Shaving Cream Slide

Today we had a fun playdate with some church friends. We decided to play with shaving cream on the slide as a sensory play activity that I found here on Pinterest.

At first, neither of them wanted to play with the shaving cream, but after a while Mason liked my idea of sliding toys down the slide. Soon enough, he was having so much fun going down that he didn't want to stop and kept saying, "more shaving cream!". Unfortunately, Nicole never did get interested in the activity, but she had a blast watching, playing with the water table, playing with baby Megan, and eating crackers!

After all the fun, we headed inside to play with Nicole's toys. Mainly the Chevron cars. Eventually, Nicole was so worn out that we put in the Baby Einstein Numbers DVD for them to watch.

Look at Nicole's tired eyes!

Mason was counting with the little train on the movie and Nicole was fascinated.

She's catching on to how to hold up fingers when counting....yes, she counted to 2 even though they were at 3.

Can I just say that playdates are the BEST THING EVER?!?! We love having friends over to join in our day! It's also a great way for Nicole to learn how to interact with other kiddos instead of just playing with mom and dad.

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.

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.

Happy Father's Day

This year we celebrated Father's Day with Nicole and I both sick with colds. So, after we both got some good naps in, we enjoyed spending the day as a family getting things done around the house. We also had a yummy bbq dinner with mac 'n' cheese! On Saturday, we went up to Chino and Upland to visit our dads and we enjoyed a yummy dinner at Cici's. Nick challenged me to air hockey (which I won, by the way) and then he played basketball with Nicole.

She loved playing basketball!

 Nicole had a super cute I love dad shirt!

 Nicole also loves to help with any chores that she can! Including mowing the lawn.

While Nick and Nicole were working on the yard, I planted some new flowers for our flower bed.

Nick also used the day to rescreen one of the windows, checked his work on the sink, added a soap dispenser to our sink (which is awesome!!), added a lock to the back gate, and did a few other to-do's on his list.

Learning through life

So, I am posting several pictures of Nicole learning during our day to day activities. Sadly, I don't have a picture to post of Nicole eating her yogurt today. She figured out how to scoop the yogurt out of the cup with a spoon and put it in her mouth. However, most of the yogurt landed on her and the highchair tray. She then painted with the yogurt. We had a BLAST!!!

While playing outside, I decided to pull weeds out of the planter. Nicole had other plans for the weeds though. She would walk to the bucket, pull out a handful and put them back into the planter. She kept this up for about 15 minutes.

Here are the weeds that Nicole put back for me.

We have also decided to give Nicole her first chore: sweeping! Everytime we go outside she drags the broom along with her. She has been doing this for 3 days now.

On Wednesday we went to visit my parents while Nick was doing electrical work at Valley. Nicole learned the basics about running her own business. She found out that there is alot of paperwork involved.

However, playing with the stamps is quite a bit of fun!!

What can I say? Like mother, like daughter! She 'read' 3 books like this!

A "new" classroom

As many of you know, due to budget issues, I stopped working yesterday. I am sad that I am no longer in the classroom, but I am very excited that I get to spend more time at home with Nicole and managing the house. That being said, I have spent some time creating a classroom for Nicole. Even though she is too young for formal teaching, there is SO much that I want her to be able to explore and experience and I wanted to make sure all the supplies I need are in one spot and not easily accessible to her (like the bubbles, paint, and crayons). I also decided to make her toy area a little more appropriate for her and am trying to find ways to make it more Nicole-friendly.

I took advantage of a Target coupon and printed pictures of what should be in each bucket. This way as she grows she can help me put toys back into the correct bucket. However, I only did 10 of the buckets, because I can't decide what to put in the other two.

Here are the finished buckets with pictures. She currently has 3 that are full of books (like mother, like daughter).

Here is part of her "classroom". It is in the dining room since that is where her highchair already is and it is an easy place to do art activities. The shelving thing was a baby shower gift and it has side pockets for small things like paint and bubbles. The front pockets are just the right size for wooden puzzles, paper, and other fun projects. On the left I added a ribbon with clothespins to showcase her projets. In the middle is a pocket chart where I can put flashcards or other goodies on display.

Today I have also found a great reason to put her classroom in the dining room! She finishes eating way before I do, so I can easily grab a puzzle or some crayons and paper to keep her occupied while the rest of us finish our meal.

Since three toy buckets (and her bedroom bookshelf) weren't enough to contain all her toys, she has a basket filled with fun books to read and a little reading chair. The chair also blocks my cookie jar and cookbooks from a curious toddler. I also have two green baskets for her crayons and coloring books. The other one is basically empty until I figure out a use for it. Above that is my cd player and all kinds of CD's with children's praise music and fun learning songs.

The other day I got an awesome deal on the Melissa and Doug alphabet magnets, and so I made the mistake of putting them on the dishwasher for Nicole to play with. However, after she went to bed I spent the next 30 minutes trying to track down all of the magnets that she had gotten EVERYWHERE! My solution was to use a magnetic tray so I can easily clean them up once she is done with them. So far it works great!!!

I cannot take credit for this fun activity. I saw it on Pinterest the other day and thought it was great! It is a discovery basket that I can give to Nicole while I am working on dinner or need to occupy her for a few minutes. The idea is to change out the objects when she seems to lose interest in the items. Also, she only gets to play with it for short periods of time so that it doesn't become "just another toy".

Another Pinterest idea. This is great for distracting Nicole when she gets into the baby wipes. It is a Kleenex box filled with scraps of fabric that are about 2 feet long. I used a variety of fabric types so she can feel/explore the different types of fabric. The best part is, it takes about 15 seconds to clean it up!!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Feel free to come by sometime to learn and explore with us! (Just call first)!!