Happy 1st Day of Spring

We planted some bluebonnet, lavender, and chive seeds to grow on our patio this year and Lizzy helps water them every morning. She helps with so many tasks on a daily basis I'm thinking of making a sort of chore chart with rewards for everything she helps with during the day. About a month ago I though she was too young for something like that but now I see how many things she helps with and I know she loves stickers so that may be a good reward to encourage her helping and good behavior.

Cookie and Milk

Lizzy didn't have school this past week because she's on Spring break but these are a couple pictures of Lizzy after school last week. She had yummy chocolate chip cookies and milk waiting for her at home. I love to surprise Lizzy with something after she comes home from school and after her naps. Lizzy is always extra cute and happy when she comes home from school or wakes up from a nap.

Quincenera

We didn't take very many picture at the quincenera last night just these at the fountain outside. Everything was beautifully decorated almost like a wedding. Lizzy did great she would freak out when the DJ would speak on the loud speaker and for some reason she got scared of the camera man. We stayed for a while but left in time to get Lizzy to sleep on her usual routine.

Birthdays!

Today is Lizzy's grandma Walworth's birthday! Happy Birthday!!! Lizzy hopes to see grandma Walworth in a couple months for her 2nd birthday. With Lizzy's birthday being a couple months away I have started making some of the birthday decorations for Lizzy's Birthday Luau. This is what I have been working on:

It's a reusable felt birthday banner. I cut out the felt letters, squares, and made the flowers out of felt. I wanted to sew it but with a toddler always around it's very hard because she wants to press the sewing pedal any chance she gets so I opted to glue gun the whole thing together as fast as I could. We'll see how long the banner lasts. I intended it to be reusable so maybe once I get a chance I can go back and sew it.

Tonight we went to a quincenera party (15th birthday) for a girl I use to babysit. It almost doesn't feel real how time flies. The last time I babysat this girl she was 3 years old, and today she is 15! In my mind it feels like yesterday that I was babysitting and playing with this little girl who was 3 at the time and only about a year or a little older than Lizzy is now. I hope time doesn't fly that fast with Lizzy. I want to enjoy and remember every year with her.

That being said, enjoy every day/year you have to the fullest!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We're not Irish that I know of but celebrating St. Patrick's Day is just fun for us. Today we had lots of activities planned to celebrate. First we decorated a tablecloth with shamrock prints using a sliced bell pepper, a white table cloth, and some green fabric paint. We are using this tablecloth for our corned beef St. Patrick's Day dinner later.

After that we went to the park to pick clovers and play.

After Lizzy's nap I had a counting activity waiting for her. Each shamrock has a number and the corresponding number of dots. Lizzy had to get the right number of trix cereal ball on the dots then she could eat the trix as a treat.

Bella would sneak in and take the trix

Hope everyone wore green and had a fun St. Patrick's Day!

Homemade Chalk Paint

As I've probably shared before, Lizzy really enjoys painting and she asks to paint everyday and everyday we paint. I think it's great for children to paint or do some creative activity everyday so I want to make that available to her whenever she feels like painting in different mediums. I made some homemade chalk paint for our patio area.
I made the chalk paint with water, cornstarch, and food coloring all mixed together. I didn't use any specific recipe but about 1 cup water, 1/2 cup corn starch and 5 or so drops of food coloring. `
Lizzy enjoyed painting on the patio area. I keep things she can play with when she's out in the patio area in this basket pictured. Things she has in the basket are bubbles, different bubble wands, sand and water toys, a watering can, some clean up rags, chalk, and now chalk paint and brushes.
After any activity we do Lizzy helps clean up. This chalk paint comes right off and doesn't stain hands or clothing.

Lizzy in the Kitchen

Lizzy LOVES helping in the kitchen. Today Lizzy made a St. Patty's day lunch for herself. It was a shamrock cheese pizza and a green colored rice krispie treat. The shamrock pizza was cheese and a sliced bell pepper on a pita bread baked in the oven.

Lizzy ate all her lunch but of course she ate the rice krispie treat first.

Yum!

This is Not my First Rodeo

This is the last week of the Livestock Show and Rodeo here in Houston and we finally made it to the Rodeo. It was an almost perfect day to go. Grandpa, grandma Tita and I were all free on a Monday when it's less crowded and the fact that it rained earlier in the day made it even less crowded. Lizzy had everything to herself and there was no waiting to see anything.

