Playtime

This is just a little playtime for me... I took some pictures of the flowers JD gave me for Valentines and played around with a little editing. I just thought I would throw this in here.

I found an idea for creative play on one of my favorite blogs here. I decided to try it and it didn't go anything like hers, but we had fun anyway. I decided to take a wack at overcoming my fear of messes to do this activity and I will admit it eventually got me when she started throwing the cheerios at the end so I had to do a quick clean up and vacumn to save my sanity.

 The goal of this activity is to get them to use tools to transfer the objects across to the other side. Cami decided first of all to eat them... I decided to use cheerios and chex that were getting a little stale since I wouldn't care about throwing them away after. Then when I tried to show her how to transfer, she took the whole bowl to the other side and dumped them back. 

 I tried with her weebles and that worked a little better.

 But mostly her favorite part that lasted for a good 15-20 minutest was simply dumping the mix from bowl to bowl and picking up the ones that dropped. Until she tired of that and simply dumped them all out and began scattering and mom had to quickly intervene.

I think once you get started with some of the more creative child play ideas it gets you thinking and you notice more opportunities to teach and ways to play and have fun. 

This past weekend JD and I got to go to the temple and it was wonderful. I always love going and feeling the peace and love I feel there. I know I definitely took for granted how close we were to the temple in Provo and it has taken more sacrifice to attend here but we have made it a priority and commitment to attend and I know it has and will continue to bless our family.

Fun and Games

Cami likes to play Zelda with her daddy when he comes home and needs an unwind. She is starting to enjoy watching movies/TV and it is sometimes a huge temptation not to let that entertain her. I have enjoyed several blogs that I have found on Pinterest that have given me some fun ideas. My biggest struggle is learning to let go of the making a mess thing. I am a little bit of a neat freak and I have to restrain myself from picking up everything and preventing Cami from playing with it. I have to take deep breaths when she makes large messes faster than a cyclone and remind myself that she is little and needs to have fun. For example when she pulls all of the towels out of the basket, dumps all my feminine products on the floor, then the cotton balls, then the q-tips and the toilet paper, which she likes to put a roll on each arm and sit in the now empty basket. Yes all this can be accomplished in the few minutes it takes me to put in my contacts and brush my teeth. She is however getting better about helping momma put it all back. 

She is getting a little better about playing by herself, except when she hasn't felt well, which regrettably has been often in the past 3 months going back and forth with a ridiculous cold. I think I have given up putting the humidifier away till April. 

JD is busy with his 3rd quarter! I can't believe how quickly this first year is going by. I am grateful for JD and how hard he works with school and how supportive he is. At least from my perspective he is enjoying what he is learning since it is so much more applicable to his future profession.

Cami is learning so much so fast. She is learning new words all the time and getting better at repeating and hopefully understanding me. Lately she has learned "al don" which is good and bad, since she often decides she is done before I want her to be done, like with brushing her teeth or eating her lunch. At least it gives me the warning signal to quickly remove the tray before she resorts to throwing/scattering her food. Last night in her bath she kept scooting all the toys around her saying "by by dutty" which I think means ducky. She has already memorized several of the words from the library books we got last week, and by the same token so have I since we can't get through the day without reading them at least 5-6 times.

 We discovered play dough last week and after some encouragement and helping on my part she is getting to like it. Here is the link to the recipe. I love the blog where I got it since it has some awesome ideas to entertain and teach your kids at the same time. 

 I found these among our Halloween costume bags and Cami had lots of fun with the sparking lights, which you cannot see in the photo.

Valentines Day and other fun stuff

I read an article on parenting the other day from a friend that definitely gave me some hope about my perspective on parenting ( you can read it HERE). I am not alone when I have rough days and think I am an awful parent. I have my "kairos" moments and that is what is important. Yesterday I had a whole bunch of them! Do you want to hear? 

1. Cami slept in and so I made heart pancakes and JD and I had a quiet breakfast

2. I got to take a nice shower before she woke up

3. Cami played so nice while I was getting ready. She brought her Elmo and Cookie Monster and baby into our room and danced around them laughing while I did my hair.

4. We got to be with friends at the zoo and most of the time she came back when I called her- she is always running off!

5. She took a nice nap so I could make a valentine scavenger hunt for JD and cheesecake for our dinner that night

6. It was beautiful outside so we went for a walk

7. JD gave me chocolates and a sweet card and a movie and flowers~! I am so spoiled.

8. We had a wonderful quiet candlelit dinner after Cami went to bed.

 This wasn't on Valentines but it was another kairos moment when  Cami and I dance. She loves to dance!

 JD's balloon scavenger hunt

 Our yummy cheesecake dessert- recipe HERE

 Cami with her Valentine.

 Cami making a valentine for Daddy

 Our Valentines day table!

 JD's scavenger hunt puzzle 

It was a wonderful day and I am so grateful for days like that!

Here is a funny video of Cami running

Cami playing with the balloons from JD's scavenger hunt! She loved them and screamed and played with them for at least 30 minutes! I am sure our neighbors thought we were torturing our child!

Egbert Theater

I decided to make some puppets out of socks that had holes in them and needed to make a theater to go with it. Just a cardboard box, some fabric and modge podge and a little fabric paint. I just used some wire to hang up the curtain. Cami doesn't really get the theater thing yet, but she likes to play with the box and the curtains and likes to put her fingers in the puppet's mouth.

She has started running toward the camera and cheesing every time we pull it out.

Definitely need to find some animal puppet patterns since I think she would like animal puppets better. 

Another Final Over

JD finished his second set of finals! YAY! It was a little rough but I am so proud of how hard he works. The extra lame part about finals is the long wait to see how he did since they are so tough to grade because they are pretty much all three hour essays. There is also no break in between quarters, so JD was back to school at 8 am this morning. We did have a nice relaxing weekend that involved lots of napping, my excuse was that I worked Saturday night :) We went out for lunch Friday to celebrate and went for a walk Saturday, but other than that we pretty much stayed home and relaxed.
We got rid of the binky the weekend before last which went very well. Cami looked in all the usual spots and kept saying "binky" and I just said "all gone" and she was ok with it. She fussed a little at naps and bed times for a couple days but not really any more than normal... our secret? About four months ago we had taken it away during the day and kept telling her binkys were for naps and bedtime. We would give it to her at church until she could go to nursery to keep the noise level down. (she has not discovered her "inside" voice yet). But other than that we didn't let her have it and she got over it. In fact she would often bring us the binky when she found it because she knew we would take it away anyway.
My other battle that I have just decided to give up is the bottle. Each kid has their special toy or blanket or binky, but Cami's is her bottle. I just cannot get her to take milk in any other container and she drinks a lot of milk. After an hour screaming, crying, pleading, bribing fest last week, and some other times in the past couple months, I gave up. We don't put her to bed with it and she drinks juice from a sippy, so I think it is ok. I just don't want to fight when it comforts her and is familiar to her. Eventually we will get there but it is not today or even the next month so I am not going to worry about it.
Cami gets a little shy about dancing when I get the camera out, but I wanted to try to get a video of her with her tutu. Hopefully I will get a better one in the future.

Cami found JD's hat one morning when I was getting ready and she loves to wear it. She frequently goes and finds it and puts it on. We caught some fun pictures of her wearing it yesterday.

I am enjoying work and learning to have a better attitude about the dreaded day after working all night. I am lucky to have a job, especially one I enjoy and have good people to work with. It is truly a blessing and I should not complain about it. Especially when there are so many who work full time and have kids and just deal with the lack of sleep.