Wife, Then Mama

I am pretty sure that everyday is a holiday at this point.  I typed in a random date, August 12th, and sure enough it is World Elephant Day.  It gets a little ridiculous, but some days are definitely worth celebrating! February 26th is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day.  I missed it this year, but Mother Goose Time didn't!  They are running a giveaway for one of their most popular books (remember we get a new storybook every month in our curriculum boxes): Aesop's Fables for Preschoolers.  If you win your also get a storytelling set to go along with it.  I did not get an opportunity to read this book, because we didn't start using Mother Goose Time until December and this book was from the August kit, but it looks adorable! If you would like a chance to win click here and fill out the very easy entry form! Even if you DON'T win the print storybook, Mother Goose Time has set it up so everyone is a winner! Everyone who enters gets free stuff! 4 Free Aesop'

Today was a day of success!  Not only did we complete our Mother Goose Time  on a Monday this week (which was a great start so it felt like a win :) ), but Little Guy did pretty awesome if I do say so myself! We started out by reading Tommy Visits the Doctor .  I don't think it was on the reading list, but it was a book I had, and I really like it.  It is old-fashioned with adorable illustrations by Richard Scarry.  Then we played Fitness Dominoes.  We talked about what parts of the body bend, then we played Dominoes.  He had never played them before, so I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did.  I helped him a little at first, but he totally got the idea.  Next we sort of played Pounding Pattern.  Little Guy has no ability to follow a rhythm (although he can keep HIS OWN time) but he did catch on to why your heart beats.  We were supposed to open and close our hands to the beat of a song from this month's Food and Fitness CD, and then create an ABBC pattern to the b

Do you have a hard time finding clothes that fit you?  Does it seem like if it fits your bust, the waist is baggy, or the hips fit, but the waist band won't button?  Clothing in the stores are made to fit standard sizes of people, without any variation.  If you are not very close to the standard sizes, you have been left with two options: Wear clothes that don't really fit Learn to alter patterns and sew your own clothes NOW YOU HAVE A NEW OPTION: CUSTOM CLOTHING!  I have a love/hate relationship with the internet, but in the realm of shopping, it is pretty amazing.   I was given an opportunity to review a custom made dress from Suuchi .  In exchange for a review they provided me with a free dress.  Unfortunately, because of my own tendency to avoid any possibly uncomfortable situations, I was left with a dress I can't wear.  The fabric I ordered ended up being really itchy, and if I had been an adult about it and told them that in a timely manner they would have

I love the Celebration Kits that come with every month's Mother Goose Time curriculum.  We didn't use the first one at Christmas Time because Christmas is a crazy time of year and we had a newborn.  But every month we get a kit with preschool crafts, games, and snacks to go with the holiday theme.  These are kind of designed more for a classroom, and come with invitations and stuff, but we usually use them as extra fun stuff on days that Hadlee and our girls are not in school.  I am a big fan of holidays but I am not good at coming up with things to do to celebrate, so these are a huge bonus to me! This month the Celebration Kit was (of course) Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day Circle Time Display  We started out with a Storytelling Set about a prince that wants to get his friend, the princess the perfect Valentine.  It was an adaptation of an Indian folk tale, and was a a cute story.  The girls were a little disappointed that there was only ONE princess

Today I decided to give up on catching up with where we should be.  I just jumped to the day we should have been on and went from there.  I grabbed a couple of things out of the other bags, and we went on to Throw & Catch.   I decided that trying to catch up was an exercise in futility, and I kept getting further and further behind.  So I am jumping in where I am, and I will keep grabbing an activity or two out of the bags we missed, and hopefully we can catch up that way, without me feeling so far behind.   Little Guy loves Mother Goose Time , and always gets excited when I tell him we are going to be doing Circle Time.  It is really fun to see him so happy about something so good for him. Today we did quite a few preschool activities, including literacy, math, and art.  We were in a bit of a hurry because I tend to sleep in to late and I have to take the older girls their lunches at school now (long story!) at 10:30, so we didn't do as much discussion and we also d

We have not had a lot of good Mother Goose Time days this month.  Part of it has been my lack of organization, the usual culprit.  Add to that Michael having a few extra days off this month, which always throws me off, and Little Guy picking the last few weeks to decide to test my authority on pretty much everything, and Mother Goose Time is just not getting done as regularly as it should.   Little Guy is really stubborn.  Thankfully, not as stubborn as me, or he could turn into a real little tyrant.  His stubbornness has limited the time we have available to do fun things.  My kid would rather spend his whole day sitting at the table than eat a carrot when he decides that he doesn't feel like eating vegetables anymore.  I had been sending him to bed when he was not eating them, since if you don't get energy from food you can get it from sleep, but then one day I gave him his plate and he ASKED to go to bed, so I realized that wasn't really an effective disciplinary meas

When I get off of my schedule, it takes an incredibly long time for me to get back to some sort of normal.  I don't know why, I think its because I am lazy, and look for any excuse not to do things.  So when the last week of January didn't fall into place, the first week of February, didn't either. Michael had a tooth removed on Tuesday, so he was home Tuesday and Wednesday.  I don't know about you, but when my husband is home, I am pretty much worthless.  Despite the fact that he works way harder than I do, I am infuriated by him sitting playing video games while I clean.  Plus (in the interest of full disclosure) I kind of got involved in cloth diaper swapping again, which takes an embarrassing amount of my time. The bad news is, we didn't do ANY Mother Goose Time last week.  The good news is, Little Guy asked for it almost every day, so I KNOW he is really enjoying it! This weekend we played a little bit of catch-up, and it was pretty fun.  Little Guy was

Every month Mother Goose Time gives the Blog Ambassadors a Focus Topic.  This month (well January, I am a day or two late) the focus was on routines. First I will give a super quick overview of our ideal day of using Mother Goose Time.  This doesn't always happen, but this is our time table on days that everything is running smoothly and we don't have errands to run. 9:00: Circle Time - Circle Time Song, Days of the Week Song, calendar, weather, concept review, the days activity and the new song. 9:30: First Activity - I don't always go in order.  I save the art project for last usually, and try to get the things that are most challenging done first. 10:00: Second Activity and the I Can Read book.  This is not scheduled everyday, but I like to do it. 10:30: Bitty Baby needs a bottle at this point, so we read the day's book, plus whatever other books we have read during this theme 11:00: Third Activity 11:30: Last Activity - usually the art project so he can ta