I was catching up on some blogs the other day and saw a really fun idea, but sadly I can’t remember where it came from. It is a blog for a mom of a preschooler and she was saying how she is a terrible at scrapbooking (enter me)! So instead of doing a traditional scrapbook, every so often she would interview her child. She would type out the questions and answers and place on a fancy paper to put in a scrapbook later. I thought this sounded fun, but decided to put a different twist on it. I am going to try to interview Mikayla and capture it on video. Here is our first attempt…I think she did fairly well.
January 21st, 2012
Have you been missing my Toddler School updates? Well, so have we! We have actually not had "school" in several weeks and I have been itching to jump back into it. Since it is winter back in the states and I want Mikayla to be aware of different seasons (besides just hot, hotter and hottest) I decided to do a mini winter unit and focus on the letter W. Looking back on it I probably should have just done the Letter S for snow since most of our activities were snow related, but oh well! Like most weeks I had too much planned, meetings came up or Mikayla lost interest, so we will continue with some of our winter activities next week when we begin our letter P study (penguins and polar bears). Here are some of the fun winter things we did this past week.
We first took snowballs and practiced spelling her name…
…then we took those same snowballs and made a really large name snowman!
Thanks to the Cate’s for their wonderful shape button donation I made this game for Mikayla. At the top of each pipe cleaner (or ski poles as Mikayla called them) I attached a picture of a different shape. She then "laced" the buttons onto the correct one. She worked really hard at this game.
When she was finished she took the "ski poles" and went skiing…just like Grandma and Grandpa Kickert!
To make this game I took empty toilet paper rolls and wrapped construction paper around them. Then labeled with a number and a corresponding number of stickers. For this game she would look at the numbers (or count the stickers) and place that many snowballs inside (pom poms). I know snowballs are traditionally white, but I didn’t have enough so we went with colored snow…who doesn’t love that?!
This game is not winter related at all, but I have had it in my head for a long time now…I just needed enough empty match boxes to make it. I wrapped empty match boxes in construction paper and then labeled the outside with capital letters. The inside is filled with lowercase letters. Her job was to match the two and complete the match box. You could also use magnetic letters for the inside (matching capital to capital as well). Eventually I would like to make a number set and as she gets older a spelling game with the whole word on the outside and letters on inside to form the word…but that is way in the future!
Button snowman game. She rolled a dice and placed that many buttons on the snowman.
We went on a white scavenger hunt around the house and found white items to make a collage with.
On this particular day she wanted to color, so I quickly drew a family of snowmen for her to color.
Shape snowman – I gave her direction on where to put certain shapes to complete a snowman.
Thanks to JDR and Brittany we had some winter gummies I was able to use this week. She sorted the shapes and then of course ate a few!
W is for winter – she made a winter scene using her finger and paint as snowflakes.
A very odd looking footprint snowman. She picked out the colors and items for his accessories!
I have a special winter activity planned for the whole family that I think will take place on Sunday. I will be sure to blog about it next week!
Tags: Toddler School | Posted in Parenting |
January 14th, 2012
Do we have an obsession with Chacos?
**Special thanks to Melissa and Maggie Jolly for the Chaco loaners for Mikayla!
**And also a special thanks to Chacos for hooking us each up with a backup pair! And of course for making some fantastic shoes!
January 14th, 2012
We had a pretty quiet week. Ben worked a a lot and Mikayla and I played a lot! She did request on several occasions for the twins to come play though.
In the last week or so Mikayla has learned to gallop. She thinks it is fun and so everywhere we go she gallops. It is so cute, but don’t take my word for it. Watch it for yourself!
In addition to learning to gallop, Mikayla has gained a new cooking obsession in the last week or two. When I start cooking she pulls her chair over to the counter and gets a measuring cup. Then she proceeds to "make dessert" with the spices on the counter and any scraps of veggies and what not that are leftover from my cooking. She will spend the whole time I am cooking doing this and is so serious about it. She even knows the names for most of the spices. Most of the time the concoction is inedible, but she always tries it! Here is her latest concoction.
This concoction included matches, noodles, water, spices galore, some wild berries found on the mission, onions and I think apple peels. Yum yum!
Sunday was Sister Barbara’s birthday, so on Monday we cooked her a meal of her choice which just so happened to be one of our favorites…MEXICAN! We still had some chips and salsa leftover from our Christmas finds so we served those with black beans, rice, guacamole, chicken fajitas and homemade corn tortillas. The corn tortillas weren’t truly authentic because we didn’t have the right kind of corn flour (it requires a special one), but they still turned out pretty good. Ben said he liked them better than the flour tortillas I have made in the past. We topped the meal off with some chocolate covered pretzels made by Mikayla (of course I helped a little).
