The Letter F...and beyond!

If I'm incorporating Toy Story into my blog titles, clearly we watch WAY too much of it in our house.

This week we are working on the letter F, we actually had quite a few unplanned encounters with the letter F over the weekend so that was kind of neat. Savannah's cousin, Fisher, came to town so they got to see each other and play which was great. We took them to the playground on Saturday which happened to be right next door to the fire station so we met a fireman and got a tour of the fire truck! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that because Savannah was being shy and clingy. After the playground and the fire station tour we went to a local restaurant, The Fox, for lunch.

hanging out with Fisher

From Jul 9, 2011

swinging at the playground

From Jul 9, 2011

For our crafts we made a fish out of tissue paper and she got to do this one all by herself because there was no messy glue involved. Hooray for clean crafts! If you're wondering how the paper is sticking without glue, it's clear contact paper, now I just have to find more crafts to use it on soI'll stop being mad that I paid $5.98 for a whole roll only to use 8-10 inches of it.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

Today we made a flower out of finger paint, my original idea was to use the bottom of a soda bottle to make our petals (I feel like it's necessary for me to plug Pinterest, where I get a lot of my ideas from) but she was more interested in smearing paint all over the page so we ended up making a handprint flower instead.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011 From Jul 9, 2011 From Jul 9, 2011

I made this one while she finger painted, cute right?

From Jul 9, 2011

And now the beyond -- our little bug is nothing short of amazing. Her vocabulary amazes us on a daily basis, we know she is like a sponge right now but we are constantly in awe of the words that she knows and that she uses them correctly. This morning she and James saw a worm in the driveway, but she called it a snake - I'm positive we've never taught her worm but I'm quite sure we've taught her snake either. (And for those of you who are aware that we have had snakes in our yard, rest assured this was just a worm.)

 

Yesterday she came down with what seems to be (knock on wood) a 24 hour stomach bug. James stayed home with her yesterday and got all of the yucky stuff but thankfully she seems to be back to herself today. I stayed home with her anyway because I didn't want her potentially taking the bug to daycare and I'm always up for a day off with my pumpkin.

napping with her daddy yesterday afternoon

From Jul 9, 2011

She and I took a quick trip to PetSmart for dog food and about 20 seconds after walking in the door she asked to see the kitties. It took me a few minutes to remember that they have kitties for adoption there that you can visit, clearly it took her only seconds to recall it and she's probably only been to PetSmart once or twice before. Perhaps my memory could just be bad but I'm going to believe that she's just a prodigy. Then this afternoon while we were eating lunch she tells me, "Daddy is at work to make money so he can play golf."  I know that when my mom watches her and she asks where we are she tells her that we are at work and making money, so she has at least heard that bit before but to put it together with James' love for golf was impressive to me.

visiting the kitties at PetSmart..she didn't tap the glass, she banged on it :)

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

modeling her craft apron that her Gammie made

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

Letter E

Coming up with crafts for E was quite difficult, you've obviously got elephant but it's not easy to make an elephant with a 2 year old.  Thankfully I was able to find one that worked out well.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

Please ignore the Oreo crumbs on her face...

From Jul 9, 2011

While we were waiting for Mickey Mouse to go potty, he never went by the way, I noticed we had an empty toilet paper roll in the trash can so we also made this elephant.

From Jul 9, 2011

James snapped this photo for me, you can see how we write the letter of the week on her chalkboard and then write words below it, we try to say those words frequently during the week and make sure we add that it starts with whatever letter we're working on.  We've also started putting the letter of the week in her LeapFrog fridge phonics toy and playing it often.

From Jul 9, 2011

In addition to the elephant we colored a picture of Elmo, not the best craft but she was excited about coloring.  I also helped her to draw the letter E, and by help I mean grabbed her hand while she was holding the crayon and drew an E, but I don't think we got a photo of that...I'm sure you can imagine how that turned out. :)

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

And here she is checking out her flashcard for the letter E.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

Letter D

Last weekend we learned about the letter D, for our first craft we made a paper doughnut.  You'll see that I had to repurpose a spice container we already had because the sprinkles came from a container that has 5 or 6 different varieties of sprinkles, sugars, etc. I figured that was going to equal disaster so I had to come up with something less messy.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

We also colored a picture of Daddy, literally a picture. It wasn't the best craft, but I couldn't come up with another D craft and I had seen a tutorial using Picnik to make your own coloring pages so I figured she'd enjoy coloring James' face.  She did. From Jul 9, 2011

Letter C

This week we made a cow out of construction paper and bottle cap caterpillars.  I've got to find projects that don't involve the googly eyes, I put them on before I even put the project out for her thinking they'd be less interesting but she still tried, thankfully unsuccessfully, to pry them off.

For the cow I just used a paper plate as his body and then cut his spots, face, legs and tail out of construction paper.  I put the glue on the back and then let her put the spots wherever she wanted to, I helped her put everything else in place.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

For the caterpillar we used caps from water bottles and colored on them with crayons then glued them onto a construction paper leaf.  This was the first project that she did most of it herself, usually I'm helping her along quite a bit.  Either this one was just easier and more exciting or I finally got smart and had everything we could possibly need set out before we got started so I didn't have to run back to the craft room (guest bedroom) to get something else.  Regardless, she seemed to really enjoy this one.

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

I just noticed that I spelled caterpillar wrong on the finished project...I am so smrt.

From Jul 9, 2011

Letter B

This weekend we worked on the letter B, we made a handprint butterfly and a more normal looking butterfly...

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

So excited to show Daddy!

From Jul 9, 2011

I should have tried to get her to keep her fingers together while I traced her hand but she seemed to think it was cool that I was tracing her fingers individually.

After that we went to the beach for a birthday party where she rocked the bow and bathing suit combo, it takes a small miracle for her to let me put her hair up so I was not about to take it out...

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

And she very much enjoyed the cupcake, or actually the icing...

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

She had so much fun running from the tents and umbrellas where the party was to the ocean and then back again that she fell asleep on the way home and then slept for another 3 hours! Since she took such a great nap we chanced going out to dinner as a family and it was fantastic, the first stress free restaurant meal we've had in a while!  Maybe we'll go to the beach every weekend?

Then I dyed some rice in fun colors so that she'd have something more exciting than white rice to play with...it has nothing to do with the letter B but she did use a bucket (I know, it's a stretch)...

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

And today we made a bumblebee...

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011

We tried to Skype with Gammie while we were making it but she quickly lost interest in the project. Then when she found out Papa was out of town and not there with Gammmie, she lost interest in Gammie. Sorry, Gammie!

From Jul 9, 2011

From Jul 9, 2011