Grace's New Play/Homeschool Room

I'm so excited to announce that I FINALLY got into Grace's play room and turned it into a play/homeschool room!! I've wanted to do it for a long time but the task just felt so daunting!! But I worked on it for two days, and put the hubby to work, and got it done. I think the main thing I'm surprised about is that we were able to fit the 20 boxes of food storage that WERE against the wall in the closet, with all the other food storage!! That was the main reason I didn't want to tackle the room. But now that it's done, I'm HAPPY!!

So the first picture is me walking into the room. Do you see Pooh Bear over there sitting on the horse in the corner? Yeah, that was where the boxes were! The screen in the window..yes...there's a huge hole...my husband used to have Great Dane's and they did that. Anyways, back to the room :) The white and blue top box is where all my curriculum books/paperwork will go :) She can sit on top and play on it and it won't ruin my curriculum. The piano in the middle is not only a piano, but a desk too, you just pull the yellow down and then it's a desk :)
I love how clean everything is. That letter list though...my goodness. I had to fight and argue with myself on where that would go. I had it on the opposite wall, but it wasn't in just one line. It had to be two rows. And I just didn't like that! Yes, I'm anal. But it took me 20 minutes or so to decide to finally put it on the wall it is on now because I had to move a bunch of stuff around!! Oh, the caterpillar rocker is great for her balance, so that stayed in the room. Her balance is pretty bad when she's sitting on something that isn't completely flat, so we work on that for therapy.
I think with the room being this clean, it won't feel so overwhelming for Grace. And now that she's learning to "put in," we will be working on cleaning up after herself! The horse bouncer/rocker/whatever is for her trunk strength. We do therapy with that to get her to bounce herself, which is not only fun for her, but strengthens her trunk!
Rocker and "Montessori Inspired" shelves. Not the buckets themselves, but the ideas of what's inside. One topic or subject for each bin, and not an overwhelming amount. I am glad I worked at a Montessori Preschool for 1 1/2 years!! I don't like the structure too much (it was much too "child grow up fast" for me, but I liked the structure and chance for the child to be independent). Anyways...The purple dog plays music, and I will have it play "nighttime music" when it's time to settle down for circle time... I guess I could call it one on one time!
The shelves on the left I just LOVE because they are her height!! We finally got her some puzzles, which I'm also excited about. The paperwork on the blue/white box is my inventory. I stored more than 1/2 her toys in the closet, and will rotate them monthly so they are used, and so she won't get bored with what she sees.
Ok, her bucket shelf...I will start from the top left and move down just like if you were reading...A-Z alphabet spinners (will help with letter recognition, fine motor skills), Pinball machine (helps with gross motor to push the button down, color recognition, listening skills), Purse (fine motor skills to open the purse, and there's bracelets inside to help with hand-eye coordination to put them on, giant lipstick for facial recognition of where to put it and dramatic play, and keys for color recognition, counting, and dramatic play), Music/Body Bear (helps with body recognition of limbs and body parts, songs to help with body coordination when dancing, fine motor skills to push the buttons), balls (fine and gross motor, practice throwing, color recognition, counting help, aesthetically pleasing *the spiky balls*, texture differences, same/different grouping, bouncing lessons, big/small grouping), blocks (counting, tower building, color recognition, animal sounds/names *one block has a duck, one a bird, and one a frog*, fine motor skills *squeezing the block to make it quack, and pulling a cord on another block to make it vibrate*, throwing practice, shape recognition, word acknowledging), 4 ducks (name recognition, color recognition, counting practice, sound practice *quack*, fine motor skills *they can be squeezed*, dramatic play, song playalong *Four Little Ducks Went Out One Day*, body recognition *mouth/beak, arms/wings, feet, eyes*, Laptop (works on counting, animal recognition, animal sounds, fine/gross motor skills *it has a mouse and buttons to press*), music play (Tamborine for gross motor of shaking, as well as the maracas. We will also make a guitar and drums to add to this box, which will help with art, fine/gross motor *painting*.), ABC snail (ABC recognition, pull/push activity *has wheels and a string to pull*, color recognition, body coordination to dance, button pushing fine motor), books (fine motor *pointing at the words*, gross motor *turning the pages, pulling the books out and putting them in...also hand/eye coordination, animal recognition, color recognition, letter recognition, animal sounds, independent reading time), and a block puzzle (hand/eye coordination *this is much to hard for Grace to do now, but it's good to have her see what it is*, animal recognition *once completed with Mommy's help*, shape recognition, hand/eye coordination to bang two blocks together, tower building, counting). So a toy isn't just a toy!!
Her other shelf...the ball spinner (hand/eye coordination to make it spin, strength in the arms to push it down, color recognition, cause/effect), puzzles (hand/eye coordination, fine motor skills to grasp pegs, color recognition, animal recognition, animal noises), "babies" for dramatic play, counting, color recognition, and the one with the elephant sticking his nose out are all different stuffed animals for animal recognition, color recognition, animal sounds/names, counting, dramatic play.
Here's her desk with the yellow desk pulled down.
This is the inside of my box for the curriculum. This will soon be full of all my fun ideas, paperwork, books, and more!!

