Oh Happy Day!

So as mentioned in yesterday’s post, today was Charissa’s first day of preschool. To “commemorate” this oh-so-very-important day, she picked out a girly pink and white outfit. She even let me put her hair up in pigtails without any whining or bribing from me:

You can’t really see it in this picture, but she’s wearing a purple Dora backpack that I bought for my younger sister 3 years ago. Funny how it all worked out. I never imagined that my own baby would be using/wearing items I bought for my sister… (For those of you who don’t know, my little sister is 19 years younger than me. Go figure :))

With both Calvin and Charissa at school now, I have the mornings free for spending quality time with my porky (a.k.a. baby Stephen) and the treadmill (For me, those last 10 pounds of baby fat are the most difficult to get rid of… and I’m eager to be able to wear my pre-pregnancy pants again without having to zip halfway and loop a hair tie around the button :p).

It also gave me a little time today to find this:

Now, I’m not a big jewelry person. The only jewelry I wear is my wedding band, engagement ring, watch (that Jeremy bought for me - isn’t he so nice :)), and on occasion, my J.Crew gold-plated bangle (that I got for $10). I’ve been meaning to get a pearl necklace for some time so I’d have something to wear to weddings and other special events, but never quite found anything I really liked that carried a price tag I was willing to swallow. I’m also not the type of person who buys on impulse… or buys stuff just because it’s on clearance (with the exception of Target… sometimes… when it’s like dirt cheap…) I like to sleep on my “cart” before taking the plunge. But when I saw this necklace… Well, let’s just say it was exactly what I was looking for If you like this necklace also, go to this blog and submit your comment for a chance to win this giveaway!

On a final note, the title of my post reminds me of the lines from a certain praise song that goes, “Oh happy day! When Jesus washed… my sins away!”

It’s About Time

It’s been sunny and relatively warm the past couple of days, nice enough to send the kids outside to get some fresh air…

…and don a new pair of sunglasses!

I even had time to snap a few photos of the children’s play corner in the basement that was finally finished:

We had the contractor leave the space under the stairs open so the kids can have a little “hideout” area. I remember setting up house under the basement stairs when I was little - Loving it - spiders and all. Next to the nook is a simple play kitchen where Charissa and Calvin are constantly making soup and baking cookies.

We had to repaint our mudroom due to a patch job from fixing a leaky pipe and chose a nutty brown color for the area:

And… Charissa is finally potty-trained! It’s about time, don’t you think?! She was supposed to be trained by the end of last year. But with the new baby and her seemingly disinterest in the whole matter, it never got done. So one day last week, I put away her diapers and simply told her that she would no longer be wearing them. And that was that. Mission accomplished. The first thing she asked for was ice cream (since that was what we were offering as an incentive). The second thing she asked for was “go to school with Calvin?” (another incentive that was repeated every morning as she sent him off). So after a few emails and some paperwork, Charissa will be going to school with her big brother tomorrow. And the cutest thing is they’ll be in the same class! We went to Trinity Montessori this evening for an hour of child-to-parent show-and-tell, and Charissa came along. They were both so excited. Watching them go through the classroom together reminded me of them running in the basement, shortly after it was finished, holding hands, and yelling, “we’re best friends!”

With so much going on, I haven’t had time to do anything with the pretty fabric I bought over Christmas:

If only I had more time…

All in the numbers

12 months has each year…

One of the things I’ve been working on with Calvin lately is the concept of time - more specifically, the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Calvin is a very visual learner, so to help him out a bit, I made my own version of a “perpetual calendar”:

Each sheet is mounted on a separate clipboard and hung on the kitchen wall. The month and days of the week sheets have a paperclip at the edge for him to slide into place every morning. This daily ritual definitely has helped and prompted excitement for his birthday (”Is it March yet?! Because when it’s March, it’s almost April Mommy!”) Here are the PDF links in case you want to try it out:

The 12 Months of the Year
The 7 Days of the Week
Number the Days

February 14

For Valentine’s day every year, instead of handing out cards to each classmate, Calvin’s teacher has every student make just one Valentine for the whole class (thank you Miss Coventry! You just made my life 17 times easier!) Anyway, the point is to spend time with your child making a Valentine of some sort (a huge card, a drawing, a big piece of candy, whatever… we were told to be creative…) and then have him bring it to class for a mini show-and-tell. So with my scrap fabric piling up, I decided to have him make his very own heart-pillow-Valentine:

After drawing each classmate, I had him sketch a heart-shape around all his little friends. I sewed along his heart and had him stuff the final product (I was tempted to sew “off-line” so as to make the heart a bit more symmetrical but managed to resist the urge…)

100 pieces

About two years ago, I came across these clear Magna-Tiles in our local Lakeshore store. I immediately wanted to get them. But at $50 for 32 pieces… eh, the oh-so-pretty translucent tiles weren’t so pretty anymore. A few months back, I received their current catalog and after seeing the tiles again, I just had to get them. So Jeremy and I looked on eBay and found a 100 piece set for roughly $99. Still pretty steep, but in my opinion, worth every penny. The kids can play with it for hours, and sometimes, even I have trouble sharing pieces with them I rarely buy toys for the kids these days because we’re constantly being flooded with them from friends and family… but this toy… let’s just say it’s fun for the whole family!

(Please excuse Calvin’s very uncoordinated outfit… and focus on the tower he built and promptly bulldozed down after I took the picture…)