Muffin Tin Monday

Today is Muffin Tin Monday!  Whoohoo!  And we're still in color themes.  This week is Blue/Purple foods.
I didn't actually plan at all for this one, and just rummaged around in the kitchen for something that would work.  So here you are...

We had Peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches, Yogurt turned blue, with food coloring (this was really exciting to Cameron), and purple grapes.  The grapes didn't get eaten (sad),  this used to be a favorite food.  And ofcourse I was thrilled to use my cute little blue muffin tins.

Next week is No Theme, so that always makes it easier!  Cameron still gets really excited when I tell him it Muffin Tin lunch day.   Hope you have a happy BLUE and PURPLE lunch.

Gotta love that cute little blue and purple face!
Be sure to stop by Muffin Tin Mom to see what everyone else ate that was blue and purple.

Change

The end of February brought a tremendous amount of snow to our lovely state.  So on a Saturday, while I was busy working, Nick and Cameron headed outside to play in the snow.   A while later I looked out the window to see that they had been busy, building a snowman.  Cameron's first snowman.  "Mine Snowman", he says.  

But then, as soon as the calendar changed to March, it started to warm up.  We've enjoyed lovely sunshine and warmer temperatures.  But it's not been so good for our snowman.

Here's what was left of Cameron's snowman at the beginning of the week.  As of yesterday, it's completely gone.  There's not much left of the snow anywhere now.  There's only mud, dry, dead grass, naked trees and salt smeared roads.  It all happened so quickly; the change.

We changed from Winter to Spring so quickly.  And now Winter almost feels like a distant memory.  I'm anxious for the days we'll spend playing outside, light spring jackets, rainstorms, and flowers.  All signs of springtime.

There is a lot of change heading down the road of my life.  If I try to sit and contemplate on it all at once, it feels overwhelming and insurmountable.  Some of the changes have already been conquered, and others are left unsaid.  Some change is good, like the birth of my daughter, and other change is difficult and sad.  But I trust that my heavenly Father will see me through all of these changes.  Just like He melts the snow and brings up tulips and buds on the trees.  I know that He will bring me into a new season of life, and it will be just as wonderful as the last.

Butterflies = Spring

Check out the West Michigan Mommy blog to enter for your chance to win tickets the Frederik Meijer Butterfly Garden.  I know my family is hoping win these tickets! 

Cameron was just 2 months old the first time he went (I think he slept through the whole thing).  I can't wait to take him, now 2 years old.  It's so neat to see your children experience something new.  Maybe Elissa will be awake for some of it too.  Happy Spring and good luck to all who enter in the giveaway!

What I Love About You - 4 Months

I can hardly believe that you are 4 months old already, Elissa.  You're my little pumpkin (since you were born in the fall).  Even though it seems I'm still learning to adjust to life with 2 children and all the chaos that creates, I can't imagine life without you anymore.  I love having you as a part of our family.  You bring us double the joy.

~ I love your big happy grin that you give me, just because you spotted me.  I love even more, the happy little giggle I get when I start talking to you.

~the way you chatter and gurgle.  Like you're really trying to having 'girl talk' with me.  It makes me excited to think about all the 'girl talks' we will have.  And hopefully shopping trips too. 

~I love that I can do a whole load of 'pink' and when I empty the lint trap on the dyer, it's all pink.  It always makes me smile.  I love to dress you up all girly.

~your bright and beautiful eyes.  And how they get so BIG when you're excited.

~And who couldn't love those cheeks.  Now I know why old ladies love to pinch cheeks.  But I just love to kiss yours.

~I love the way you bounce around in your jumperoo.  You are so free and happy in there.  I call it 'your happy place'.  You love to bounce in there as much as your brother did.

~the way that I can put a bow or clippy in the top of your hair, even though you're bald all around the rest of your head, from rubbing your head.

~I was so excited to put your hair in a little ponytail.   It was so adorable and you didn't seem to mind at all.  It's so cute just sticking straight up.

~ I love your large assortment of bibs.  I'm sure we wear at least 5 a day and 3 clothing changes a day right now.  You drool and spit up SOOOOO much.  But I know it means teeth are on their way.

