Monthly update - November 2011

Gemma Grace - 3 yrs 10 months

It has been a really good month with Gemma.  Something has changed. Of course, she still has her moments, but overall things have just been good.  Thank you Jesus.  She likes playing with duplos and dressing up in her "party dress" (play-clothes).  She has a game she plays with Kolbe where she gets two laundry baskets and puts the playsilks in one and pretends it is his crib, and the toys in another and pretends it's his toy box.  He is surprisingly acquiescent to this little charade and plays along quite nicely most of the time.  She also likes to play that Kolbe is her kitten named "Biscuit," and this little game will often go on all morning or afternoon.  Again, he is quite cooperative when it comes to playing along with all this. Maybe he doesn't know any better.  She likes to play "buttons and eggs," which consists of getting the buttons out, putting one in each plastic Easter egg, building a nest with the playsilks, her blankie and/or the laundry baskets and then either putting them in the "incubator" or being the cat who hatches the eggs (I kid you not) and then oooooohing and ahhhhing over the baby chicks and making everyone else do the same once they "hatch".  She plays this multiple times a week.  It is fun watching her imagination develop.  She is also very obsessed with "tag."  She likes folding things, and will often fold a basket of towels and rags if I let it sit around where she can see it.  She is very meticulous.  She likes to do this best when she can "surprise" me, and will often say, "mommy, don't look,"  half-a-dozen times while she is folding, and then make a big deal when she is finished.  And then I have to act all surprised and excited, et al.  It's fun.  She's cute.  Still enjoying our preschool at home.  She likes the crafts and learning words in sign-language, and is really learning the letter sounds quite well.  She does pretty good drawing letters on her magnadoodle, but I really haven't forced the writing issue much.  Just letting her take the lead with her interests when it comes to that mainly.  Okay, that's all I suppose.

Kolbe James - 22 months

Have I mentioned how snuggly this kid is?  Wow, he is a snuggler.  Not a huge month for him really, he is saying more words though, and beginning to communicate more with words which is nice.  It's cute to hear him "talk."  He's yet to string two words together though (unless "ball-ball" counts, ;-D which he loves to proudly point out when he's wearing one of his numerous "ball-ball" shirts); mainly just a word here or there to convey his wants/needs.  It works.  For the little talking that he does though, I am completely amazed at what he understands.  He's kind of leveled out on the potty progress.  He did so well back in September, and then regressed a whole bunch, and now we're somewhere in the middle.  It definitely makes more sense to have him in diapers, but he uses the potty on a regular basis several times a day, sometimes at his request sometimes at mine, and pretty much exclusively poops in the toilet.  We got one of those little toilet seats that sits on top of the regular toilet and he seems to get a kick out of that.  I like the fact that I don't have to clean out the potty chair.  I'm really liking our bumGenius diapers for this stage.  Much easier on and off than a prefold and cover for sure.  He is becoming quite the playmate with his big sis, and it is cute to watch them together.  He wants to copy everything she does.  I love to see him doing so much pretend play.  Gemma just didn't get that when she was his age, she didn't have a built-in playmate (because let's face it, mommy doesn't count).  She has even taught him to fake-sneeze and it is so hilarious!  He has started watching Little Bear with her, which is funny to me because at that age Gemma wasn't watching any TV on her own.  I'm not a huge fan of him watching TV this young, but what do you do?  There are only certain times of day we turn the TV on though, so it's not too big a deal. Ahhhhh TV how I love to hate you, or hate to love you, or something...  Kolbe really enjoys playing with markers and painting and other craft-type activities, and he has gotten remarkably better at being not quite so scary-crazy with the art supplies. That has been a welcome reprieve.  And that's all, folks.  Here's to December!!!

