45 Minute Tot School

After what has been WEEKS of altered arrangements for karate night (me taking both kids so Craig can work, me on vacation, etc.), we finally had a normal week that Craig took Will and I stayed home with Sophie. I love our little time together, however short it is, and I try to make the most of it for quality one-on-one time.

Karate class is only half an hour, not including the commute. And I have to get dinner on the table at some point during that time that the boys are gone, so if we're lucky, we might manage 30-45 minutes of play time when I have dinner prepped in advance.

This night we focused our Tot School time on a couple of fine motor activities and practicing number recognition.

The button snake was a Christmas stocking stuffer last year for Will. It came from this seller on Etsy, who no longer seems to have our purchase available... but still has some sweet, felty, learning "toys" if you want to browse. Basically the button snake is a long ribbon with one square of felt secured at the "bottom" and a button at the "top". There are ten other felt squares with a slit in the center that the child can practice fitting over the button for buttoning practice. Sophie had actually never played with it before and she loved it.

Great fine motor work for little hands.
After successfully getting all ten squares on and off multiple times, she tried buttoning a pair of her jeans (one of the only pairs that button instead of snap) and that proved much more difficult and frustrating for her. It's not nearly as easy as the snake so I expected her to struggle a bit. I demonstrated a couple times and we'll just have to keep practicing that.

Another fine motor task she tried was to open a tiny lock using a tiny key. This required a lot of patience and focus!

She needed a little help making sure to get the key all the way in, but then she figured it out. This was something Craig bought to show Will but we kept forgetting to let him try it. He did later on when he got home and he enjoyed it far more than Sophie did. :)

I brought out the old, numbered, "car parking lot" that I made for Will almost exactly two years ago to practice number recognition. We borrowed three of Will's toy cars and practiced "driving" them around to different numbered spots that we'd call out. Sometimes she seemed pretty solid on a few of the numbers, other times she seemed to not know any of them. I know she recognizes 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 pretty solidly. Why mostly even numbers? I don't know.

We incorporated a numbered cube that we'd roll to determine where our cars would park next.

And then we each rolled a numbered cube and found that number on the number puzzle and collected the ones we rolled.

She matched the puzzle numbers along the outer edge of the parking lot...

...and then put them back as I called one out.

Sophie uses a stock answer of "I don't know" whenever I ask her a question even if I know she knows the answer. I think she just has in her head that I'm going to tell her the answer and so she says "I don't know" without thinking for one second about my question. If I press her gently with "Sure you do! Find me the number 6"... then she'll usually get it right. But she doesn't quite have the motivation to give me a correct answer and be praised for it yet. And we definitely still need to keep working on numbers. ;)

She loved this matching game, however!

Again, another recycled game from Will a couple years ago. I took an old deck of cards and cut one of the suits all in half horizontally. I set the cards numbered 2-10 out in front of her and she found their match and placed it below. I just said each number aloud for her as she matched it.

Quite proud of herself after this one. :)

One of the very first "games" I made Will when we started Tot School was this: numbered clothes pins clipped to a piece of thick cardboard. The numbers are written in different colors so matching could be made by color or number. And then the pinching of the clothes pin is another good fine motor skill. Sophie rocked this game and loved it just like Will used to. She completed it several times and announced "I did it!" each time to me.

While I got dinner onto plates and set the table, Sophie did this 12-piece jigsaw puzzle over and over about five times. It's her current favorite and I keep saying we need to present the puzzles to her more often. Will used to do puzzles EVERY DAY with such patience and interest when he was her age. But they're kept in his closet because that's where there's room for them currently and so they haven't sat out for her easy access as much as they used to for him.

After dinner, while I cleared the table and ran the bath water, I gave the kids a quick and easy glue and paint craft for a snowy "scene". They had a couple of evergreen tree shapes and trunks to glue down onto paper and then a dollar store cleaning brush to "stamp" white paint (snow) onto the scene. The original idea for this suggested using a new, cheapy, toilet brush... but this seemed easier to maneuver with little hands and it was only a buck.

Oops! This picture didn't turn. My bad. This one is Sophie's and it looks like a quiet, light snow...

...while Will's looks more like a windy blizzard. ;-)

I honestly wouldn't mind if we got a blizzard right now. I miss the snow! But the closer and closer we get to March, the less I'm going to feel that way. The 40's and sun this week have me thinking spring and I'm afraid as soon as I let that thought sink in... we're going to get a foot of snow that catches me totally off guard. Ah well. Mild winters are nice for running. :)

Looking forward to my next date with Sophie in a couple weeks!

What's For Dinner? January Week 4 - February Week 1

I got an e-mail from our CSA farmers last week with an update on their current seed planting efforts for the 2012 growing season! And they even sent a few pictures. It's ridiculous how giddy this makes me. I cannot wait for June!

