Happy Birthday Daddy!

Lizzy woke up early this morning to help bake her daddy a birthday cake, once it was baked and frosted Lizzy was very interested in having some.

Yum

Afternoon at the Park

Lizzy loves the playground

Fall Sensory Tub

It's starting to feel like fall here in Houston. We have had a very hot summer this year and today the temperature finally dropped with a high of 79 and low of 57 it was a nice day out. To celebrate fall's arrival I created a fall sensory tub for Lizzy to explore. Her favorite part was scooping the popcorn kernels.

Here's what's inside:

Silk Leaves

Plastic Pears

Styrofoam Pumpkins and Gourds

Wooden Pegs

Autumn Crystals

Popcorn Kernels

Oatmeal

Rocks

Scoop and Spoon

Toilet Learning

Lizzy peed in the toilet for the first time today!

We've taken the toilet learning approach with Lizzy early on. Toilet learning was introduced to me through Montessori methods which says there are sensitive learning periods for different things but for toilet learning it is before 18 months (some say 18-24 months) and another sensitive period at age 3. These sensitive periods are times when it's easier for the child to learn that particular skill.

In our case we tried cloth diapers for a time so that Lizzy could feel the wetness if she went and was aware of that whereas with disposable diapers the wetness is kept away from the skin. Another thing we have done is get a small size potty and have that out for her to sit in if she wants. From the time Lizzy started walking at around 11 months she has sat in the potty on her own. This may be too much information to some but since babies learn through imitation we have always let her be in the bathroom when we go. This has sparked a huge interest for Lizzy.

Within that past month Lizzy has shown signs of readiness by letting us know when she pee pees or poo poos, she will say that and point to her diaper, she will also go to the bathroom when we say potty, she's learned to take pieces off the toilet paper roll and tries to wipe then puts it in the toilet, and she's learning how to wash her hands. Flushing the toilet is a big reward for her.

Lizzy has shown a bigger interest in using the actual toilet rather than the potty so just yesterday we got a smaller toilet seat for her and put the step stool in front of the toilet and she climbed right up there and sat down. Today we actually took her diaper off and let her sit there on her 3rd try she peed in the potty! I hope she keeps learning at this pace. Lizzy has a strong interest in the toilet and likes learning anything that allows her to be more independent. Toilet learning allows the child to explore and learn at their own pace and be more independent.

Fall Nature Table

It's the 1st day of Fall today! The nature table is still in the works as we plan to take nature walks as much as possible and fill the table with our bounty but for now here is the starting phase of the table.

I made this little gnome with some felt and a wooden peg person

Apple harvest seasonal postcard

I got Lizzy this Autumn book for her to look through since she loves books. It's a 12 page wordless board book filled with illustrations of children doing autumn type activities.

Rhythm is important for how we live. The nature table is a way to keep seasonal rhythm in the home and bring outside nature inside.

Fun Grocery Shopping

Lizzy was ready to go grocery shopping, she took her little purse and everything! Ha!

She likes to wave and say hi to everyone at the store

Driving the cart

Lunch at Mr. Gattis

Going to lunch has definitely changed since Lizzy has become mobile we now have to pick places that are VERY kid friendly because she wants to run around and play. One of those kid friendly places is Mr. Gattis where we went to lunch with grandma. Here she is riding some of the rides.

This spinning clown sure did spin fast!

In the yellow car

Lizzy loved this ice cream truck!

Family Day at Johnson Space Center

We're back online! Today, we went as a family to Johnson Space Center for an event that allows family members of employees access to certain buildings that would otherwise be off limits. We had a good time and learned a lot, Lizzy had fun as well.

This is the misson control room used for the Apollo Mission

Grandma and Grandpa A near a mock up of the Space Station

Lizzy and Daddy at the robotics console at Misson Control

The family at the robotics console at Misson Control

Lizzy near a space suit

Walking through the mock ups of the Space Shuttle and Space Station

Grandpa and Grandma in the flight simulator, where presidents and actors have also sat when visiting.

Lizzy with space water pack

The toilet astronauts use to train on

Mommy deer and babies outside the buildings

Update

Our computer is down and out of order. I will not be posting until it's fixed. (hopefully by the weekend) Without the computer I cannot upload photos but before signing off I will give a quick update on us.

Lizzy is teething, she has 2 teeth breaking through and a surprise molar that I didn't know about! I haven't been able to really brush her teeth well enough so in addition to the tooth brush I use a washcloth over my finger with toothpaste and wipe her gums and teeth...that's when I discovered these new teeth! Thankfully, she hasn't shown much discomfort or teething pain. The necklace you see Lizzy wearing is an amber teething necklace which is suppose to naturally diminish pain caused by teething. I've read about it and I'm not completely sure how it really works but it works for us, we haven't used any Tylenol, teething gels or tablets with Lizzy since was 9 months and the one time we took the necklace off we noticed a difference and put it right back on.

Lizzy is learning so much day to day it's amazing how much babies and toddlers learn in so little time. Lizzy now climbs stairs, tries to repeats most words and loves loves to dance!

