A Simple Easter Craft

Nothing too fancy, but the start to our Easter/Spring crafts, hopefully there will be more to come! I just cut out some egg shapes out of paper and then we just had 'decorating' them. I do highly recommend the sponge brushes for stamping/painting in general, not just for this craft. My daughter is loving painting right now and she is also loving using these circular brushes. I have seen people use clothes pins stuck on pom poms which would work just as well probably but these were so cheap at Walmart I couldn't resist!

What My Baby Girl Wishes Were Toys

A while a go I wrote a post about my favorite toys. Well, ever since I read this splendid little article, I have been putting together in my mind a post about the non-toy items that my daughter has loved to play with as a baby/toddler so that I could always remember them.

The Nalgene bottle was her first obsession. She would love to move the handle back and forth and back and forth and explore the cover with her mouth. She wanted that bottle any time it was out. The second is a set of coasters at my mother-in-law's house. Once she was mobile and could pull her self up on the coffee table she discovered these delightful stacking circles. Her and her Memere would count and stack them. She loved them so much that Memere bought us a set for our house, and now of course she could care less about them! Ha, no I'm just kidding, she does still play with them once in a while and likes to tell us their colors but she isn't as interested as she first once was. Ugh the toilet a paper roll. Okay first of all I DETEST this ugly holder more than anything. When we bought this house (two weeks before baby girl was born I will remind you), I wanted to bring these to the dump as fast as possible, but it just never happened and after the baby came, I gave up on trying to find an alternative toilet paper roll dispenser because I had more important things to worry about, obviously. To this day, my daughter loves to play with the toilet paper roll and the holder. The same thing was in our other bathroom too but that one was really rusty so it did at least make it into our basement and is still awaiting the day I remember to bring it out with the trash. And the kicker is, every single time I bring baby girl downstairs to switch out the laundry she runs over to it and plays with it. Every time.

Now that she is older, baby girl loves to play with things that are small and can be put in and out of containers. She loves to get all the straws out of the box and then put them back in. In and out in and out. She also loves to rip paper off of crayons and stand on books or anything that could be a step (the more dangerous the better in her eyes I think).

Ages and Stages: 19 months

Well my little darling, you are now nineteen months old. I waited until today to write this up since we had a well-check up yesterday and I could include your official stats ;). You are now a whopping 19.38lbs ha ha. But you are definitely getting longer. The nurse measured you at 32 inches which also means that you have finally started to grow out of the 12 month pants and fit into 18 month pants! Your head circumference continues to hold strong on the top half of the charts at 87%. You have been nursing less this month (well, with a brief increase during the flu), and for the past week it has only been 3 or 4 four times a day, and last night was only once during the night, wahoo! (I'm sure tonight will be like 3 times since I said that). You have been eating well lately, with no major changes from last month except that in an attempt to get you to drink more cows milk I have been putting it in your little tea cups and you will try and drink it from there. It seems to make it more interesting but it is also quite messy!

Now on to more important things, you are still our little chatter box and can easily say multiple word phrases. In fact, you like to randomly spout out a few lines from Hop on Pop once in a while. "Dad is sad. Bery, bery sad. Had bad day. What day Dad had." and yesterday you told me "Rosita is on the bike" while looking at our "Elmo's Potty" book. Of course, it is not perfectly enunciated, but I mean no one expects that at this age. You love to point out stop signs where ever we go and are starting to point out relationships. You love to talk about "big" and "little" things when appropriate and if there are three animals or maybe even a set of three inanimate objects you will refer to them as "mommy, daddy, and baby" whatever they are. You will pretend nurse you baby dolls and pretend feed any of your stuffed animals, or adults or yourself. One of your favorite things to do (and has been for a few months actually) is to play tea parties in your house.

You had your first flu about a week ago and we watched quite a bit of T.V. for a few days. I think your favorite was Cindrella (we have the book too and you had been interested in that for a while) you love the mice and will say "Cinderella, mice, hehehehehe". You have also been talking a lot about "Mr. Noodle" from Elmo's world lately and it's so adorably funny! We have been getting many books out of the library lately, you love to read! We got a "literacy to go kit" about colors and you really liked the books inside that; "Lemons are Not Red" and "Pinkalicious".  You have really been enjoying the Sandra Boynton books too when we get them. But really you like pretty much any book that it's hard to say if you have "favorites". It's funny though if there is something that you don't like in a book you will say "no" to the picture (or something on T.V. , etc.). That has a been a favorite word around here lately, but I'd like to do a whole other post on that. Thankfully you have also been saying "pank you" so that has been a very pleasing surprise. You really are our sweet girl!

Baby Shower, Diaper Cake

My sister-in-law is expecting a precious baby girl in April and a few weekends ago we threw her a baby shower! My baby girl and I had a blast preparing and celebrating such a wonderful event :)

My sister-in-law is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and of course I wanted to do something a little special for her gift, so I made a diaper cake. They are actually quite easy to make, because everything is so cute anyway! I rolled up the diapers while I watched "At Home in Maine", a documentary about home birth, and just assembled the goodies as I purchased them.

 This diaper cake includes: 

128 Size 2 Diapers

5 Headbands

4 Recieving Blankets

4 Pair of Socks

3 Bibs

3 Baby Toys

(praying doll, stroller toy that jingles and little elephant rattle toy)

2 Pair of Pants

1 Onsie

1 Package of Boogie Wipes

1 Bottle of Baby Shampoo

1 Tube of Butt Paste 

My mother-in-law also made some really sweet DIY details for the party include these darling washcloth puppies: 

 And these beautiful favors:

And of course I have to include some pictures of this cutie pie enjoying herself with her cousin :)

 As I said we had a fabulous time and really look forward the arrival of our sweet niece/cousin in ONE MONTH!!!

 

Great Article

I found this article by Revolution from Home really rang true for me. I really feel like there are some great things about the internet; it really is a good way to connect with others when you are otherwise isolated in the worldwind of parenthood. I mean sharing articles like this is one example of how moms (and dads!) can support each other. However I definitley agree that there can be an excess of information (maybe opinion is a better word) leading to feelings of inadequacy, vulnerability, and guilt. At least that's how I feel sometimes. It's a pressure that's really hard for me to shake.

Cloth Diaper Humor

Saw this gem on facebook today :)