Muffin Tin Monday- 1,2,3

This is our first time doing Muffin Tin Monday. This weeks theme was numbers. Here is our tin.

1 dollop of yogurt.  2 pieces of waffle.  3 pieces of banana. 4 pieces of waffle. 5. pieces of banana. and 6 raisins. Not a wide variety, I know. But the boys loved it.
You may notice that apparently I can't count either becasue there are only 2 pieces of banana when there should be 3. Ugh. In my defense it was 7am and I had two hungry children that didn't understand what I was doing and why they couldn't just eat the waffle I just made them.
I got these star silicone pans on Clearance at Walmart last year. It came 2 to a pack for like $3. They are a PAIN to clean!

Blue Eyes was digging the raisins (with supervision).

Mr. Destructo went right for the yogurt.

I'll be linking these up to Muffin Tin Mom. On a side note, I found my 101+ cookie cutters so meals will be way cooler next week!

Tot School- Week 1

Mr. Destructo is 32 months and Blue Eyes is 18 months.

This was my first week of doing Tot School with the boys. When I say "school" I don't mean sit around at a desk and drill numbers and letters. It's more like learn through play.

This week we worked on the letter "B". I don't plan to work on the whole alphabet in order. I don't feel he is ready for that. We are just going to work on the letters in his name. Here he is coloring a letter "B" that I made in Word and enlarged. He is using different mediums to color such as crayons, markers, chalk, and a pen.

 Then we practiced writing a letter "B" on the shaving cream bag. It didn't work very well. I think I had to much cream in the bag. He thought it was fun to have Buzz make foot prints.

 He loved that!

Then we worked on making our Blue collage with all things blue. He also got to practice cutting. (He needs more practice!) He used ribbon, sequins, tissue paper and streamers. It was great practice for his fine motor skills picking up the sequins. Then we hung it up in the window.

Then we played Ball. We practiced throwing the ball and I tried to show him not to cross the line and to toss it further. But that didn't work. He still had fun playing. Blue Eyes got in on this action too.

We played with Blocks too. He told me this was a helicopter.

When Daddy got home from work, we went out and rode Bikes. He loves his bike!

One game we played was "pinch its". He begged for this repeatedly! He had to use the tongs to pick up the pom poms and put them in the bowl. Such concentration.

 He told me this was a shark.

 Then he scooped with a tablespoon.

 Then he poured.

Then it was "go big or go home". He went all out picking up a ton of poms.

Mr. Destructo also enjoyed some free play and found a box which he decided was a ramp and then it was a tunnel. I love his imagination!

Blue Eyes also got in on the action this week. He gets his Tot Schooling during his brothers nap time. I love getting the one on one with each boy.

He also got to work on his fine motor skills picking up sequins and putting them on the contact paper sheets. He gets Occupational Therapy to work on his fine motor skills, this activity really made his use his pincher grasp.

He is also working on stacking things. He has never stacked more than 2 objects nor has he initiated stacking on his own. One day I caught him trying to stack his shapes from his shape sorter. He also loved playing with his shape sorter this week.

I also let him help me in the kitchen one day. He was shown to put the broccoli from the cutting board into the pan. He had to pick it up and place it in. Blue Eyes LOVES balls or anything that resembles a ball. He threw more broccoli into the pan than placed it in. But he did make most of them in. I was impressed.

He also got to play with the "pinch its". His job was to pick them up (pincher grasp) and place them in a small bottle. He really liked this and enjoyed trying to dump/pick them out. I don't know why I don't have a photo of that. Blue Eyes also gets one hour a week with his occupational therapist where they played puzzles and worked int eh sensory tub.He also spent one hour with his speech therapist this week where he worked on some words and some signs. He doesn't talk a lot. She was trying to get him to say "more" and he shocked us all when he plain as day said "I want more". WHAT!? I swear this kid is secret smart. lol

We had a great first week of Tot School. To wrap it up we went to the farmers market and practiced colors with Mr. Destructo and we visited the Teeny Tiny Traveling Petting Zoo. All of the animals were miniature.
Blue Eyes really liked the animals and we practiced the sounds the animals makes and talked about how they felt. Soft, furry, feathers and wet when the ducks shook all their nasty water on us. He wasn't scared of anything smaller than him, but he clinged on tight when the miniature llama came nearby.

I thoroughly enjoyed our first week of Tot School. I hope you enjoyed. You can find some more tot school posts and ideas at 1+1+1=1.

Please tell me if this was too many photos. I love my camera!

Wordless Wednesday- Multiples?

On days when the 2 year old is driving me crazy, I am thankful I don't have multiples!

Wordless Wednesday- First Ice Cream Cones

Fun photos!

