Off to Costa Rica

We are all packed up and headed to Costa Rica tomorrow morning. The house is clean, the house is quiet. And I am exhausted. Isabella fell asleep not too long ago, which means we will have a cranky jelly belly when I wake her up at 6:30am. I just spent I don't know how long looking for her baby, with no luck. I hope we find it tomorrow morning. Here is the calendar (or as jelly belly would say, "we gotta do our chart") where we have been tracking our days. My MIL just got a computer which means I may be able to blog while we are away. And we are off....

Mak Diva

We are leaving to Costa Rica this Thursday and what am I doing? Blogging....aaaahhh it's my new addiction, good thing it has not replaced Facebook. Now I need more time! This is Makenzie aka Mak Diva, my husband's God daughter (so technically mine too). I have known her since she was 3 I think! And now she is the bestest, greatest babysitter. She comes over and Jelly belly does not need a thing from me. I packed, and cleaned and cleaned, yes I am a bit obssesed, but I must clean before I go out of town. Today Isabella made her do all kinds of silly things...getting in her crib was just one of them. Jelly belly loves her, and pretty soon Mak diva will be old enough to babysit! I'm counting down... Mak Diva may soon get blue hair and jelly belly has already put her request in for pink hair!! Yikes, we are in trouble!

Summer Fun

This past Saturday we celebrated Gaby's birthday at a splash park. We had only been to a splash park another time and she would not get wet. I sure was glad that she warmed up to all the splashing because it was super HOT!

These 2 will be friends forever....

Jelly belly now knows who Hannah Montana is...yikes!
Splash!

When will she stop covering her ears?? I hope she doesn't cover them when her bday comes around! Check out the cakes made by my friend Maria....yummy! And thanks for the eggless cupcakes!

Book Review

I decided to read this again today right before nap time, and I am glad I did. Let me tell you that the first time I read it, I cried really bad, and had to go in another room so Isabella would not see me. I told myself it was an awful, awful book because it made me cry and I was not ready in anyway to explain the concept of aging and death. My husband agreed. I was also expecting this book to be about Potty Training because my friend who gave it to me also gave me some other ones after a brief potty training discussion (and the big toilet on the cover!) Says alot about how much I knew about the author. Today, I felt better about it. I remember it being much sadder than it actually was. Maybe because I was more prepared, maybe because she is a little older or I am a little wiser and stronger. Either way, I think it teaches great values.

Float or Sink?

We did this a couple of weeks ago. I checked out a book from the library from the Think About Series called Floating and Sinking by Henry Arthur Pluckrose which gave me the idea to do this. We had been reading the book for a couple of weeks before we did it, so she was super excited. She had fun finding all kinds of objects to put in our bowl of water; she loves playing with water these days and picked up the concept pretty quick. She also flipped through the pages of the book to get ideas of what she could test out in our little experiment.
What I loved most, while she was looking for objects...I was folding laundry, and this activity kept her entertained for almost an entire hour.

Our rules

Today we wrote out some rules (Thanks Allison for the idea). Yesterday I thought I should wait until we get back from Costa Rica. But I couldn't wait....Let's hope this helps our behavior issues, it's worth a try. Jelly Belly came up with most of them on her own, not necessarily in this order. She was excited about our "project" and had fun putting glitter on our big piece of paper.

Bella's rules:

1) No hitting anyone (especially mom, dad & Ginny)

2) Be nice to each other

3) No yelling

4) No pushing, no pulling

5) No saying No!

6) No kicking

7) No taking without asking

8) No closing doors

9) No throwing things

10) No playing with water without permission

11) Draw only on paper

12) Do what mama and daddy say

13) Share

This may be too much, but she wanted to keep going...no cutting the carpet, no biting, things that we don't have issues with. Knock on wood! But let's see if she can follow #10, she recently got into the sink to give her babies water and to mix it with her play-doh because it was too hard. And #12 is my favorite, and the ultimate rule that gets broken everyday!

Yuck!

