Pre - Pre - Preschool and Other Stuff

OH, What to do in the Wintertime when all the world is White?

Lately some friends of mine have posted on their blogs what they have been doing to keep their toddlers busy in the house during these long winter days. Here is my list of somethings I do:

1. Hide the Man. This game involves hiding a toy of Davey's in the living room and then finding it. We take turns being the hider and the finder.

2. If I had my own car I would do these things a lot more often, but once a week we go to the library for storytime and then either the mall to play in the play area there or McDonald's to use their play area. Also in Provo has the ever popular Bean Museum, a sure hit with any toddler that likes animals.

3. Bath Time. I let Davey take baths in the middle of the day. He loves it. There are a lot of things you can do in the bath. Make soap crayons or play with some shaving cream.

4. Crafts. Davey loves to draw and color. I make it more fun by letting him use markers or paint, these keep him more entertained than just crayons, although they get all over his hands and the table, but then I just put him in the bath (see #3).

5. Playing Games. Dave loves to play games. We have a few toddler friendly ones like a Curious George match game and a Green Eggs and Ham board game. But sometimes I take "big people" games and make up new rules so Davey can play.

6. And now the Big Kahuna, if you will . . . pre - pre -preschool, but we just call it preschool. I do this 4 times a week with my friend, Katy. She has a little girl, Hannah, one month younger than Davey. Preschool incorporates some of Davey's favorite things to do, but adds a friend, which makes it official and fun.

Here is our typical schedule:

Music Time - this includes singing songs and doing finger plays, experimenting with musical instruments and doing the old Primary One CD. (I just tried to look the CD up online and couldn't find it anywhere, if you ever come across this, keep it, it's awesome.)

Lesson Time - we usually do a lesson from the new primary manual, read the book of the week, and then have some kind of game or learning activity.

Free play

Lunch

Craft - this is the best part of preschool!

Here are some pictures, taken by my friend Katy, of preschool last week. Each week we also have a different theme, that week it was Dental Health, this week it was all about Valentine's Day and loving one another.

Playing with musical instruments

Singing a song about brushing our teeth


Craft time. This craft was to paint the yellow teeth white.

All About Gordon:

Here is Gordon.

He has been crawling for a while now. He has already advanced to pulling himself up to standing position and cruising along the couch. Of course he is still driving us crazy by constantly climbing up the stairs.

Yesterday he started crawling toward the stairs, stopped, turned around and looked at me, laughed and then went back to crawling towards and then up the stairs. What a clown.

He also may have signed "milk" to me yesterday. But I really can be sure when he is so little he could have been just opening and closing his hand. But I'd like to count it because he did it right after I showed it to him while I was feeding him.

He still likes to gag on all solid foods. I just recently bought some baby arrowroot cookies and he likes those, so hopefully he'll slowly be able to get used to having solid food in his mouth.

My favorite part of the week is being able to take Gordon to Books for Babies at the library. Luckily Joseph doesn't have any classes on Fridays this semester, so he stays home with Davey and I get some one-on-one time with Gordon.

Here are some pictures of Gordon from today and then an old movie from when crawling was a new thing with Gordon:

still sucking his thumb, almost constantly

Out to Eat:
Last Saturday I did some babysitting for my mom, but before that she took us out to eat. Here are two pictures from that outing:




Book Club:
I just started doing a long - distant book club with my very wonderful friend, Natalie, and her cousin, Emily. The book club will almost always be classics. For January we read The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. It was pretty good. This month we are reading To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I am going to post my answers to our book club questions on my other never used blog. So check that out periodically, if interested.