In having a toddler, we often see here at Apedaile6 new and different uses for different object throughout the house. One new use JT demonstrated was for our couch. Clearly they aren't just for sitting or laying down upon. They are perfect for playing with his cars on!
A simple toss of the back cushions and JT had a wonderfully long ledge to line up his matchbox cars and truck on.
Bumper to bumper traffic!
JT had the entire length of the couch filled with his cars and you can see by his feet, he has several more ready to add to the bunch.
Check out who is now the latest Apedaile to be officially registered for her freshman year of high school!
Miss Lindsay registered last night for her freshman year. She and I went and discussed her options and what her current teachers have recommended and made her choices.
Excuse the rotated photo- wouldn't let me flip it for some reason. This is the paper Lindsay's current teachers recommended for her to take next year, along with her current grade and a score of work ethic to help make our choice. In the 3 classes- English, Math, and Science- Lindsay has all A's and earned "5's" for her work ethic, which is the highest score.
Here is the class courses we selected for Lindsay's freshman year. We ended up selecting English "standard" and not honors because it's not Lindsay's favorite subject and to be perfectly honest, we discovered that at least at Sarah's university their scholarships are offered strictly on GPA with no additional weight/consideration given for those who were in honors/AP classes. That really stinks, but we are trying to learn from that point and consider if an honors/AP course is worth it knowing the likelihood that the grade will be lower as compared to a standard class.
On that note, we chose honors classes for Algebra 1(which Lindsay is already taking in 8th grade), Physical Science, and World Geography. At this point in her life, Lindsay is considering going into orthodontics/dentistry so these subjects she excels in and interested in, so honors is what we decided to select. She will have Wellness, a mandatory 9th grade course and for her electives she chose, Family Consumer Science, Financial Planning, with Computer Applications, Keyboarding, and Intro to Health Sciences as her backups. She also will be taking her fine arts requirement in Theatre1 to round out her course selections.
We are all very excited for Lindsay starting high school in just 6 short months. Looking forward to what the next chapter of school life holds for her. Go Bucs!!!!
A trait that JT has grown into that make me warm with delight is he loves to cuddle. It wasn't until he was nearing 2, that this switch happened, so I had almost prepared myself for limited cuddle times when we read books.
These days, JT will gather up a blanket (or two), his Taggie (or two) and walk up to you and declare, "Cuddle you?" He will happily climb into your lap, nestle into the crook of your arm, and as I like to say- "hunker down". Some cuddle sessions are short, while others are long enough to enjoy several books or watch a TV show together. Love moments like this and Courtney captured a perfect shot of our cuddle boy with my phone.
While I might not be the ultimate organizer, I love when everything has it's place and looks neat and tidy. A far cry from my teenage years, I can now relax more easily when the house is picked up. I just get an "Ahhh" feeling to see less visual clutter.
You might imagine having a 2 year old, along with watching 3 other children during the week, my moments of seeing clutter are frequent. Yes, and that's totally fine and I love seeing all the kids playing and making messes. That's how they learn. It's the aftermath, the nap times, and at night when JT has gone to bed I was looking for some more "peace". John surprised me this week with a solution I have been talking about for some time now and it looks "Ahhh..."!
Here is a how prior to our solution, most toys were stored downstairs. Items that could fit, were in colorful,hard plastic bins. It worked just fine and held everything well. Lots of cars, books, play tools in this area.
On the other side of the TV console, there were a few more bins with balls, bowling, and "baby" toys.
Ready for the After???
Wonderful cube bliss!!!! This type of storage has been pretty popular for the past few years and the Apedaile's hopped on the train. I love how it looks- neat and tidy.
A bin for puzzles.
An area for books and below a cube that has action figures and animals.
The green cubes, two of them, hold most of JT's various cars and trucks.
By having some different color cube boxes, it has already helped during clean up time. "Lets pick up the cars and put them in the green box!" I can say to JT as we sing the infamous "Clean Up" song. It helps keep everything organized to find certain toys a bit easier as well. I'm loving my cubes and I also laugh at myself in thinking I get so pleased with such mundane things as organizational items.
Big delay in making this post, but we were spreading the love to the families I work for last week for Valentine's Day. I wanted to make a little craft that even my "little" little friends could help in. That usually involves a hand or foot print that is a part of something adorable. You've seen some of those posts from Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
For this craft, I simply traced each child's hand and cut it out. I then folded the middle fingers to create the "I Love You" sign. I had cut out hearts from different colors and arranged it for a cute presentation. I think the parents enjoyed their children's creations.
Here are the projects from the children I watch, Ella and Mason who just turned 1 this past week and Finn who is nearly 2 and a half.
Of course I had to make one for our home too with JT :)
JT wanted to send his kisses and love to all of our blog readers. This is how he puckers up-fish lips! Don't know why he does it this way, but one of the simple joys of being his Mom is to see this every day.
This will be the last of the "Chicka" installment videos. After JT and I read the book, he turned to the last 2 pages where it has the alphabet. He began to start identifying various letters, with great success for a 2 and a half year old. For the past month or two, JT's language, verbal abilities, along with word/letter recognition has just flourished. I am loving watching and hearing JT say and learn new things every day.
PS- At the end he did his little bedtime "closing" that he says to us each night, "Good night, sweet dreams, God Bless, hubba bubba." Love my boy!
This will be the last of the "Chicka" installment videos. After JT and I read the book, he turned to the last 2 pages where it has the alphabet. He began to start identifying various letters, with great success for a 2 and a half year old. For the past month or two, JT's language, verbal abilities, along with word/letter recognition has just flourished. I am loving watching and hearing JT say and learn new things every day.
