First though, Will's been coming up to our room when he wakes in the morning (as usual) and now laying down/falling asleep on our floor. If we hear him (sometimes he's sneaky) we scoop him up to snuggle between us and this morning, he actually fell back to sleep for about half an hour or so. Hooray for an extra half hour of sleep! He opened his eyes just as I was taking out the camera but then squinted them shut for the picture. Haha.
A bunch more activities this morning! The first three were all quick and easy that he could do independently while I got breakfast assembled and on the table.Stickers are HUGE to kids. They're like gold. And peeling and sticking them is a great activity in learning about sticky properties and also excercising those tiny fingers. Anything that demands using careful, planned movements with their hands is a good activity. I peeled the surrounding sticker paper away to make it easier for him to get the stickers off on his own. Here, he simply had to cover each circle up with a sticker.
Another pattern activity.
This one's kinda silly, but it's just another tiny task that he had to focus on... and he actually really liked it. He put the erasers on, took them off, put them on again, took them off again...
Then breakfast was ready and we ate, cleaned up, and played for awhile before putting Sophie down for her morning nap at 9. During Sophie's naps, we get the best one on one activity time. But she's fast approaching the cutting out point for the early evening catnap, so on weeknights we may be a little more limited on quiet time. Will has used scissors a couple times in the past and loved it! So I decided to just gather a bunch of construction paper strips/scraps and let him cut to his hearts content.
For some reason he had his mouth hanging open for a quite awhile in the beginning. LOL
I ended up helping him when he got tired. It's a lot of work for his little hands to open and close those scissors and I'm still not sure they're the right kind for him. But we didn't buy them. Actually, come to think of it... I'm not really sure how we acquired them. Maybe my mom gave them to us? I had to keep helping him reposition his hands and he kept saying out loud "open... close". :) Aren't there special left-handed scissors?
For some reason he had his mouth hanging open for a quite awhile in the beginning. LOL
I ended up helping him when he got tired. It's a lot of work for his little hands to open and close those scissors and I'm still not sure they're the right kind for him. But we didn't buy them. Actually, come to think of it... I'm not really sure how we acquired them. Maybe my mom gave them to us? I had to keep helping him reposition his hands and he kept saying out loud "open... close". :) Aren't there special left-handed scissors? But we worked together and this was our finished mess.
I bagged them up and am saving them for another project I have in mind for the future.
I found this cool, divided box/tray at the dollar store and these little, plastic buttons at Hobby Lobby. I cut out a specific shape for each slot and made sure to have at least three of each shape in the bowl for him to sort.
I think sorting may be growing on him after all. :)
That activity reminded me of this cool page from his big counting book. We both love it. He's read this book a hundred times so he's really good at it now. We don't count the shapes but we ask him to find (for example) a blue triangle or a yellow square or a purple circle. Then of course he has to match TWO criteria - both a shape and a color - to find the correct thing. He loves it.
Same tray. Same buttons. This time I put colored squares in each slot and he sorted the buttons by color. I started with just three of each color button in the bowl...
...but he knocked that out in no time and wanted more, so I just kept adding more buttons to the bowl.
Numbers/counting practice. I found these funky, glass beads (?) in the a sort of elbow-shape and thought it might be a fun counting piece because they're pretty and they make a cool clinking sound. So he had to count out the correct number of pieces for each numbered/colored card. Problem was, I purposely made the paper match the beads and had the exact number of each in the bowl... so he simply made it a matching game and not a counting game. Plus he's still having trouble with one to one correspondence (counting one number to each piece) beyond like six. So I think in the future, I'll stick to same-colored paper and just one simple counting object... and stick with smaller numbers till he's ready to move up.
I still worked with him at counting each pile after he'd basically sorted by color.
Those lacing beads are turning out to be a nice tool for pattern practice.