All in all, a wonderful clean room is my gift to myself!!

Amanda

She STOOD TALL!!

I can't believe it. The moment I have waited for for so long, and it happened...TODAY!! Today at water therapy she stood on her own for 5 seconds!! She was chest deep in the water, and actually balanced herself, had the confidence, and did it!! And of course, I was daydreaming and didn't even pay attention! But she did it a second and third time. Not so well the other two times because her face went into the water up to her nose the second time, and the third time her whole head went under, but she didn't cry! She's so good!!

These pictures are of her after her therapy. She was wore out!! And of course I didn't have the camera the day she stood...what a bad mommy!! But I'll never forget it!!!

She loves this chair!! And she can get into it on her own! And she loves rocking it :)


Gosh I love this kid.
Amanda

Garden Update

Our garden is AWESOME! I am so excited about going outside every day to see how well everything is growing. I think the soil has some magic grow in it or something, because everything is growing so well!
The top picture are our rows of green beans and peas. This is about 20-25 feet long :) In the back there are three pepper plants...can you see them?Here are out squash, zucchini, and cucumber plots :) Can you see something else?? WEEDS. Yuck. I am so disappointed about how fast they are growing in as well...
This is showing the tomatoes. In the bottom middle of the picture, next to the rock, there are 6-7 growths of tomatoes, and then in the middle of the picture...about...and then following the sticks all the way up the page. I think the sprinklers went on last night after being on the day before, so it's really wet in the garden!
Here's our seedling section. This is where we put all the plants I grew indoors first...they are at about the same growth as the ones we planted right in the ground, except the potatoes are doing GREAT!!! I'm thrilled about the potatoes. I cover up the growth in the morning, and by the evening, it's already growing beyond the dirt I covered it with!
A closeup on our potatoes. Since being ground level, they've grown about 4 inches tall, so that's really fast! We had nine and have only found 4, so I'm hoping the other ones are just slower.
And here's our new planted section. We usually do tomatoes here, but this time we did beets and spaghetti squash. This is about 5x6 feet :) I love gardening.

Amanda

Saying Mama

I've waited so long to hear those wonderful syllables...Mama. She's taken forever to say them...people tell me it's because I'm always there for her, so there's no reason for her to need to say them. But finally!!! She said MAMA!!! It was so cute. We were on the way to therapy and she was just sitting back there chatting to herself and kept saying, "mama, mama, mama" over and over. So of course I put the rear-view mirror down to point at her and she got so tickled!! She started laughing, waving and blowing kisses. She loves it when I point the mirror so I can see her! I love hearing Mama just as much as I love hearing her laugh :)

Amanda

Put in...Put in... and two words

I am so so SO excited to post about this, because it's definitely been a long time coming!! Grace knows how to "put in!!!" WOW!! Yeah, I'm so excited! It's been months of PT and OT working on the idea that "put in" means you actually have to drop the thing (#1) and then LEAVE it there!! (#2). And she can do it!! For two night now, we've gone through the living room and "put in" her toys all in her toy box!!! Wonderful job Grace! And you want to know what else?? For the first time...ever...Grace said "Daddy out." Well, yeah, she's signed that all the time...she SAID it!!! Holy smokes!!! She used her voice, and said two words at once! High five for Grace!!

Good times, more milestones met, Mommy and Daddy (and Grace) can bask in the happiness of our daughter succeeded faster than we thought she would!!

Amanda

Cleaning is Needed

So, I don't think the house looks too bad, but I'm super excited to find a free download of "31 Days to Clean" from the "Raising Homemakers" facebook page! So I'm definitely going to blog about it, because that's how I get the free download!

I'm so excited!!! I will definitely be doing this cleaning challenge. I just hope it take me 31 days, and not more!!

Amanda

Grace's Eye Doctor Appointment Today

So today we went to Roseville to see the doctor today, and after getting there on time, we had to wait 1 1/2 hours for the doctor to come in. I was so MAD!! Grace was getting wiggly/tired because it was 11 and she'd been woken up early, and I was just so ready to walk out. But I figured I would count to 10, then again, then again, and kept doing that till he came. He saw her for all of 10 minutes, and we were done. But it was all good news, so that's good. Her eyes seem to be doing better, they cross more when she looks down than when she looks up, but even with this, we have to do the 2 hours of patching still. She also doesn't need glasses, which is great!! She wouldn't want them on her face, so I'm glad to hear that.