Gemma - 3yrs 10 months; Kolbe - 22 months

Christmas CD recommendations

I'm looking for some recommendations for (children's mainly) Christmas CD's.  I have a handful of my own 'adult' favorites (Handel's Messiah and anything seasonal that NPR plays being at the top of the list, followed by some Brickman and Mannheim Steamroller) that I rarely get to listen to as it is, but I'd like to find a few more CD's for the kids.  We currently own John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, which I have positively adored since I was a young, young child listening to it on a cassette tape, or maybe even a record!  There's something about John Denver...I get all misty and reminiscent every time I hear his voice.  His music is so soothing and meaningful.  Maybe I'm weird.  Any other John Denver fans out there?  We also have VeggieTales 25 Favorite Christmas Songs, and I really like it as well.  Lots of traditional (and some not-so-traditional) carols with a fun "Veggie" spin on them.  But that's all we have.  Lame, I know.  The kids really do enjoy both of them a lot, but I just think it would be nice to broaden our musical horizons a bit, so I'm opening the floor for recommendations.  Please share your favorite children's Christmas CD's in the comments section below!!

Turkey week

Besides our regular letter of the week activities for "K" week, we had some fun Thanksgiving activities as well.  We checked out several Thanksgiving books from the library, and Gemma had fun learning about the pilgrims and Indians.  Our favorite book by far though was Turkey Trouble.  I really liked this book.  A whole bunch.  Enough to buy our own copy, but not for $900 as it is listed on Amazon.  Really?  Why do people do this?  Is there anyone out there that would pay that for any book?!!!  I mean, I realize it may be out of print and everything, but seriously?  I have stumbled upon this more than once and I really just don't get it, but I digress.  Gemma and Kolbe both got quite a kick out of "Turkey Trouble" as well, and we read it multiple times throughout the week.  The pictures were so clever and adorable and the repetitive text was cute and fun.

We made this turkey craft and they turned out so cute!  Even Kolbe got in on the painting and I helped him make a turkey of his own.  Gemma made a turkey for herself and one for each set of Grandparents.

Gemma's Turkey

Kolbe's Turkey

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"K" week

We started "K" week off with the Feast of Christ the King.  I found this craft (click link) in my Catholic Icing preschool book and just thought it was super-neat.  Gemma was able to do almost everything by herself on this (besides glittering the name Jesus and writing the word King).  I heart our Zots!

We also had Chicken a la King for dinner Sunday evening, and that was mighty tasty!  A bit rich - almost like a chicken stroganoff - but very tasty.

Some of our favorite books were:
Riley Flies a Kite
The Kite 
Come Along, Kitten
Counting Puppies and Kittens
Katy and the Big Snow  (This was a really great story!  Gemma and I both really enjoyed it a lot.)
Kitten's First Full Moon  (We had checked this out before and Gemma was excited to see it again.  It is a "Caldecott" award, and deservedly so.  I like it a bunch.)
Kitten Red, Yellow, Blue

Our craft activity for the week was a homemade kite.  Gemma was so excited by this.  She carried her kite around for the better part of the week, to the library, Hobby Lobby, daddy's office...  Unfortunately (for her), we were low on wind for most of the week.  At one point she even stood in the driveway and said, "Please God, can we have some wind?!"  I thought that was pretty cute.

That's about all for "K" week, which was also Thanksgiving week.  If I had been thinking more when I did my planning we would have taken a week off from our "letter of the week" and just focused on Thanksgiving, but the way I had things planned out with Advent and everything it was just easier to keep things as is.  I think we'll take the week before and the week of Christmas off though.  I'm wondering what we're going to do once we run out of letters...

Poetry update

I posted a few months back about reading poetry in our home and I wanted to update.  While we certainly don't read poetry every day or even close to every day at lunch as the "plan" is (I really need to try to be more disciplined about this, maybe blogging about it will help...) we still enjoy it, and lunchtime is definitely the favored time to pull out one of our books of poems.  We currently own Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young and that has been a great place to start.  My dear friend Debi also gave us a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses which has some great classics.  About a month ago I was browsing for something online at the library (I don't even remember what) and stumbled upon The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry.  WOW!  What a treasure.  This is a hugely comprehensive big book, organized by theme with great, colorful illustrations for every poem.  The poems are not by Bill Martin Jr., as the title may imply, but are a compilation of his favorite poems so it is very eclectic.  This book would make a great addition to any home poetry collection, and it is definitely on our wishlist!

"J" week

"J" is for jellybeans (thanks Michelle for the idea)!

