Playroom update

1 thing about me is I like changing things! I re-organize my classroom lots and I do the same to my house! Just 6 months ago we made a BIG change and changed our whole kitchen area, living room and  what was the dining room now the play room! I loved it!!! The original plan was to keep our old couch in the playroom. It is 5 years old, a little stinky and dirty and as of lately ripped so I decided it had to go which now made a whole wall available for more stuff! I love the way the room looks now. There are more ideas I have about what else I could do but for now I feel like it works.

I love this wall! I love how it is so full of her creations! I have finally filled in the frames, put up a nice quote, those tubs are full of toys and the colorful baskets hold the hand made games we have created. 

That is our front door. So when you walk in you walk right into the playroom No it is not ideal but it works! I put up those pictures on the wall. I found a jpg. of the play poster online and got it blown up at Walgreens. They are the playroom rules! I put clothesline up for all the handprint/footprint alphabet pieces we have made this summer. When we are done it will be full of them. I plan on keeping them up all year until we do something different next summer! 

The window is in the front of our house. This use to be where all her Little People things went but I found them a new home. Now only the Dora house lives there and the lego table and blocks. 

This is our family picture wall. I have picked a few from each session we had made with our photographer and put them up. I haven't updated since 12 months though. Her art easel is in the corner and art table next. I plan on going to IKEA this summer to get some sort of storage baskets to put over the table. In the Dora tent holds her stuffed animals. She has so many already! 

This is the back wall . Next to the ball pit is the hallway to the rest of the house. Nothing fancy about this wall. Just my favorite picture of her of all time blown up and her Little People and more toy storage and the good ole' ball pit that she still loves to roll around in, plus it is storage for all those bigger balls too! The ottoman use to be in our living room but when we got our new couch which is a sectional it didn't fit so well. It has 4 pretty roomy drawers which hold more toys and since we are now couch less it makes for some seating for us.  I am thinking I want to put more things on the wall, but I haven't made up my mind up. I would also LOVE to do something like this on the wall too. I love the bookcases with the seating.  Maybe 1 day! 

J, K, L

On J day we started with a jewel craft using scrapbook stickers on a pieces of construction paper. I made a big J and printed out pictures of Jacie and let her glue them anywhere on the J. I also used stickers to put her name on the top. We did handprint jellyfish and made jello which she enjoyed after dinner.

K & L day we mixed together over 3 days! We had a few big things over those days so we didn't have much time at home but what we did happened to fit just perfectly!!  

Wednesday morning, we went to Kindermusik for the 1st time. Last week was when the 5 week program started but since she broke out with that rash we did to miss it.
 Thursday, we met baby Korbin. He is my friend's baby who I have known since 7th grade. She also has twin 2 year olds so Jacie played with them for 3 hours! He is almost a month old now! We made the tin foil key later that afternoon.
Friday, we did the koala bear and "flew" her plastic bag kite.

We spent all afternoon/evening at Lego Land on Wednesday with my family!! It is a pretty cool place and we had lots of fun. Thursday we made the ladybug and on Friday we did the lion handprint.


It has been a busy few days. This week we have daddy home on his week vacation so we have many more fun activities planned including the museum, movies, and a safari park!!!! I am so excited! 

G, H, I

We started with some grocery shopping followed by grilled chesse, goldfish, gogurt and grape juice for lunch. After nap we got crafty with mixing paint which she was very excited about. Before we started I asked her if she sees any green and she said "no, blue and yellow!" I told her to mix them together and yells out "GREEN!" We put "gum balls" on the gum ball machine and the handprint giraffe. We ended our day with glow sticks in the bathtub which is by far her favorite activity we have done!!! 

On H day we started with the happy/sad game I made for her awhile ago. She did it great the 1st time then said she wanted to do it again but then did it her own special way. We played it with everything "upside down" We read Humpty Dumpty and she (barely) colored humpty dumty and glued it on her own! We made the hippo handprint which I think is my favorite so far. After nap we visited with the horses and made the heart craft.

