Monday, October 31, 2011

Birthday Present

Xander's first birthday is almost here!  I have been in party planning mode for a while and am so excited to see him dig into his cake!  However, I decided to give him his birthday present early.  

We have a fantastic family museum here in town and I decided that a good gift would be a year long pass.  So far we have gone twice.  He has loved it, and I love being able to expose him to a variety of experiences.  We were planning on going to their big Halloween party, which is why he got the pass early, but then Xander had a fever that day.

Anyway, here are some pictures of his first adventures at the museum.

Driving the milk truck.



Checking out the dog house.




Listening to the music at the oral hygiene station.

Finding a secret passage in the toddler play house.

On the bridge!

Playing outside.

 Turtles!  They have a new turtle exhibit, which is perfect since turtles are the theme for his party!

First experience playing with a train track.  Can't say he was good at keeping them on the track, but at least he had fun!

Fascinated by the big screen they have for him to crawl on.  As he crawls across the "pond" the lily pads and fish move away and the water ripples.



Sunday, October 30, 2011

Toys Around the House - Hangers


While packing up some of the things in my closet, I discovered a new "toy" for Xander.  He is fascinated by hangers.  The loop together, you can bag them, throw them, etc.  

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Pumpkin Patch

This month I took Xander to the pumpkin patch.  I love the local one because they have so much for the kids to do.  Xander got to experience many firsts on our outing!

We fed some goats.  He was not all too convinced that he enjoyed the experience.  Maybe because the goats were eating and he wasn't.


He got his face painted for the first time.  You can see how well that went over.  It only took about 30 seconds, but the sound of the air brush really freaked him out.


We went on a barrel ride, which he thought was fun.

He also got to go in a bounce house, an inflated castle, on wiggle racers, and in a corn maze.  No pictures of those, sorry.

This is his first pumpkin!  I can't decide whether to let him paint  it or to carve it to look like his teeth.

Monday, October 17, 2011

A Boy and His Ball Pit




As the weather started turning cooler, I decided to re-purpose Xander's inflatable swimming pool.  I bought a bag of 100 plastic balls and created an easy ball pit.  Since the balls didn't really fill the pool, I may eventually need to buy a second set of balls.

At first he was skeptical.  He would play with the balls only from the outside, but did not enjoy being put in it.  Then he decided being in it was okay, but struggled to crawl out.  Now, he is in an out like a pro.  He LOVES it.  He has learned to throw them, so I end up with balls everywhere.  He also says "bah" for ball.  We're using them to learn colors.  Sometimes he will give me the color I ask for, but we're still working on it.


Xander has also decided that balls make good decorations.  I constantly find them on shelves, in drawers, etc.  Have I mentioned that I keep the toilet lid down?

Monday, October 10, 2011

Coming Back!

First of all, my apologies!  I know I haven't been doing much on here in a while.  I started a new job with longer hours and Xander and I needed some time to adjust our schedule a bit.  I know we still have some adjustments to make, plus we are moving in less than 5 weeks, so I still probably won't be updating as much as I would like, but please bear with me.  Eventually we will be settled!

Anyway, now that we are in our new routine, we have started slowly doing lessons again.  I am still rotating Xander's Baby Trays and he spends a lot of time with the more educational toys that I put on them.  Since we don't get home until about 3:30 and Xander is currently refusing his afternoon nap, we have some VERY cranky evenings.  Because of this, we are really only doing one set of word flash cards a day.  I am hoping that if we can adjust his nap at day care a bit, we can go back to more flash cards a day again.  We are also only doing LR and LM once a day right now.  Once again, I would like to get back up to two, if he can get over the crabbiness in the evenings.  Because we are doing so few flash cards, I have been trying to make sure we are reading extra books that have big fonts.  With a little boy who LOVES his books, and will often get you to reread the same one multiple times (even without words he can be incredibly clear in communicating what he wants), reading more books isn't too hard.

We also still watch one of his movies every day.  The newest addition to our collection is the second Baby Signing Time, which he really likes.  Now that he is getting closer to being able to gesture, I need to do better about reinforcing his signs!
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