We read "A Rainbow of My Own" and made jellybean rainbows.  Gemma thought this project was pretty fun.  Of course the most exciting part was probably getting to eat jellybeans!!  The finished product turned out cute, but took an inordinate amount of time to dry.  I mean, 24 hours later and it still wasn't dry.  I guess hot glue would have worked better than Elmers, but then there really wouldn't have been much for Gemma to do besides sort the colors.  Oh well...  Like I said, she had fun and that's what really matters.

"J" is for Joseph

For religion we read "Joseph and his Amazing Coat" (I really like the Usborne Bible Tales, is it just me?) and did this coloring page.  I let Gemma use my twistables colored pencils so that was something new for her that she really enjoyed (and did pretty well with too).  HERE is another cute Joseph activity I filed away for future use.

Some of our favorite books:

Jack and the Beanstalk (now Gemma runs around the house saying, "fee, fi, fo, fum...", it's pretty funny)

Jonah and the Whale (another good Usborne book)

The Giant Jam Sandwich

Bread and Jam for Frances

Jelly Beans for Sale

After talking about money in "Jelly Beans for Sale", Gemma asked to play with her "monies" on Saturday morning (tell me I'm not the only one who lets my kids do this...I do have them wash well when they're finished)!  This was the first time we talked about the names of the coins and such though.  She had fun sorting them and did a pretty good job.  She really has no concept of money thus far, other than putting some change in the collection basket each week.  I'm sure she'll learn soon enough.

Poor Kolbe was a sick little boy on Thursday night and Friday.  He caught what appeared to be a 24 hour tummy bug (very similar to the one Gemma had around Halloween) and has thankfully bounced back pretty quickly.  Even so, no fun for baby or mommy!  We got some good snuggle time in though, he hadn't ridden in the carrier for months!

I'm really looking forward to Advent now.  I have a lot of neat things planned for the kids, and some great books on hold at the library that we're looking forward to reading.  Can't believe it's next week!!  Happy Monday, everyone.

And the winner is...

ELIZABETH!!!  As determined by an online number generator.  Elizabeth's comment was:

We have an Advent calendar that you build the manger scene with, and our girls get so excited to get a new piece out each day, so I'd have to say that is my favorite tradition. Last year was the first year Claire got to help with it, and both girls did such a good job taking turns on opening the little doors to get out the newest piece. I really hope they maintain that great attitude this year!

Thank you everyone for entering my contest!  If you haven't read all the comments, take a moment and do so.  There are some great ones!  And I have to agree, the Advent Wreath is a family favorite at our house as well.  Thanks for all the great ideas everyone.  A blessed Advent season to one and all!

Kolbe in autumn

I loved the lighting in this picture (that I snapped on my phone).

Don't forget to enter my Advent Giveaway (click HERE for details).  Contest closes at noon tomorrow (Thursday), winner will be announced Friday morning!!!

GIVEAWAY - "Welcome Baby Jesus"

Can you believe that Advent is literally right around the corner?!  I have been spending some time lately planning our family Advent activities and recently purchased the book "Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families" by Sarah A. Reinhard (Liguori Publications) at our local Catholic bookstore (for a mere $1.99) to aid in the celebration of Advent in our home.  What a neat little book!  Each day has a "Think", "Pray" and "Act" section with meditations, prayers and Advent actions literally geared towards the whole family.  Plus, not only does it go through the Advent season, but it has meditations, prayers and actions for the Octave of Christmas and the Epiphany as well.  One of the things that has me most excited about this book is the fact that the meditations are written at a level that I think even Gemma (almost 4) will mostly understand and benefit from.  But they definitely seem appropriate for grade-schoolers or even high-schoolers as well I'd think.  Mom and dad, too!!  It really is written for the whole family. 

I was so excited about this book - and about its great price - that I decided to purchase an extra one to give away here on the blog!!  SO, please leave a comment telling me about your favorite Advent activity or tradition, and this Thursday (after 12 noon) I will randomly select a winner to be announced here on the blog first thing Friday morning!!

I'll start by sharing a tradition we enjoyed last year and are looking forward to again this year and that is our paper chain to count down to Christmas.  The colors coordinate with the candles on the Advent Wreath (purple for weeks 1, 2 and 4, rose for week 3 and white for Christmas day), and each link has something special for Gemma/our family to do for the day.  This year I intend to mainly use the "Act" section from Welcome Baby Jesus on our links.