I day! I day was pretty simple. We made the handprint ice cream... Jacie picked the colors. We painted with ice which was cut short because she started throwing them on the ground!! We got ice cream and did her insect puzzle although don't tell Jacie they are insects because she will tell you "NO!" She will jut call them their real names. I guess animal classification is a harder concept ;) 

Imagination

Jacie has a great imagination! She always has. She has been pretend playing since right after she turned 1 and got her kitchen but now it is grown so much and I love seeing her do something creative.

We were watching some Peppa Pig and she was eating moon pop (something we get at our neighborhood Kroger... its like a big rice cake but tastes sooooo much better) She got it down to a small piece and said "Look mama a kite" and she was pretending it was flying in the air! Then she said "woof woof" and made it jump on the couch like a dog and then made it into a train and was making a train noise and it slide across the couch and into her mouth! She seemed pretty proud of herself!!

Another thing I love watching is how she is now making her toys talk to each other. They will have conversations with each other about food, going to bed or waking up,  going to the zoo or farm and tell each other they love each other and give hugs and kisses. 

Random Jacie picture:
She was so happy to take a picture with Sophie. She kept putting her arm around her and saying "cheese." Sophie on the other hand was not quite sure what to think. 

Dress up characters

I should have enjoyed Santa, the Easter bunny and any other character is costume Jacies 1st year because now the moment she sees anything she freaks out! Tonight was just another example of her fear. We were eating at Rainforest Cafe and she was enjoying everything until she saw a tree frog dress up character walk out. At first it was just a whine followed by "hold me!" As the frog moved closer it became the loudest scream I have heard her scream before and that one was followed by "go home go home now!!!" My mom took her and they hide out in the bathroom hallway for about 10 minutes until the frog was out of sight!! We got home and she told her daddy all about it.

"Big big big green frog scare me... Jacie crying... Mamaw take me bathroom"

I am thinking she is not going to be over this fear in time for Santa pictures!! There is no telling how that will go!!!

.... She still talks about how the Easter bunny scared her.

I guess she is totally my child. I use to beg for my birthday to be at Chuck e cheese but as soon as he would come out I would hide under the table and scream! (True story) 

Mystery rash

... is still just that

Monday evening I noticed Jacie was getting a little spotty. I thought maybe she was having a reaction to something she had ate so I started thinking about everything she has eaten in the last 2 days but none of it was new food! We didn't change any soap or detergent so I knew it wasn't that either. My hopes were she would wake up Tuesday and it would be gone but it was worse!! It covered almost every body part and her face was bright red. I have no idea what was going on. She was acting just like herself, she had no fever, she hadn't been sick at all! I made the call to the doctor and we went in the afternoon. They ran a strep test which came back negative, they did a throat culture for 2 days which was also negative. 


We were told it could be from 1) a flare up of her kerosis pilaris she has on her legs and arms. Hers is very mild but it does sometimes get red. We did get a referral to a pediatric dermatologist so we will be looking into going to see him this summer. Maybe we can get a stronger cream than the over the counter stuff I have been using. or 2) just a virus. After many google searches and actually reading more about them my guess is it could have been fifth's disease. I just remembered last night that almost 3 weeks ago she randomly woke up 1 morning with a runny nose and that evening she had a low grade fever, but the next day it was gone and she acted like it never happened. The rash itself doesn't look like what is shown in the pictures so I am not 100% certain that is what it was.

As of today the rash is MUCH better. Yes it is still there but not a red and her face, stomach and back are almost clear.

July 9- that is her arm, her cheek and her leg. 

D, E, F

We started the day off with donuts. She got that nice chocolate sprinkle one but barely touched it. She did eat 3 donut holes though and her first taste of strawberry milk that she has been asking for every night since! Right away we went to feed the ducks at the park. We did her dot-to-dot letter D and made her duck handprint. We played dress up, doctor and watched some Dora the Explorer. We ended our day with "dirt" She was not happy with fact that I was smashing the cookies at first and would not just give her the pudding but once she saw it all done I think she understood!

We did do E & F together on the same day because Jacie woke up with a bad rash yesterday and she was not exactly picture perfect. I have the days planned out until I go back to work and so I didn't want to be a day off. Considering E is a more difficult letter to come up with activities I think it worked out just fine. 

