Snow Day!

We don't get much snow here on the coast of Connecticut. And we were in Iowa when they did get a big storm. But yesterday we finally got a little snow. Not much, just enough to mostly cover the grass, but it was good enough to go play in for the first time! Here are the pictures...

Daddy helped Eli build a snowballEli had just taken a taste of the snowMy snow baby

Structured playtime? What?

I always thought we were pretty good about keeping Eli's day structured. We have a good routine with milk, meals, snacks, nap time, and bedtime. And most of our errands we'd run around the same time of the day too. But upon getting the book Toddlerwise from the library last week, I realized the area that definitely needs some work.... PLAYTIME! For the most part all of our free time was just open play. I try to do story time for a few minutes in the morning (training him to sit on the couch for 20 minutes), but otherwise there really was no structure to it. And honestly, it was quite tiring on me. Eli wasn't learning how to play by himself, although I was really wanting him to. Every time I'd do something different he'd drop everything to come see what I was doing. But here's what I learned just from one chapter of Toddlerwise about structuring your child's day. There are different types of play!

1. Roomtime--child learns to play quietly by himself for a period of time. Play on blanket (or in room) until timer goes off. (~30 minutes).
2. Free playtime--still supervised play, don't allow child to move from toy to toy every 5 minutes but instead learn to sustain his interest. child can play with toys of his choice though.
3. Structured playtime--mommy picks the activity (puzzles, coloring, painting, etc). This teaches the child that he doesn't always get to choose
   
4. Structured playtime with siblings--same as above except all children are together doing same activity
5. Playtime with mommy--each child receives individual playtime with mommy (even just 10-20 minutes is good)
6. Playtime with friends--scheduled time during week to socialize--story hour, library, playgroup
7. Video Time--not when children are becoming restless and whiny, but during an actual scheduled time (usually during a time of day that's most stressful for mom like while she's cooking dinner)

Last week we made the big switch to just one nap a day, and that's going awesome-ly(?). Relieves a lot of stress that I didn't even realize was there. a) Eli can sleep as late as he wants in the morning without me thinking he needs to get up just so he can nap later. b) He always falls asleep in the afternoon (around 12:45 or 1:00ish), so there's no wondering if he'll nap or if he won't. c) He's been consistently sleeping 2 hours (or one day was even 2 hrs 45 minutes!) so it gives me a larger chunk of time to actually get things done (but I have to use my time wisely and productively cuz it's the only I break I get until bedtime).

And now that I read about structuring play times too, we've been trying to incorporate a lot of that. With Baby Girl due in 5 weeks, it would be really, really, really be GREAT if Eli could be trained to play on his own on a blanket for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. Right now we're only up to 15 minutes but it's only been 3 days. He automatically got the idea that he had to stay on the blanket, but sadly he thought it was punishment of some sort and just stood at the edge of the blanket crying. Since then we're getting it figured out that I too need to find something to busy myself with instead of just sitting on the couch ensuring that Eli plays with something. I make sure he stays on the blanket and that he's not doing anything wrong with the toys, but otherwise I ignore him let him be, and it's going much better. And as soon as the timer dings, Eli knows he's "free" again and we move on with our day.

I tried doing structured playtime with crayons and puzzles, but that's taking more training than I thought it would to hold his attention to it, so for now I'm just going to focus on the blanket time until we're ready to move on from there. Don't want to go throwing too much at him!

So that's what else is going on at our house! Do you have any tips for getting toys and activities to hold your child's attention longer?

Menu Plan Monday - Jan. 13

Well, after two weeks of menus I'm back to menu planning this week. Not sure we saved money by doing two weeks last time. I'm sure I'd get better at knowing how much we need of things, but for this time we'll just do one week again....

Monday - bierochs, carrots, apples

Tuesday - easy BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, corn

Wednesday - lasagna, garlic bread, salad, oranges

Thursday - breakfast nite- sausage and egg breakfast pizza, bananas

Friday - Bible study night

Saturday - pork chops, oriental salad, mandarin oranges

Sunday - hot dogs, grapes, carrots

For more menu ideas hop on over to Laura's.

**********************

While you're here! go to this blog post to share with me your favorite children's books. I LOVE collecting new stories to read with my son, and I'd love your suggestions!

Family Focus Friday: Storytime

I LOVE getting new storybooks to read with Eli! Just a few days ago I wrote a blog post about a new book series I discovered by author Kathleen Long Bostrom. And since then I used an Amazon gift card to order four more from the series:

What is Prayer?
Is God Always With Me?
What About Heaven?
Why is There a Cross?

So for this week's topic I thought maybe we could share our favorite children's books. I'd love to know what else is good out there! So here are my top three:

The Jesus Storybook Bible
by Sally Lloyd-Jones
Who is Jesus?
by Kathleen Long Bostrom
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
by Dr. Seuss

I was going to give you my top five, but I couldn't really think of any others. So do please, share your favorites! And many blessings to your family this weekend!