On Tuesday night we had a big storm come through. Probably an hour before it started raining we lost power. And then the rains came! It was actually so windy and rainy that the wind blew the rain sideways and into our house. Mikayla’s room was flooded and our room got quite a bit of rain too. We quickly realized what was happening and shut all the windows and then set to work to clean up the mess! Lucky for us we didn’t have anything too valuable on the ground. Mikayla had some books and a couple of toys lying around, but we were able to get them all dried out with only a few wrinkles. Unlucky for us was that the power didn’t come back on for almost 24 hours! Humidity + plus heat + no fans = HOT! Since there was no power all day on Wednesday, Ben decided he would try his hand at cutting our grass with a "slasher" (similar to a machete). He posted a video on his blog that you can check out if you are so inclined.
Back around Christmas I started reading Harry Potter. I have put it off for so long for no good reason and finally decided I would give it a go. And I am so glad I did! Like my friend Catherine said to me when I started reading them, they are not the most well written books, but I still love them! Just ask Ben, I couldn’t stop reading them until I had completed the series! I read all 7 books in just over 2 weeks. If you haven’t read the series yet you should really give it a shot. Just a question though for all you HP fans…are the movies worth trying to track down to watch?
Friday morning turned out to be pretty exciting for Ben and not in a good way. Mcamiso, one of our drivers, stopped by early to pick up our propane tank to get refilled and asked Ben to help. When they tipped the tank back there was a cobra coiled up underneath it. Luckily the snake was pretty docile. Between Ben, Mcomiso, Socks (the dog) and some garden tools, the snake was dealt with swiftly.
On a more warm and fuzzy note, Friday evening I made cookies for the “Ambassador” for the EU (European Union). Never thought I would say that when I moved to the bush in Swaziland!
To all you friends out there with little kids, here is a fun cooking activity that your kids can help out with (or make completely on their own)…pudding pops! Basically you make pudding (which they can practically do without your help) and then pour into a popsicle mold or ice cube trays. Add a stick of some sort and then freeze. The best part is that because they are pudding they don’t melt as fast and are way less messy! Doesn’t mean much to you guys getting snow right now, but for us battling the heat at the moment it makes great sense! Your kids can feel proud because they can make them on their own (with a little supervision of course)! And like with any cooking, licking the spoon is the best part…just ask Mikayla!
January 8th, 2012
This past year has flown by! It is hard to believe that we are already in 2012 and my sweet baby will be three in less than four months! Looking back on this year I think that the theme would be trips and experiences! It seems that we took a lot of trips and did a lot of things with family and friends in 2011. Here is a quick picture recap of our last year.
January
We played in a lot of snow and savored every minute of the cold since it would be our last for awhile!
February
We played in more snow. We actually had a decent snow season for Kentucky last year. We ended the month with a breakfast themed birthday party for myself since that happens to be my favorite meal.
March
We celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday in style this year. My sister got Mikayla an early birthday gift of a the cutest Dr. Seuss dress and I made a couple of clips (Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and 2) and we went to the library to see the Cat in the Hat. We also did lots of fun Dr. Seuss activities at home. Ben left for two weeks in Swaziland and Mikayla and I hit the road to Atlanta for some fun with our friends Catherine and Molly. Ben also "stopped" working at Corsair this month.
April
At the beginning of the month I joined my mom and my sister and her kids for a circus in Bowling Green. Mikayla slept in her big girl bed for the first time and got her first hair cut this month. We went to Dinosaur World with my mom and sister and her kids. We also hosted an Easter lunch with some family and friends. Mikayla really got into looking for the eggs this year. For Mikayla’s birthday this year we chose to give her an experience rather than an actual birthday gift. So we once again loaded up the car and headed to Chattanooga.
May
We hosted a candy themed birthday party in honor of Mikayla’s 2nd birthday. I turned in my letter of resignation to my school home of the last six years, T. C. Cherry Elementary. I said goodbye to all my loving students and packed up all my teaching belongings. Ben took Mikayla hiking a couple of times while I was at work. Ben is not big on birthdays, but we managed to have a pizza themed birthday party for him anyway! Ben also slaughtered a chicken in our garage!
