14 Days of I Love You

The kids were so excited about Valentine's Day this year, they both got to wear pjs to school and they both had parties.  Rather than buy licensed cards, I decided to let my creative juices do the work and with a little help from Pinterest I found cute ones for both Riley and Jacob (non-candy as I was aiming for for him).  Friday morning I went into Riley's class and talked about my job as they are doing a career module.  Ri was very exited to have me there.  I also put hearts on their doors every night up until Valentine's Day letting them know all of the reasons that I love them.  Ri especially loved it and asked if we could keep it up for longer than Valentine's Day.

A Lesson

Riley is a horrible eater.  She asks for food only to tell me that she's no longer hungry and we end up throwing it away which kills me!  Working in the food industry I hear astounding statistics about the number of kids who are hungry in our country nearly everyday.  15.9 million children under the age of 18 live in households that are unable to provide nutritious meals, statistics that are just heartbreaking.  We're also trying to teach Riley that Marc and I go to work each day so that she has food on her table, that it just doesn't appear there and that we work hard every day so that she has all that she needs and then some.  So when she asks for food and we have to throw it away it makes me mad beyond belief.  To counter this I grabbed a jar and  told Riley when she wastes food she needs to pay me for it, we put her money in a jar and then when we fill it up, we will donate it to a charity that helps fight childhood hunger, such as No Kid Hungry or Child Hunger Ends Here.  I know, sounds a little harsh, but it seems to be working (and Ri gets allowance for doing chores, keeping her room clean, making her bed so it hits her right in the pocket!).  Riley is starting to only ask for what she's going to eat, we're throwing away less food and collecting for a good cause while teaching her there are many children (probably that she will go to school with next year) that have it a lot harder than she does.

Excuse the Reese's next to our collection jar - it was on clearance at Target and I couldn't resist.  Kind of kills my message but I get to have a guilty pleasure. :)

Magic Bottle

So I saw this little ditty on Pinterest.  It's a timeout bottle and basically you shake it up, tell the kid to go to time out and they can't come out until the glitter has settled.  I figured it was worth a try since Riley has a hard time refocusing her attention during meltdowns and this might do the trick.  Well, we've used it a few times now since I made it and it actually works.  I shake it up and she goes and sits on the steps, her crying stops in half the time it used to and she doesn't sit there asking us non-stop when she can come out.

Rubber Band Bracelet Craze!

The rubber band bracelet craze has hit our house in full effect!  Ri has been making them at school and has been begging us for a loom.  She's been visiting the kindergarten class (yes, between her visiting kindergarten and Jacob sitting on the potty and us just purchasing his first pack of Pull-Ups, it's almost too much for this momma to handle) so that she can make bracelets with the school age kids, plus her phonics teacher is covering for the kindergarten teacher while she's on maternity leave and she's the rainbow loom master!  I bought Riley a Rainbow Loom but plan on holding on to it until after her surgery because I figure that will be a great activity for her while she is recovering (she's been dropping several hints that the bracelets would be so much easier with the loom) so in the meantime we have been YouTubing videos on how to make them with a fork.  Even Marc is getting involved in making them, they are quite addictive, I spent an hour and a half making a chevron pattern bracelet on Saturday.  And the best part of this craze, she will sit quietly for at least an hour working on these bracelets!

The bracelet Daddy made!

What's going to work?  Team Work!  Jacob likes to be the administrator of the rubber bands

My fork chevron bracelet, it would probably be easier with an adult fork but I use one of the kids' forks so no one loses an eye ball when the fight breaks out

Even Jacob likes to try to make some bracelets, I figure it's good for his fine motor skills so I let him pretend as long as nothing goes in the mouth.  Notice the monkeys on the table, we've almost successfully gotten the pacifier out of his mouth when he's awake, instead he totes around Beans the Monkey (need to get a backup and a little monkey he call "ooh ah ah!"

