This Week’s Happenings 4/2-4/8
April 8th, 2012

Happy Easter weekend everyone.  We hope you have a relaxing and joyful day of celebration!

This week I embarked on my bread making journey. For my birthday Ben’s parents gave me some Amazon money and I decided to use part of it to purchase a bread cookbook.  I decided on Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  The bases behind the book is that you mix up a bread starter and leave it in the fridge (similar to sourdough starters).  When you want bread you take it out of the fridge, shape it according to the type of bread, let it rise and bake.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!  And tasty too.  I made a couple of Boules, ciabatta, and regular sandwich loaf bread.  There are lots of variations in the book and I can’t wait to try some of them out!  The only tricky part is that it calls for supplies we don’t have and for two racks in the oven (which we also don’t have).  So far we have managed and the bread has turned out delicious (even if we have to cook it for double the amount of time called for)!

One of Ben and mine’s favorite Easter treats is Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs.  Unfortunately, you can’t find them here in Swaziland.  So when I saw a recipe for homemade Reece’s eggs on this blog, I thought I would give it a try.  And while they weren’t exactly the same, they were still tasty.  I made them a little large this go around, so next time I will make them a little bit smaller.  They were pretty rich!  Mikayla even jumped in on the action and enjoyed herself a little peanut butter!

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Because of Easter weekend, Ben had a four day weekend.  So Friday we enjoyed a relaxing day at home as a family.  We hung out and were super lazy!  So lazy in fact that I think Mikayla got a little bored!  Amidst our laziness we managed to squeeze in a game of disc golf and a nice Thai dinner cooked by Ben.  We don’t exactly have a disc golf course, but we make up our own when we play.  For example, shoot to the post near the soccer field!

On Saturday we woke up early to go to the grocery store.  One the way in we stopped at a Country Club for Mikayla to play at their playground.  It is one of the best playgrounds in Swaziland and is the closest one to our house (thirty minutes away).  She had so much fun running from play area to play area.

Today is Easter Sunday and we once again plan to lay low and hang out at the house.  Tonight we are having Joe over for some Easter steaks on the grill.  I am also going to make a loaf of bread and a Pina Colada Cake (I will keep you posted on how it tastes).

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Toddler School–Easter Edition
April 8th, 2012

We had a pretty rough week at Toddler school last week, so I decided to take it easy this week.  We finished up a couple of our J activities and through in some Easter activities for fun.  Here are a couple of highlights from our week.

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Painting an Easter bunny with a marshmallow.  She thought it was pretty silly to paint with a marshmallow!

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Matching jar lids to the correct jar and screwing them on.  She did amazing at this!  Her fine motor skills have definitely improved since we started this journey in September!

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Easter Egg Memory.  I made six matching Easter egg cards and she played memory trying to find the correct match.  When she found the right match she placed them in her bunny basket we made (sorry, didn’t get a good picture of that one).

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Then she decided that she wanted to use the eggs to go on an Easter egg hunt.  Sometimes her impromptu games end up better than my planned ones!  She hid the eggs herself and then found them all over and over again!

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I taped some popsicle sticks in the shape of a cross on a piece of cardstock and then let her paint around them with sponges.  When we took the popsicle sticks off it revealed a special cross.  We spent some time during this craft talking about the Easter story and why it is so important!

We did some more activities this week, but can’t remember them at the moment!  Ben was home on Friday so we had another short week of school!

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Mikayla’s Funny Statements
April 7th, 2012

Have I mentioned on here before how funny my child can be?  Seriously, sometimes she says things and I wonder where she gets them.  Here are some of her recent "funny" statements that she says regularly.

"I’m sorry…I forgive you" – From the time she could start talking we encouraged her to apologize and ask for forgiveness when she had done something wrong.  Somehow it has turned into the above statement where she says she is sorry and then that she forgives you instead of asking for forgiveness!

"My Jie-Nuh" – We had a friend in Bowling Green who worked with sexual abuse victims and she always told us we should use the correct wording for private parts in case they were ever sexually abused it would hold up in court.  This is what Mikayla calls hers.

"Actually" – You have to hear her say this one because she enunciates it so well.  She will say this if she thinks we are wrong (Actually mommy…) or if she doesn’t want to do something (Actually we are going to…).  The word itself isn’t that funny, but the way she says it is!

