Merry Christmas!!

Audrey and I have been having some fun around our house these days! The cold weather makes it where I can't take my little yard youngin' outside as much so I have to come up with fun things for us to do inside!

We love to paint--




...and to color. Well, honestly, we just love to pull the crayons and paper out of the craft drawer!



She's also started boycotting her high chair. She wants to sit in a big chair like a big girl. So... we do a lot of practicing!

We always start out just right! Bottom in the chair,etc.

Then she gets a little bored so she turns around,pulls her legs up..


...eventually sits on her knees...


...until she finally gets to this point.



Unfortunately, Momma has to interfere with all her fun when she finally stands. The pictures aren't pretty of her reaction to that! :)

Audrey also loves our Christmas trees this year! One day I caught her walking slowly toward the tree with her arm outstretched, all the while shaking her head and saying, "No,no,no"! It is as if the trees are a beacon and she is drawn to them!

See those stuffed ornaments in the picture above? My momma made those for our tree when we were VERY little. I remember her sitting on the couch and working on those things for hours! I love them!


She's particularly good at rearranging the ornaments.

She has developed a love for the ornament she has in her hand in the picture below. A dear friend that I taught with a million years ago gave it to me. Audrey likes to move it all over the tree-- I never know where I will find it!


** Side note ** Those boxes that are behind Audrey are my presents from Clay. He did all his shopping this year online. He made me promise not to get any boxes off the porch which was extremely difficult for me to do because I LOVE to get a package!! He would come in from work each night and drag the boxes into the foyer where I was to pretend they weren't there. One day I decided to close my eyes and put them under the tree.I made sure not to look at the return labels or anywhere near them. Hee..Hee.. Aren't they wrapped pretty? Just kidding-- he says he is going to wrap them tomorrow but I honestly don't care because do you see what's on the side of that box?

It says JANOME and it has a picture of the contents on the OUTSIDE of the box!! I can't help it if they put a PICTURE of it on the outside of the box! Merry, Merry Christmas!!

P.S. It's a serger! WOO-HOO!! ***

That completely distracted me so I am going to wrap this post up (heh, heh). I will have to finish up about the fun we have another day!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Audrey attended her first birthday party for Jesus at her MDO program! I am the "Room Mother" for Audrey's class and I have so much fun planning their little parties and events. My favorite part of being a teacher was planning fun things for my students to do. I didn't get to do as many "fun" things with them as I would have liked because the actual teaching got in the way! I don't have to worry about standards, objectives, benchmarks, common assessments or any of that when I am planning for Audrey's class! It is all fun!

Since it was a Birthday party for Jesus, we had to have birthday hats. You can see what Audrey thought about the hat!


Because the children are only 15-20 months old, we can't really have an over the top sort of party. They lose interest fast! This time we just had a snack, listened to Christmas music, and made a craft. By that time, they were done partying and ready to go ride the "Bye, Bye, Buggy!"!



Our craft was a thumbprint baby Jesus in a manger.

My friend, Amy, had one of these that her youngest child did at our church. I used it as an example and just copied it! Because they do have such short attention spans, I made the manger, the star and the wording before we went to the party. All the children had to do was make baby Jesus. It was a fun and simple craft-- just my kind!! Easy!

I plan to frame it in a simple black frame, hot glue some ribbon on it and hang it as an ornament on our tree each year.

Merry Christmas!

Final Zoo Class...

... for this semester anyway! At this class, Audrey was much more adventurous than in the other classes. She wanted to touch everything and didn't mind going at it alone!

The first animal out this time was a screech owl. The babies are only allowed to "touch with our eyes"! Audrey didn't understand that! I had to literally hold her back from gouging the poor things eyes out.


Next, was "Cardboard" the box turtle. I am thinking that this is the same kind of turtle that my hubby used to paint the shells on when he was a little boy. He talks of catching them, painting symbols on them, letting them go and then finding them years later! Oh, if we ever have a boy!?!


Some of Audrey's sweet friends from our Mom's Group were there. Here's Elizabeth thinking that she'll wait until next time to touch the turtle.


We also got to see the snake again....

... Audrey wasn't the least bit concerned that this snake was much longer than she was!



Matthew was pretty anxious to get his hands on that snake!! So anxious that his momma had to help him be "gentle". Imagine that-- being "gentle" with a SNAKE! Ew.

The final "zoo animal" we got to see was an alligator from south Alabama. I've seen a gazillion of these in the Conecuh river but it was fun for Audrey to get to see and actually touch one! She would never get to touch one that we saw at the river!!


For Audrey and the other children in the class, the absolute best part of the class didn't come until the very end.

The chairs!! Oh, my!! They are so much fun to a 15 month old!! They are the perfect size and weight-- just right!

Why she drops me like a rock when he comes home....

....he's just fun!

Cookie Factory

My Mommy & Me group toured a local cookie factory last week. I think I ate my weight in warm vanilla wafers!

Audrey did too! See that hair net on her head? It took some major distracting on my part to get her to wear it throughout the tour. I ended up just holding it on her head. I obviously have no experience with wearing a hair net. I apparently thought that my eyebrows needed to be covered also! Ignore me please.

The factory wouldn't allow anyone in the plant without wearing a hair net. Including the infant that was riding in her mother's sling!

Once the tour was over and we could take the hair nets off, Audrey decided that she kinda liked it! I think it was because she was double-fisting those cookies and was a bit distracted!

We left the plant with way more cookies than we could eat and full tummies!

The Polar Express

Lesa had someone in her office offer her four tickets to the Polar Express because they weren't going to use them. We were so excited! The tickets go on sale in October and we've heard that they sold out within an hour!

I always loved reading this book to my students and then eventually watching the movie with them (movies are never as good as books in my opinion!). I couldn't wait to see Audrey's reaction to the train and to see how she would react to Santa. She did have a good time but I think she will enjoy it even more next year. I think Gracie and Laura LOVED it though!!


The ride lasts about 45 minutes. They read the book to you on your way to the North Pole and when you get there.... SANTA gets on the train with you!! Audrey wasn't too keen on Santa but Gracie and Laura were!! He even brought Mrs. Claus and a bunch of elves! The elves gave each child a bell, an ornamemt, cookies and milk. It was fun!

Snowflakes

The snowflakes are falling by ones and by twos;

There’s snow on my jacket,
and snow on my shoes;

There’s snow on the bushes, and snow on the trees—

It’s snowing on everything now, if you please.

Leroy F. Jackson