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!

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.

 

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!

Kids Love to Make Music

The girls love music!  They love to sing, dance, and make their own music too!  I've made an effort to get a bunch of kid instruments for the daycare.  We've got a keyboard, a guitar, cymbals, bells, a triangle, a tambourine, a rainmaker, a couple of shakers, rhythm sticks, a bodhran drum, a floor tom drum, and a glockenspiel.  And of course I've got more instruments on my wish list like some bongos, an accordion, an electric violin, and more and more and more!

Kids Love Containers

Kids totally love to put things into containers and then dump them out.  Sometimes this feels like my entire day:  dump it out, pick it up, dump it out again, etc. etc.  We've got baskets....

We've got bug cages...

purses to fill...

shopping carts....

little suitcases....

and so much more!

Daycare Retro

A fair amount of the books and toys at my daycare are from my childhood (the 1980's) and my youngest brother's (the 1990's).  My dad is quite the packrat and has held onto a lot of our old toys.  Every now and then he brings over a box of random toys.  The kids love it and don't seem to mind at all that they don't know any of the characters.  They say, "Yea!  Pops brought us more toys!"  Then I have to quickly sort them and wash them since they've been in the basement for 20 to 30 years gathering dust.  Here are some of our retro items:

These are my Lonely Doll books from my childhood
(but they were actually published in the late 1950's)

More books from my childhood

Books from Ryan's childhood

Weird little monster guys from Ryan's childhood

Ewok battering ram (Return of the Jedi)

A Gizmo stuffed animal doll (Gremlins)

2 different versions of the Batmobile (from the 90's)

Legos from my childhood
(Rob and I had tons of Legos!)

Various action figures from Ryan's childhood
(TMNT, Batman, X-Men, The Tick, etc.)

My Fisher-Price teddy bear picnic basket from the 1970's
and Ryan's 90's Koosh balls and Dot Warner figure

We also have a number of new toys that were originally popular when I was a kid; like My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Star Wars figures.  And a number of new "classics" like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Hot Wheels cars, and more.  Everything old is new again.

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.

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.

Week review...

We took advantage of the nice weather on Wednesday and Thursday with trips to Washington Park and Jacobus Park.  All the kids love going to a park but getting out of the door is always a challenge for me.  Sometimes it takes a good 20 minutes or more for us to get ready.  By the time we get out the door, I'm already exhausted.  Everyone needs a change before we can go and then I have to get everyone's shoes, coats, and hats on too.  By the time I get the last person ready, the first person has removed their shoes and socks and I have to start over.  But still it's worth it because they have a blast once we get there and it's great exercise.

Other things we did include decorating little pumpkin gourds, making halloween sticker pictures, playing dollhouse, ponies, baby dolls, little legos, pretending to be a variety of different animals, having play-food picnics, coloring with crayons, and much more.

Here are some of the books we read this week.

"A Good Day" and "The Salamander Room" continue to be favorites.  L really enjoyed "A Log's Life".  And S seemed to like "Happy to be Nappy" and "Sing-Along Song".  V is oddly particular.  She did not like "The Watcher" and refused to listen to it after the 4th page, but she was content to be read "Harry The Dirty Dog".

Learning about Argentina

D and I have a deal that she will spend a month learning about a country and if she passes a quiz at the end of that month, she gets to open a Barbie Doll of the World for that country.

The first country we've been working on is Argentina.  In a few days D will have a 13 question quiz to determine if she can open this doll or if she needs to spend another month on Argentina.

She needs to be able to locate Argentina on the globe, tell me what continent it is on, what the main language they speak, know the capital city, the most popular sport, about the tango, Eva Peron, the Andes, and more.

I really hope she gets them all right!

Week in review

Since I was getting tired of the multiple outfit changes each day that accompanied water table play, I decided to shell out the money and buy 50 lbs. of Sandtastik playsand.  To me and my wallet, that sounded like a lot of sand, but as it turned out, it wasn't enough to fill a sandbox.  It was enough to fill a plastic storage bin though.

I thought that the kids would kneel next to the bin and play in the sand, but the first thing all the little ones did was climb into the bin and sit in the sand.  Oh well!  The other thing that I didn't foresee was that the sand would not stay in the box.  This has been driving me crazy because in my mind every bit of sand that is lost is like money that is lost.  But I know I've got to get over it and stop thinking that way.

Why did I buy such expensive playsand?  It's because I found out that the normal playsand that you buy at a hardware store contains crystalline silica and asbestos tremolite which are know to cause lung disease, cancer, and cause reproductive harm.  You can read more about it at Safe Mama.  Better to be safe than sorry.

Other new things include finally getting a stroller and remembering about this play tent that had been sitting in the closet for the last few months.  With the stroller we've begun taking walks in the neighborhood.  The tent I thought of one afternoon when S was cranky from teething.  I was hoping it would distract her for a bit and it did the trick.  She just liked to sit in it and look at the colors.  We also played peek-a-boo with the door to the tent.

L likes to hide out in the tent.  He plays in it with toys, pretends that he's a baby bear and that it's his cave, and also uses it when he wants to have a pout.

We also played with play-doh, painted with watercolor paints, named the animals on some animal flash cards, and we read a lot of books this week!

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.

Baby Daddy

When D and I play with the baby dolls, she has a ghost husband and I have a dog husband.  Since Keeley always wants to play with us, I try to incorporate him when I can.  Sometimes when D and I need to go shopping in another room, we'll leave Keeley home (in the play kitchen) to look after the babies.  That's what he's doing in this picture.  Sometimes I wonder if he really does think that he's human.

Following D's lead when we play Barbies

A Birthday Party

A new "Ken" doll means another wedding.

When D and I play Barbies, I let her lead.  It's always interesting the things she comes up with and its useful for learning about her interests and knowledge.

D is very interested in weddings.  Every time we get a new Ken doll, D immediately marries him off and we have an engagement party, a wedding, and a reception.  Sometimes they go on a honeymoon too.  D tells me what their wedding cake looks like and what music will be played at the reception.  

Lately, D likes to have someone object to the marriage when the official says "speak now or forever hold your peace".  Then the couple has to plead their case and convince the other person that they really should be wed. 

And another wedding

The groom and his groom's men

After a couple of pregnant woman came to check out the daycare, then suddenly D thought that the Barbies should have babies too.  She had me tape blankets to their stomachs so that they'd look pregnant.  Then the Barbie couples and their extended families all had to go to the hospital for the deliveries.

Pregnant Barbies

A baby is born

Dancing at a party

Following D's lead, we've had Barbie vampire attacks, Barbie birthday parties, Barbies going to the beach, Barbies going on job interviews, Barbies having coffee with their friends, and Barbies running a daycare center.  This is what pretend play is supposed to be like!

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.