"Oh Toodles and Super Cheers" – This has stemmed from her love of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which is what we have decided to theme her third birthday party in case you were wondering).  She goes around saying them all the time.  Even at meal time sometimes she will have has clink our food together and say super cheers.

"Excused by the table" – She uses this one when she wants to get up from the table.  It is supposed to be "Excused from the table". 

"I-an-a-de-a" (idea) – This one is perhaps my favorite.  She gets so excited when she says this one.  This comes up when we ask her what we should do and she responds with "I’ve got an ianadea!".

"Humping" (hunting) – I am not sure how this one came about, but she says this often when we are outside and she wants to look for something.  I will ask her what she is doing and she will respond with "I am humping for leaves".

"Park and Play" – Ben says this is his favorite Mikayla statement.  If we are driving down the road and she sees a playground she will scream ‘There’s a park and play".  It seemed like an odd thing to call it until we realized we often asker her if she want to go to the park and play She now thinks that is what they are called!  Friends that ride into town with us comment on it every time she says it when we pass parks.  So funny.

"Boing-A-Hop" – I think she got this one from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but when she wants to jump (particularly on our bed) she says, "Let’s go Boing-A-Hop".  So cute!

"Sometimes, but not two times" – If you ask Mikayla a question (i.e. Do you like this?) she will respond with "Sometimes, but not two times".  I think what she means is that she likes it sometimes, but not all of the time.  Still, her choice of wording is funny to me!

I really wanted to include a funny picture of Mikayla here but couldn’t find one I liked, so I am leaving it picture less!

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Toddler School–Letter J
April 2nd, 2012

Mikayla got a stomach bug this week, so Toddler School was hit or miss.  We completed several activities at the beginning of the week, but the end of the week was a different story.  She liked learning about the Letter J, but I think mostly because she got to eat jelly beans!

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She practiced coloring and staying in the lines by coloring some color coded jelly beans.  She did pretty good with this.  As you can see we are still working on correct gripping of pencils and crayons.  She hates holding them the right way!

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We sorted jelly beans by colors.

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Then we graphed them.  First I had her lay them beside the right color, one per square.  Then we took one off at a time and colored that square the correct color.  Then of course we had to eat one of each color.

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I taught her the Nursery Rhyme Jack and Jill.  She loved this!  I drew them onto toilet paper tubes (please don’t judge my artistic abilities) and then she colored them.  We used them as we recited the Nursery Rhyme.  She took these guys with us everywhere we went for the rest of the week.  We also used Jack to act out Jack and the Candlestick.

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We also practiced fetching a pail of water.

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Then we poured the water into the pan.

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We made a jelly fish by cutting a paper plate in half, coloring it and tying ribbon as the tentacles. 

I had also planned on doing some more jelly fish stuff, jar activities and Jack and the Beanstalk, but whens he got sick we didn’t get to most of them.  I may try to throw them in next week, but we will see.  I also think I will try and do some Easter activities next week, along with our next letter.  Anyone have any good suggestions for fun activities?

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This Week’s Happenings 3/26-4/1
April 2nd, 2012

It is so hard for me to believe that Easter is one weekend away.  Anybody doing any fun Easter activities or crafts?  Where has the time gone?

Ben got home last Saturday, so we enjoyed lots of time with him over the weekend and then throughout the week.  It was nice to have him home again.  I think Mikayla enjoyed her daddy time this week as well.

He brought back lots of goodies from the states so we played with those and even ate some too!  He was even able to snag a box of our two favorite Girl Scout cookies (Tagalongs and Thin Mints) so we enjoyed those as well.

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Enjoying a Girl Scout cookie daddy brought home!

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Sporting her new apron from her Great Aunt Ellen…thanks, she loves it and the goodies that were inside!

On Thursday, Mikayla and I headed into town with some other staff members to pick up my driver’s license (and some other errands for others).  I am now an official Swazi driver!  More than I can say for Ben!  Unfortunately, on the way in Mikayla got sick.  She threw up several times and was very lethargic and sleepy for the rest of the day.  The unfortunate thing about our situation was we were two hours from home and with other people so we couldn’t exactly turn around and head back.  She was a trooper though and curled up on my lap for most of the day sleeping.  By the time we got home she had a temperature of 103.6!  It dropped quickly as soon as we got some Tylenol into her system.  The next couple of days were filled with lots of time on the toilet and very restless nights.  Needless to say, we all took a day of rest on Sunday!  I am thankful to say she is on the mend and was feeling back to her regular self today!