One Last Visit

We made one last visit to Joan's Pumpkin Patch on Sunday.  Ri's play group was having a play date there and since we didn't do the rides last time we decided to go.  I told them no more pumpkins since we had already gotten them and surprisingly no one tried to talk me into another pumpkin (oh and did I mention that Jacob learned the word "no" this week and it is officially his new favorite word???)  The kids had so much fun on the rides and Jacob saw two little boys from his class there so he was excited to see two of his friends.  Jacob even had his brave pants on and rode the train with Riley.  (I rode in the tractor part in case he freaked out but no tears).

Looking at the horses!

She loves horse rides

Riley made Jacob brave!  No tears on the train

Besties

Feeding the goats

Jacob loves animals

This face pretty much sums up how Jacob feels about animals

Annual Harvest Festival

Every year the kids' day care has a harvest festival, so of course we had to go this year.  Riley's class, along with kindergarten set up the Haunted Maze in the school so they were beyond excited about it, even though she's still talking a year later about the "scary boy" in the maze (who is her teacher's son dressed in a clown suit and creepy mask, I must say he is quite scary for a a day care Halloween party but now that she knows it's him, it's less scary.  The kids had a blast and got to debut their costumes - Sophia the First for Riley (her favorite!) and an elephant for Jacob which is so perfect for him and he looked absolutely adorable in it!

Fuzzy Slippers the Second Time Around!

I bought Jacob his first pair of fuzzy slippers, Riley was just about the same age when she got her first pair except I brought Riley to pick out her first pair and Riley and I picked out Jacob's for him after our haircuts!  Jacob loved them and kept them on most of the evening, he even tried putting them on himself, which was quite humorous!  They are both just over 19 months in these pictures.  I can't believe how much bigger Jacob is than Riley was!!!  Riley also got a new pair of slippers but she wasn't interested in cheesing it up for me. 

Let's Go Fly A Kite...

Whenever we walk past our park somebody is flying a kite of some sort and Riley has been asking for one so I found a princess one on Amazon.  Saturday it was nice and windy and Marc had a conference call at 4:00 so I wanted to get the kids out of the house so they wouldn't disrupt him.  I took them down to the park to fly the kite.  Our first location was not ideal.  I parked us in front of the tennis courts, turns out they block the wind so I didn't have much luck getting the kite to fly, but picture me running across the expansive field with a princess kite and both of my kids cracking up at me trying to figure out why the kite wouldn't fly.  We then moved over a bit to the end of the tennis courts where there was an amazing cross breeze, low and behold, a flying kite and 2 very ecstatic kids!!!  We ended with some catch/throw as Riley calls it with the balls we brought down and then a snack watching the ducks.  A pretty awesome Saturday afternoon in Northern California!!!

Notice how big this field is?  And this is only a portion of it, imagine me running across it with a kite trying to get it to fly, the things you do for your kids!

Fort

Marc was traveling again this week so we filled our time with random stuff.  Thursday we went to the Farmer's Market and then while I was putting dinner together I built the kids their first fort.  I loved making forts with my brother when we were kids and thought it would be fun for them too.  Jacob liked climbing over it (no surprise there from the tank) but Riley loved crawling through it.  She even watched her DVD and ate a snack in there after Jacob went to bed while I did some work (have I mentioned how over work I am these days - though I did get runner up for Q1 Employee of the Quarter, lost to the Wal-Mart team of course, so at least my hard work is appreciated but I am SO ready for a vacation!).

Subliminal Messages?

After this week of craziness I truly believe that Yo Gabba Gabba has subliminal messages that make kids sit down, sit still and actually watch the show.  My kids never sit still but on a whim I decided to turn on Yo Gabba Gabba Thursday night.  I've been crazy busy at work, my parents were here for 4 days, and the kids have had colds and coughs and were beyond spent on Thursday night.  I turned on Yo Gabba Gabba and Jacob climbed into his chair, laid down and sat still for 15 minutes to watch his show, Riley also sat and watched.  I turned it on again Saturday morning and he sat on my lap for a few minutes to watch but Riley laid down on the chair and watched the show!

Whatever it takes to survive!!!