1500 tomato plants are up and growing! (That's John pictured below.)

Herbs

Last week I cooked another butternut squash to puree for Sophie. Don't think I ever showed you the picture of my winter squash stock pile from late fall. I'll have to post that next time. But it was ridiculous. A compilation of our CSA, a local pumpkin farm and Craig's aunt and uncle's garden. We still have several to go. But Sophie sure does love her squash and so I like to keep some on hand (cooked, pureed and frozen in cubes) for an easy go-to veggie for this little lady.

Both kids are also huge fans of button-pushing for kitchen appliances. :)

Also last week, Will and I made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and I made some more of our favorite fudge sauce to drizzle on homemade ice cream for desserts. I ended up putting most of our cookies in the freezer after my mom made my favorite molasses cookie recipe for me and my boss gave me a pan of cookie bars. LOTS of sweets last week!

{Week of January 21-27}

It's been awhile since we've had meatloaf and it just sounded good. So this meal included my favorite mini meat loaves recipe from Cooking Light (the one I always used to freeze in portions for the kids), Weelicious twice baked potatoes, some frozen (from fresh) sweet corn that Craig's aunt and uncle shaved right off the ears and then froze in a quart Ziploc for us, and half a Hawaiian sweet roll (leftover from our bread pudding a couple weeks ago). A VERY starchy meal! But comfort food it is!

(Plus some applesauce for the kids.)

I love me some Weelicious Chinese chicken salad!!! And I love to serve it in lettuce wraps. This is what I made for my own birthday dinner... except I made it the night before so it was ready when I was.

And finally, I made a couple of our favorite homemade pizzas - Hawaiian & BLT - on homemade crust.

{Week of January 28th - February 3rd}

Sophia supervising in carrot walnut pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning. (I always at least double the walnuts in the Weelicious recipe.)

One of our faves!

Craig's not a pancake-man. He eats cereal almost every day. Unless I make eggs.

Clifford only briefly sat with Will for this picture. Much to sticky/messy of a meal. Yogurt, syrup, banana...

For dinner on Saturday night: black bean tomato soup with cilantro lime cream. Mmm.

On Sunday, I put bbq beef in the crock pot to cook all afternoon 'cause weekends are my favorite time to use the crock pot. Unfortunately, I felt rotten by the time dinner rolled around and didn't even join my family at the table. Craig was in charge while I lay curled up in a ball on the couch and I was so appreciative of his taking the reigns for a night.

Craig is a no-nonsense kind of dad. He doesn't mess with clips and pony tails when he puts Sophie at the table. When he's on duty, she wears all sorts of random head gear to keep hair out of her face. Take this t-shirt sleeve for example...

Serves it's purpose I guess! Craig was also responsible for the dessert the kids ate this night: what he fondly refers to as a "kiss sandwich"... graham crackers microwaved with caramel kisses between. I think there might have been marshmallows involved too? He won big props for that from our littles.

Just a random, cute, dinner-time pic where Will wanted to compare hand sizes with daddy. {Smile.}

I think it was for Tuesday's dinner that I made sweet and sour pork stir fry. One of my favorite stir fry recipes - so tangy and flavorful with crushed pineapple and spicy red pepper flake in it!

1/4 cup pineapple juice

1 Tbsp cornstarch

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 # pork loin

1/4 tsp garlic powder

oil for stir frying

1/4 cup sliced onion

1 cup sliced red bell pepper

1/2 cup sliced green bell pepper

1/2 cup sliced zucchini

1 cup coarsely chopped fresh pineapple

2 cups hot cooked rice

-Combine first seven ingredients. Cut pork into 1" pieces and sprinkle with garlic. Heat oil in wok and cook until done. Remove and keep warm. Cook onion 1 minute. Add bell peppers and zucchini 3 minutes more. Add meat and sauce mixture and cook until thickened. Stir in pineapple. Serve over rice.

*I double the meat and veggies but leave the sauce the same and it still seems plenty saucy and serves at least 4 instead of 2. I also just buy an 8oz can of crushed pineapple, strain the juice for the sauce and then stir pineapple in at the end. I love the tangy flavor of the pineapple but I'm not crazy about chunks of pineapple in hot main dishes, so crushed is my solution. And finally, I change up my bell peppers based on what I have or what is on sale. This is an old picture (above) and I used all green pepper. But you can use a variation of whatever colors you like.

Final meal this week: chicken tortilla soup with chipotle and fire-roasted tomato. Still one of my all time favorite soups. There are crushed tortilla chips (I use the lime kind) and grated, smoky white cheddar on the bottom... and cooked bacon, raw red onion, cilantro and lime juice on top. Delish!!!

Oh! I did make some Weelicious vanilla cupcakes this week for a Groundhog Day thing (which I'll post later) and those turned out really good. Those would be an easy and reasonably healthy birthday party cupcake to serve.

