Duplo Legos

 The V's are on a Duplo Lego kick!  It's their new favorite thing to play with each day.

I recently purchased a Duplo number train set to help with counting and number recognition, but instead it has started a craze for building towers and bunny houses with the V's.

They are so focused when they're building!  And we usually end up using every single brick!  So now I've got to get more sets, but it's shocking to me just how expensive Legos are nowadays!

I wish Pops could find my old Duplos from when I was a kid.  I'm sure they're in his basement somewhere!

Exploring local parks

Our normal park is Jacobus, but lately we've been exploring more of our local parks including:  Hawthorn Glen, Hart Park, Valley Park, Washington Park, and Highland Park.  We are really lucky that there are so many great parks within walking distance!  I like the variety but the girls still prefer Jacobus best.

Girls play well together

Outdoor play area is all set up for the season!

 Well, I've got our outdoor play area all set up for the summer season now.

There is an adult size table with umbrella and a kid size one too.  There is a sand table and a separate water table.  There is our play house and a little slide.  There is also a shaded seating area for when the sun is really hot.

Recently, I've purchased a couple more riding toys, a magnetic fishing set, a plastic bowling set, more bouncy balls, a couple of sand & water mills, and some more sand toys too.  There are plenty of things for the kids to do outside now and they've been loving their outside time each day.

I've also gotten around to planting and setting up all the pots in my container garden.  In addition to flowers, I'm also growing 15 containers of fruits, veggies, and herbs.

On Monday, L helped me plant bean seeds in one of the raised beds in the front yard.  He did a great job and enjoyed watering it with the hose after we finished.

Today, V helped me plant snap pea seeds in a large container out back.  She likes the helper role and did a really great job too.

Cool Kid Apps

A few times each week, the kids get to play with my iPod Touch or my mom's iPhone.   We're always on the lookout for some cool kid apps.  Here are some that the kids really like:

3 yr old L likes anything Toca Boca - especially Toca Kitchen, Toca Hair Salon, and Toca Doctor.  You can find out more about these apps on their website:  http://tocaboca.com


He also likes Toddler's Seek & Find and Phone 4 Kids (specifically the painter program). These are all apps that he can do on his own.

1 yr old S likes all the Fisher-Price apps - especially the Laugh & Learn ones.  You can find out more about these apps on the Fisher-Price website.  The monkey is her favorite Fisher-Price character.

She also likes Peekaboo Pets, Raising A Baby, and Kids Songs Collection.

 

Cute Kids

S doing some dancing. 

L's arrangement of animals.

Getting out on a nice day

 We took advantage of the nice weather today and got out to Washington Park for some fresh air and outdoor play.  It felt good to feel the sunshine.  L even decided to wear some shades.

We visited all the nature pod playgrounds.  There were lots of kids there because of it being Easter break.

The kids have gotten so good at climbing since the last time we got out to a playground.  I was really impressed with how fast L could climb up the different climbing structures.

What's cooking?

I love it when S gets a chance to do some pretend playing all by herself, without anyone interrupting her.  She likes to dress the part.  Want to know what she's got cooking in the oven?  I think its FROGS!  Kids are so funny!

Dancing & Playing Dress-up

All the kids love to dance and play dress up.  We've got a variety of hats, tutus, sunglasses, costumes, purses and accessories.  I always check out the dollar section at Target for anything that we could use.

Playing with little Legos

After nearly a year of asking, Pops has finally started to bring over my Legos from when I was a kid!  L is so happy about this.  But now I've got another task on my hands:  cleaning, sorting, and rebuilding!  We've got a few buildings back together so far, and L has been enjoying playing with them everyday during S's nap.  Now I need more storage space!

Joy!

Box Fort

We used the empty shipping boxes that our Youngstar grant items arrived in to build a super awesome box fort!  I wish I had remembered to take more pictures of it because this one doesn't show too much about it.  There was a tunnel and secret doors, and a boat, and cave paintings on the walls and lots more.  The kids were so excited about it and played with it for days until it finally broke apart and got recycled.

my easy day

I call Tuesdays "my easy day" because it's just the two girls.  They play together pretty well and they play very peacefully separately.

Our only real difficulties come from the two of them competing for my attention.  They both seem to develop an uncontrollable need to be held right when I start to cook lunch, complete with whining and crying if I don't comply immediately.

V sometimes gets annoyed with S's lack of understanding about personal space, but she is still a baby after all.

Overall, it's still a pretty easy day.  There's never any hitting and very rarely any crying.  It's the least messy day, toywise.  The girls are good at cleaning up after themselves and they like helping me.

Playing together

L likes to set up house inside the little circus tent and he pretends that we are all one big family.  We always have to have a dog and a cat which he gives the same names as his real dog and cat.  The  "family" today also included a little stuffed hamster, lots of babies, a few dollhouse people, and lizards.  We had bacon for our pretend dinner.  The lizards ate ice cream and then had to sun themselves on the roof of the tent to warm up again.  L always leads the play and dislikes it anytime I suggest something.

