The One With April & May's Craft Line Up

As I mentioned in my last post, we've been creating a lot more than usual.  It's been fun & some things were helpful, so I thought I would post about it.

We made a doll house out of card board for Paige's smaller toys. Thanks to a similar idea from Pinterest.

It's not quite as pretty as the pinterest version, but we had fun making it together, so that's all that matters, right?

I felt like Paige was wanting to watch tv more than I would like (thanks to her getting sick), so I decided it was time for an intervention... well an intervention of sorts :)  I was ready to teach her some responsibility & some work ethic (as much as you can teach a 3 year old), so I decided she was old enough for a chore chart.  

I saw this idea & decided to tweak it a bit.  I used a larger paper & Velcro (because that's what I had on hand).  I used the chore images from this cute idea.  I debated on doing the latter (and still might one day), but I thought this one would work a bit better for now.  Her chores are: go potty, brush her teeth, eat breakfast, get dressed & read scriptures.  It's rough being a 3 year old... :)

We do our "chores" first thing in the morning then she can play &/or watch a little bit of tv.  She really loves it.  She goes to get her chore chart every morning (without me mentioning it) & then she tells me which order we are going to do things.  She really loves closing each one as she finishes it.  

*a word to the wise:  after a while, this chart will get pretty worn out.  I was considering laminating it, but didn't think that would work well with the folds, so I just reinforced the folds with tape on the inside and outside.  It's worked well.

Along those same lines, I wanted to encourage her to want to help more (instead of just wanting to watch tv), so I made a helper chart.  I put pictures of different Disney movies where they are helping to clean.  She gets a sticker every time she helps & she loves it.  I even let her pick between watching tv & helping with dishes or laundry occasionally & she often chooses to help me.

You're welcome to download it here.

In preschool, they are working on name recognition, so when I saw this idea, I had to jump on it.  It's basically like a puzzle of her name & she matches it.  I laminated it & used the Velcro again.  She's awesome at it, but it's still fun for her.

I also saw this idea, and loved it, so I tweaked it a bit & made my own.  It's a binder with some dry erase crayons (in a pencil case) with some pages I printed off (info below) on card stock for her to trace.  

Apraxia can make it really hard for kids to write (their brain has a hard time telling their body what to do even though they want it), so I decided to use it to help her learn to write (especially her name).  Since I made this last month, I've noticed a difference in her drawing, too... it's not just scribbles anymore, so I guess this has paid off!  

I made some pages that had pictures of each person in our family, with their name written below a few times so she could practice writing all of our names.  I just used Word & copied & pasted some custom handwriting work sheets.  I think it was this one, if I remember correctly.

It also allows me... ahem, Paige to use her creativity...

A: Name & First Letter Page Trace found here

B: LDS Church & General Conference Pages found here

C: Hidden Pictures found here

D: Trace-able Pictures & Shapes found here

I will also be adding this one to the book soon & will continually be adding more as she gets older.

I also made some sign language thank you cards to give (tied to their bananas to give to the people who joined us for the 2013 Apraxia Walk).  On the front was a picture of Paige saying thank you in sign language (her hand moved in that way & on the back it said 'Thanks! Love, Paige' in traceable writing so Paige could practice writing her name.  

I kind of loved how they turned out & I'm nervous for how I'm going to top them for next year!  They may or may not have been a big hit.  :)  Good thing I have a whole year to figure it out.

For mother's day & teacher appreciation day, I decided to have Paige do a little something for her preschool teachers & for some of her grandmas.  Of course my idea stemmed from yet another idea on pinterest, but as usual, I tweaked it a bit for us.

I just wrote some prompts, asked Paige what she wanted to fill in, then I wrote it for her.  So far the teachers have loved it & I am sure the grandmas will, too.

Paige also learned how to write her P's all by herself & on the Mother's Day cards for her first time, too!  I can't think of a better time to learn.  :)  She's got pretty great timing.  I'm super proud of her & I guess some of the activities above have been working!  

PS - I linked up here, here, here, here, here & here.  :)

The One With April's Friday Photo Dump

Another month has come & gone!  Thank heaven that we can take pictures on our cell phones (even if they aren't the best quality) so we can capture more memories!  

This month started with Rick's 30th birthday.  We had a few fun little celebrations & Paige even got in on helping Rick celebrate...

We also got a bunch of new books this month, so we had fun reading them all!

Paige & Lindsey officially had their first bath together (I can call this officially, right?)

& they had a lot of fun playing together.  It's so fun to see them interact more every day.  Oh, and Z has almost mastered sitting up!

Speaking of Lindsey, she's 4 months old now!  

 

We of course had Paige's Apraxia Walk (Thanks again to everyone who showed support in one way or another!)

I took the girls on Trax to visit daddy at work & have lunch with him.  That was a pretty big accomplishment for me :)  I'm glad we did it, though.  It was lots of fun.