And when I was finally ready to take a break from our "games", Will asked to use the tongs and "fuzzy balls". So I gave him a bowl full of them and an empty glass jar to transfer them into. We have to keep reminding him to only use one hand with the tongs. It actually seems harder for him when he tries to use two, but he keeps doing it.
After nap, which he uncharacteristically fought and ended up falling asleep later than normal, we had a playdate with Cora at Sylvania Playground. My cousin Molly is the one that suggested we go there and I'd heard from a couple other people that it's a really cool place. So we met out there and it's definitely a fun place for Will's age group. Some of the other bounce houses cater to a little older crowd, but this one had several options as well as "outdoor" playground toys.
Will is getting much more bold about going down slides and climbing things. He used to be pretty timid and hesitant, trying to go down (feet first) on his belly or just changing his mind entirely once at the top. But now he loves it and those slides were pretty steep!
I didn't get too many pictures of Cora. Will and Cora weren't actually together all that much for their "playdate". Ha! They both kept running off in different directions. Sophie was there too, but she just hung out in the carrier on my back.
I'm pretty sure I have a picture of Molly and I (and her brother Nick) all swinging together in a tire swing like this when we were little munchkins. But Will and Cora didn't want to pose for a similar picture.
This actually freaked me out a little bit. I only let him try because I was sure he'd get started and either change his mind or not be able to do it. But he climbed all the way up (it may not seem like it, but it was high!) and went down the big slide all by himself. I had to tell him to SIT DOWN once at the top because I was having heart palpitations over the image of him toppling backwards off the edge. But he did just fine and went right back around to do it again. Yikes!
Ha! Look at that face!
He was only mildly interested in the rings until I told him to pick up his feet. Once he realized he could "hang", he loved it.
Cora thought it was fun too!
When the hour was up, Sophie drove us home. Haha! 
We actually went right from the playground to Abuelo's for my brother in law's birthday. Everyone else was meeting at 6:30 so we had about half an hour to kill before they arrived. We mostly just sat in the parking lot and played in the car. I brought Sophie up front to feed her while Will watched his "horse movie" (Spirit) in the back. And then they sort of played peek-a-boo over the back of my seat.
Just like his momma, Will gets so entranced when he's watching TV or a movie. It's a good thing we don't watch a lot of it, huh?
Happy 40th Birthday Steve! Kelly and Steve only have a few weeks to go till baby Celia arrives!
Will and daddy work on a coloring/activity page.
Tom, Marilyn and Grandpa. Whoa! Who's driving home, guys? Check out grandpa's huge margarita! ;) 
Sophie sat and entertained herself very nicely despite being up past bedtime.
Grandma brought Will a wind-up dinosaur toy that he loved. Oh, and he's wearing a goofy hat that was meant for Steve. It says "I don't wanna' grow up" on the front and has a little helicopter thing on top.
A signature Soph face. I love it. :)
Playing with Papa and Grandma
I actually brought a couple of our recent activites in the diaper bag and they made a nice distraction for Will when he finished eating (or picking and refusing, rather). 
Ugh, we came home to a leaking water heater in the basement. That darn thing has been giving us problems for the last couple weeks and I think we're moving to a tankless water heater soon!
I bagged them up and am saving them for another project I have in mind for the future.
I found this cool, divided box/tray at the dollar store and these little, plastic buttons at Hobby Lobby. I cut out a specific shape for each slot and made sure to have at least three of each shape in the bowl for him to sort.
I think sorting may be growing on him after all. :)
That activity reminded me of this cool page from his big counting book. We both love it. He's read this book a hundred times so he's really good at it now. We don't count the shapes but we ask him to find (for example) a blue triangle or a yellow square or a purple circle. Then of course he has to match TWO criteria - both a shape and a color - to find the correct thing. He loves it.
Same tray. Same buttons. This time I put colored squares in each slot and he sorted the buttons by color. I started with just three of each color button in the bowl...
...but he knocked that out in no time and wanted more, so I just kept adding more buttons to the bowl.