~I love how strong you are becoming.  You love to sit up.  If we try to lay you back, or I place you in bouncy seat, you try to do a baby sit up and sit yourself upright.  I'm sure you'll be sitting up long before you start rolling.  You are similar to your brother in  your development.  

~I love how you can grasp all your toys now.  It makes play time so much more intriguing for you.

~how you hold your bottle.  It's one of my favorite times, snuggling and feeding you. 

~You are getting so much better at tummy-time these days.  It still doesn't last long, but you're doing great, holding you're head up at a 90 degree angle now.

~I love the ruffles on the butt of your pants.

~I LOVE the way you poke your bottom lip out and pout right before you start to cry.  Apparently you inherited this little trait from me.  And I can't help but laugh every time you do.  It's so cute. 

~You love to pull the little butterfly doll on changing table down, onto your tummy when I'm changing you.

~And I love how much you love your daddy.

See what other mothers love about there little ones by clicking the button below.

Muffin Tin Monday - Yellow

I got the coolest Muffin Tins!  I'm so excited.  I just happened to be visiting our Jo-Ann fabrics when they were having a big sale on Wilton Cake supplies.  I grabbed up a a bunch of the cute little muffin cups I've been drooling over in everyone else's blogs.  Today I got a chance to use our super cute yellow, flower muffin tins.  Because it felt like a sunny spring day in the morning and today's theme is the color YELLOW.

 

In these adorable little cups are Stick crackers, string cheese cut into bite sizes, peaches, a yellow bell pepper cut, and pineapple chunks.  In the very center of our little yellow flower is some Ranch dressing for dipping.  

I would have never thought to offer Cameron a pepper (I don't even like peppers).  But I just so happened to be browsing for yellow foods at the grocery store and was feeling adventurous.

 

 Cameron gobbled up the cheese, cracker sticks, and peaches.  But he wouldn't even grace the peppers or the pineapple with his spoon.  What a shame, I love pineapple. Yum.

So what did you have for lunch?  See what everyone else had at Muffin Tin Mom.

Tot School - Farm Animals

~Cameron is currently 25 months old~

For our first official Tot School I grabbed some materials from my supply boxes.  And it just so happened to be all farm animal related.  So we went with it.  Cameron is having an absolute BLAST doing Tot School.  He loves the time focused on just him, and is really soaking up all the learning and new things we're trying out.  I'm having a blast too.  I'm introducing a wide variety of activities to him to evaluate his skills and abilities.  

 Here's a picture of Cameron matching up baby and mommy animals.  He did fantastic at this, and made the correct animal noises for most of the animals.   Although he tends to get cow and horse confused sometimes.

 

I am a big fan of sign language.  Cameron learned some basic communication words when he was around 9 months old, which made expressing his needs much easier.  I have these great sign language cards that I purchased a year ago.  I pulled out some animals to go along with our theme for the week.  We ended up only learning horse, cow, pig and duck, because Cameron was losing interest.

 

I pulled out my felt board and a felt story that I had made back in my college days.  Cameron adored this.  The story we did was Cock-a-Moo Moo.  Cameron loved to put all the pieces up on the board as I told the story.  We also reviewed the names and noises of each animal.   I think he really enjoyed the tactile experience of this.  I'll definitely be creating more felt board stories and activities for us.

As part of our little "circle time", I decided to introduce some songs.  Now Cameron has never appreciated my singing.  As a baby, he cried louder when I tried to sing to him (sheesh, I didn't know my voice was that bad).  And as a 1 year old, he never seemed interested at all when I played music or sang.  So I was curious to see how he would do with music now.   He seems to "Bebop" around when he hears music on the radio or TV these days.  I started out teaching him The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  He loved it.  He attempted to sing with me a little, and did all the motions.  I was so tickled.  It was definitely the highlight of the week for me.  We also sang, If You're Happy and You Know It as well as Old McDonald Had a Farm.  I can't wait to teach him more songs now.

-

I scored these awesome books on clearance at our Wal-mart the other day.  They are Kumon Let's Sticker and Paste, Let's Cut Paper and Let's Color!  As much as I love homemade items, I was excited to find a more curriculum-like book.