Now it's your turn!!!  Leave me a comment sharing a favorite Advent tradition in your home, and enter to win your own copy of Welcome Baby Jesus!!!

I received nothing in return for this review.  I wrote it because I thought it was a good book, and purchased my copy and the extra copy to give away myself.

"I" week

"I" was for ICE CREAM during "I" week at our house!!

Gemma had lots of fun making this Ice Cream Man.  She was very proud of him.  She even spent several minutes pretending to eat him before hanging him up on the cabinet.  Silly girl. 

I thought this ice cream cone dot-to-dot was pretty cool. This was Gemma's first time to do a dot-to-dot.  I'm sure there will be many more in our future!!

I had some coupons for a free ice cream at a local restaurant, so one afternoon we headed out for ice cream together.  That was a fun (and cheap, er, free) little date with the kids...all three of us had a very nice time!  And we still have two coupons left that we need to use by the end of the year!

Some of our favorite "I" books were:

I Love You Because You're You

I am Invited to a Party (oh how we love Piggie and Gerald at our house)

My "I" Book (I think these books are a little odd, and very dated - at least the ones at our library - but Gemma loves them and chooses them to read almost every day, so I keep checking them out.)

From Cow to Ice Cream (very informative)

Isaac the Ice Cream Truck

1, 2, I Love You

We also did this craft from Catholic Icing, but called it "I" is for Infant Jesus instead of "E" is for Emmanuel.  I modified it a bit so we could use items we had on hand.  I was really excited with how this turned out, I just thought it was super cute...and it was a good opportunity to remind Gemma of Jesus' living conditions when he was born.

Here are Gemma and Kolbe playing our "find-the-letter" game. They really like this.  We usually do it on Thursday mornings.  I have two sets of those cheap magnetic letters, and they are in a coffee tub with a slit cut in the lid.  Gemma finds the letter of the week, and then she often likes to line them all up in alpha order, or ask Kolbe what letter something is.  Since he's going to answer her, you know.  Kolbe just likes putting the letters back in the slot.  Or throwing them.  ;-D  At any rate, it seems to be good, educational entertainment for both of them.

That's all for "I" week.  Be sure to check back first thing Monday morning for a special Advent give-away!!

Book Review: The Bible Compass

The Bible Compass: A Catholic's Guide to Navigating the Scriptures by Dr. Edward Sri was a very basic guide to Scripture as seen through the lens of the Church (namely Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium).  It was recommended to me by a friend in my Motherhood group and I'm really glad I read it.  While it doesn't delve too deeply into any one particular aspect of Scripture, it gives a great overview of Salvation History, where the Bible came from along with descriptions of various translations and interpretations (with a good discussion about dynamic equivalence), how archaeology, history and geography can play a part in our study of the Bible and other information along those lines.  One part I was particularly excited about was a chart that laid out the timeline of Salvation History in the first column, the Narrative book(s) that go along with each of the 12 major historical periods in the second column, and supplemental books in the third column.  I have recently started reading the Bible from the beginning (I just finished Genesis and have started on Exodus and Job) with the Collegeville Bible Commentary and this chart will be very helpful when it comes to navigating which books to read when.  While this book mainly focused on reading the Bible for intellectual/learning purposes, it did briefly touch on Lectio Divina at the end which I thought was very appropriate.  I would recommend this book to any Catholic looking to learn a little more about the history of the Bible. 

bumGenius refresher

I finally got around to repairing some of my bumGenius 3.0 diapers and I am very pleased with the results.  I ordered some of these refresher kits from Cotton Babies.  A very long time ago.  And they sat and sat in my sewing room.  Finally I decided to tackle the project and it didn't take long at all.  The kits came with new aplix and elastic.  I just used the aplix, as the elastic in my bG's is still in relatively good condition.  I will definitely use the elastic in the future though, for these or something else!  The directions said to use a seam ripper to remove the old aplix tabs, but that just wasn't happening.  First, I hate seam ripping.  Second, those things were on there good.  There was no way I was getting them off without destroying the diaper and I really didn't want that to happen, so I just cut the ends off and then cut as much of the aplix off of the attached part as I could (I should have taken a picture) and then just sewed the new tabs over the old part.  The laundry tabs I sewed over the old ones (per instructions).  Worked like a charm and it has really breathed some new life into my diapers (which have been used on and off for over a year-and-a-half now by both Gemma and Kolbe).  I think these kits would work well with any diaper or diaper cover that uses aplix, not just the bumGenius brand.