As usual we enjoyed watching for daddy to come home from work, but this time we had a helper!

My trusty, dusty old Kitchen Aid died on me the other day... but then it was... resurrected?  Well, I guess that's not the right word because it still isn't perfected yet :)  But it came back to life for now.  Thank heaven, I use that thing multiple times each week.  Rick bought it at a yard sale when we were barely married for $25 ... steal?  I think so!

Rick started playing flag football again, and luckily the weather was perfect!

We "crafted" quite a bit this month, too, but we can post about that another time.  

And here's one more for the road... can you spot Lindsey?

(Paige piled all of her dolls on top of Z & me one day, it was kind of hard to tell which one was the real baby!)

The One About The Apraxia Walk

Yesterday we had our Apraxia Walk for Paige.  It was so much fun!

We had 30 people register for the walk & we raised $890 for Team Paige... amazing!  Originally when I found out about the walk, I just thought it would be Rick, Paige, Lindsey & myself, so I was thrilled when the numbers kept growing.

I cannot get over how supportive everyone has been.  We had lots of people who couldn't make it who even donated money for Apraxia.  That was so generous of so many people!  I feel so blessed to have been surrounded by so many people who love Paige.

Our day started out very cold & wet.  Luckily, towards the end of the day, it warmed up quite a bit & ended up being a pretty nice day!

We wanted to have a little Team Paige pride, so I put my thinking cap on.  Paige & Rick like to wear bandannas  so we bought bandannas for everyone on our team & made some really cute sign language thank you cards to attach to the bandannas as a thank you present of sorts...

We also brought t-shirt markers because I wanted everyone on our team to sign her t-shirt.  Some of us also wrote Team Paige on the back of our shirts, too.  Brittany (Paige's aunt) made a little boo boo... can you see it on one of the pictures below??  Funny! 

I was hoping to get pictures of Paige with everyone who came, but I failed on that one.  Oh well, I did get the following pictures, though...

 Here's the majority of our team... 

And of course we have to do a silly picture, too!

And then it was off on the actual walk.

Thank you again, so much to everyone who came &/or donated.  My heart is so full of appreciation for you!

The One With March's Friday Photo Dump

We had yet another busy month.  It's a good thing I post about our previous months on this blog, or else I would forget so many things we do!  

The month started with my grandma's passing & funeral.  Although I will miss vising with her terribly, I am so happy for her.  Happy that she is free from her frail body & even happier that she gets to be with her husband after almost 37 long years.  

Because of her funeral, my brother & his family came into town, so we spent a lot of time with my family.  We went out for sushi...

We fired up the smoker...

And my girls got some good grandpa time in...

Paige has been having so much fun at preschool.  She loved learning about dinosaurs...

And she really liked Green Day...

We LOVED the week with beautiful weather (at the beginning of the month)!  I decided one day that I would be a bad mom if I didn't postpone nap time & get us outside.  So, we got out our wagon (which I LOVE), walked to the park, had a picnic  then played for a bit before heading back home for naps.  It was awesome & it was Lindsey's first time really being out side.  She seemed to really enjoy it, too.

Paige has been so excited about Easter (I think it's because I told her it's kind of like Christmas).  We made an Easter count down, visited the Easter Bunny & had fun pretending to be an Easter Bunny.  She recently added thanking Heavenly Father for the Easter Bunny in her prayers (and yes, she is still thanking him for Ho Ho Ho, too).

Paige got back into books again, so we've been reading a lot...

And the fun doesn't stop there... we had a tea party...

Lindsey has learned how to play & started laughing this month.  It's been fun to interact more with her & watch Paige play with her.

Z has had a bit of a rough month, though.  She has been getting pretty fussy & we are trying to figure out why exactly.  Besides that, though, she's been so fun.  I love her smiles, her laughs & her pouty, sleepy lips.

Z also had her 100th birthday this month (100 days old)... time sure has flown by!

This month we have also watched this bebe grow like a weed.  I put her in some size 12 month clothes and she fit in them!  I'm sure she doesn't fit in all of that size, but sheesh, dude.  I'm not used to this big baby thing, but I love every roll she has!

We also enjoyed taking a break from boring house chores to have a dance party.  It was just what the soul needed after a long day with a fussy baby.  :)

We also were able to take a break from life towards the end of the month & play outside some more, too.  (can you tell getting out of the house is kind of a big deal around here?)

We went to an Easter egg hunt with some of Rick's family.  It was lots of fun to watch Paige because she got about 3 eggs in her basket and then she realized that there was stuff in the eggs, so she decided to stop & look instead of getting lots more first.  This picture says it all...

Here are the rest of the pictures from the Easter egg hunt.   

Next month we are looking forward to playing outside more in the nice weather, celebrating Rick's 30th birthday, and participating in our Apraxia Walk for Paige. It should be a fun month!