Taking some mommy time and enjoying the long weekend

I realize I didn't blog anything about our days from Friday on so I have some catching up to do. On Friday, our main things were the start of September's library story time, working out at the Y, and visiting with friends that night. The story time theme at the library was trains and how funny that J was wearing his train shirt today (picture to the left). He was pretty into it, especially when it came to the songs and ones he remembered like the hello song. He also seems to stay by me now, whereas he used to wander around a bit. After my workout at the Y and picking up J from their child care, he kept saying "the dinosaurs were wet mommy" and I had no idea what he meant until they told me he had watched while they washed them. In the afternoon, I took a mommy "time out" having a babysitter come while I went to a special showing of Avatar in 3D. I think the last time I went to the theater was a year and a half ago. I really enjoyed the special effects and the movie was pretty decent. It seemed to borrow from other movies I've seen (Dances with Wolves, Braveheart) and I wasn't into the new age religious parts. Yet, just taking the time to go to the theater which is something I really enjoy, is so nice. After dinner, we spent some time with friends we've recently connected with. L grew up with both of them and I just met them recently, but really enjoy the time we spend together. Of course, L loves to reminisce since they went to school together, but we also like to talk about our faith. J had a hard time letting me talk with the adults and kept wanting to be held, or play or color with him. He finally relaxed when their girls put on Mickey Mouse and he loved watching.

Saturday morning was a treat. We went to our Farmer's Market for only the 2nd time this summer. It is located downtown on what they call the capitol square. It is actually the largest producer-only farmer's market in the country. J did pretty well sitting in his stroller for a long time as we walked around. We also stopped to listen to a couple different musicians along the way. The rest of the day was pretty low-key and I got to catch up on some of the mommy blogs that I follow. Lately, it's been hard to do that as it seems there's always something going on. I really enjoyed the Rethinking series my blog friend Tea has been writing. So many of her thoughts are things I've been thinking about lately, especially related to trying to live life simply and decluttering. It goes along with my buying fast where I'm not buying anything (other than essentials) for 30 days and taking time to reflect on what I see. I'll be writing about that weekly, probably starting tomorrow.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the morning service at our church to volunteer. I'm with the 3-year-olds and L is with the 4th graders. We had 14 kids in our room today and the time flew. There seems to be one or two kids who end up sticking by me most of the time. It's been kind of neat. We teach the 3-year-olds the same thing they teach J so it's helpful for me to be able to talk to J about how his time was. He remembered they talked about Hannah. When I asked about it he said, "She was sad. She prayed to God." Then he said something about David and Goliath and was mixing things up.

At home, we had a little bit of play time and then daddy took J on a little outing to the lake by the Memorial Union Terrace. I was fighting a headache and feeling wiped out so I got some great R&R for a few hours and watched a movie that goes with a book I just read called God Grew Tired of Us. The movie was good but it didn't get into the detail the book did. I really enjoyed the book as I've read a few about the Lost Boys of Sudan yet this one was especially inspiring. The author is a member of the Dinka tribe and is a Christian. He has a solid faith and it's amazing to see what he's done with his life after the horrors he endured. When they got back from their outing, J got to tell me about his favorite things from their time. They took a walk by the lake and he loved seeing the ducks. When I asked about the lake he just said, "The lake was blue." Cute.

We went to the evening service at church and they had no child care available. They weren't able to get enough volunteers so J came joined us. He was excited about that yet I hadn't prepared for it. A friend from my mom's group gave me a bag of Kix cereal to keep him busy with a snack. He ended up doing really well in the service which surprised me. The Kix did help along with a coloring book I had for him. It was hard for me though to pay attention to the message while managing J. This was our final sermon in our "Wired for Relationship" series. Today's talk was about how we are living stones (1Peter 2-5) and although Christ is the center (our cornerstone Ephesians 2:19-22) it is through life in the body that we grow. He likened this to building a stone wall where all the stones fit in tightly together and hold each other up. In this, we also see the support we receive from the body (if it is healthy) and also the support we are to give to one another. We went over all the verses in the bible that are referred to as the "one another" verses. This would be a good study to do sometime.

