Two good friends, playing dressing up, captured in these darling photos and displayed in our homemade butterfly decoupage picture frame (a great rainy day project!).
We wrapped it up with a typed and handwritten note written and decorated by our three-year old.
A sweet present from one little girl to another, made with love.
For more information about how to decoupage picture frames, see our Picture Frame Decoupage post.
Our house isn’t always neat and tidy.
This is what happens when the three year old has free reign of the house while mama is stuck on the couch with a head-cold for two days:
She looks so innocent, doesn’t she?!
Our daughter began her yoga studies prenatally (when I was around six months pregnant).
She then came with me to Mama and Baby yoga class for around two years:
This past summer she started going to her very own yoga class — by far her favorite structured class activity:
Because she’s grown up with it, she sees David head off to his yoga practice three days a week, because it’s a way of life around here, she’s crazy about yoga.
We knew this game, The Yoga Garden Game
What I love best about this game is that it’s about cooperative play; there are no winners or losers. We have fun doing yoga and working together to plant a flower garden before night falls.
Our daughter loves it.
She has the rules memorized, knows the yoga moves in the game, and plays it every single day.
Mix jam (fruit sweetened, no sugar added) into plain yogurt for a healthful, everyday snack.
This homemade version is less expensive and more versatile than buying smaller individual containers of flavored yogurt without the ton of sugar typically added.
Plus, toddlers who love to help can make it themselves! Score, an everyday learning activity!
1) Vocabulary/concept building: First stir your spoon clockwise, then stir it counter-clockwise. “Quick, switch! Time to stir your spoon clockwise!”
2) Color lesson: What color is the yogurt mixture? Mix in some more fruit spread. How does the color change? Is it darker or lighter? What color is it?
3) Taste lesson: Discuss the taste of the plain yogurt. As you’re mixing in the fruit, stop occasionally to see how the yogurt begins to taste sweeter. Mix in a different flavor (i.e. mix blueberry into the strawberry yogurt) and talk about how the taste changes.
Yes, we really do stuff like this at home.
Yes, we’re nerds.
Yes, we can’t help it. For us, it’s fun!
We do a very low-key Valentine’s Day celebration at our house. As far as we are concerned, treasuring each other and showing our love for one another is a daily activity.
This year we’re doing a handmade card exchange for the youngest member of the family. Although David and I don’t give each other cards (for any occasion, actually; more on this in a moment), we recognize that our daughter would love the giving and receiving aspect of this holiday.
(Instead of cards, David and I exchange phone calls and talk when we’re together. With at least one “I love you” per conversation, everyone in a ten foot radius knows how we feel. You should feel sorry for David’s coworkers. I call him five times a day. Yes, we’re that couple.)
Back to our card-making endeavors, the girls have been taking this card exchange very seriously and we’ve been hard at work.
As you can see, someone continues to teach herself to write. She also can multi-task! Look how she’s holding her baby doll in her baby sling while she writes.
I am not sure which of these two things I feel most proud.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Go buy yourself some chocolate and know that this is just another day regardless of how you spend it.