Fun for me. Fun for Blue Eyes who loves the camera. Not so much for Mr. Destructo who wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe I just want to share some super cuteness. Maybe a little showing off? If you had the cutest kid in the whole wide world wouldn't you want to show them off? Not that your kids aren't cute....but you know. (I'm partial to my own). Without making you wait any longer...

Hope you enjoyed! I'm off to go play with the photos some more while the kiddos are sleeping!

"Toddler Learns Lesson"- the hot and spicy way!

My son is 2.
He acts like a terrible 2.
He's developed an awful habit of helping himself to food on my plate.
Today was PAYBACK!
I made a Wanchai Ferry dinner kit tonight. (I got it on sale for about a dollar after coupons). I made the Kung Pao Chicken one. It's pretty spicy even for my husband and I and we love spicy. I toned the kids down and gave them very little sauce. In the kit is a packet of 4 dried chili peppers with seeds. I removed the seeds to help keep the heat down. I happened to get the peppers in my sauce, I just picked them out and put them on the side of my plate.

I KNEW Mr. Destructo would see it and go for it. I was prepared and had already gotten some milk for him. He was eating the spicy chicken and he really liked it, then he saw something different on my plate. Yep, he took the bait! I wish I had been able to tape his reaction. It went a little something like this!

Awful face.
Tongue out.
Hand in the mouth to remove super spicy chili pepper.
Reached for his milk and began chugging.
Milk drips from his mouth, he refuses to close it.
The crying started.
I tried to encourage drinking more milk, he refused.
He begged "brush teeth NOOOOWWWWW momma!"
Mommy and Daddy laughing their butts off.
Lesson learned!

That little boy and his grimy hands best not touch my food ever again!
(Ok, I'm just kidding, all of that really did happen, but I'm not an evil psycho mom. Just a mom tired of having her food stolen by a little kid. Please don't call CPS on me.)
 
By the way, Blue Eyes, he loves spicy food! But I feel a little bad that his chin got all red from the spice.

An aspiring chef...

I'd like to tell you this is a stock photo of Kosher Salt. You know one of those photos that you can get online to put in a blog post. This is a 16 ounce box of Kosher Salt. I use it to bake my homemade bread. It's delicious by the way. This week I was planning some Cinnamon Rolls. Mmmm.
But this isn't a stock photo. In fact this is a photo I just took. Let me zoom out a bit.

This is my kitchen floor. A floor with 15 ounces of Kosher Salt on it. I guess Mr. Destructo thought he would "help" me in the kitchen. I keep reminding myself that maybe he's a fantastic chef in the making. You know, starting him out early. This isn't the first or even the second time he's done something like this. Remember the Blackening Seasoning incident? About 4 days after that mess, we had a Black Pepper mess. I should have seen this coming. When I was pregnant with him I watched a lot of Rachael Ray. When he was an infant, we both watched Rachael Ray and he really liked her. Maybe I shouldn't have watched her so much! Again, reminding myself, he's going to be a great cook one day! I guess I better find a coupon for some more Kosher Salt. Too bad I just got home from the grocery store. Sigh, another day in a house with 2 little boys.

When things get just a little too quiet...

(Story originally posted by me on my other blog on 3/2/10)
In a house with a 1 and a 2 year old you always have to be at the top of your game! I was cleaning up from dinner and washing some dishes. I was pretty impressed with myself for getting it done in a timely manner and I was even thinking ahead to mopping (yes I was going to mop, I HATE TO MOP!). Then I snapped back to reality and realized that it was really quiet. A little too quiet! I immidiately started looking for the 2 year old. These days he is usually the culprit. Not in the living room, not in the bathroom. A moment of worry set in! I wasn't worried for his safety, since our house is pretty safe. I was worried for whatever he was destroying! We don't call him Mr. Destructo for no reason! I found him. Here is what else I found:

What is this you ask? Keep reading.

Here is some more of it. Of course it would be in the pile of stuffed animals.

And in his bed. Didn't I JUST wash those sheets?

Even inside the Hot Wheels cars.

And finally on the window ledge, embedded into the small spaces of the window.

Mr. Destructo stole the Blackening Seasoning from the kitchen table and dumped it all over his room. I was so frustrated! But at least he gave me something to blog about tonight! Right?
Motherhood is a learning experience right? When our children are born, we don't instantly know everything. Just like we teach them everything, they teach us a few things along the way.

What I learned from this experience:

* Blackening Seasoning burns in cuts.
* Some stuffed animal fur holds on to powder much better than others. Therefore making it much harder to get it out.
* My new vacuum works great! (I'll post about it soon)
* The crevice tool of the vacuum works great at getting seasonings out of Hot Wheel cars.
* Always be worried when it is silent in the house!

Gotta love being a mom right? What have your kids done lately that just made you want to scream?