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A silly Mikayla face…love this picture though!

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I have mentioned Joe a couple of times, but haven’t posted a picture of him yet.  Here he is showing Ben a bottle of Chicago Bourbon he found at a store in town.

Ben and I plan on getting up at 3 am to watch the National Championship Basketball game.  It will make for a sleepy day tomorrow, but hopefully it will be well worth our time investment!

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A Year Ago Today
March 27th, 2012

A year ago today we said goodbye to one of the sweetest girls.  Ms. Bella Shoemaker has been dearly missed in the last year, but her legacy lives on.

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When we swing, we talk about Bella and how much she loved to swing.

When I am laughing and playing with Mikayla I think of Bella and her beautiful smile and contagious laughter.  I can still envision her laughing each time she would "toot" on someone  or how she would take her chopsticks and slide them through her hands over and over again!  She was an amazing young lady who taught us all about how to fully embrace life and live with courage!

So today Mikayla is wearing a hand me down dress worn by Bella and we randomly say one of her favorite phrases:  Eat Up a Toe!

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Her wonderful mother and my dear friend has recently started a non-profit in memory of Bella.  It is uniquely named (unique like Bella) The Eat Up a Toe Foundation, Inc. .  How appropriate!  She is raising money to help aid families who are battling cancer in their child.  She is amazing just like her daughter was!

They are having a fundraiser for the foundation on April 28 in Bowling Green – Spring Swing and Fling.  Check out their FB page for more details or do a Google search!

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This Week’s Happenings 3/19-3/25
March 27th, 2012

Not much new or exciting happened this week.  The most exciting thing was that Ben came home!  Mikayla was so excited to see him, although to be honest I think she was most excited about the gifts he brought home for her!  She racked up and is loving every minute of it.  Let’s just say that we have plenty of toys, candy and extra items to last us for awhile!

Other than Ben’s arrival, we kind of laid low for most of the week.  I acted as "secretary" for a couple of strategic planning meetings and worked on some typing for the childcare staff, but other than that we played and hung out.

I just wanted to give a little shout out to my dad this week.  He resigned from his position as head coach of the girls basketball team in Somerset (from where I graduated high school).  He has been coaching girls basketball for 20 years or so (not all at the high school though).  He was even my head coach in middle school!  He was a great coach, but he was so much more than a coach.  He really believed in the players and worked hard to make them successful (both on and off the courts) and helped to shape them into beautiful citizens.  Not many coaches would ask their players to help out with a community dinner for the homeless on Christmas Eve and have a successful turn out with high school girls actually enjoying themselves.  I know his presence in the basketball program will be missed by all.  I love you dad!

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This was the press conference when they named dad the head coach of the girls team years ago.

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Some of his first high school girls team members.  I wish I had a picture of our middle school team, but unfortunately it is in an album and not on my computer so this will have to do.

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Toddler School–Letter I
March 25th, 2012

Letter I was a tough one for me to come up with ideas for.  I managed to come up with a few that I think were fun (and somewhat creative).  So, without further ado:

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I made another puzzle from a coloring book page for the Letter I .  She had fun putting together her ice cream cone!

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My mom had sent some insect stickers so we used these to make the Letter I.

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She also sent some of those "Grow-A-Capsules" in the shapes of bugs, but we called them insects.  She enjoyed watching the capsules grow into different insects.

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Since she likes to stamp so much, I wrote out some "I" word and had her stamp the correct letters on top.

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Then we rolled the dice and counted out that many insects.

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She glued sprinkles on top of the numbers according to the number on each cone.

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 At the store last week I found some insect gummies so we sorted these by colors and then by insects.  Of course we ate some too!

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She has gotten really good at writing the letter I.  Although she will sometimes write an H instead.

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I made some colored ice cubes with food coloring and let her use them to paint with.  After painting the I, she then went on to paint 10 other pages!  This kid loves painting!

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I broke back out our Ice cream letter matching game this week.  It had been awhile since she played it.

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Then of course we made ice cream.  I chose to make the individual ice cream in a bag version.  She enjoyed it for the first minute and then got tired of shaking it and I had to finish.

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And of course she had to eat some as well!

Next week we will move on to the Letter J.  Stay tuned!

