Toy Giveaway at the Taffy Pull

I know, short notice, but My Life on the Taffy Pull is having a toy give away. It ends tonight so hurry on over there for your chance to win.

Tot School

Xander 22 months old.

I said last week that we didn't make any Tot School plans because Ryan was hopefully taking vacation days and we might be busy doing stuff. Well, he took vacation and sick days because he got hit with a tummy bug, so we didn't go out and do anything (it was rainy most of the time anyways) but we did have a lot of fun staying in. 

This week:

• Xander read a lot of books and had a lot of books read to him.
• We set up his train track for him (he can play with it anytime but he isn't able to make the track do a figure 8 on his own) a couple of days.
• He drew lots of pictures with both crayon and pen (before he didn't like using the crayons).
• He played with Playdoh and I don't think he tried to eat any this time.
• He went for a long walk with Ryan.
• He worked on his number puzzle several times and his shape puzzle too.
• While doing the shape puzzle he said "door" for the first time pointing at the door in the puzzle and then our front door!
• He has become MUCH more cooperative about diaper changes! Instead of running and hiding and throwing tantrums most of the time this week he has come over and sat down in front of us for the diaper change!
• He watched the entire Toy Story 3 movie though he didn't get emotionally invested in it, unlike his Mom who sobbed when the toys weren't loved anymore.

Here he is saying "car" and when he finished this puzzle he said "door" for the first time. (the yellow around his mouth is from a pen-- he's still not so great about remembering pen goes on paper ONLY!)

Xander reading one of his library books (I'm not sure why he put the happy face stickers in his hair).

Here's some video of him reading that book to himself (Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough). He's saying, "a car" over and over. I was holding my webcam as far as the cord would allow to film him reading in his little corner of my office.

To see what other tots are doing please visit Tot School. Thanks for stopping by.

Tot School No, Stop, Not That!

Xander is 21 months old.

As I said in last weeks post I didn't have anything planned for this week, which meant not much got done. Or at least not much in the way of planned activities. We colored, read books, and played a lot. Xander has defeated the locks on our baby gates, Ryan added a new one to the area where my computer is but Xander quickly figured out how that lock works too. So I've been trying to make my "office" area more Xander friendly. I've set up a little corner for him with his chair and a little stool as a table, a book case for his library books. The problem is this is my office area and crafting area, I have all these little plastic drawer units and Xander keeps emptying them. I thought he'd learn to stick to one drawer and the others were off limits (he's done real good with the dvd shelf we moved back into the living room) but that hasn't happened. So it's been a week of constant "no" this and "no" that and I'd really like to move on from this but unfortunately our house didn't miraculously grow more storage so I'm just going to have to wait it out until Xander can learn--- my head might explode before then though. 

I read this great blog post this week about seeing everything that's happening instead of just what you're looking for (in this case Xander's annoying behavior), so I am trying to be aware of the good things Xander does. Which is hard when you're trying to write a blog post and have a killer head ache and he keeps trying to get in the drawer with the paints and you keep saying no and his response is to scream at the top of his lungs. Deep breath! 

Some really cute Xander things:

He now has two Tummy Tickler juice bottles, Toby the Tram and Thomas the Tank Engine. He's been playing with the bottles-- bashing them into each other, making them race, having them "talk" to each other. It's very cute.

One of the words he says now is "clock", unfortunately the L sound is missing and scales at the grocery store are round with numbers all around. Picture a crowded bulk food aisle and a toddler pointing and screeching "cock, cock". (pause while we wait for my sister to pick herself up off the floor where she has fallen overcome with laughter) I kept saying to him (loudly), "it sure does look like a clock but it's a scale!".

He also likes to say "car" now and wants to stop and point at every single one. Which makes walking through parking lots a very slow activity.

The other day he was tired and cranky so I told him to get in his bed and go night-night and HE DID!

He's pretty good about putting things back where they belong-- when he feels like it. Most the time he just leaves a wake of destruction in his path but sometimes he surprises me by putting the books back on the shelf or a toy in it's place.