June
We went strawberry picking at a local patch. We visited a lot of parks in Bowling Green. Mikayla and I took a final vacation with our friends Lara and Lylah. We went swimming in her parents pool and hit up the Evansville Zoo. Some of my sweet college friends and their kids (those that have them) came to Bowling Green for some fun at Chik-fil-A. I also got to spend some quality time with my dear friend Catherine and her daughter Molly (same friends we went to Atlanta with). We also took Mikayla fishing for the first time at my grandparents farm.
July
We went camping with some of our favorite people from Bowling Green. We moved out of our house and in with Ben’s brother (Tim) and sister-in-law (Chelsea). We packed up, gave away or sold all of our belongings, said final goodbyes to our family and friends and got on an airplane for the biggest adventure of our lives – we moved to Swaziland, Africa. After an adventure in getting there we finally arrived!
August
We spent a lot of time outside playing in the cooler weather. We hosted two malnourished, TB positive twins (Nosipho and Simo) for a month and helped to nurse them back to health.
September
We continue to watch our "three kids" grow and play together. Then we sent the twins back to the hostel after the school break was over. We took our first "bush walk" through the bush in our backyard. I also began teaching Mikayla Toddler School where we focus mostly on letters and numbers. We went on our first safari drive and bought a handcrafted kitchen table. We also started our obsession with bird watching!
October
Mikayla and I spent a lot of time learning during our Toddler Time, baked a lot, tried out some new recipes and enjoyed family time. We also celebrated St. Phillips with the St. Phillips Day Feast. We went on another safari drive and saw a lot of giraffes! We also got to experience what it was like to have your house swarmed by hundreds of flying termites.
November
We went on a second "bush walk", which was quite different than the first. Everything was green and grown! We hosted our first Swazi Thanksgiving with a bunch of the staff members of Cabrini. We also celebrated with the Cabrini staff for the Feast of Mother Cabrini.
December
We did some holiday baking, including the famous cinnamon rolls! We made cinnamon ornaments, gingerbread cookies and much more. We drove through one of the nature reserves and messed up our new vehicle we had just purchased. I joined the staff for an all staff overnight training in town while Ben stayed at home with Mikayla. We traveled to South Africa for our first African Christmas. Saw lots of animals at Kruger and enjoyed some tasty meals with Sister Barbara and Sister Diane. We even did some swimming! We got back home and hosted the twins (mentioned above) for another week. We ended the year by celebrating New Year’s Eve with some new friends we almost bought a car from – Peter, Callista and their daughter Aviva. We played Settler’s of Catan, ate some yummy food and watched some fireworks at midnight!
Posted in Life |
January 8th, 2012
We got home from our Christmas vacation on the 26th and then spent the 27th prepping and preparing for the arrival of the twins. We were supposed to have Nosipho and Simo picked up and brought to us on the 28th, but it was the evening of the 29th when they got to our house. We fed them a quick dinner and then all three kids took a bath in Mikayla’s tub. The school break this time around is 7 weeks and the childcare staff had some concerns about the twins (who were now pretty healthy) returning home for that length of period. So it was decided that after a few weeks they would be picked up and brought to us for the remainder of the break. However, after their arrival and spending a couple of days with them it was decided that they were being well cared for at their homestead. So, after a week and a few days we returned them home on Friday. It was a little more chaotic with them this time around. They are both walking and running and are much more active than they were in August when we kept them the first time. I think Mikayla enjoyed the company and even asked last night when the twins would be back!
Three kids in a tub…doesn’t get much more entertaining than that!
Nosipho and her many faces
Smiling Simo
Mikayla has enjoyed playing with all her new Christmas toys in the last few weeks. Despite being far from family she seemed to get a lot of toys this year! Her aunts and uncles really made sure she was well taken care of in the toy department! Thanks everyone who sent us packages! A special thanks to Pam Cate for some amazing peanut brittle!
Mikayla and Nosipho enjoying a ride on her swing.
We got a call from our friends Peter, Callista and Aviva to spend New Years at their house. We happily accepted and on New Years Eve packed up all the kids and headed to Mbabane (about 2 hours from our house). We enjoyed a great evening of laughter, white bean chili and Settlers of Catan! That’s right folks, we met a fellow Catan player in Swaziland – Keri. She was a friend of Peter and Callista’s who joined us for New Year’s Eve. A Swaziland tradition (at least in town) is that to ring in the New Year, at midnight fireworks are set off. Since we were on top of a large hill we got a great view of all the fireworks being set off. We stayed up entirely too late and the kids woke up entirely too early the next morning, but we all had a good time. We were even able to have a couple of Skype conversations with friends who were ringing in the New Year in the states!