Getting Organized

Amy had a list of her things she had to do before their baby Sarah arrived. So I'm going to follow in her steps and get my list going! I can't believe the time is almost here!

THINGS TO DO BEFORE BABY COMES:

1. Find and set up toddler bed.
   
2. Purchase toddler sheets.
3. Finish quilt for toddler bed. completed 1/18/08
   
4. Move rocking chair downstairs. completed 1/17/08
   
5. Tidy up basement. (it's out of control again!) completed 1/19/08
   
6. Pack away the latest of Eli's clothes that he's outgrown. completed 1/17/08
   
7. Wash baby clothes, including bassinet bedding. completed 1/14/08
   
8. Clean the car seat. completed 1/19/08
   
9. Install infant car seat. completed 1/20/08
   
10. Finish Eli's first-year memory book. completed 1/22/08
    
11. Pack bags (lists are already made).completed 1/14/08
    
12. Write up Eli's daily schedule. completed 1/14/08
    
13. Order new baby carrier. completed 2/2/08
    
14. Bring bassinet up from basement and put in our bedroom. completed 2/3/08
    
15. Wash sheets and tidy up guest bedroom. completed 1/17/08
    

The list may continue to grow as I think of things. But hopefully I'll be checking things off at the same time! Just 5 and a half weeks to go! (or something like that)

Thankful Thursday

It's taken me awhile to get back into the swing of things after the holiday n such, so I think this is my first Thankful Thursday post for the new year! I started the year off in a bit of a slump and being a grump, but we've turned a corner and this week is a new week, and it's been a good one!

* I am thankful for new beginnings and fresh starts.

* I am thankful for sunny, 50-degree weather in January!

* I am thankful for stroller class. After several weeks off, the winter session just started this week, and it makes such a huuuge positive difference in my life to have something on our schedule to get us out of the house on a regular basis. I love the walking and I love the ladies! It's a great time!

* I am thankful that Eli is finally getting into a new routine now. I'm a person who very much needs a schedule and structure to our day, so I'm glad that we'll be having that again now that he's officially switching to just one nap a day now.

* I am thankful for my bloggy friends who were soooo encouraging as I worked through my slump.

* I am thankful for 3 wonderful years of marriage to my hubby! We celebrated our anniversary on Tuesday. (Well, actually since he's working 4pm-4am this week, we won't actually be celebrating until he's off this shift and can actually do something together!)

* I am thankful for many phone calls from great friends this week! With all this quiet time in the evenings I've had a lot of time to catch up with those back home!

* I am thankful that pregnancy continues to go well. With only 5.5 weeks to go I'm still feeling really great, sleeping well, and getting prepared for Baby Girl's arrival!

For more thankful Thursday posts, visit Lynn who is so kindly hosting this week!

Changes.

We've been making a lot of changes in our home lately in attempts to diminish some stress and help things go smoother....

* I've decided to make the big switch from Eli having two naps a day to just one early afternoon nap. For a few weeks now he's been 50/50 with his naps. He'd usually nap in the morning...IF I played him out enough instead of just taking him on a bunch of errands, but I couldn't wait too long or he wouldn't be able to nap later in the day too, AND I had to wake him after an hour and half or again he wouldn't sleep later. It was a lot of hassle and even still he may or may not nap again in the afternoon. Just depended on the day. Well, this week I decided enough with that! Eli needs some consistency and so do I! Especially before baby 2 comes! So I declared that we were making the switch and so far it's been okay. As soon as I decided to make the change, however, Eli has been waking up earlier in the morning (tempting me to try two naps still. I think he's getting another tooth??) but we've stuck to the plan anyway and he's been fine. So now instead of napping for 1.5 hours each at 10:00 and 3:30, he naps for about 2 hours (maybe it'll get longer?) at 12:45ish. It makes for a LONG afternoon once he's up. I don't usually run errands or anything at 3:30 or 4:00 but it seems like such a long time until bedtime, especially this week since Daddy's at work and it's just me playing with him still all day AND evening long. So anyway, that's the biggest change.

* After verbalizing the things that are stressing me out the most with Eli, I realized that a lot of the problems come when I'm doing something and he wants to be a part of it too. Usually I try to find a toy or something he can play with nearby. But really he wants to do what we're doing. So I've been trying harder about letting him actually "help" with some of my chores. He helped me unload clean silverware out of the dishwasher the last two days. And yesterday I gave him a hand broom to "sweep" the floor. He helps throw away trash now. And while we don't have a cupboard that I can designate as an "Eli cupboard" full of Tupperware, I have gotten out a couple plastic bowls and wooden spoon for him to play with while I'm cooking. And if that's not good enough then I clean off the counter and set him up there where he can see. I've been avoiding all these things because I knew once I "opened the gates" I couldn't take it back and just decide to close them again. But I think it's going okay so far, and I'm excited to have a little helper around. Any other ideas for getting an 18-month-old involved??

