LOVED this game. I thought I might be hearing-imparied by the end with how loud he was screaming, but I'll take happy squeals over annoying whining any day! I helped him keep the balloon up in the air and he thought it was the funniest thing. This was also great because the balloon was plenty large for him to catch. He isn't a great catcher, but this helped him get a lot better.

Clothespin Airplane:
I made it while he watched. I could've made it more interactive and let him decorate the clothespin and popsicle sticks, but he didn't want to do that. He spent a few minutes flying his plane around.

Table Salt Painting:
Brennan hasn't been super into crafts recently. I think he would just rather keep moving around. I did get him to try the salt painting though. It was pretty neat. If you click the link above you can read more details about it. Basically we made a design with Elmer's glue, covered it with table salt, then dropped food colored water onto the salt. We didn't have a medicine dropper, so we used a little syringe thingy. If I let B try by himself he was squirting out way too much colored water, so it worked better when we did it together. I think I should've made the liquid a little more concentrated to get the bright colors I was hoping for, but we had fun watching the color spread across the salt.

Self-Correcting ABC puzzle:
Brennan loves these self-correcting puzzles. He got a number one for Easter and this week I bought him this ABC one. They are only $4.99 at Marshalls, so you really can't beat it. In this version you are matching each letter to an object that starts with that letter. Brennan does understand initial sounds a little, but this is pretty easy because on the back of each object is the letter it starts with. It's a great introduction to initial sounds.

Balloon Bam:
We pulled out the balloon again and I made up this game. There's not much I love more than his laugh!

Let's hope I can keep up the planning because we really enjoyed doing Tot School again this week. Head over to Carisa's blog  and to No Time for Flashcards to see lots more great ideas!