Valentine's Day Candy and Surprises

Sophia had fun opening up her surprises from her daddy and I for Valentine's Day. Here are just a few clips of her excitement. I think she really loved the bear with candy hearts that her daddy surprised her with that day.

The heart in the hands photograph of the Valentine is where Sophia stamped her hands in red paint and then put them on construction paper in a heart shape. Then, we took the drawing of an outline of her hands and held the heart inside it.  Those who were at my wedding would realize the significance of hearts and hands and the reading that was said there which is why Sophia and I made this simple craft.

A girl has got to have her chocolate. Yummy. 

Just some fun photos from this weekend

Sophia got a new life jacket this weekend so we can go boating at the Lake this summer. She has outgrown her baby life jacket and we need that one for the soon to be new arrival.  She loved this pink one at the store and as a result, she is set to go boating with her Grandma now.  Here, she was putting a toy fish in my ear and laughing at herself.  It is a little funny and I am not really sure why she thought she should put a fish in my ear but for what it is worth, that is what she is doing.

Here she is posing with her toy fish and modeling her new life jacket.  The funny thing of this is that we did not tell her to go get the fish, I put her new life jacket on over her T-shirt to make sure it fit and she yelled wait a minute.  Her dad and I looked at each other puzzled as to what she could be up to.  She ran in the bathroom and took her toy fish out of the toy holder and came running back with it. Sometimes, I am really amazed at how this beautiful kid makes associations between objects and events.  

She put on her hat and coat and wanted to go play in the snow so Daddy snapped the picture and told her maybe we could play in the snow.

Here she is just looking cute and showing her daddy her hat.

B is for Bobby B playing baseball and Big Bird

This week's letter of the week is "B".  I printed this "B" out and asked Sophia what it was. I should have known she would exclaim with excitement, "B!"

These are the two activities we did for the letter "B".  Bobby B and Big Bird.  

The BIG bed

I washed the sheets on my old queen sized bed since they have been sitting not being used for a while so Sophia could start taking naps in her soon to be "big girl" room and I could monitor if she was falling off the bed before we get her new bedroom set.

She decided she was ready to jump in with both feet at bedtime and said she wanted to sleep in her "big girl" room. So, I figured what could it hurt if she really wanted to sleep in there. In my mind, I just thought well surely she will be up and asking to go to her old bedroom during the night.

She climbed up into the bed and I got her all tucked in after several attempts of stalling,and she finally went to sleep. I left the main hall light on in case she woke up so she could find my room if needed. She stayed in her room all night. I had bribed her that if she stayed in her room all night I would paint her nails today. I was surprised when I got up at 6:20 that she wasn't laying on the bed but rather sleeping on the floor at the foot of her big bed. I wondered did she fall or did she wake up.

When she woke up I asked her matter of factly why was she sleeping the floor. She said simply that she woke up and was too tired to climb back up on the bed. Poor kid! She must have really wanted to get her nails painted to stay in there even though she woke up.

No worries, I made good on my promise and painted her finger nails and toe nails this morning always interesting with a two-year-old.  Thank heaven for Quick Nail Dry Spray and Blow Dryers. She was so excited that she could be a big girl and use the big girl bed and have her nails painted like mine.

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Babymoon music classes

Sophia showing me her instrument backpack.

Musical instrument backpack complete with tambourine, triangle, bells, maraccas, and wooden sticks.

I have been actively trying to expose Sophia to a variety of experiences to encourage her growth and development in many areas. Not only are we involved in gross motor skills, and social skills development in Little Gym, and fine motor skills development skills in arts and crafts we do, we have also added some percussion music experience by taking music class at The Babymoon Boutique.

The class is structured perfectly for toddlers to actively participate in the music. We sing and play a large drum in class. We used scarves and acted out a snowman melting. We acted like a cat sleeping and waking up and stretching and creeping and running. Then, we played the instruments shown above when the teacher instructed us to use them.

I think it is a great experience for Sophia to have music exposure at such a young age when it comes so naturally to her. I hope she loves music as much as I do. I will continue to try to expose her to as many forms of music as I possibly can until she is old enough to take piano lessons.

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A is for apple and other activities

Sophia and I try to do at least one or two activities a day. It is time that I dedicate each day to focusing on her development. I don't want her to miss out on anything the kids in daycare learning.

This week Sophia is learning about the letter "A". She already knows "A" but not many other letters so we are going to start working on the alphabet by learning a letter a week.




A is for ape. A is for an ant.




Here Sophia is using a technique that she learned using the side of the crayon like she learned this weekend.




We are also working on colors too. She knows all the major colors and can name them when asked. She loves playing colors.

We have been choosing a color a day and doing activities that have that color. Here she is coloring a pink mini book.

