A Very Minnie Birthday!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, Grandma & Grandpa were in town and our sweet Dimples turned 2!  So we've been pretty busy.

Since Dimples has been into Minnie Mouse lately, we did a Minnie-themed birthday party.  It was so fun!  I really got into the theme using pink and black.  Here are some fun pictures from her party:

Hard to see but I made a banner that says Happy Birthday with Minnie and Daisy cutouts on either side.

I also tied pink polka dot ribbon around black silverware and we had black plates and pink napkins.

And for the most fun, we had Minnie cupcakes!  I used sculptable frosting and made bows, then used mini oreos for the ears.  So fun!

She also got several Minnie dolls and outfits as gifts, which just was so fun seeing her reaction to her favorite character right now.  It was a very fun day!  She and her cousins were playing with the pink balloons for a good part of the afternoon.  They got pretty creative, putting them all in her new play tunnel and she'd push them out as she climbed through.  She thought this game was super fun!  So balloon play has been a focus the last few days.  I like that its something that can be active play inside without worrying about being too destructive.  Throw them up in the air, kick them all around, use static electricity and stick them to walls, draw faces on them with markers and make them puppets, bop each other with them.. so many things to do with balloons.

Dress Up!

Since Halloween is just around the corner, my thought's have turned to costumes.  I still haven't decided what to dress Dimples up as yet.  However, I did look through some clothes a friend sweetly passed on to us, and found a fancy pink dress that may have once been a costume.  It's perfect for dress up as it slips on and has a Velcro back.  When Dimples saw it she had to wear it... along with some cowgirl boots of course!  And don't forget the firehat that came later! :)   And not only did she wear them around, she had to have music on to dance to as well.
I <3 her!

She loves clothes, but especially shoes and hats right now!  I'm excited to start building her a dress up box for a Christmas gift, full of hats and accessories for now!  But until then I'm sure I'll see her in my closet trying on my shoes. :)

Box of Fun

So Dimples' birthday is coming up and I do a lot of shopping online, and after ordering her gifts we had a pretty big box.  What kid doesn't love a big box!?

I tipped it up on it's side and gave her crayons and stickers and we decorated it first.

Then she checked out the inside..

And soon it was full of her animals and blankets, and she kept trying to shut the doors and then say "knock knooock!"

Since we took pictures, she's played in it a bit and decorated it more with masking tape.  Great fun let me tell you.  She even wanted mommy to go in, so we tried that too..ha!

A few days later we got another box of stuff for my husband, and it had packing peanuts- score!  She LOVED this, and has played in it all day long!  She immediately thought she needed to get in the box before playing.  Soon she was scooping them, pouring them, throwing them in the air, etc.  And I thought I could even hide her small toys in there for her to "find" later. 

We also had a craft of gluing them to paper, along with some foil wrapping paper scraps I cut up for her.

It's been a fun few days!  And I love that it's all recyclables, so when she tires of them we'll just put them out in our bin.  :)

Learning her ABC's

Dimples loves learning and right now she's on an ABC's kick.  So when I found a bag of clay cookie cutters of the alphabet in Michael's I knew she'd love them.  And the best part is that they were on clearance for only $1.29!  A bargain I couldn't resist.

When she woke up the next morning I had them on the counter and immediately she spotted them and wanted to play.  So even before breakfast, we got the playdough out and used her new letters.  Though at first she played just with the letters themselves, lining them up and getting excited over each new letter.

Another fun find for learning the alphabet was a foam puzzle I found at the Dollar Tree.  I thought it would be too hard for her since the letters were pretty small, but just give her a week and she had it down!  She also loves putting the foam letters in a bucket and pouring them out. 

It's so fun to see her get excited over learning already.  <3

Simple Indoor Games

Because I work in the afternoons, our play time outside is usually in the mornings.  This worked out perfectly in the summertime.  However, fall is now in our midst and the mornings are getting pretty cold.  At least today it was, and even though we went out for awhile bundled up in our sweatshirts, I didn't want to stay out too long.

A part of me is really dreading the wintertime.  I'm going to need a lot of good activities to keep this little one busy!  And today I found a new fun thing that could bring creative and physical activity indoors. :)
All you need is some masking or painters tape!  I got the idea when I saw an idea of doing a masking tape hop scotch inside.  Well, that's great but my Dimples is too young to play hopscotch and although try as she might, cannot hop yet. :)  That didn't stop me though, as I decided you can pretty much do anything on carpet with masking tape.

So I made a house!  The very first thing she did was lay down in the middle of it, which I thought was kind of funny.

Here she is "opening the door" of the house.

And of course trying to "hop" there too.

But she had fun with it in many ways.  She brought her bear in the house, and then a pillow and sat in the middle.  And then I asked if she thought we could toss balls into the house too.  So she got a couple small balls and we stood outside the house tossing balls into the house.  Lots of times they would roll out and she'd promptly say her favorite phrase, "oooh nooo!" and run to get it.

I think there are so many things you could do with this idea!  Another one I want to try sometime is shape sorting.  Make a big square out of tape, a big circle, etc.   Then have her find things that are shaped the same and put them in the right shape on the floor.  Kind of like a indoor shape treasure hunt!

Or, even something as simple as making a long tightrope "wire" out of tape on the floor and have her walk across it and play circus would be fun.  

Yes, this is definitely something I can go to on the cold days ahead! :)

Drip Drip Drop! Hop!

For the first time in months, we finally had a rainy day.  I'm not one to really enjoy the rain, but after several months of over 90 degree heat, seeing that cloudy sky and pouring rain was awesome!