I think Lizzy was in a bit of shock to see all the farm animals she loves in one place.

Lizzy especially loved seeing the baby piglets she said she wanted to give them a hug.

Lizzy also enjoyed seeing the baby chicks. She seemed very excited to see chicks!

We have pictures on our computer of different rabbits and Lizzy was very surprised to see actual live rabbits.

Lizzy petting a rabbit

Looking at small animals

Grandma Tita and Lizzy

Lizzy and I went into the petting zoo area and Lizzy was a little unsure about petting the animals. As Lizzy walked into the petting area she accidentally stepped on a goats leg, the goat didn't flinch but Lizzy got freaked out. Eventually she pet a few goats and happily waved bye bye to the animals.
We had fun as a family. Lizzy is learning and growing so fast that this visit to the rodeo is very different than last year's visit. Last year Lizzy was a small infant riding in my baby wrap just looking around at everything new to her, this year Lizzy walked most of the time and was identifying animals and their noises, she also ate the same food we adults ate and enjoyed being together with family. Every year Lizzy will grow, learn, and understand more and more. Every moment with Lizzy now is precious time, she will never be this age again.

Easter Basket

I know it's early and maybe it's because it's early spring and Lent has started but I made Lizzy's Easter Basket already. I don't like to wait until the last minute and I try to get things done early so I have time to do other activities with Lizzy when the time comes. But I thought I would share what's in her Easter basket for anyone looking for ideas on a toddler Easter basket.
Inside Lizzy's Easter Basket:

• Bunny hand puppet (Lizzy has sooo many stuffed animals but no puppets so I thought this was a better idea than another stuffed animal)
• Chick finger puppet
• Alphabet and first words flash cards
• Kazoo
• Kid size gardening tools and gardening apron
• Strawberry planting kit
• Easter rubber duck
• Egg Coloring Kit
• Summer Board Book
• New swimsuit and Hula Skirt
• Bubbles
• Bingo dot pens (I hear toddlers love these)
• Peeps (I didn't want to include any candy or sugary treats but I changed my mind she can try peeps since she loves marshmallows).

I got most things at amazon.com, the rest at dollar tree and target. I love shopping online because I can find things I want for Lizzy that they don't have in stores. I also love the dollar tree and target dollar bins for seasonal small gifts great for easter baskets.

Toilet Learning Continued...

Lizzy is still toilet learning but the good thing is she absolutely loves it the bad thing is she doesn't have to go very often and when she does she doesn't go in the potty. Right now it's more of an activity for her to put her underwear on and sit on the toilet or potty and she thinks it's a fun game. As parents I think we need more patience and time dedicated to this because at most she's in her underwear about an hour at a time then we switch her back into her diaper. The good thing is she is interested and learning about the potty. She can now pull her underwear and diaper on and off, she knows when she has to go and tells us once she's gone, she knows her potty books and tells us "bye bye diaper" when she's got her underwear on. I see some progress in her toilet learning.

Color Sorting

Lizzy helped me paint some egg cartons for some activities we have planned. We used sponge brushes, washable paint and egg cartons. I can't stress how important washable paint is because Lizzy managed to unscrew a bottle of this paint and poured it all over the carpet in her room while I was gone for 1 sec! When I went back into the room she kept saying "purple, purple, purple" she had spilled the purple paint everywhere! The good thing is it was washable paint and we have a stream vacuum cleaner that got it right up.
These round sponge brushes are great because Lizzy is able to dip the brush in the paint and stamp the color right into the egg carton.

This is the egg carton Lizzy painted. We used it to sort her colored lacing beads.

These lacing beads have been great for Lizzy she uses them to learn her colors, count, name shapes, and she laces them, the string is also very long so she walks around pulling the laced beads like a pull toy.

Girly Girl

Grandma "tita" loves make-up, fashion, and all that girly stuff and of course when Lizzy goes to grandma's house she gets into all the make-up and goodies on the vanity. Grandma tita did Lizzy's hair and Lizzy was telling everyone she looked "pretty". I tried to but her hair in a pony today and she took it right out.

Lizzy is developing quite an imagination, at home she pretends her butterfly castanet is a makeup compact and pretends to but makeup on.