The other day he put some of his stuffed animals on the shelf and then would walk past them and wave and say bye-bye to them. 

Didn't actually plan for this coming week, sorta on purpose as Ryan has extra days off so depending on the weather we might be going places or doing stuff around the property.  Some upcoming theme ideas are going to be about Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and I want to do something with the parts of the face. He used to be really good about pointing to the correct part but now he calls everything "eye" so I'd like to work on that. Any book or activity suggestions? (Other than Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes cause he doesn't seem to like that book right now.)

So that's what we're up to, check what other tots are doing by visiting Tot School.

Oh yeah, another great thing about Xander at this age is you can gift shop for him and he is clueless! He sat on my lap as I purchased train stuff off of ebay and he'd be excited at seeing a train he recognized but it won't spoil his Christmas and Birthday. I also got him the cutest outfit for Christmas day-- corduroy pants with a matching red sweater with a train on it and this adorable super hero pajama set (with cape) for his birthday--- he was right there while I bought them and didn't notice a thing! I'm pretty sure that won't be the case next year!

Tot School Pumpkins

Xander is 21 months old.

We've had a couple weeks of a really nasty cold. I'd like to say that we still got a lot accomplished and worked on activities that I had planned but that would be a lie. We lay around and watched a lot of tv and went through boxes of tissue! We did make pumpkin cards to send, which I didn't get a photo of, read a lot of pumpkin books, which I didn't take photos of. Sigh. Of the pumpkin books we checked out of the library my favorites were Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White and Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell. 

We didn't make the pumpkin calzones that I'd planned for dinner one night but we did have pumpkin pie (though Xander now doesn't like it and refused to even taste it!) and we also had baked apple mini-doughnuts which Xander does like to eat.

We enjoyed the pie even if Xander won't try it.

A big change in Xander's drawing, he now covers the entire piece of paper and turns it over to draw more. One evening Ryan was working at the table with his laptop and Xander was drawing next to him and he covered 6 pages front and back and spent about half an hour drawing. His drawings are still just squiggly lines, no actual shapes, but before he'd only draw in one little area (I'd rotate the paper so he'd cover the whole sheet) and he'd want to stop after only a short time. This was a big change.

On Halloween Xander and Ryan made jack o' lanterns and Xander got to wear his new costume/pajamas (we didn't go out). He loves his new pj's, they really glow in the dark! And he loved the plastic jack o' lantern that was supposed to hold treats for our visitors (we only had one!) so I ended up putting the candies in a paper bag so Xander could play with the pumpkin.

Didn't get around to planning anything for this coming week or ordering any books from the library (I even made our menu and shopping list in the car on the way to the grocery store yesterday) so I'm not sure what this first week of November will bring. And on that gloomy note (sorry, this cold really just wiped me out and has left me in a gloomy mood- must feel better and get cheerful!) check out what other tots have been doing by visiting Tot School.

Tot School Autumn Leaves

Xander is 21 months old.

This week started off with a visit from Ryan's folks and a trip to the zoo. We really had a fun time at the zoo, this time we didn't bring the stroller and Xander did really well walking everywhere. Took a few spills towards the end when he was getting tired. All that walking wore him out, he was sound asleep before we left the parking lot to drive home!

We were focusing on leaves this week. I had placed some books on hold from the library about leaves and then Ryan surprised us with some chicken books (he's the manager of a library).

Of the books about leaves my favorite was Leaves by David Ezra Stein. The illustrations in Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson are lovely but the story was too long to hold Xander's interest, maybe next year. I also really enjoyed Leaf Man by Lois Elhert but Xander did not get the leaf pictures at all. His favorite book about leaves was Fall Leaves by Don L. Curry, he really liked the actions and I'm thinking about using our leftover tissue paper leaves (from last weeks art project) to recreate some of the actions, the huge mess I can foresee is making me pause though. Actual leaf play in our yard is NOT going to happen, we have dogs and free range chickens and ewww, I'll stick with tissue paper leaves. I'm sure our small flock helped to make the Big Chickens books by Leslie Helakoski such a huge hit with Xander but I think even non-chicken owning kids would love these, they were great fun to read.

