The Heart of a Servant

Last night, my sister Hannah spent the night at our house to cut down on the drive to San Diego where she would be joining a group to do medical missions in Tijuana for the weekend. This also gave Nicole plenty of time to play with her.

For part of the morning, Nicole carried Hannah's car keys and Diet Coke around everywhere:

 Even on the morning walk:

After Hannah left, Nicole was very sad. She played with her watertable (which soaked her outfit, so this was taken after I took of said outfit and before I put a new one on. If you look at this post, she is in 3 different outfits all in one day...) and then came in and waited for Hannah:

After her nap, we tried a few activities: bag fingerpainting was not a hit. Okay, she pretty much just wanted to play with the tape. I wasn't overly impressed, but I am thinking if I try this again I will use the thicker ziploc bags (the freezer ones) and see if this works better.

Stacking: This was a spur of the moment impulsive activity. While cleaning out my teaching supplies, I found a container of beans. I filled two baby food jars and one mason jar and she had a blast stacking and knocking them down and carrying them around the house. I will be on the lookout for more plastic jars with screw on lids. The glass makes me nervous. *I do not normally keep boxes of toilet paper in the living room, but that has become her new favorite place to color, so there it sits*

Dad and Nicole

Nick and Nicole have had some fun bonding moments this week:

Yesterday, they were looking at some bullets that Nick had purchased for an upcoming tactical shoot.

This afternoon, I wanted Nick to knock down an old wasp nest thing in the hose roll and after knocking it down (it was no longer the home to any flying creatures, I promise), we found frogs!!! I have learned something interesting about Nicole: if I want her to get her hands dirty (finger painting, shaving cream, dirt, etc...) she will not touch that activity, BUT if there is a bee (yes, she wanted to touch one on Monday), bug, or frog she is more than willing to investigate. Nicole was trying to catch a frog and Nick was helping:

Here the frog is on Nick's hand and Nicole is giving him a back rub.

Fun with colors

Can I just start with this: I LOVE PINTEREST!!!!!

As many of you know, Nicole is a VERY busy little girl!  This has challenged me to be a very creative mom to come up with fun activities! So, now I spend her naptime browsing on Pinterest (there are some super creative blogs created by moms with young children) and prepping fun activities.

Here are our activites so far:

Bubbles in the water table

Colored Ice Cubes

This ended up being a two attempt activity and I'm not overly impressed with it. I found that it takes quite a bit of food coloring mixed with the water and it didn't look as cool as it did in the instructions. However, Nicole still enjoyed splahing in red water!

Take 1

Take 2 *It also showed up better in the clear container instead of the water table*

Rainbow Crayons

I bought Nicole one set of toddler crayons, which she promptly destroyed. So I decided to make some fun rainbow crayons for her. Most blogs that I saw suggested that I melt them in a muffin tin in the oven, but I didn't see how those could be easy for her to hold. I then remembered some awesome ice cube trays that Nick gave me for my birthday a few years ago. They are meant to be used to make ice cubes that fit into the opening of a waterbottle. Consequently, they are also the right size and shape to make toddler crayons. The only drawback is that it can't go in the oven.......however, it's my favorite season: SUMMER! I just stick the tray outside for a few hours/days and now I have crayons!



Please note: This is my hand, Nicole is sleeping and I didn't want to wait to post this blog!



Child's Play

Today we had a playdate at a super fun indoor playground in Temecula. I quickly fell in love with this place because it is geared towards children who are under 6 years old. What makes it even better: older children are not allowed to play in the play area! This means Nicole didn't run as much of a risk of being run over! I was surprised at how many kids there were playing in the play area, but that didn't slow Nicole down one bit! She took the time to try out EVERYTHING in the room! Here are pictures from our morning:

She loved playing in the kitchen! She would open and close all of the cabinets and drawers over and over and over!

There was a cute little area with "baby toys" and Nicole loved playing with those toys while she was "recharging".

This little track has a car, but Nicole thought it was better to try to slide/crawl down it.

Nicole with her friend from our playgroup.

So while I was busy chatting with some of the other moms from our playgroup, Nicole followed the big kids up this jungle gym.....without help. At this point she was taller than me! She had been pressing her face against the plastic, but I didn't get a good shot of that.

She has no fear....

Yet again, no fear...

This is one of Nicole's BFF's going down the super fun race track! Nicole had smiles like this, but the glare from the window made it so they didn't turn out (I guess now mom has an excuse to take her back there!).

Nicole at the end of the race track.