* And a good change for me is that I got a daily planner that has a paragraph-sized space open for each day. Helping get me going with my daily devotions and Bible reading, I go to the Heartlight website and every day write in my planner the daily verse while also reading through the devotion and prayer. It's just a small start, but at least it gets my day started in the right direction! The next thing I want to do is decide on a Bible reading plan and get going on that, so I can start spending actual more in-depth time in the Word.

So that's what going on around our house these days! What's going on with you??

Homemade Burp Cloths

I just decided on a whim to make homemade burp cloths yesterday. The source of inspiration was a flowery, grandma style homemade burp cloth that came in a box of hand-me-downs we got for Eli 18 months ago. I re-found it a few weeks ago and was taking a look at it the other day to see how it was made. And it was so simple and I've been having trouble finding burp cloths I like , so I thought I'd give a try!

It's basically just two pieces of flannel fabric sewn together. I got 1/2 yd of 3 different fabrics, $1.29 each. The steps are as follows:

1. Cut your fabric to the size of your choice. I left the fabric folded how I bought it and cut the two pieces at the same time.
2. Put the right sides (the sides with the print) together.
3. Sew around the edges, leaving an opening on one side so that you can flip the piece right side out again.
4. Flip the right side out and iron so the edges are all flat.
5. Sew your opening closed (either by hand or as close as you can to the edge with the machine)
6. Do a zig zag stitch around the border just to hold the fabrics together a little better instead of it just seeming like an empty pillow case.
7. That's it!

It took about 30 minutes total for each burp cloth and in two days I started and completed a project! Here's the final product...

(click on the picture to view larger)

Weekly Memory Verse

~*~

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
~*~

Last week's verse:
James 4:10
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

If you want to join me in memorizing Galatians 2:20 this week, sign your name below! May it be blessing to your life!

A Love Story.

Today is Kevin's and my 3-year wedding anniversary, so I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and share our story...

We were high school sweethearts and started dating when I was 15 and Kevin was 17, sophomore and senior. At the time, one of my friends (Catherine) was dating his best friend (Adam) and somehow through the two of them, Kevin and I were brought together. We lived in different towns, 30 minutes apart, but in a rural area such as ours, 30 minutes is nothing. Kevin went to my volleyball games, and I went to his cross country meets. We went to my homecoming dance and I went to his prom. I wore his class ring and he kept mine. We saw each other on weekends and we celebrated month-"anniversaries". It was high school.

Then that May (1999) Kevin graduated high school and that week he left for Navy boot camp. I was so sad. I was broken. I was a miserable mess. I missed every single phone call that he made, and there was only the occasional letter in the mail. But we got through it, and at the end of the summer I went with his family to Chicago to see him again at his boot camp graduation. It was a joyous reunion. But after boot camp came the real Navy Life. He moved to South Carolina for nuclear training school, and I was stuck back in Iowa to finish my last two years of high school.

But we did it! We stuck it out! I flew to visit him at my breaks, and he flew home during holidays, so we saw each other every 3-4 months or so, talked on the phone, and emailed. He was home for both of my proms, and I was there for his deployment homecoming. But still he was away for all the day-to-day stuff. It wasn't easy. I missed him. We were indeed in love. And already by the end of my senior year we were engaged. Not with intentions of marrying soon, but with the promise for the day to come.

And then came college. I went to college and life there was soooo different from my small-town world. I was challenged. I met amazing people and amazing friends. I grew in faith in incredible ways. And I learned more about myself then than I ever had in the 18 years prior. During my first year of college I was led to break off our engagement to do some re-evaluating. And then 3 months later (or so) Kevin and I did get back together due to some life changes that were made. After that it was a new "us".

About a year (or two?) later we got re-engaged. I finished college (a semester early) with a B.A. in music ministry and a couple weeks later, January 8, 2005 we were married at last! After nearly 7 years of a long-distance relationship built on young love, we were finally married. We had a simple wedding in my dad's small church. It was a winter wedding in Iowa and that week it had snowed about 12 inches. But on our wedding day it was beautiful and all our family and friends were there.

We honeymooned at a quiet bed-and-breakfast in Florida where we enjoyed a rental convertible, walks on the beach, evenings under the stars, and a day of kayaking. After the honeymoon we got my things moved to where Kevin was stationed in Virginia, and our new life together began....

In the three years since, we have moved to CT, had Eli, and are now pregnant with Baby #2. We have grown together as husband and wife through a journey that is all our own. Kevin is an amazing man who has been there to support me through it all. He is loving and faithful and kind. He's strong when I am weak. I am so thankful for our years together. I am so thankful that Kevin chose me, that God chose Kevin FOR me. And I so look forward to the days, years to come...

Happy anniversary, my love!