Busy Day!

Busy...but fun!



As you can see from this picture, my "tot school" grew to 4 kids today! Kellen was here for the day, and then David and Owen were here for a few hours. They had so much fun playing with each other. We even got to play with water guns outside with my neighbor Tisha and her son, Alex.

When we got back inside, Emma, David, and Owen really enjoyed playing with beads. This is something I've been doing with Emma to try and help her learn to scoop better. The boys loved doing this too. David especially enjoyed showing Emma how to scoop into the different containers. Kellen enjoyed watching all of the big kids, but they eventually wore him and and he fell asleep.

This was such a cute picture of Owen and Emma!

David was also able to string the beads onto pipe cleaners.

Brothers playing together!

They all did so well working to keep the beads on the blanket and played together really nicely. Emma had been so cranky this morning; I think she was just looking for someone her own size to play with her!

Strawberry Picking

A few weeks ago Emma and I got to go strawberry picking at a local farm with our friends from church. Emma had so much fun that we had to go back with Daddy!


The first time we went, it took Emma a while to realize that the red things we were picking were actually strawberries (which she loves)

But this time, the first berry she picked went right into her mouth!

She did a great job picking again, and Martin and I had a good time too. It may be just because its still early in the season, but there were tons of strawberries on the bushes and they were all beautiful.

We will definitely be going back again!

Tot School

Emma is 16 months old. Read more about Tot School at 1+1+1=1!

Here's a look at what we did last week:

I watch our friends' son a few days a week, and Emma loves "helping" with him and getting in some practice for when her little brother or sister comes in a few months. She loves to give him hugs and is learning to play with him.

She entertained him with a rattle, and worked on putting the rattle in his hand when he dropped it.

Emma has really begun to notice different things outside, like planes and helicopters, as well as the dump trucks in our neighborhood. When we are out in the car I point out school buses to her and she says "bu". She has really enjoyed playing with her Playskool School Bus. She makes a "brrrrrr" motor sound, and will push the bus back and forth with me. We also look for buses out the back windows of our house in the mornings.

We have been working on a few animal sounds this week, specifically for cow and sheep. Emma enjoys her farm animal Melissa & Doug puzzle, and we work on the cow and the sheep while she puts the puzzle together. I also found an ipod app of baby flash cards that has a cow and a sheep, so we use those pictures as well.

Emma already loves music so much, but has had little exposure to dancing, so several days this week we watched the Barn Dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (one of my favorite musicals). Emma loved to clap along to parts:

She also tried her hand at a little bit of square dancing. This was the first time that she has ever tried to dance with her feet (usually she just does a little head bop to the music). During the worship music at church Sunday, Emma had her foot stomp going too!

2010 Book List

Last year I managed to keep track of all the books I read pretty well, but this year I was hoping to do a little better. I recently added an Amazon widget on the right of the blog that has all of the books that I've read so far this year. I'm hoping this will help me to really keep track of them and keep me motivated to read, read, read!

I am always open to recommendations, so if you have suggestions, let me know!

Tot School

We've been introducing a few activities every week that have more structure and are intended to specifically develop skills with Emma. We've been doing this for a while now, but I was inspired to record it better because of the blog 1+1+1=1 and the Tot School feature.

Emma is 16 months, and here is what we did last week:

Emma loves books, especially her alphabet Baby Einstein books. She enjoys going through the books on her own, but she will also point out pictures she knows to us. She has memorized the books that have certain body parts (nose, hands, and even hat) and will point to her nose, etc, before we turn the page.



She has learned to take the books out of the little box, but does not do as well putting them back without help. Cleaning up is a skill we are working on too.

Emma also enjoys when I make a "reading nook" for her with blankets and pillows. She nestles in and will go through a huge basket of books, reading and talking to herself.

I've been trying to think of activities that will help her develop fine motor skills for eating, so we worked on scooping beads with measuring cups. Mostly Emma picked up the beads and put them in the scoops with her hands.

We also used cups to dump the beads, but she didn't enjoy that as much as having all the beads in a large bowl to start off.

Emma is getting very good at doing puzzles. She has several Melissa and Doug wooden puzzles, and is best at the shapes one right now. She can almost always match the piece to the right spot, but is not always able to get it in the hole. We've seen a lot of progress with this lately, though, so it won't be much longer!

Emma loves music, and has started recognizing different instruments in books and then signing music. We've done this project a few times: I put on some music and write the word music on a paper. Then she picks out some foam music stickers to put on her paper. She loves sticking the stickers down.

Mom's Favorite from the week:

I love how much she loves to read and be surrounded by a pile of books. Since she's content to sit and read on her own for a time now, we can sit and read together :-)

17 Weeks

I am now 17 weeks along and we have an ultrasound scheduled for June 3rd, where we will find out if we are having a boy or a girl! I was hoping to get a belly picture taken a few weeks ago to show the difference from my pregnancy with Emma and this time. The closest I was able to get is 15 weeks with Emma.

These pictures were both taken at 17 weeks. The first one is probably a bit closer to my actual size, but I might have been sucking it in a bit. The second one is larger than I actually am because apparently I hold my breath when I'm getting my picture taken, which means I suck in a deeeeeeep breath before the shot, hence the larger belly.

Time with Grandmom

Last weekend we also spent time with Martin's mom on Saturday. We visited a place called Union Mill. Its a beautiful old farm with an operational mill. There was a flower show going on that day that we went to see.

The Mill house:

 

and giant wheel

It ended up being a lot hotter than we thought that day and Emma was totally exhausted by it.

Emma enjoyed the shade under Grandmom's trees much better

Emma especially enjoyed picking flowers and tasted a dandilion (we told her to smell it had she stuck the whole thing in her mouth!)

Orioles Game!

On Friday we headed to Baltimore to go to the Orioles game with my parents. They had been given 4 club level tickets and asked if we wanted to come, even though we had just traveled the weekend before....yes!

We got to take Emma to her first game in September last year, and she did great as an 8 month old, but she enjoyed it so much more this time. We got some pictures with some of the large numbers of O's hall of famers.

Cal of course,

and Brooks (who I got to meet once!)

Emma enjoyed some hot dog. She takes itty bitty bites (not sure where she got that from...)

A picture of us!

My soft pretzel was an O shape!

The Yard

And Emma enjoyed ice cream from an O's hat-cup.

To top it all off, the Orioles beat the Red Sox in the bottom of the 10th inning! What an exciting game! Emma loved clapping and cheering and was such a trooper because it did get really late. But we even got a smile for a final picture.

Baking with Mommy

Emma is fascinated by the mixer. But the licking the beater is by far her favorite part!

Not to worry - it was bread dough (no raw eggs!)