We are slowly returning to normal activities which means less computer time for me, especially on the days she does not nap. Today, my jelly belly had an allergy test done and a chest x-ray to try and find the root of this never ending cough. For now it's Singulair, Zyrtec and breathing treatments....Yuck!!! I hate it, but what am I to do? She was off the breathing treatments for only 3 days before the cough came back. I can't take the risk of not following her treatment plan, especially when doctors say if it is untreated it can get worse. As if her egg and nut allergy were not enough to deal with, I now have to worry about possible asthma. I know it can always be worse, but its been an overwhelming day. I am thankful its just a cough but I wish more than anything right now to not have to give her all that stuff, for it to magically disappear. Let's focus on the positive, we won't have to get rid of Rocky and Mickey and the allergy test today showed she may possibly outgrow the egg allergy someday. Let's just hope I make it through this month, she is moodier, more irritable and chattier than ever since she began all these meds...I will just tell myself it's her age.

Saguaro cactus

Today is Thursday, and that means it's story time at the Library. We have been going to the library since she was about 4 or 5 months old. Today the theme was the desert and I was excited because I recently checked out a book about a Saguaro cactus. Not quite her favorite because it is a chapter book, but I was surprised to see how much we have gotten through. The librarian asked the kids if anyone had ever seen a cactus, and Jelly Belly happily replied, "Me!" So today we checked this book out (among many others) and decided to read it during our picnic lunch on my empty dining room.
She seemed to enjoy it! We learned about coyotes, rattlesnakes, roadrunners and pack rats and of course our Saguaro cactus. Here is pic of the one in our front yard, and I did regret my great idea to go out in this Arizona heat in the middle of the day. It is hot today!

Picture taken by Isabella:

While searching for the image of the book, The Seed and the Giant Saguaro, I found some info about the author and some great teaching tools. I did not try the discussion guide yet but I will next time we read the book. Curious to see how she responds, it may be geared towards older kids.
http://www.jenniferwardbooks.com/Teachers.html

A Sunday afternoon

On Sunday, I had a chance to relax and read my book (almost done with Breaking Dawn). As much as I love reading it, I couldn't help to look up and enjoy the view....

Our first planting experience

Jelly Belly asked if she could plant some seeds so she can water them. Not sure where she got the idea from but she asked more than once. At first, I thought...this is a project for daddy. But the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. So we went to Lowe's to see what we could find. We bought this ecofriendly starter kit and a few flower seeds. I have never planted anything before, so this will be a new experience for me, and a great family activity. Hopefully our outcome won't be too dissapointing.

Pellets...

Looking at her flower seeds....








First, we watered the pellets and they quickly turned into soil.

Then, we sowed the seeds....

And watered them once more....

We will check them every few days and hope

to soon transfer them to our front yard. Keep your fingers crossed.

She was very quiet through the entire process and this was a great way to end a Monday.

Fourth of July Cupcakes

A very quiet Fourth of July, quite different than what we are used to. No annual barbecue and swimming this year. But we did make some cupcakes with blue frosting and red sprinkles. Jelly Belly is getting so much better at baking (or should I say following directions). So what is so special about our cupcakes??? We used egg replacer instead of eggs because of her egg allergy and applesauce instead of oil to ease the guilt when I eat one or two. And for the first time, we put a little bit of jelly in the middle. We made a cake for Grandma and Grandpa that did not turn out very pretty, but it tastes good!

4th of July

We are still stuck at home....so it's time to do a 4th of July project, the American Flag!
F for flag!
First we gathered our materials: 1. White Paper 2. Red Paper 3. Blue Paper & 4. Silver stars




I was surprised at how well she did, especially since she is not feeling well. She didn't have a fit when I used the ruler to make the stripes or when it was time to cut them (she is into cutting now) and she even helped by holding the ruler down and making the straight line! She actually listened today, when I said, "not too much glue, make little dots".






Time to glue the stripes....

Time for the stars, I really thought she would want to use pink stars but she stuck to the silver ones!

The finished product:

13 stripes & 50 stars, and we did count to make sure!
I really hope we get to see fireworks tomorrow!