We started the day with some eggs and yogurt for breakfast. She played with her Rock n Roll Elmo. You can't see in her hands but she was shaking musical eggs while I was playing the guitar and singing! We did the Elmo craft. I precut the circles and she arranged them herself. I just made sure they were straight. At first I was going to do the glueing but she wanted to join in. I was plently surprised at well she did the glue stick and would put it down to put the pieces in place and not start a fit or anything. She did think Elmo needed a tongue though... We finished the morning with her elephant.

In the afternoon after "nap time," I put it like that because there was no nap time today. She seriously played in her bed for 2 hours!!! We did her crafts. We did the fish (she choose the color) and I pulled out the play dough faces. There is a girl on 1 side and a boy on the other. While doing the boy side she kept saying "Jacie make dada" =) We then played around on her fishing game which she really enjoys! I just received it last week when I cashed in my pampers gifts to grow points. I was going to hold on to it until Christmas but I wanted to get it out for F day, and I am glad i did! She played some on her frog rocker and then we pulled out the flashlights! We played with them for almost a hour!!!! She was so impressed and engaged in those flashlights. We were in the room but it had a window so it wasn't completely dark. We did go into her closet for a bit so she could see it in complete darkness but she was not really a fan of that. After random play with the flashlights, we both laid down on our backs and I started pointing the lights to different objects in her room and she would name them. She thought that was pretty cool to see her things light up. She always liked when the flashlights "danced" on the wall and ceiling. We ended our afternoon with some Finding Nemo!

Today her rash is better although it is still there. I should receive a call tomorrow from her doctor!

Letters A, B, C

I got this idea on another blog I follow. She does some awesome things with her kids. She has twin 2 1/2 year old and is also a kindergarten teacher!! So she totally influenced me to do the same with Jacie. We are tweaking it a bit considering it is already July and I go back next month. But I know over the next few weeks we will get all 26 letters in! Of course this is just a fun exposure of the letters. We will focus on 1 letter a day (give or take) and spread it out throughout our day the best we can. I am only 3 days in but I know some day will be more filled than others... will have to get creative with some of the later letters (q?v?x?)

dot to dot letter A, handprint alligator, watched baby animals, eat an apple, and went to see the animals at Petco. We also watched Alice in Wonderland for the 1st time.

Brown bear activities, dot to dot letter B, footprint butterfly, and bubbles! 

Dot to dot letter C, handprint caterpillar, color matching, playing cars and of course her favorite COOKIES! 

too much.

Jacie's latest phrase is...... "mmm mmm love you too much" She says this while hugging! It melts my heart when she randomly hugs me and says that =) I also find it very cute when she says it to her baby or the cat and dog. She is so huggable and kissable! Of course she is trying to say "I love you so much" but her version is much more adorable! 

Fourth of July

Our 4th of July celebration started on July 3rd. When Ben got home from work we went out to eat at Taco Cabana then spent the next few hours keeping the little one awake! We took a stroll around the neighborhood, then went to get a snow cone and to pick our spot for the fireworks. We have lived in our house for 4 years but only have gone to see them 1 of those years. The spot wasn't good so we choose another one and that one turned out not so good either. We left early because Jacie started saying "bye bye fireworks, go home please!" over and over. We were too far away and being it was going on 2 hours past bed time she lost interest fast! She did enjoy a few minutes though.

How to entertain a 2 year when the fireworks are too far away and its 2 hours past bedtime!

We were waiting for the fireworks to start

The next morning we all slept in until 10am!! We went to lunch at Red Lobster with Ben's family. Jacie wanted to look at the lobsters over and over and kept asking to go see them while we were suppose to be eating. She kept asking the lobsters "you bite me?" while sticking her finger out.... not sure where she got that one from...


After nap we headed to my parents house. Jacie loves to hang out with her cousins. Her older cousin is just in love with Jacie and is so sweet with her. We are at a point where they can play all by themselves in the other room because I know her cousins are watching out for her. We went in the pool and my dad cooked out.

It was a really good day and its hard to believe it was Jacie's 3rd fourth of July to celebrate! As you can see Jacie loves getting her pictures taken now. Here is her funny face when her mamaw told her to smile!