This was also a sad week as we lost a very important member of the Cabrini crew. One of the sisters’ dogs (Boy) got into a fight with a 7′ black mamba (a poisonous snake) and lost the battle. Boy managed to kill the snake, but in the process the snake bit him and killed him. We were all very sad to hear the news. I think Socks (the other dog) was the saddest of them all. He spent the next day moping around our front porch and didn’t chase a single bird (his favorite pastime). He seems to be slowly getting back to his normal self and I even caught him chasing some chickens the other day. On Friday some of the staff members killed another mamba in our front yard and he started to go help and changed his mind when he saw what it was. So he isn’t back to himself completely, but he is slowly getting there.
One of the few pictures of boy we took! He was a good dog and reminded us a lot of Shiloh.
The mamba that killed Boy.
Mikayla enjoying a mango the Swazi way. By Swazi way I mean eating it skin and all!
December 29th, 2011
We have had a busy Christmas season, although it hasn’t felt much like Christmas here. The 100 degree days, lack of snow and Christmas decorations made it difficult to really get into the Christmas spirit. We did our best by listening to Christmas music, hanging stockings and putting up a tree. Most of our Christmas vacation was spent in South Africa. We were actually talking to a friend from home this week and decided that our holiday season seemed more like a vacation than a holiday season, so it was different. But I think we all enjoyed ourselves despite missing family and friends. The sisters were wonderful and took us under their wings to celebrate with us.
On Thursday of last week we slept in and then headed to Komatipoort, South Africa right on the Mozambique border. We spent the evening driving around and swimming. We woke up early on Friday morning and headed to Kruger National Park. It is one of the biggest game reserves in Southern Africa and is the best known. We saw some incredible animals. Whole herds of elephants, lions, giraffes, impala, rhinos, hippos. You name it and we probably saw it. We saw four of the Big Five within the first few hours. The only animals we didn’t see that we really wanted to were cheetahs and leopards. Although at one point we were pulled off with several other vehicles, including a tour guide, where there was supposedly a leopard in the tree. We never saw it, but like to pretend that we did! I am not going to include all of our animal shots, but you can check them out on Ben’s Facebook page if you are curious. Here are just a couple of snapshots.
First elephant we saw for the day and probably the largest!
Warthog family. First time I have actually seen a baby warthog.
Nothing like eating on the go!
Drinking giraffe.
Don’t you just love Mikayla’s hair in this picture! I swear we brush it every once in awhile.
I wanted to take this giraffe skull home but Ben said it would be illegal.
One of our last sightings of the day was this monstrous rhino. He kept trying to get away, but we finally captured a few good shots.
After a full day of driving around the park (we covered over 300km) we headed towards Nelspruit, South Africa where we spent the rest of our Christmas. Nelspruit was incredibly western, with almost any type shop you can imagine. If you didn’t know better you wouldn’t have thought you were in Africa. On Christmas Eve we drove around the city and checked out some of the shops and malls. It was amazing how much like the States it felt. We were lucky enough to find some really special finds. There were tons of clothing stores, two good outdoors shops, a couple of great liquor stores with good wine and familiar spirits, and a huge Toys R Us (although we didn’t go in this store for obvious reasons). We even found a candy store that sold Willy Wonka candy!! Then at the grocery stores we were able to pick up a few things we don’t really see in Swaziland too often – Funfetti cake mix (no Rainbow chip icing though), tortilla chips, salsa in a jar, taco seasoning, corn syrup (stocked up for rolls next year), tahini paste (for hummus), pretzels and few other odds and ends. That evening we headed to visit with the sisters for pizza and a few games of Boggle. We also attended the midnight mass before heading back to the hotel.
We woke up on Christmas morning not really feeling like Christmas at all, but we still tried to get in the spirit of things. Mikayla opened her stockings and couple of small packages from us. It took her a good half hour to open her stocking because she would only pull out one thing at a time. Then she would ask questions about it or play with it for a second before moving on. We ended up giving her the big gifts before we left so we wouldn’t have to pack them and worry with customs at the border. All in all I would say she racked up this year with gifts. She got a table and chairs, her rocking giraffe swing (check out Facebook for the video), a tea set, blocks, a mop and broom cleaning set, tons of books, a new dress, some Signing time DVDs and a few other odds and ends. And she still has a couple of other packages on their way that haven’t arrived yet. She was excited about each of them and jumps from one thing to the next now that we are back home.
