Wordless Wednesday!

This is what I get when I say... Smile!!!

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Enjoying our new "normal"

Just wanted to give a little update. We are definitely enjoying being home and getting used to life as a family of four. I am pleasantly surprised at how well it is all going. Nora is so good and has a much more laid back personality than Molly did. Molly is doing fantastic with everything. She loves being a big sister and is so excited to help!

We have had a few crazy things since we got home. The most notable was that we didn't have power yesterday for 8 hours! A pole had fallen down on our street and the power lines were on the road. So, they had to close the road and put up a new pole and lines. Crazy! It was a bit worrisome, since at bedtime at 7:30 the house was pitch black and getting really cold (it's pretty snowy in Michigan right now). I was freaking out a bit that I would have to pack up my 1 week old and 2 1/2 year old to go sleep somewhere else with heat. But thankfully it came back on at 9pm! One thing I learned... buy more flashlights, because those crank lights are way to much work and loud, lol. :)

Also, Molly has her first cold of the year. It started yesterday, and it is a bad one. Poor girl! And I am also really, really, really nervous because I don't want the baby to get sick. It is so so hard to know how to handle this. Today was tiring to say the least. And advice on this????

Frugal Friday! Free Pretzel Day!

Yeah!!! Tomorrow, Saturday February 20 is Free Pretzel Day from 10-3 at Auntie Anne's Pretzels. Go here to see all the details at their website and enjoy your FREE pretzel.

Toddler Time Thursday! Word World Tot Pack

This week we enjoyed a Word World Theme. If you don't know what Word World is, it is a really cute PBS show that teaches kids to "Build A Word." We didn't do as much as usual this week with our theme since we were bringing home the new baby and getting adjusted to our new family of 4, but Molly REALLY enjoyed playing the great Word World games and coloring the printables from PBSkids.org. Duck was definitely a favorite.

We also used the Word World Tot Book that Carisa from 1+1+1=1 has created on her great blog and website. The pictures below are using the pack we made for this week.Our version of the Tot Pack this week.

Molly working on her ABC's. This was tricky this week for her.

Matching is always on of her FAVORITES.

Coloring the pictures was fun, and she really enjoyed correcting me on the correct color of all the characters.

And of course... Molly LOVED watching the show on TV....

We had a great week of working with Molly. It's been a lot of fun seeing her play with her little sister, and help us take care of her. Molly is also feeling very spoiled and has enjoyed every minute of having her daddy home to help this week.

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday!

Happy 29th Birthday to the BEST husband and father ever! We love you Randal!

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She's Here!!! Welcome Nora!!!

She's Here! Thursday night, we welcomed Nora Jo into our family. She was a little early, but everything went fantastic and we couldn't be happier or feel more blessed to have a new healthy baby girl in our lives.

Nora Jo

Our Family of Four


Molly meeting her baby sister!

My girls!

Should be coming home and getting adjusted Sunday, and then I hope to be back to catch up soon. Hope everyone is doing great. :)

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday!

I can't believe that I only have up to 9 more days of being pregnant until my new little baby girl is here. This is me with Molly after she was born 2 1/2 years ago! (I know, hard to believe I am in a picture, that never happens, lol) She was so little, she is going to be a great big sister!

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Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Each week we have been picking a different theme to work on different projects and learning activities. I haven't really posted them, but I had fun taking pictures this week, so I thought I would show you what we worked on with our Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle theme.

We have both the big book and the board book and Molly really enjoyed reading both with me and also by herself. This is actually a book that she has memorized and can "read" to me.

One of her favorite things to do is to help tell the story and be active. So I made these magnets for her. I just printed a picture of the animal on each page, laminated them and stuck a magnet on the back. Then as I read the story, she would put the correct magnet up on the fridge. So I would say... "Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see," and she would put the red bird up.

We also worked on colors with jellybeans and the story. This was a HUGE hit, as you can imagine, she was thrilled to get to eat the jellybeans that matched the color on the page. It just took a long time, I didn't think about how big jelly beans actually were... whoopsies, sugar high!

We also used the printouts from this great Tot Pack Carissa from 1+1+1=1 has. We love these, she has so many great resources you definitely need to check out! The pictures below are all using her great Brown Bear Tot Pack. I printed and laminated with my new laminator I got for Christmas, LOVE it. :)

Here Molly was working on counting the animals on each card. This is by far her hardest skill right now. Sometimes she just rattles off the right answer and other times she wants to count them all twice.

In the little coloring book, Molly had to color each animal the correct color. Such as coloring the bird red. She loved having this book at the end of coloring it all. She has been showing it off to everyone all week.

Here she is working on the matching heads and tails activity. This is a favorite.

So proud she did it, "All by myself."

Molly has gotten much better at organizing things by size. From smallest to largest, and now is doing good at from largest to smallest as well.

A few more things we worked on that I didn't snap pictures of were animal sounds. We acted out each animal and made there sounds. This was a lot of fun, but I am glad there is not a picture of me 9 months pregnant, pretending to be a blue horse with Molly! We also did a color hunt, and went through the house finding everything we could to match the colors; so all the green things we could find when we were on the green frog page.

It was definitely a fun theme week. Molly loved having a bunch of activities that are linked together and it also makes it very easy and fun for me to come up with things to work on.

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday!

My sweet angel peacefully sleeping... OR did she finally crash after an over 2 hour possessed tantrum, breakdown, meltdown, worst fit ever.... would you believe me if I said it was the later!


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Adorable Ribbon Headbands! Tip Tuesday!

My friend Kalli thought me how to make these great headbands and I am addicted! There are so many different color combination's I want to make for Miss Molly. I made this cute blue one first because that is the only ribbon I had long enough, but I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and stocked up on ribbon when it was 50% off, so watch out... I am going headband crazy! Check out how to make these Ribbon Woven Headbands here.