So in 2-3 months we'll go back to see him again, and that's when we'll discuss surgery. It's mostly cosmetic, but it will also give the brain a chance to use both eyes together at once :) I'm so happy!!

All in all, good news. I'm glad we went, because we were going to ditch the appointment.

Amanda

Grace's Milestones!

Ok, so today was a pretty spectacular day for milestones. So the first one was working on therapy stuff. She was able to go from one chair to the other, while standing, and twisting at the waist, without mommy helping!! The chairs were 26 inches apart!!!! The most she's ever done is 22 inches apart. So that was absolutely amazing.
This was on one chair...
and this was on the other chair! Good girl Grace!!

The second thing that was awesome today was Grace standing at the mirror in my bedroom. She's had a lot of fears with standing at the wall, or anything that didn't have something for her to hold onto. So it was wonderful to see her stand up at the mirror without her even being scared!

The third thing was watching her feed herself. We are really putting our feet down about this feeding issue. I mean, she's almost 20 months old and she's still being fed mainly by us. So today she fed herself lunch and dinner, and though she got super messy, needed a bath afterwards, and messed the chair, she did it! So we will continue. She had spaghetti, banana and corn for lunch, and top ramen with mixed veggies, fig newtons and grapes for dinner. She did wonderful!

The fourth thing was Grace putting the eggs in her bucket! That's just awesome that she's finally learned that when mommy says "in" that means to put it in and LEAVE it in :) Good girl Grace.

All in all, she's doing great. She is continuously getting better at signing two words, and now we just need to start working on the speaking two words at once!

Amanda

Easter Part Two

It was so cute watching Grace go and collect all the eggs!! And I think the most amazing thing was that she was able to put them in her Easter bucket!! You think that's like, a no brainer? Well, this is the first time she's EVER been able to consecutively put something "in" without taking it out right after!! I was so happy!!
Here's Grace wondering why in the world there's eggs everywhere?! See how big her eyes are...that's because the dilation stuff was still effecting her eyes.
Look at all her LOOT!!! WOW!
Mommy playing with Grace :) I loved those little finger puppets!!



Amanda

Our Garden Grows FAST!!!

This week...for the preparedness challenge...I dehydrated!

I can't believe how fast everything is growing in the garden. The weather has definitely been a blessing...lots of sunshine when we first planted, and then after about a week, there was just a beautiful amount of rain that came down :) Just 5 days from my other post so many things have grown so much more!! This year, by far, the garden is doing the best. But we have noticed that every other year the garden does much better!
Here's where all the seedlings went. You'll have to click the picture to make it bigger so you can see everything :) Out of the 9 potatoes that WERE growing in the newspaper pots, I've only seen one come up so far, so hopefully they didn't die from transplant.
Here's one section of the garden...I LOVE how fast the green beans are coming up!! The plant in the left corner is the raspberries, which we all love!!
Here are all the melons and squash! WOW they came up out of nowhere!! The bottom left is crooked-neck squash, the top left is zucchini as well as the bottom right, and the top right is ...I don't remember!!
And this is a bunch of tomatoes that came up from last year! WOW!! That usually happens, but just one or two plants.

This week, I've been busy...well, my dehydrator has been busy! I've been on a dehydrating CRAZE!!!

Here's my load...from one week!
From the left...celery (3 bushels), Peas (2 quarts of them, that's from 5 small bags of peas), Zucchini (12 of them), bell peppers (5 of them)...them the other picture down below will be described :)
From left...Vegetable Mix (one whole bag), pineapple (# 10 can fit in ONE QUART!!), 3 quarts of carrots (15 pounds of carrots), and broccoli (1 bag).
5 pounds of venison are now dehydrating to turn into a yummy elk jerky!!! YUM!! And after that will be eggs...seeing how we got 17 in one day...with only 10 chickens! And there's about 40 more in the refrigerator. And after that, spinach will be dehydrated and processed into powder to add to any meal I want!!

So, it's been a busy week :) And I've LOVED IT!!

Amanda

Easter Time!! (Part One)

So it's saturday, the day before Easter and we finally got to open Grace's Easter present from her great grandparents (who are called Dado and Papa). She got a super cute Ladybug stuffed animal, which she kissed over and over, a book about the ladybug called "The Grouchy Ladybug", and an Easter Outfit!!! I loved that she got a dress, because she was able to wear it today when we went to the city's "Spring Extravaganza!!"


Grace was so upset when I didn't let her read the book (we were running late getting to the Spring event) but she demanded and fussed SO much with signing "more book" and pointing and whining that I gave up. I mean, who would take away a book from a kid that WANTS to read? So we let her check out the book, and she was so excited! She would point at the words, use her Grace language (babble) and flip the pages :)
I know this picture is foggy but it was SO CUTE!