Numbers/counting practice. I found these funky, glass beads (?) in the a sort of elbow-shape and thought it might be a fun counting piece because they're pretty and they make a cool clinking sound. So he had to count out the correct number of pieces for each numbered/colored card. Problem was, I purposely made the paper match the beads and had the exact number of each in the bowl... so he simply made it a matching game and not a counting game. Plus he's still having trouble with one to one correspondence (counting one number to each piece) beyond like six. So I think in the future, I'll stick to same-colored paper and just one simple counting object... and stick with smaller numbers till he's ready to move up.
I still worked with him at counting each pile after he'd basically sorted by color.
Those lacing beads are turning out to be a nice tool for pattern practice.
And when I was finally ready to take a break from our "games", Will asked to use the tongs and "fuzzy balls". So I gave him a bowl full of them and an empty glass jar to transfer them into. We have to keep reminding him to only use one hand with the tongs. It actually seems harder for him when he tries to use two, but he keeps doing it.
After nap, which he uncharacteristically fought and ended up falling asleep later than normal, we had a playdate with Cora at Sylvania Playground. My cousin Molly is the one that suggested we go there and I'd heard from a couple other people that it's a really cool place. So we met out there and it's definitely a fun place for Will's age group. Some of the other bounce houses cater to a little older crowd, but this one had several options as well as "outdoor" playground toys.
Will is getting much more bold about going down slides and climbing things. He used to be pretty timid and hesitant, trying to go down (feet first) on his belly or just changing his mind entirely once at the top. But now he loves it and those slides were pretty steep!
I didn't get too many pictures of Cora. Will and Cora weren't actually together all that much for their "playdate". Ha! They both kept running off in different directions. Sophie was there too, but she just hung out in the carrier on my back.
I'm pretty sure I have a picture of Molly and I (and her brother Nick) all swinging together in a tire swing like this when we were little munchkins. But Will and Cora didn't want to pose for a similar picture.
This actually freaked me out a little bit. I only let him try because I was sure he'd get started and either change his mind or not be able to do it. But he climbed all the way up (it may not seem like it, but it was high!) and went down the big slide all by himself. I had to tell him to SIT DOWN once at the top because I was having heart palpitations over the image of him toppling backwards off the edge. But he did just fine and went right back around to do it again. Yikes!
Ha! Look at that face!
He was only mildly interested in the rings until I told him to pick up his feet. Once he realized he could "hang", he loved it.
Cora thought it was fun too!
When the hour was up, Sophie drove us home. Haha! 
We actually went right from the playground to Abuelo's for my brother in law's birthday. Everyone else was meeting at 6:30 so we had about half an hour to kill before they arrived. We mostly just sat in the parking lot and played in the car. I brought Sophie up front to feed her while Will watched his "horse movie" (Spirit) in the back. And then they sort of played peek-a-boo over the back of my seat.
Just like his momma, Will gets so entranced when he's watching TV or a movie. It's a good thing we don't watch a lot of it, huh?
Happy 40th Birthday Steve! Kelly and Steve only have a few weeks to go till baby Celia arrives!
Will and daddy work on a coloring/activity page.
Tom, Marilyn and Grandpa. Whoa! Who's driving home, guys? Check out grandpa's huge margarita! ;) 
Sophie sat and entertained herself very nicely despite being up past bedtime.
Grandma brought Will a wind-up dinosaur toy that he loved. Oh, and he's wearing a goofy hat that was meant for Steve. It says "I don't wanna' grow up" on the front and has a little helicopter thing on top.
A signature Soph face. I love it. :)
Playing with Papa and Grandma
I actually brought a couple of our recent activites in the diaper bag and they made a nice distraction for Will when he finished eating (or picking and refusing, rather). 
Ugh, we came home to a leaking water heater in the basement. That darn thing has been giving us problems for the last couple weeks and I think we're moving to a tankless water heater soon!Today was a gorgeous, fun day!
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