Monday was Labor Day and started off cloudy but we still ventured out to Devil's Lake in Baraboo, WI. We spent the day by the lake reading and playing with J. It wasn't warm enough really to swim so I brought plenty of J's toys and spread them out on the blanket. He had the most fun when daddy or I would join him in playing with his elephants and making up little stories together.






On our way home, we stopped at Grampa Bernie's place and spent some time there. J had been sleeping and took a little bit to wake up and then wanted to read all the little kid books Grampa could find.










We stopped for some food on the way home and I'm glad we had J's toys since he hadn't had a nap and it could have been a recipe for melt down city. He was so funny playing with his toys and was really animated. He got a bath when we got home and then daddy was snoozing in our room so J tried to wake him. He couldn't and started crying, "Daddy's not going to read me a book" and was really upset so we both went in there and this time J was able to wake him and roused daddy for some reading time.

Tot School (More puzzles, Alphabet, Painting)

J is 27 months old

J started out the week being really into his puzzles again. I took a break from working on shape learning since he hadn't been taking a huge interest, but I was surprised that he has retained them fairly well. He did really well putting the shape in the correct spot on the first try and he would say the shape as he put it in its spot. He knew circle, square, triangle (which are the main ones I worked on before) and somehow he even knew diamond.





Here he was working on his new dinosaur puzzle. Daddy helped getting the first half done. I was amazed at how at times when I just let him work on it on his own, he would try-try-again and often find a fit! Then he had fun tearing the puzzle apart when it was only half done.



















Continuing on with the dinosaur theme....J also loved playing with his dinosaur figures. He's starting to have them talk to each other and is making up little stories. If I get to closer to hear what he's saying, he'll sometimes get shy and stop so I keep a little distance to capture these fun moments.




















I'd have to say J had the most fun this week with the new alphabet floor mat we got him off EBay. I looked at so many and paid $22 for this one yet found out Toys-R-Us has an alpha/numeric one for $25 (on sale). I still like this and it covers up our blotchy "no longer white" carpeting! I set it up at night so when we came down for breakfast he was taken aback. Once he realized it was the alphabet he started playing with it right away. He stepped on it and says "I'm walking on it" like he was really excited.


We did a lot of different activities like working on picking out certain letters and naming objects starting with it. He recognized a few like J and Q. I was totally surprised when he said "Q for Queen" and picked out the Q without me asking that one. We picked out J and I said "J for J___(his name)" and he picked up the K and said "K for mommy!" So I showed him the M for that. He also liked trying to find out where the letter fit to put it back. Of course, he also liked just playing with his toys on it. This one will be something we'll play with a lot.

This picture really shows his busy hands! We finally spent some time doing arts/crafts. It seems like a long time since we've done anything beyond coloring. We used shaving cream with food coloring for some finger painting. I got the idea from another Tot School mom (I don't remember where). This was our first time doing this so we played it by ear. I put some shaving cream on the paper and then asked him what color food coloring he wanted. Then I'd put a drop and then he'd smoosh it around. He did about 4 colors and then looking at his hands said, "My hands are dirty" and wanted them washed. So we switched to trying out dot paint!

I was so excited to get our Dot Paints as I've seen several tots using them at Tot School. They are great and so less messy than finger painting! (But the mess is its own type of fun too.) J and I both did a painting and after J was done with his he moved to mine and started tracing it. I didn't realize until later that he had gone over my picture tracing each one of my dots! So cute.







He also made some stuff up on his own and had so much fun lining up the bottles while saying its color, taking the lids off and then putting them back on the matching paint bottle and then he found out he could stack the lids. Loved this!

Just Having Fun

Enjoying some goofing around as we waited for daddy's food at Culver's. I love that J is starting to develop a sense of humor playing around like this.

























It's so hard to get pictures of J smiling. He never hams it up for the camera so I have to get him "live" just purely enjoying himself. (Usually by the time I get my camera ready, his expression has changed.) We were getting out of the car and he decided to crawl around and starting laughing when I was acting goofy as I was coming to get him.