PS- At the end he did his little bedtime "closing" that he says to us each night, "Good night, sweet dreams, God Bless, hubba bubba." Love my boy!
JT's favorite book by far recently has been Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. For anyone who is a parent or has a young child, this probably has been read in your home many times with your little one. We have been reading it so much that JT can now recite much of the book from memory. I particularly love how JT says "Coconut" in the book, so I wanted to get it captured on video before he starts saying different/more correctly :) Enjoy the book!
Tonight when I was reading to JT, we were looking at a book that had a classroom setting with ABC's on the wall. JT promptly started to sing his ABC's. He now sings it like the show, Super Why- a PBS/Sprout show that is all about letter sounds, recognition, and spelling. He was too cute and I wanted to share it with you all.
With this weekend's weather looking particularly cold- high tomorrow is supposed to be 30- I thought today was a perfect day to reflect on the wonderfully warm weather we had last week. I miss it already!
It was so warm last week, I took JT and Finn outside to play in the afternoon. They didn't even need jackets it was so mild.
This is what they did for about 45 minutes. Back and forth running with the big trucks.
JT looking for his buddy Finn to catch up.
A brief pause to look adorable for Mom.
I love this shot of the 2 friends playing side by side. Too cute!
Just look at all of this energy these boys have. Simple joys of running in the yard with your toy trucks.
On the patio, we lifted a large bucket and found several worms. Finn was a brave boy and held one on his hand.
Though our squirmy boy thought the worms were "Cool", this is as close he would get to them. Though we won't be playing outside much in the next several days, I'm looking forward to spring where outside play will be a daily event.
This past weekend Sarah came home to celebrate her 19th birthday. It was kind of an unusual birthday in that there wasn't any party with friends and Sarah's boyfriend, Doug, was out of town most of the weekend with an FBLA event. Regardless, we loved having Sarah home for a few days and we wish her a very Happy 19th !!!
Sarah wasn't sure she would be making the trip home for her birthday, so Aunt Cathy sent her gift to Sarah at Campbellsville. Sarah brought it home to open, but said she loved getting mail at school because she doesn't really get much. ** Hint hint- we need to send some more cards and notes to her.
Sarah opening Aunt Cathy's gift.
Nanny also sent her gift to Sarah at school as well. Look at the adorable printed envelope she used (Aunt C did too). Such a cheery package to receive in the mail!
Sarah opening Nanny's gift.
While Doug wasn't there for Sarah's birthday, he had a gift that he needed to give Sarah for her birthday. It was a time sensitive gift that we basically had to force Sarah to open without Doug being present. She wanted to wait until Sunday and open when he came home.
Opening Doug's gift. She had to open it because the concert was on Sarah's birthday (Saturday). Doug was so sweet to purchase 3 tickets, for Sarah, Lindsay, and Courtney since he wouldn't be in town to attend the concert with Sarah himself. The headliner of the concert is a band Sarah has loved since the 8th grade, so this was a big surprise.
For our gift, we couldn't really purchase it without Sarah choosing it first. I took her out to shop for scrubs and shoes for her CNA clinicals. Sarah is a pre-nursing major and one of the prerequisites is to become a licensed CNA nurse. This is a course she is taking above and beyond the 17 units at CU. Her clinicals will be within the next month, so we went shopping for her uniform needs.
There were so many different top options! Prints and solids for every season and so many different styles and cuts. The photo above shows Sarah had many options heading into the dressing room.
One of the tops she selected. She is starting to look like a grown up to me now ;)
This was one of her favorites. She loved the cinched in waist, the puffy sleeves, and the nice deep pockets in the front that offered style plus function.
We ended up purchasing 3 tops and 3 bottoms and found a great pair of all white tennis shoes that Sarah will be wearing soon for her clinicals.Happy Birthday Sarah, we love you!
On Groundhog's Day, I was looking to do a little art project with the boys to mark the occasion. Not a ton out there that was appropriate for 2 year olds to make on their own, so I decided to print off a coloring page for them to color.
Very serious about their coloring.
JT is just about ready to say cheese any time I'm holding my camera.
Finn working the red-orange crayon.
Clearly staying in the lines is a long way off ;)
After we colored the groundhog, we made the most of the sunny day and talked about shadows and how the ground hog would hide if he saw his shadow, he will hide and 6 more weeks of winter will follow. Of course the boys didn't fully grasp all of "rules", but had a great time playing with their shadows. I certainly hope the prediction of 6 more weeks of winter isn't true though- this girl loves being warm!
Last night, JT got a special treat- a train whistle! It was a reward for doing something he's been trying to learn and last night he did it!!! JT was very excited to play with it and "Choo Choo" up until bedtime.
To see what JT did to earn his train whistle, watch the video.
As I mentioned in the Diaper Free post, JT receives a small reward prize when he uses the toilet. In the morning, JT is more than ready to get his "prize" and is eager to go to the box. On this particular morning, JT had a major case of bed head. With his cheesy expression, this photo looks hilarious!
He managed to have a nice smile as well :)
JT is continuing to do really well with using the bathroom. He will let us know when he has to go and really hasn't had many #1 accidents. Since we started this past weekend, JT has even remained dry during nap and overnight which is great! We are still working hard on #2's with no success so far. However, this time last week I was thinking it would be months until JT was going to be ready to potty train, so I will celebrate his victories instead and know he will master all parts of potty training before too long.
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