Something we are excited about is a parent/child waldorf group we joined that will start October 1st. The class is on Fridays and in the afternoon which makes it perfect for us. It's a mixed age group class from ages 15 months to 3 years old where we will sing, tell stories, bake bread and paint. I know Lizzy will have fun and I'm excited to meet other moms interested in waldorf education.

Well, I can't think of anything else new with us so I will sign off until the computer is back up and running.

Play Space

I finally organized Lizzy's playstand area with some toys and changed the toy shelf area in the living area.

Lizzy can play with her toys on the playstand shelf or on the floor, here she is:

This is a basket with dress up stuff like a playsilk, some hats, and other little dress up stuff she enjoys.

I put a basket of books, a geometric stacker toy, a basket of montessori toys, and her doll in a basket.

On the other side I put out a shape sorter, some more montessori toys, and some wooden tree blocks.

On the shelves out in the living area I have a music shelf, and a montessori type learning shelf.

These are the toys she has available to her now. I have put the rest of her toys in her closet to rotate them as she loses interest in the ones that are out. I also use the toys in the closet for rainy days. When Lizzy is fussy or not interested in anything that is out I will let her go in her closet and pick something new to play with. I find doing this really works well for us. But for the most part I'm trying to limit Lizzy's toys to simple toys that allow her to use her imagination, and challenging toys that give her a sense of accomplishment. I like combining waldorf and montessori toys because to me it's the best of both worlds. Imagination and learning through play.

Instead of napping....

Lizzy is obsessed with going outside, she will grab my hand and pull me off the couch to the door and say "bye bye", another thing she does is pull me to her closet to get her shoes and then to the front door so that we can go outside. She is quite demanding. Today, she didn't go down for her nap at the first attempt so I decided to take her to the park, where they have slides! She loves going down slides right now. Here she is enjoying herself:

1st Birthdays!

Today Lizzy and I went to Cate's 1st birthday party at chuck e cheese! Lizzy had tons of fun running all over the places, putting on cute shows for people, eating pizza and riding rides. I could hardly keep up with her! My favorite part was when Lizzy was waiting in line patiently to go down the slide, two kids were in front of her and she was behind them. Not too long ago she couldn't go down the slide on her own, now she can do it all by herself! My camera didn't have the memory card inside and I couldn't take any pictures, these are some pics the family took. Can you find us?

Later that night we watched the dvd my dad and brother made of Lizzy's first birthday party. With my dad's experience filming my mom's tv show and my brother's experience editing the show they but together a dvd of Lizzy's first birthday party for us to have. Lizzy's 1st birthday was only a few months ago but a few months makes a big difference! It's nice to have home videos to look back on.

What we're reading...

Lizzy has always had a strong interest in books, when we first started reading books to her she loved it and would bring book after book after book to us so that we could read it to her. Now that Lizzy is mobile she has baskets of books in different corners of our home that she will go to when she wants to "read". Today she was intensely occupied with her books for almost 10 minutes without saying a peep! That's a long time for her to be occupied with any one thing. She's now started to go to specific pages and actually saying what's on the page like "green" on the page that is green, "puppy" on the page with the puppy, and "bee" on the page with a bee. What surprises me is that we never hand her a book we just set books and other learning toys out in their specific areas and Lizzy's own curiosity to learn and explore develops.

This is the book that mommy has been reading:
I just finished reading this book and I'm really glad I read it because it covers so many basic issues through pregnancy and newborn to age six. So far it's the best parenting book I have read. It is waldorf inspired and encourages children to be children, and parenting from the heart. I would recommend this book to anyone with small children especially anyone interested in the waldorf philosophy.

Shooting Stars

I made some shooting stars to fill Lizzy's stocking this Christmas. My goal is to make handmade gifts for Lizzy and that requires planning and time to make the gifts so I have been coming up with ideas and making them when I get the time. These stars can be thrown in the air as shooting stars or whatever the child imagines in their play scenario.

To make these I cut out two big felt stars and two small felt stars in different colors then sewed them together by hand, I left a small opening to fill the star with wool stuffing. After stuffing the wool in the small opening I cut 8 strands of ribbon and glued them inside with no sew glue and closed the opening by finishing sewing that side. I simply glued the smaller set of stars on top of the larger stars with no sew glue. I'm not sure how these will hold up and they look a lot like our dog Bella's toys so we will see when the time comes if they actually hold up.

Tie Dye and Open and Close Boxes

After cleaning Lizzy's clothing drawers out I found that she had lots of white long sleeve onesies. She doesn't wear these anymore not because they don't fit but because it's not easy to keep her still to snap the snaps. I didn't want to throw them out so I cut them into long sleeve t-shirts and tie dyed them. Now Lizzy has some more pajama tops!

I used a tie dye kit that includes everything you need to tie dye 8 shirts. The kit is very easy to use and works very well.
Here is Lizzy in her tie dyed shirt, she is working on a montessori activity which is to open and close different boxes. She really enjoys opening and closing these small boxes.