 

 We tried out a page from the Kumon Let's Color book.  Cameron was supposed to color "ketchup" on the omelet on this page.  I was impressed by how well he did at staying inside the "omelet" area.  I am also extremely surprised by how he correctly holds his writing utensils already.  I've noticed that he grasps his crayons correctly, in the past, but always thought maybe it was a fluke.  Hopefully he doesn't lose this skill.

 

I am really noticing that Cameron has some fantastic fine motor skills.  I asked him to lace his beads and he did every. single. bead.  Here he is holding them all up for me.  I was so proud, and so was he.  I loved how hard he concentrated on this activity.

 

My solution for keeping the beads from slipping off the end of the string is to put a clothes pin on the end.  At first Cameron wanted to take it off, but quickly realized that without it, the beads would fall off.

 

We also did a dinosaur foam sticker activity (I know, it doesn't go with my farm animal theme).

He spotted this container of dinosaurs that I found at the dollar store, and was so anxious to get them out.  He REALLY loves stickers.  Unfortunately the backs were hard for him to get off by himself.  

I've been rummaging through all my old college school supplies.  I just found the box last week, and was delighted by all the goodies I forgot I had made in my Early Childhood Education classes.  I'm still working at getting everything organized and sorted.  Next week, we will be doing Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See.  I love this book and so does Cameron.  I'm so excited, because I have a lot of neat things planned.

Tiny Tots

Elissa is four months old now.  I can hardly believe it.  She is finally getting a bit happier with tummy time.   She's doing really well holding her head up at a 90 degree angle.  And she loves to grab at the toys that she wants now.  And of course, everything goes in the mouth.  If it's not a toy (as you can see she's trying to stuff the entire thing in her mouth here), then it's her hands.  I'm sure it will be a while before she's even interested in working on rolling over (just like Cameron did). 

 

What Elissa really loves to do is SIT.  If you try to lay her back, she does what I call a "baby sit-up".  Here she is exploring and grabbing some of her toys in he Bumbo seat.   

Click here to check out some great Tot School ideas and see what other moms and tots are doing during Tot School time.

Adventures in MommyLand - Good Behavior Charts

I think I'll start something new today.  I'm a mom and I love to glean wisdom from other mothers.  I love to read other mom blogs.  They're so smart, and I'm so thankful they share their ideas.  It inspires me.  So I too want to contribute to the mommy world of smart ideas, because you never know who you might help.  So begins my Adventures in MommyLand.  I hope you might find some inspiring ideas for your life here.

For my first Adventures in MommyLand post I thought I would share my newest idea.  It's still in trial, but seems to be going well.  You may have read other posts about my son, and how hard it has been for me to win the battle of control with him.  But I assure you, he is a sweet boy full of love and joy.  It's not all his fault.  He has a 4 month old sister, and adjusting to sharing his parents, home and toys is part of the rocky road.  I have noticed that a majority of the time his bad behavior starts when I'm feeding, changing or rocking Elissa.  I do my best to give Cameron every spare second I have, but it never seems to be enough.  I've come to the conclusion he is just going to have to get used to not being the center of the universe any longer.  In the meantime, time outs, whining, spankings, hitting, throwing and screaming are really starting to wear me down.  I constantly search for new ideas in the discipline department that will make an impact on this strong willed little boy.  I'm going to try focusing on his good behavior and praising him ALOT.  So we started something new yesterday; the Good Behavior Chart.

 

Cameron has a deep love for stickers.  He will sometimes do almost anything for a beloved sticker.  And I love that he loves stickers.  Although, he won't keep a sticker on his shirt.  He insists on carrying it around in his hand, and I have caught him twice now, attempting to place the sticker on the wall.  Not to mention, eventually the dog finds the sticker, and that makes Cameron very upset when she eats it.   So I found these great little incentive charts for him to place his stickers on.  Everytime he has good behavior like, playing nicely, doing what he told without arguing, etc, we put a sticker on the chart. Once his chart is full we'll make a special trip to the store to buy a Hot Wheel car.  You can do any small gift that you want, but Cameron adores little cars, and I adore that they are under a dollar.   He is loving it so far.  I really like how these charts are small.  I think that helps younger kids reach the goal sooner and helps them see how the reward relates to their behavior.  

Here's the incentive charts and stickers I purchased at our local teacher resource store. $5 total for both items, and so far it seems to be well worth it.