Our Weekend with Clifford - Round 2

Clifford, the preschool mascot stuffed animal, came home with Will last weekend for the 2nd time this school year. You can read about our first weekend with Clifford here.

Again, it was a surprise that we would be having the pleasure of his company... even more so than last time because the students had school cancelled last Friday. So "Mrs. Skees" called me that day to ask if we would mind taking another turn. It's a really big deal to the kids and Will didn't know about it until I picked him up from the sitter's, so he was super excited.

Clifford slept at the foot of Will's bed on his own personal blanket and pillow for nap and bedtime. And Will kept telling me "I'm going to show Clifford my (fill in Christmas gift here)" all weekend. Here, they're examining some animal facts in his encyclopedia books.

On Saturday morning, Clifford came with us to the library. We checked out a new set of books, many of them about Groundhog Day, and Clifford sat with Will to listen to a read aloud book on the computer.

After nap on Saturday, we had plans for the kids to get some pictures taken with Nana, Papa, Mya & Stella since we've only ever gotten one good picture of Nana & Papa with their grandkids (at Easter two years ago). So I took a picture of Will & Clifford before we left.

On Sunday, Clifford came with us to have brunch at the independent living center with Great Grandpa King... who's name happens to be Clifford also! (But he goes by Cliff.) So we introduced Grandpa to the dog and Will was so excited to share that little name similarity with his friends at school on Monday. Whenever we go visit Grandpa, Will and Sophie always get to hitch a ride on his walker/seat as we walk the halls to the dining room and everyone ooh's and ahh's over "Cliff's great grandkids". I think Grandpa secretly LOVES it. :)
And finally, on Sunday evening, I wasn't feeling well (a 24hr stomach bug hit me all of a sudden) so Will and Clifford and I curled up on the couch to finish reading Charlotte's Web before bed.

We kept our weekend recap "journal" to a minimum since I didn't quite have the mojo to get crafty while I was feeling so rotten. Craig just printed a few pictures on regular paper and I wrote about our activities on the back. Then we laminated it with contact paper and tucked it in the bag with the rest of Clifford's belongings to go back to school on Monday.

The teacher reads our journal aloud to the kids and Will gets to talk about his fun with Clifford... before Clifford goes home with another little boy or girl next weekend!

7

As in miles.

I'd never run seven miles before in my life!

And, since picking up running again right after Christmas, I've mostly done three and four mile runs several days per week at an average pace of 8:06-8:15 per mile. But my brother-in-law Wes and I got out for a great run at Pearson Park on Sunday afternoon and he pushed me to keep going! Wes has been running far more consistently than me for the past year or so and his endurance and speed have increased tremendously. He frequently does long runs over 10 miles on Sundays and is currently following a 1/2 marathon training plan. He's seeing a lot of improvements in his times since incorporating a speed work day into his weekly routine so that's an element I've tried to add to my training as well.

I've recalibrated my Nike+ chip but I still think it's off a little bit. Wes has been using a Garmin Forerunner (GPS watch with a band to wear around the chest for heart rate measurement) since Christmas and he loves that. So my times/distances are slightly questionable unless I'm running on the high school track... which is a new thing I've enjoyed this past month. (It's open for us to use and we find that helpful for runs after dark.) On Sunday at the park, I ran seven miles per Wes's Garmin (7.22 per my Nike+ chip) in 1 hour and just a few seconds. It was snowing very lightly and it felt so nice to be out on a trail in the middle of winter! The wind was kind of hard on one part of the loop, but very comfortable for most of it.

Just last week, I signed up with my friend Nichole to participate in a relay team for the Glass City Marathon in April. There are five runners on our team and I will be the fourth of five on race day. My leg of the race will be 5.7 miles. So I'm just hoping to get to the point of consistently running six or seven miles on weekends and three to five on weekdays with a speed work day maybe on Tuesdays leading up to the race. And I'm good with taking two to three days off per week. Or even every other day if life gets hectic.

So that's my run update!

The kids are really taking notice of my running and I love planting that seed. Sophie always gets a big smile on her face when she sees me in running clothes and an iPod band on my arm. She says to me "Do you have your running?"... like it's just one collective thing that I'm holding or something. ;-) Or she'll ask me if I'm going running in the basement or outside. And, if she's awake, she'll always greet me excitedly upon my return. So that's what these goofy pictures are all about. They're terribly hideous of me... but still a moment that I enjoy looking at.

We're having another freakishly warm week with temps in the 40's (and even 50's yesterday) and that makes for some nice outdoor running conditions. So, while I miss the usual winter, I'm appreciating the chance to get outside and get my run on.

We're also signing both kids up for the Dart Frog Dash this year (in May) and I can't wait to see how Sophie likes it and how Will has improved!!