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This Week’s Happenings 3/11-3/18
March 19th, 2012

For the most part our week was pretty uneventful.  We are now less than a week away from when we pick Ben up at the airport and we are so excited!  We have missed him so much.  The beginning of our week was pretty quiet, but things seemed to pick up a little towards the end.

On Thursday we headed into Mbabane with Joe and Joey to try and take care of some paperwork stuff.  I needed to get a Swazi license because my KY is about to expire.  What a process!  Anytime you have to deal with the government here it seems to be a process!  We called ahead to make sure we had all the important documents we needed, but apparently this was wasted.  As soon as we got there I found out I needed copies of more papers and they needed to be certified from the police department.  Luckily I had everything I needed, but ended up running around town for a couple of hours trying to get it all taken care of.  And in the end, I still don’t have a license in hand.  I had to leave all the paperwork and then come back in 1-3 weeks to pick it up.  Crazy!  Oh well, at least I got the bulk of it done.  Just seems silly to drive two hours to pick up a license!  But such is life I suppose!

As most of you might know, Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day.  I am not Irish, but I thought it would be fun to host a St. Pat’s dinner anyway.  So we had the "Americans" over for dinner on Saturday.  Joe cooked corned beef and cabbage, the sisters contributed some potatoes complete with all the fixings and I made Irish Soda Bread.  I also made some rainbow cupcakes.  These have been on my radar for a long time, but they are time consuming so I never got around to making. 

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Irish Soda Bread – four ingredients, no rise time and some of the easiest bread I have ever made.  Plus it was pretty tasty.  I think we will make this one again!

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These guys didn’t the layering I had hoped they would, but they still reminded me of a rainbow.  And what is more important is Mikayla had fun helping to mix the colors up!

In edition to our St. Pats treats we also made granola bars (my friend Lara’s recipe) and my first ever quiche (courtesy of Betty Crocker)!  Both were tasty and hits with those that we shared them with.  I love quiche and it was amazing to me how simple it was.  The hardest part was the dough for the shell, and even that was pretty basic!  I would say I would be making again soon, but unfortunately Ben doesn’t like eggs so it might not happen for awhile.

We got some very exciting news from one of my best friends in BG this week.  I am not sure I can share the news yet, but just know that it was so exciting I actually started crying when she called to tell me.  That doesn’t happen too often!  Congratulations again friend!

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We finished off our Dr. Seuss unit this week and Mikayla had so much fun.  I made some finger puppets for her and they just had to be a part of cooking!  Too cute.  Here she is showing Thing 1 how to add spices in!

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Sporting some new jammies and a book sent from her Mimi and Poppy.  They sent her a couple of outfits and we spent a lot of time on Saturday trying them on over and over.  Plus they sent a really fun Cat in the Hat and Franklin video that she loved.  Thanks again!

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For Steve

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Miscellaneous Seuss Activities
March 15th, 2012

Have I mentioned before how much I love Dr. Seuss?  Well if not, I LOVE DR. SEUSS!  I think he is an extremely creative writer that engages his reader and his characters are super creative!  When I taught Kindergarten we always did a two week Dr. Seuss unit and read as many of his books as we could.  Mikayla has always enjoyed Dr. Seuss, which is why we have spent the last two weeks "studying" his books during our Toddler School time.  You can read about some of our past activities here, here, here and here.  These are just some of the activities that didn’t make it into any of the other posts because they weren’t geared towards any specific book, but just Dr. Seuss as a whole!

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I colored a Thing 1 picture, cut into strips, numbered the strips and she had a fun puzzle to work.  She really enjoyed this and it was easy, so I think we will be doing more of these in the future!

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I placed some Dr. Seuss stickers onto strips of paper and she cut in between the stickers for some fun cutting practice.

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Since she LOVES stickers so much I let her take the extra stickers and place on a quick drawing of the words Dr. Seuss and a Cat Hat.

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I made a color by number that revealed the Cat’s Hat.  She did a great job of coloring the numbers to correct color, but she struggled with coloring in the whole area.  Another easy project we can replicate for future activities!

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Roll An Action Game.  First, I made a dice with six different actions (i.e. clap, hop, etc.)  Then, I laid out some Dr. Seuss number flash cards on the floor. She chose one, rolled the action dice and then completed the action the same number of times as her number card.  She is still not great with number recognition if anyone has any fun activities.

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