I Miss my Baby

Yesterday was rough mommy day.  I think Cameron was intentionally looking for things to get into that he knew he wasn't allowed to have.  Every 3 minutes or so I was having to get after him.  It made for a very long day.  I was ready to escape as soon as my husband arrived home from work.   He gladly took Cameron and I took Elissa (the easy one at the moment) and headed to a few stores to run some errands I had been trying to get at for about a week.  On my way home, in the quiet of the van, I began to think about Cameron, my two year old, the little boy who wears me out and has my head spinning in circles.  I love him so dearly, and it's so exciting to watch him growing and learning.  But boy oh boy, if someone had really, truly warned about the terrible two's, I may have been tempted to forgo having children.  Okay, okay, maybe not really, but the thought has crossed my mind on those wild and hairy days.

Cameron was definitely not an 'easy' baby.  He had his fair share and then some, of crying, mostly due to acid reflux.  But we survived the baby stage and progressed into toddler-hood.   But I dearly regret wishing away his baby days.  I was always so excited to see what he would be doing next, what new milestone would he achieve and when.  I often found myself saying, "I can't wait until he does ________", or "It'll be so much easier when can ___________."  I never really just enjoyed the stage he was in.  I told myself when I was pregnant for Elissa that I would refrain from doing this.  That I would cherish every moment, because in hindsight, I can see that it quickly passes.  And you can't go back.  You don't get to experience that time again.

As the trees were passing me on the streets, I drifted back to the time when Cameron was about Elissa's age, nearly 4 months old.  Pictures started flashing through my mind.  I was thinking about all the big milestones that Elissa is nearing, sitting up on her own, rolling over, first foods, and I couldn't help but think back to when Cameron did all these things.  And I started to remember how he smelled after his bath, how he would smile that big open mouth smile.  I remembered how we tried so hard to get him to laugh, and I finally achieved success by blowing on the bottoms of his pudgy little feet.  I remember nights of rocking him to sleep, how he would snuggle in.  How he breathed as he slept.  How his little face relaxed and he looked so peaceful.  I suddenly missed everything about Cameron being a baby.  I wanted those moments back, I could hardly breathe for a moment.  I wanted to hold and snuggle him like that again.

I miss my baby today.  I know it seems strange.  But that time comes and goes so quickly, and you can never go back.  But I'll remember that for right now too.  Someday, I'll look back at his toddler pictures and I'll miss this time immensely.  I'll miss the way he says his words, how he runs and plays.  The way he laughs.  How he always carries his cars around the house and leaves them out for me to trip on.  The way he snuggles in for story time.  His big kisses and hugs, and his forgiveness.  I'll miss it all, and I won't be able to come back to this.  And I know that all the hard parts will be a distant memory that I won't even be able to dig up....just like it was when he was a baby.

Muffin Tin Monday

Today the sun is shining, I have my front door open to let in all the light, and it's Monday Tin Monday.  It's no theme today, and that's probably a good thing.  My refrigerator and cupboards are bare.  I attempted to go grocery shopping multiples times last week, but I didn't even have a car until Thursday.  My husband was busy working on his car every night of the week.  So Friday I finally packed up the kids and headed for Meijer.  This only happens if I absolutely HAVE to.  It is so hard to keep one kid happy in the store while you shop for groceries, but 2....good luck.  I won't go into detail, but I can assure you, it was gruesome.  Needless to say, we didn't leave the store with much of anything.  So, there's my sorry excuse for my lousy muffin tin lunch today.  It's definitely not stellar, but at least it's something.  We did at least pick up a nice 6 cup muffin tin for the lunches.

 

Top, from left to right: strawberry yogurt, raisins, and S'more goldfish

Bottom, left to right: Colby jack cheese and  corn tortilla kabobs, Cheese curls, and then more of the kabobs.

The cheese and tortilla kabobs did not work well for Cameron's age (25 months).  He couldn't figure out how to get the stuff of the toothpick.  I ended up having to take it all off for him, but it definitely peeked his curiosity.  

P.S.  I think daddy is slightly jealous of Cameron's fun Muffin Tin lunches. 

Head over to Muffin Tin Mom to see what other mothers are doing for Muffin tin lunches.  Next week is back to the color series theme, and the color is Yellow. Yum!