We have a wonderful Farmer's Market and went for our second time this season. We stopped to listen to a couple musicians and just enjoyed a beautiful day (but really felt like fall).


















Daddy, J and I had some fun running around outside. J got this basketball "free" from Culver's (our pretty much favorite dining spot). We saved our coupons to get it. He loves playing basketball and had some special time playing with daddy but then ran over to me and said "mommy catch it". This photo was just before he passed it my way.

Favorites of the Week

For more Tot School ideas, visit 1+1+1=1


And here's another linky I joined

Two firsts for J....Farmer's Market and Fireworks

Today we got an early start leaving at 8:15am heading over to our friend's house. We made plans to go to the Madison Farmer's Market together. Right away, J wanted to play outside and we found their new swing. It was connected to some really tall trees so as J was swinging he'd say, "I'm swinging in the trees momma". I was worried he'd slip off but he had a good grip on the swing. We went on the trampoline next and J loved it when I'd chase him from outside and grab him through the net.

We finally set off for downtown and the capital square. I was so glad I remembered his stroller. Our last time downtown at the concert on the square I forgot it and because of the crowds we had to carry him the whole time. We stopped to hear an acoustic country-bluesy band and Susan took a dance around with J. We then walked around the square looking at all the farmer's booths. I got some really fresh sugar snap peas and a small loaf of chocolate zucchini bread. J started saying "revolving door mommy?" which was from concerts on the square when he went through his first revolving door. So we took a walk through the capital and he got to go through the doors several times. Before leaving, we stayed to watch the band again and this time I gave J an egg shaker they had for the audience and he shook it and danced and got really into it.

After the market, we went back to Susan's for lunch. J had just shared a banana strawberry smoothie with me so I think that's why he only ate a little bit of cheese, bite of pickle and some chips (and of course some cupcake for dessert). I had a wonderful lemonade and mint blender drink Susan made. It was really refreshing. I love mint. Susan's husband John read J a Dr. Suess book. That was cute. Then Susan read him a book. It's great to see him getting comfortable with family and friends.

During my devotional time, I continued in Luke 22 where Jesus is praying in the garden of Gethsemane and says in verse 42: Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Beth says this request of Jesus to the father should make us catch our breath. At this point, Christ could've walked away from the cross. He was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. I had to stop and think about that - sorrow that brings you to the point of death? Wow. He was enduring more stress and grief than the body was meant to handle. Dear sweet Jesus, do not let us forget. You who submitted completely to the cross on our behalf. All you had to do was call upon legions of angels and you would have been rescued. After this, we read about Judas and his betrayal of Jesus. Betrayal is bad enough, but to betray him with a kiss? Verse 47 and 48: He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" Beth shares that few things rend the heart like betrayal. Unfortunately, I have known that experience of betrayal. The pain goes so deep! When you have trusted someone so deeply and they turn on you, it is crushing. It just tears you up.


We decided to go downtown to the UW Terrace to watch Madison's biggest fireworks show which you can see from there. I showed J fireworks on the computer and was talking it up so he was pretty excited. We ate dinner at Chipotle and J was in a happy mood dancing in the booth and being affectionate with me.

We got to the Terrace and set up our chairs by the lake. The weather was perfect. It had been a warmer day so the night stayed fairly warm but with a good breeze which kept the bugs away. J got busy playing with his little people and cars. Then I read him a book. I looked up and saw my friend Carolina with her boys so they joined us to watch the show. Her son Steffano just loves J. Pretty soon they were chasing each other around and Steffano was tickling J. Even after the fireworks started, J was more interested in playing with him than watching. He'd have me pick him up here and there but then I'd put him down and off he'd go on the chase. The bad part of the night was when we were packing up and J sat in his chair and it fell backward and he hit his head. He was crying fiercely and ended up with a mini goose egg. This is like the third time this has happened with that chair so I have to contact them about it. Once he calmed down, we all left together to walk back to the car. J let me ice it once we got home and then he insisted on cleaning up his bristle blocks (which he had dumped on the floor before we left). He sang the Barney clean up song and asked me for help.