And here's the beautiful dress from Dado and Papa!! She was just so thrilled that there was a big flower on it...it was hard to keep her focused!
And of course the pictures have her yucky runny nose in it...bummer for allergies!


She got to see the Easter Bunny which was SO FUN!!! She didn't whine or anything, so I'm excited. We will be getting a front facing picture soon from the people that took it...these were from Daddy snapping away :)
She had the most adorable face!!

And then we went on a walk around the pond that was there. Grace really enjoyed her balloon.
All in all, a wonderful pre-Easter day. Tomorrow will bring part 2 of our Easter this year :)

Amanda

Grace is Learning...FAST!!

I can't believe the capacity children have to learn things...it just astounds me! I can't believe that in just one day, Grace can learn a new sign, and some days, more than one! We've had a lot of very good days with little Grace, where we've been busy learning signs, learning spoken words, and learning how to walk and stand. We've had so many successes!! Grace will now go to stand at the wall by herself without being too scared! Amazing!! And just this morning, she said shoe...with her voice!! Of course she knows it by sign, but the voice is what we want to hear more. And as I was dressing her this morning, she not only helped me pull the shirt down on her head, but she also lifted each leg so I could put her pants on. And the real amazing thing about this...well, amazing to me...is that I haven't really "taught" her. We haven't had any formal lessons where its "here Grace, this is how you do this or that." It's just been me, putting her clothes on time and time again, and her picking up on the cues and remembering them, and starting to help!

She also loves walking. Absolutely loves walking in her walker. If I pick her up to cross a street or whatever, she gets so frustrated, and signs "more more more" and points to her walker! She loves the freedom it brings her, and hates when we are all done with it! It's so beautiful to see her on her own, independently walking, and I can absolutely say my arm is LOVING the break! But I still get my snuggle time in there, as she doesn't use it all the time!

She now knows "bird". If she sees a bird, chicken, duck or whatever else, she'll point to it and sign it. I'm so happy!! And speaking of signing, she's getting so much better at signing two words in a sentence instead of still doing just one sign. She's also really good at going and getting something when asked, or bringing something to me when asked. It's so awesome to say, "Grace, go get the ..." and she does it as long as she can see it!! And what I love the most about this is if she's got something, she'll use her mouth as a third hand while bringing the item to me!! Just this morning, she had a comb in her hand and it was just TOO big, so she stuck it in her mouth and started crawling over to me! Smart girl!!!

Gosh, I just love this kid!! I'm so glad she's mine!!! And I'm so glad I'm learning so many things from her!

Oh I didn't even say!! Two nights ago Brad watched her for 2 hours while I was at a friends house, and I heard the most wonderful words when I got home. Before I tell you though, we've been having many discussions about me going back to work because I must be bored at home (I'm not.). I don't want to since Grace needs me so much, but he didn't always see that need, so he didn't understand. Well, when I came home I heard from him, "OK!!! She IS a full time job!!" YES!! I told him to repeat himself about 20 times, and I danced around doing a little jig because he finally understood! Later (after laughing at my dance) he told me he'd spent the whole time feeding her!!! YES, that's IT! He'd let her feed herself, which was a disaster! He had to keep cleaning and getting more food for her because not much ended up in her mouth. And when I had come home, she had no shirt on, super food caked and wet hair, and she was laying down drinking her chocolate milk, and it was slowly pooling on her chest :) SHE WAS SO CUTE!!! Even that messy, she was adorable!

Well, it's time to go to her therapy play group now, so we're off!

Amanda

Our Garden Up to Date

I'm so excited about our wonderful garden! And actually, the fun, but weird, thing about this year is that we didn't plant CORN! We usually do corn, but since we have an above garden sprinkler system, we can't have corn. Last year our corn did horribly because all of it's powder from the tops was shot off by the sprinklers! But that just means we get to pack in a bunch of other things!! So, our list is here: Tomatoes (36 plants), 2 20 ft rows of green beans, and 2 20 foot rows of peas, 3 pepper plants, 5 assorted squash, zucchini, and cucumber hills, and later in the season will be broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, spinach and lettuce.
The picture above shows the right side...And the picture above shows the left side :)
This is another area of the yard that had to be surrounded because of the chickens and dogs.

There are a couple new books that I've been looking into and they are pretty interesting! One is called: Basic Country Skills. This is a very interesting book that is ALL about self-reliance, but they do have a major section for gardening. I like this one because it goes SO in-depth that there's a section written on EACH fruit and EACH vegetable from A-Z!!

Another book I like is: Making the Best of Basics. I like this book because it's got a lot of information of food storage, water storage, wheat cooking/storing, animal keeping, SPROUTING, and then goes to the gardening part of the book! I put sprouting in CAPS because I'm going to start learning how to do that :)

Amanda