Waking up Christmas morning.
Playing around in the hotel.
Stockings and small packages on Christmas morning.
After showering and opening packages we headed back to spend some time with sisters for a Christmas brunch and then back again for a fabulous Christmas braai. Mikayla and Ben were even able to do a little swimming! We crashed early Christmas evening and then headed home the next day.
Cheesy girl enjoying swimming outside in December!
Swimming with daddy!
We spent yesterday relaxing at home (I started reading Harry Potter and can’t put it down), cleaning and organizing. Sometime today we will be picking up the twins for a months stay at our house. The kids from the hostel are on holiday right now (summer vacation) and the twins have been back at their homesteads for about three weeks. This will be a much different stay for them because they are both relatively healthy now and extremely mobile. Both are walking/running all over the place! I think this time it will feel more like we have triplets than just three kids.
December 29th, 2011
For the last couple of weeks we have been focusing on Christmas activities during our school time. Unfortunately, we did not end up with much learning time in the past few weeks, so we did not get to very many of the activities I had planned. Maybe next year! Here are a few of the activities we did manage to squeeze in.
She made a hand/foot print reindeer. She got really upset today when she found it in the trash and we had to pull it back out to play with!
We made a reindeer snack with a square cookie cut in half, raisins, jelly bean, pecans and peanut butter.
For this game Mikayla would choose a magnetic number and place that many ornaments (pom poms) onto the tree until she had the tree filled up.
I put magnetic letters in a stocking and she pulled them out one at a time to identify. She was able to say each letter! After each correct identification we would both say "Jingle Bells"!
We also did a really neat nativity storyboard with her handprints. I can not remember where I saw it, but basically it was four handprints, each turned into an animal that represented the nativity story. A donkey for Mary heading to Bethlehem, a cow for the manger and stable scene, a sheep for the shepherd and a camel for the wise men. Then in the middle of the four handprint animals was her fingerprint to represent Baby Jesus. It was a great learning tool for her to retell the birth of Jesus. Of course we played with Christmas stickers and did a few other crafty activities that I did not get a picture of.
I am not sure what the coming weeks will hold for our learning time because we will have the twins we cared for in August living with us again. They will be with us for a month so I don’t expect to get much learning time in! We will see though. They are both walking and running and what not now so it will be more like having triplets than it was before!
December 26th, 2011
We took lots of pictures of animals while in Kruger (you can find them on Ben’s Facebook page), but here are a couple of bird pictures for you. We haven’t identified all of them yet, but will when we get back home.
Not a great shot, but still a cool bird!
This bird was just hanging out on top of a hippo!
Some of these birds have amazing colors.
This was some sort of eagle, I think an African fish eagle.
Love this guy – we have actually seen him around our house too. His color is beautiful!
I am sure I will post some animal pictures later, but if you want to see them now you can go to Ben’s Facebook page.
December 20th, 2011
In case you missed my Facebook update this morning, Christmas Season can officially begin in our household. Today was Cinnamon Roll Day! Mikayla and I spent the morning making my Grandma Clark’s famous cinnamon rolls. Which in my mind symbolize Christmas. I love them so much! Ben asked today why we don’t make them more often and I said they would lose their mystique if we made them more than just at Christmas time. Last year I posted about the tradition, you can read about it here if you want.
Since cinnamon rolls are so big for my family, I have spent the past couple of years making triple or quadruple batches to fulfill our desires for their gooey goodness. However, this year I just made one batch since I didn’t figure they would ship very well (sorry guys). It was strange only making one batch and we were finished before lunch (this has never happened on cinnamon roll day)! We had to make a few slight alterations (like swapping honey for the corn syrup), but they still taste a little like home. To all the Clark family out there – we will be enjoying some cinnamon rolls this week while thinking of you!
We didn’t manage to take but a couple of pictures today (Ben left with the camera), but here are some pictures from several years ago when my sister and I made cinnamon rolls with my Grandma.
Making cinnamon rolls with the best sous chef around!
Slicing
Sister and Grandma preparing the surface. Please note the cinnamon sugar shaker on the left. This was given to me a couple of years ago and I really missed it this year when making. It makes the cinnamon sugar part a lot easier!
Watching the master at work!
Christa and me! (This was pre-Mikayla, Tanner and Taylor)!