What we did this week...

Here are some of the things we did this week:  played with Play-Doh, gave animals figurines and our dollhouse dolls "baths" in the bathroom sink, had pretend tea and cookies together, played with baby dolls, danced to music, tried out our new tutus, made funny faces in the mirror, made shape pictures with glue sticks and cut-outs (see left), played pretend clothing store, played hide-and-seek, emptied my piggy-bank and then refilled it twice, looked at different pennies, played My Little Ponies, had an indoor picnic lunch, picked and ate up the last of the sugar snap peas, and so much more!

Favorite books we read this week included Baby Dear by Eloise Wilkins (which I must have read nearly 20 times), A Tree Named Steve, and An Earthworm's Life.

We also received our state culture exchange package from California.  The kids were really excited about opening it and tore through it, but then the Sees chocolates distracted them from paying much attention to anything else.  So, I plan on going through it again with them in more detail on Monday.

Exploring the new playgrounds at Washington Park

This morning we took a walk to Washington Park to explore the several new playground areas that recently opened there.

Each little playground area was about a different topic in nature.  The first one we stopped at was about bees.  The next ones we went to were about leaves and how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.  One playground area had a giant spider web.  There was also one about pond life and another about fungi.

Pops came with to help make sure the little climbers were safe from any falls.  And it was a good thing because climb they did!  I kept a really close watch of them and I was really impressed with their skill and bravery.

It was a fun day for both kids and for me too.  I love it when I can send them home really happy.

There are a lot of parks within walking distance from my house, so next time we might check out another one.  It mostly depends on how much energy I have in me because it's quite a workout pushing a stroller!

This week...

It's been a bit of an adjustment for me going from a school-age child mindset to toddlers.  Art projects, aren't so much projects as they are sensory experiences.  Painting is about what the paint feels like between their fingers and about how various colors blend together.  Play-doh is about how it squishes in their hands.  L is more interested in sorting crayons than coloring with them.

This week was much better than last week.  There was only one bad day, which looking back, was totally because I tried to delay a nap.  I should have known that when someone needs a nap, they need to nap right then - even if it means that they will be woken in the middle of it by people arriving at the door.

These are some of the books we read this week.  Many of these were read multiple times.  There was one day where I was asked to read "Can I Just Take A Nap?" about 10 times before I finally hid the book.  I also read "At The Zoo" and "Ernie's Cheerful Smile" at least 4 times each. "Shark VS. Train" was also read more than once.

I've been letting the kids pick the books, for the most part.  We're still getting to know and be comfortable with each other, but soon I'll start creating weekly lesson plans for them with books to accompany each week's theme.  And of course I'll continue to read the books they choose too.

New Dollhouse

 With three kids, all under the age of 3, starting this week, I decided I  needed to get some more toys appropriate for their ages.  I chose this Fisher-Price My First Dollhouse because it is rugged but still has plenty of detail.

It was a big hit with the kids.  Even D (7 yrs old) likes it.  When she plays with it, the Fisher-Price people are from "Little Land" and they visit the Barbies who live in "Barbie Land" or the Barbies visit them.

When L (3 yrs old) plays with it, he moves all the people out and instead the dogs and cats and the baby hamster live in the dollhouse.  You can see in this picture, they all sleep in the same bed.  The dogs also drive around in the mini van.  And sometimes the frog family comes to visit.

When V (2 yrs old) plays with it, she likes to make people and animals enter through the front door.  She also likes to have them take baths in the bathtub and often someone needs to be potty trained.  I told her that the little blond girl looks like her and so now we call that doll "Little V".

S (1 yr old) doesn't get to play with the dollhouse much because the other kids are constantly using it.  But when they are occupied with other things I've sat with her and the dollhouse and I point to furniture and objects and name them for her.

Playing with the pooches

It has been over a month since getting started and by now, D has had a chance to go through ALL of the children's toys.

Today, she decided to take a look at the dog toys.  Keeley and Teagan watched as D rolled out their toy box and then sorted them out one by one between the two dogs.

Teagan (top picture) got all the tennis balls and chew toys.  Keeley (bottom picture) got all the more pricey and different toys.

Occasionally, D would ask me who a toy belonged to and I'd tell her it belonged to both dogs.  Then she'd look at it and decide who to give it to.

She also liked to ask me the names of the toys.  I'd respond with, "Oh, that's a wiggle-giggle ball." or "That's a hurley and that's a hole-y roller."

I took these pictures of the pups because I thought it was funny how they sat calmly and patiently through the whole thing.  They let D do things that they would never put up with from me.  Keeley even walked around the house for a good 30 minutes or more with that boa constrictor tied loosely around his waist.