Speaking of our chickens, helping to carry their food is one of Xander's chores. It is very hard for him to carry the big container of chicken feed but he is so proud doing it. He also likes to toss them their cracked corn in the yard or dry cereal out our slider door. Next year I am hoping to fence the chickens away from the house, especially the patio and glass door but for now they love to come visit us (if only they were potty trained!). Xander and the chickens sat down for a snack one day, both eating cheerios-- just on opposite sides of the glass door.

Our order from Time for Tots came at the end of last week (very fast!) and one night I pulled out some of the activities to play with Xander. I ordered the Thanksgiving Kit and quite a few of the activities fit our leaf week just perfect.

Xander still can't work tongs but that doesn't stop him from trying.

He was not happy when Mommy suggested he use his fingers to transfer the leaves.

Playing with the leaf letters that spell his name.

They made Xander very excited!

Matching the small objects to the big pictures.

The apple made Xander very happy.

And then very confused, can I eat it?

Little apple!

Goes on BIG apple!

Corn, I picked ears of corn at Grandma and Grandpa's!

Absolutely no number understanding at this point but he thinks the glass beads are neat!

Very unhappy when Mommy said it was quitting time!

While doing the sorting with the big laminated apple Xander started saying apple, well, all he says is aaaa but he's been consistent about aaaa for apple all week now.


We also baked leaf cookies this week. I cheated and bought the refrigerated sugar cookie dough and totally spaced buying colored sugar to sprinkle on top. Xander didn't quite grasp the concept of cutting out the cookies-- he'd just smack the cookie cutter down in the same area over and over so I had to be quick to grab out the cookies once he'd cut them. The cookies turned out yummy even without frosting or sprinkles and I'd include a photo of us eating them but they were gone before I thought of that. (what, don't you bake in just your undies?)

21 months has been a time of talking and eating, he's really improved in both. He's tried to say quite a few new words and his willingness to eat seems to be improving every day! Unfortunately it is also been a time of conquering baby gates--- nothing can hold the Xander Bear back.

That was our fun week, unfortunately it is ending with a sick weekend as we're all coming down with a cold (aaachooo!). To see what other tots are doing visit Tot School.

At The Zoo

We went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium today with Ryan's parents. It was another wonderful trip there. It was very empty early on a Monday morning (holiday too), we pretty much had the little kids play area to ourselves. Ryan and Xander climbed on the play structures and took many trips down the slide. Ryan even lifted Xander onto the slide partway up so he could go down by himself, his first time.

The aquarium sections are amazing, Xander loved watching the fish swim by. We went into the ocean discovery center where you can touch animals from tide pools and they had a craft to make otter puppets (we didn't do that). Xander was very unsure about touching the sea creatures but he did it with Daddy's help.

We loved seeing all the animals, we got to watch them feed the walruses-- Xander got scared by their sounds. I think my favorite part was when we looked at the owls and Xander kept saying "whoo, whoo", very sweet. Xander's favorite animal to see this time were the crows, he just loved pointing them out. Favorite zoo photos:

Love Bite

Tiny Cub, Big Yawn

Grandma and Grandpa Williams, Ryan and Xander (shouldn't of had them facing the sun!)

Magnetic Jack-O'-Lantern

I mentioned in the last Tot School Post that I made a magnetic Jack-O'-Lantern for Xander and then I didn't include any photos! I followed the directions on Disney Family Fun site. I'm thinking of making a magnetic Christmas tree-- or maybe just a regular paper tree taped onto the fridge and magnetic ornaments. Larger ornaments that he can't put in his mouth. That's been the problem with the Jack-O'-Lantern, so now we just have a decorative pumpkin but it is still very festive and it was an easy project.