"H" week and Halloween

"H" is for Halloween
Appropriately enough, we celebrated Halloween at the beginning of "H" week!  When we dressed up for grandparents the day before, Gemma wore the monkey costume we had picked out together.  Then on Halloween she decided she wanted to be a dragon like last year!  This was the first time she was really and truly excited about dressing up...I wasn't about to squelch that excitement.  The monkey costume was pretty big, so it should make a good costume for her next year. 

Gemma was also sick early in the week, so we didn't do quite as many of our "H" activities.  Thankfully, she bounced back really quickly.

Some of our favorite "H" books were:

Hanna Hippo's Horrible Hiccups

P is for Pumpkin, God's HARVEST Alphabet (I like this autumn book so very much I really am tempted to just buy it for our home library)
Hush Little Baby (a sweet spin on the traditional song)

Hilda Must be Dancing

Harold and the Purple Crayon

The Artist who Painted a Blue Horse

"H" is for hats!
On Friday  we looked at the book "Zoe's Hats" and sang "My Hat it Has Three Corners", then we made our own hats.  Both kids had fun with this.  I let Gemma use my super-nifty tape-bracelet to tape the paper hat together and that worked really well!  I tell you, I think those things are about the greatest invention ever.  Kolbe is finally doing better with paints and markers (read: he mostly doesn't try to eat or throw them), so that has been a welcome change!

Gemma has also been using her scissors a lot lately.  She just cuts strips and random pieces, but I figure that's a good place to start.  Hopefully we can work on cutting lines and such here in the near future.  After an afternoon of very intense reminders to keep "thumb on top," she seems to have gotten that down.  Funny thing though, she switches between her right and left hand when she cuts.

I think that's all for this week!  I'm going to try to be a little more timely now with my Letter of the Week posts, and try to post them the Monday following each week.  And if you're curious, I do these as much for me as I do for others.  ;-D  I am looking forward to looking back on these in future years to jog my memory for ideas!!  Please feel free to share any ideas you have in the comments!  I'm always open for suggestions!!

"G" week

"G" is for Gemma!

I printed a bunch of collage prints off from Walgreens of pictures of Gemma from birth up until now.  Then I cut them out and let her glue them on a poster.  She has been really into looking at pictures lately, so she really had a blast with this and it turned out super cute.

Some of our favorite books were:

The Gullywasher

Gemma and the Baby Chick (a very sweet story for anyone, extra special for our Gemma)

Growing Vegetable Soup

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Grover Sleeps Over (This tale of Grover's first night away from home is so endearing.  I liked it and Gemma did to.  When she ever spends a night away, I think this would be a great book to re-check!)

Ginger

Whose Garden Is It? (a cute rhyming tale about a garden and to whom it actually belongs)

"G" is for God

For religion, we looked at our icon that pictures God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and made this God-the-Trinity triangle.

Here she is with her latest project (name rubbings) from her Art Class.  Both months the project has tied into our weekly theme without even planning it that way!  She got two papers, so we decided to do one for her brother as well!

Kolbe reading

Here is some video of Kolbe "reading" his I Spy book from the library.  Can you guess what his favorite pictures are?!

Happy birthday, grandma

We recently celebrated Aaron's mom's birthday.  I thought this was a really sweet picture of the kids with their grandma and grandpa.

Dryer balls

I am wanting to get away from dryer sheets, and I've heard good things here and there (from some of you even I know) about dryer balls.  I know there are numerous options out there, I've mainly perused the ones on the cloth-diapering websites I like to frequent.  My main reasons for wanting to give the dryer balls a try are: lack of dryer sheets would be one less chemical in our environment/coming into contact with our skin; I don't use dryer sheets on our towels or diapers anyways because I know they can effect absorption and promote stink; I'd like something that could potentially cut down on dry-time and continue to cut down on static, as that's the one thing that I do like about dryer sheets.  

SUGGESTIONS PLEASE!