Ce Ce's Tot School {19 Months old}

Ce Ce is now 19 months old and growing up way too fast! 

Here is a re-cap of some of her recent adventures!

Enjoy!!

 Working on her fine motor skills and pincer grasp by putting dry pasta into a narrow bottle opening.

 All of our girls LOVE this closures board!

 Working with her sisters on some 5 senses exploration.

 Shape sorting fun!

 Making art with sandpaper, string and pompoms.

 Writing on the chalk board.

 More fine motor skills work. Placing dry spaghetti into small holes on the top of the cheese canister. This takes a lot of concentration!

Trying to put pipe cleaners into the holes of a colander.

 Helping to decorate the Kids' Christ-mas tree!

Spending time playing with our dog, Lady. Sadly, Lady passed away 2 days before Christmas:(. She was almost 14 years old and had Lymphoma (cancer).  She was the absolute sweetest dog you'd ever met and she is sorely, sorely being missed!!!

Then....we headed on vacation for nearly 2 weeks!!!

 Ce Ce thought it was more fun to kiss Mommy than to pose for a family photo:)

 Ce Ce LOVED spending time with Grandmother (my mother) in Florida! We took her with us on vacation and the girls had a ball with her!

 "Homeschool happens everywhere!" This is certainly the case with us! Ce Ce working on some magnetic letters while on vacation.

 Ce Ce learning about walking in the sand. She wasn't too sure about it at first, lol.

 Breakfast, outside in December---I like it!

 We went to a science learning center where we learned all about manatees!
Then, back home, just in time for Christmas!

 Merry Christ-mas from me and my girlz!

 We pray you have had a wonderful Christ-mas and your New Year is off to an amazing start!
Please keep our family in your prayers as we continuously pray for you!
Blessings,
Aria:)

Our Christ-mas Sensory Tub!

We actually made another winter tub, but I think the girls put way too much stuff in it, LOL!

All of the little treasures inside keep getting stuck below all of their "snow."

I have found that getting the girls involved in making things really
helps them have a

vested interested in the activity! 

It reminds me of the quote, 

"Tell me, I’ll forget
Show me, I’ll remember
Involve me, I’ll understand"

~Chinese Proverb

So.....here is our Christ-mas Sensory Tub! We had a lot of fun putting it together! We simply used some small red foam beads, glittery trees, snowmen, gingerbread men, candy canes, cinnamon sticks, sleigh, Santa, snowflakes, cotton balls, miniature gift boxes and a small pine cone and holly bunch. It turned out great and we even found a box with a lid to use!!

The girls LOVE the cinnamon sticks! And, they smell really, really good!!

I am sure we will have a lot of fun using this tub!

Blessings, 

Aria;)

~Thank you so much for reading--we always appreciate your comments!~

Homemade Christ-mas Handprint Ornaments!

I am always looking for new ways to create memories for our family and especially for our children. We really want Christ-mas and Thanksgiving to be remembered as very special times in our household. One of the crafts we are doing for Christ-mas is making some of our own ornaments for our tree! We simply used our salt dough recipe to make these easy hand print ornaments. I thought they would be "cute" 

but did NOT anticipate what a hit they would be with the girls!!!

 We baked them in a low temp (@200 degrees) oven for 3-4 hours to ensure they were set!

 Em is in LOVE with her hand print ornament!! Seriously, she finds it on the tree and just kisses it and looks at it and puts her hand up to it. It is the cutest thing ever!! She is so, so proud of it! I know these are keepsakes we will keep forever!

Here M is happily posing with her letter M ornament, her hand print ornament and one of the Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments that we made last year. If you are interested in making them, they are really simple and smell DIVINE!!

What fun things are you all doing in preparation for Christ-mas or Hanukkah?
We'd love to hear all about them!

Homemade Christ-mas Wrapping Paper!

I STILL cannot believe that Christ-mas is almost here! I guess I had better hurry up and get all of my well planned out, heartfelt and thoughtful,   

last minute and mostly online shopping done;)

 I really have been eyeing the custom printed gift wrap you can purchase, but just could not justify the hefty expense, so we decided to make our own wrapping paper for Christmas!

I got some huge rolls of paper in white and brown and the girls are having a wonderful time wrapping and decorating presents for Daddy! {now, if they could only help wrap and decorate their own gifts, I would be in business, lol.}

We simply purchased some Christ-mas themed stamps and stickers from the local Dollar store and let the girls use their imaginations!

You see the massive roll of white paper I bought? We are going to put it to really good use;)

The girls REALLY enjoyed personalizing the gift wrap! I am thinking of letting them decorate their gifts in their own custom print or handprint or something so they will easily recognize their gifts (besides reading their names) on Christ-mas morning! Any suggestions??