Yoga Game Time

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, would be a star player in her birthday present lineup.

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.

A Fruity Yogurt Snack with Three Part Lesson

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!

Valentine’s Day Cards

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.

A Garden To-Do List

We haven’t touched our front garden in four months and you can tell.

After our hard work last summer, this mound of weeds is a terrifying sight.

The winter rains have helped the weeds take over the yard. We never pruned back our perennials (plants that will grow back again this spring). We never yanked those bare cosmos plants, annuals dead because of frost and in dire need of being removed. The yard was a mess:

We’ve had a string of gorgeous (gorgeous!) summer-like days, so my daughter and I spent two hours starting to whip that front yard into shape. We’re all about telling that clover who’s boss.

(Especially when it’s 75 degrees out and super sunny; we HAD to be outside.)

After our mama-daughter clean-up party, the yard looks a little bit better:

We still have lots to do. Here’s our list of garden tidying tasks for the month:

1. Take down and dissemble holiday wreaths.

2. Remove rotting pumpkins from porch and place into compost bins.

3. Tiddy up kids toys so we don’t come close to breaking our necks every time we enter the house.

4. Find a pillow and sew a cover for the porch chair. This one has been on my to-do list for two years. We’ll see if we get to it this year.

5. Finish weeding. Cause we have three feet tall giant purple allium bulbs set to arrive in this exact spot soon. Like next week.

6. We also need to lay down a layer of compost and mulch to prepare for the long, dry summer ahead.

We have a little bit of time for the last task because even if it feels like summer with these atypical hot and dry days, it’s really just February, right?! Oh, wait, it’s February in Northern California and our last frost date is a month and a half away!

My to-do list just got longer.

It appears I need to get our veggie beds ready too. Time to start those cool-season crops on our windowsill because spring is just around the corner.

I’m so excited! Stay tuned!