Tot Week -

This week was pretty quiet. We stayed in from the cold and settled back into some normal routines. This is what we got accomplished this week:

Lil Diva had her first trip to the dentist. No cavities - everything looked great! She went with her daddy and, big surprise, she loved it! The dentist let her ride up and down on the chair. The hygienist showed her how all the tools worked. She has told me many times since then that she wanted to go back. I am so glad that it was a good experience!

Sometimes Mini Diva likes to be swaddles up like her little brother.

I tried to make Cook and Serve pudding for the Mini Diva to practice her letters in. Unfortunately, I was making baby food at the same time and it got a bit too lumpy. Luckily, she did not mind. She was more interested in mixing with a spoon than doing letters. She has really been into helping make meals lately.

The little smartie decided to build a cave for herself and Mini Dude. She put one of her blankets over the top of his activity center. They had a lot of fun underneath.

And nap time .... one of my favorite times of the day.

This week we also worked on numbers. I bought a darling sticker book at the bookstore. Mini Diva did a good job at putting the right amount of objects next to each number.

Tot School - Getting Back into the Groove!

I feel like our year is finally beginning! Goodbye 2009 and, most importantly, bronchitis! Last week we didn't get to do as much as we liked, but we still had a lot of fun. I would love to seek out the advice of my fellow Tot School Moms so I have a few questions:

1. How much time do you spend doing activities with your children versus allowing them to do self-directed activities? I see a lot of value for both types of activities, but I am unsure how to balance and schedule my days. For example, one day last week, I had a few activities planned. I was ready to start and noticed that my daughter was having a ball stacking and restacking plastic cups. A fun self-directing activity right? No way did I want to pull her away to do what I had planned. So do I just keep the mom/daughter activities for times when her own activities aren't engaging her? How do you plan out your day?

Perhaps I will just start out with this question today since it turned into such a big one. I would love any insight.

So here is our week in review:

Letters: Mini Diva LOVES stickers. She put all her Animated friends on the Letter A. She decided to put them all within the A on her own which I thought was cool :).

Imaginary Play: Mini Diva is getting more and more into dress up and often includes Mini Dude in her fun. This day it was sunglasses, last week he was Cinderella.

Life Skills: Number one priority has been helping her to be the best big sister she can be. We are working on using quiet, gentle voices when we speak to the baby. For the most part, she is a doting, loving sister. She loves to put his bink back in and often brings him toys to play with.

I have also been focusing on allowing her to help me in my chores more. This week Mini Diva:

• Made pancakes! She LOVES pouring and mixing. I can tell that she is getting more focused when we cook together. She was quite sad when I told her that she couldn't flip the pancakes, but she did enjoy counting to 3 and telling me when to flip them.
  
• Laundry. Transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer is something that Mini Diva enjoys doing.
• Putting dishes in the sink.
  

That is all for last week. This week is already proving to be better! Can't wait to post on Sunday!

Tot Week 2

I started the week out with an apple theme to keep us busy during Savvy Dude's new work schedule. However, we were hit hard with colds Monday through Wednesday so it was more of a relaxing and life learning week for us. Here is what Mini Diva has been up to and learning!

Once a week she goes to class at Little Gym. This week was bring a friend week so she brought her two cousins. I enrolled her in Little Gym because I love the equipment that they have for her to swing, play, jump, etc. on. It is also nice to have some one on one time with just her.

Mini Diva loves to roll in the donut. Or sometimes she just like to chill!

The parachute is definitely a favorite. While they were underneath they sang their ABCs together. Lily made it almost all the way through! She is getting so good at singing them!

I meant to do the Ten Apples on Top activity that I saw in last week's blog round up. However, being sick we never made it to the library. So Mini Diva decorated her picture with stickers instead.

This activity was not in the plans this week, but it was fun anyway! Mini Diva loves anything having to do with water and pouring. So we filled up one bowl with ice cubes and she transferred it from one bowl to the other. It kept her busy for almost a half an hour!

During what was supposed to be our apple week we explored the physical aspects of apples. She had fun quickly exploring their color, shape, and size. We were going to sort them into green and red bowls, but she got hungry. She loved having apple snacks all week!

Tot School this week

We're still getting the hang of having two under two so Tot School has been a little unorganized, but I am excited to get started this week on our apple theme!

Here is what we did this week with our Mini Diva:

State Fair

Our State Fair had a fabulous interactive Little Hands Interactive Farm Exhibit. Mini Diva was a little tentative at first, but warmed up to the whole concept. In this picture she is harvesting vegetables into her basket.

She also learned about taking care of sheep. She brushed her wool and then collected some from a basket. In other parts of the interactive farm she planted seeds, picked apples, and milked a cow. At the end she traded in her harvest for money to spend at the store. She was pretty happy to spend her money on chocolate milk!

Mini Diva also took her first Ferris Wheel ride with her Daddy - Savvy Dude. Each time it rounded the top she shouted out - awesome! amazing! cool! You can also see her well earned chocolate milk beard from the interactive farm exhibit.

We also checked out the animals. Mini Diva loved feeding the ponies.

She was also pretty proud of riding the pony all by herself!

But she wasn't quite sure what to think of this friendly cow!

However, she was enchanted with the rabbits and wanted to hold each one.


As far as day to day Tot School, we did do some Free Art Marble Mosaics. She enjoyed putting the pebbles into the play-doh.

We also enjoyed dancing and shaking her rice music maker along with some of her favorite songs.