Strawberries and three year olds should not be left alone

C is at the age where she can go in the kitchen get out her own snack. We set up our kitchen here so she could do that. She has her own special shelf in the kitchen with snacks for her and she has mastered opening the fridge and getting out whatever fruit or veggie she wants to munch on. Well, today our brilliant plan kind of bit me in the butt. This morning while laying half awake on the couch C came over and asked me if she could have some strawberries. Of course I said yes and told her to eat them at the table and try not to make a huge mess. I also told her not to eat the green tops of the strawberries. Now, usually I will cut the green tops but as I said before I was only half awake. About ten minutes later I hear C saying in her sweet little three year old voice "Momma I ate all the stwaberries" Hmmmm all the strawberries???? Immediately I got a little worried and decided to check out what she meant by "all the strawberries." Well, I found a huge pile of strawberries on the tables with just one bite taken out of each of them. I wasn't quite sure I should laugh or get upset that C just took one bite out of every strawberry in a brand new container of them. While I pondered what I should do C chimed in with "See momma I didn't eat the green parts." All I could do was laugh and then explain to her the right way to eat a strawberry. Lesson learned: I need to drag my behind to the kitchen and cut the tops off the strawberries, lol.

After the strawberry incident, I decided it was time for us to make a project. I once again reffered to the brilliant No Time For Flash Cards and saw the idea of making a sensory tub. Hmmm a sensory tub??? I was a bit skeptical about the idea at first but decided it might be alot of fun.  So, off we went to Walmart.  We picked up a dishwasher tub (in red, Cs choice), 4 bags of dried beans and lentils, some measuring scoops, and various packages of $1 toys. Once we got home with our new supplies off to work we went. C helped dump all the beans in the tub and added all the little toys. I gave her the stack of measuring scoops and just let her imagination go. Wow! I can not believe how much she loved it. As I said before, I was a little skeptical on whether or not this would be fun for her. Of course there was an appeal to the idea to me or else  I would have never decided to try it. C sat there for over and hour just scooping, pouring, digging, and just letting her imagination run wild. A little later I grabbed some chopsticks from the kitchen but she wasn't too thrilled with them. The worst part of this whole activity was when I told C it was time to put our tub away and take a nap.

To all my mommy friends who may be reading this, No Time for Flash Cards has some brilliant ideas for activities to do with your kiddo. No, I do not know Allison McDonald or any of the other people who contribute to that site. It was just a blog that I came across and LOVE. It has saved me many times now in finding something new and fun to do with C.

My attempt at teaching.....

So, about a month ago C was screened for a preschool program here which she qualified for but was put on a waiting list. Bummer. My thought was what can I do with her that is fun but she is learning something at the same time??  That is when I started looking around the blogs and found a blog called No Time For Flashcards. There were so many great ideas to do with C that I just had to try them.

So far we have done capital A and B, and made an apple tree. The first day was a little rough because she was cranky, I was cranky and it just wasnt a good combo. Her "A" turned out great despite our crankiness. We did the apple tree next which she loved! She loves any opportunity to use glue and scissors (her enjoyment of scissors worries me at times, lol). Finally today we did the letter B. She did such a great job picking out her buttons and gluing them down.

I am really enjoying doing craft projects with C.  She asks me almost everyday if we can do a "pwoject" As long as she is enjoying them I am one happy mommy. I just hope I have enough ideas and supplies to keep going. :P

Muffin Tin Monday-Posting a day late- Ooops

I know today is Tuesday and yes and yesterday was supposed to be MTM. I did make C her Shapes meal but for some reason decided not to post anything about it until today. Blame it on a case of the Lazy Mondays. Anyways, here is my MTM...

The theme as mentioned before was shapes. I asked C what she wanted for lunch and she decided on a peanut butter sandwich. So, I cut her sandwich into circles. Then, I cute some cucumbers into hearts, a slice of cheese into stars and about half of a banana, which were circles. I served it up on one of her trays and voila! She demolished it. It is the simple things that she loves. She wasn't quite sure about the cucumber hearts until I told her that they were in fact cucumbers, lol.

My first Muffin Tin Monday!

So, I was browsing through the blogs and came across this great idea called "Muffin Tin Mondays" I clicked on the MTM link and was totally inspired. I think this is a great way to try something new and different and do something fun. So here is my first Muffin Tin Monday Meal!

This weeks theme was movies. Cassandra's two favorite movies are Tinkerbell and Finding Nemo. I decided to go with Finding Nemo.  She was a little confused with the whole idea of eating an entire meal out of a muffin tin but she ate just about everything and liked it. We did have to tell her a little lie and say that the fish sticks were chicken tenders. We knew if we told her they were fish sticks she would never try them. A little lie won't hurt her, right??  Also, I decided that since this was my first MTM I would make it a dinner so Ed could join in on the fun. He agrees that this is a fun and creative idea.

Finding Nemo MTM:

1. Fish sticks

2. Seashell Noodles with butter and pepper

3. "Nemo Sticks and Sea Cucumbers"

4. Gold Fish Crackers

5. "Dory Dip"-ranch dressing tinted blue

Cassandra trying the "sea cucumbers"

And she likes it!

New......

I am pretty new to blogging but I thought why not give it a try. I have looked at a few blogs and thought it would be a good way for me to document the crazy, wonderful thing called my life.  Cheers!