She also glued a pink paper pig together made from hearts. She loves gluing stuff so it was fun for her.
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The Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House

This weekend we met my brother at the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House. We had a blast. Not only did we see lots of butterflies and bugs. We enjoyed a quick video and Sophia got to make some crafts. Above is a collage of some of the photos taken this weekend.  My favorite is the butterfly wall where Sophia is looking through the glass and smiling and laughing.

Feather Painting

We had art and craft time today since we were snowed in. Sophia loves to paint so I thought we would try another technique that I love painting with feathers. She loved it and wanted to make two paintings which are shown here. These might even be frame worthy. 

Sophia's ladybug heart craft

We are celebrating valentine's day this week by making heart shaped animals. Sophia is gluing her ladybug together.





She is placing the eyes on the ladybug.




Look it is all done.



Hugging her ladybug.


We are focusing on a color a day. Today's color was you guessed it Red!  I chose red since the craft I had planned for today was red. Not only did we make this ladybug, we also had fun gathering things around the house that were red. I gave Sophia a basket and told her to walk around the family room and her room and find everything she could find that was red. She found her stuffed heart that Grandpa gave her last year, Elmo, a red stuffed crab toy, her ladybug craft shown above, a red bucket, and of of course my red cell phone.  Lucky for me, I saw here put that one in the basket so it wasn't lost for long.
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Winter activity making a snowman

It snowed today and we are supposed to get more snow this evening so today we talked about snow and we watched it outside the window. Sophia said to me that it is snowing so Santa Claus can come. Then, she launched into a song of "O Christmas tree". It was pretty cute. I had to gently tell her that santa would not be back for a long time and not to worry about it.

To keep her out of trouble we did a craft. She spread glue on the snowman picture and sprinkled snow confetti on it as pictured. She enjoyed it until the snow stuck to her hands as a result of the glue on her hands.


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Hearts in Hands Valentine's for the family

I thought it would be fun to make Valentine's Cards for the family from Sophia.  I usually just buy cards but now that Sophia is a little older and loves to paint and glue, I thought we would try something different.  She is not able to use scissors yet for several reasons so I did all the cutting.  So Here is the result.   First, I took Sophia downstairs and told her we were going to do some finger painting. Her face lit up with excitement. Not only does she love the word "paint" she gets to put her hands in it too. Hotdog!  I placed the construction paper on the table and dipped her hands in the paint.  We placed them on the construction paper in the shape of an upside down heart several times to make all the Valentines we needed.  She loved this process but told me she needed a towel to clean her sticky hands.

We let that dry overnight downstairs so no one would touch it.  Before letting her go to bed I traced around her hands on craft foam for more handprints.  Then, I cut those out and made several copies of the the handprints for each Valentine.  I cut those out while she was sleeping along with the construction paper hearts so they would be ready for her to glue together.

You can see pictured here gluing was messy and lots of fun.  She was happy to glue the hearts on the craft foam and then place the hands as if the handprint hearts were being held by her own hands, the handprint foam pieces.

Here she is gluing the hands on the finger painted handprint hearts.

Messy Chocolate Donuts, a Tool, and the Deal

I don't usually let Sophia have chocolate donuts for breakfast but I thought it might be something different so I bought these this week. I am beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea.  While I was on the other side of the house, Sophia took her donut from the table and sat on the couch with a slight detour through the kitchen.

She has never seen this orange squeezer used so she has no idea of how it is used. However, as you can see she has found a use for this tool.  She poked the juice squeezer into her donut to use it as a handle so her hands wouldn't get sticky.

Too bad she couldn't figure out a way to keep from getting orange and chocolate all over her face and the couch.

These pajamas are a bit too long for Sophia so while I was on the other side of the house, Sophia and her daddy negotiated a DEAL. This conversation was told to me later.
 Daddy said to Sophia, "I think you should let me wear those pajamas because my legs are longer and they will fit me.  They are too big on you."
Sophia replied, " Daddy buy these pajamas."
Scott told me that she meant he would have to buy them from her because she wasn't giving them up without money. I have to admit, she is a great shopper and knows things cost money.
When I came back into the room, Scott told me that he was going to buy the pajamas from Sophia and that he would wear them from now on.
 I laughed and asked "How much is she charging you for them?"
He looked at Sophia and asked, "How much money do you want for me to buy your pajamas?"
Sophia replied," 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!"
Daddy said "Okay, I will give you $5 for them!"
This was so cute that I just had to share.  

Valentine's day crafts

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Sophia wanted to paint tonight so after we made valentine's for the family, I let her paint with the remainder of the paint.



Concentrating on dipping the brush into the paint.


She exclaimed, "I like to paint!"

A mommy has to wonder why is it when you need you kid to take a nap, they don't. Then, when you have activities planned for the afternoon, your kid sleeps for over three hours. I just don't get it.


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Dueling stand mixers

Opening the brownie mix

Reading the directions on the back of the box

Mixers mixing at full speed, brownies are on the way

Oops, someone might have sampled the brownies a little bit early.  

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