As Dimples and I watched it pour from the window, I realized she may not remember experiencing rain since it had been SO long.  So I got out my fun polka-dot umbrella, which was a fun thing for her to see in itself, and we headed out side.

We stomped in a puddle or two, and walked down to the sidewalk where she could see the water running in the gutters.  We spun the umbrella and watched the colors blur.  We listened to the rain when the umbrella was up and when we put it down.  We sang "Rain Rain Go Away".

It was not that long before we were a bit damp and getting chilly so I decided to head in, much to her chagrin.  I think she would have play outside in the rain all day no matter if her teeth were chattering from cold.

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Another day during the week, there was perfect weather to play outside.  So she started out by using her sidewalk chalk.   Let me tell you, this girl loves her chalk.  It's been a big hit this summer.  Besides coloring with them, she stands them up on their ends (when they are new), she counts them, she sorts them and puts them in a bucket and then dumps them out.

But after she was done coloring her masterpiece, she came out to play in the yard.  She was roaming around, probably picking the dandelions that won't go away in our grass.  I was actually deflating the inflatable kids pool when I saw something hop.  At first I thought it was a grasshopper, but I looked and it was a little bitty frog!  So I called Dimples over to show her.  She smiled and then decided to follow it around saying "hop, hop!" while trying to jump herself.

What a fun surprise. :)

Harvest Fest!

Even though it may not feel like it quite yet, fall is upon us!  This means the weather will soon get cooler and more and more days will be spent inside.  I'm really trying to cherish the outside times with Dimples.

One fun thing we did outdoors this weekend was attend our city's "Harvest Fest" they had in the park.
It was perfect weather for it as well, which made it even that much more fun!  She was digging the live music right from the start!

Right away we looked around for the kid zone area - that's why we came after all.  There were plenty of booths and food vendors to distract you though.  Once we spotted it the first thing we came upon was the fire department.  They had their trucks and free plastic fireman hats and coloring books.  Since she LOVES hats, this was perfect.  She wore it most of the time we were at the festival.

After that we turned around to be bombarded by an array of jumpy castles and a motorized train ride!  Unfortunately, Dimples seemed just a little to small for most of the jumpy castles and the train.  It would've been perfect if she were about 3.

So we moved on and found they had a free petting zoo!  We got to pet llamas, a donkey, ducks, chickens, sheep and goats.  Her favorite seemed to be the ducks, though they seemed pretty frightened, poor things.  Then right next to it were free pony rides!  She got to ride a sweet small black pony and loved it!  The lines were not even long.

After the animals Dimples spotted the biggest bouncy/slide of them all and wanted to go on it.  I was a bit skeptical but they let Brad take her on it.  So up they went... and then a quick slide down had her all smiles.  They did a couple different slides a few times before we decided we better go home.

It was a great day!  I love free events and plan to take advantage of them as she grows up.

Recycle Into a Toy!

As I was trying to think of more ways to entertain my little busy girl, I was about to throw away a big diaper box, something that will be more rare in our house now- yay!  I gave it to Dimples though and just wanted to see what she would do with it.  She enjoyed opening and closing the box at first, but soon she was putting her Duck and Giraffe in and pushing them around the house in it saying "Weeeee!"  Then we tipped it over and used it as a mail box!  I would give her our junk mail, or paper and she would slip it through the small slot.  I also gave her a scrap of foil wrapping paper which she enjoyed and it too ended up in the box a few times.

Never underestimate the power of a empty box and a toddler!

Another fun idea came to me while I was refilling our small hand soap bottles.  After I was done I had a refill bottle that was empty that had a fun pop-open type lid on it.  So I put a little water in it and shook it up to make foam.  Dimples loves bubbles, so I knew she would love messing with it.  We went outside with a big bowl and the bottle of foam.  She enjoyed splashing in the bowl, and I showed her how to squirt out the foam.  She did like the lid and opened and closed it numerous times.  But the most fun she had was flinging foam all over with her hands.  :)  I could see "foam fights" being fun with older kids.

3 Day Potty Training Extravaganza!

It's Labor Day weekend, and that means we have 3 uninterrupted days at home all three of us.  And because we are coming up on Dimples' 2nd birthday in about a month, we decided to give the 3 day potty training gig a try... again.  (A few months ago when she was fighting us on every diaper change, we read up and decided to try the 3 day potty training then....but she was frustrated and I ended up getting sick the second day in, and so we quit.)  We think we're all ready to try again though, so here we are!

If you want to know more about the potty training in 3 days method, you can visit this page at Baby Center as it gives you all the information you need to know to get started.  There are also books you can buy on the topic if you really want to study up.  But basically what happens is that you have your little one go naked below the waist for 3 full days and rush them to the potty whenever they start to go.  If they get any in the potty, you do a "potty dance" or song or reward.  If they go on the floor, you just say "pee goes in the potty" like you're disappointed and have them help you clean it up.  Pretty soon they realize when they need to go and start going to the potty themselves.  You can put diapers on for naps or bedtime though.  Also, throughout the day its good to give them lots of drinks they like and salty snacks to make them thirsty to provide plenty of opportunities for them to practice their new skills!

So here's how it went!
We prepared our house by getting 2 new toddler potties, picking out Minnie Mouse and Dora panties, and I bought MnM's as a treat.  We also got out plenty of paper towels, cleaning supplies and baby wipes.

Day 1:
When she woke up, off came the diaper and we explained that she needed to use the potty instead and showed her where they were set up.  (She had been playing with them for a few weeks anyway, getting used to sitting on it fully clothed - which I really think helped her.)  We also brought all of her toys onto the wood floor instead of her normal carpeted play area.

My husband and I decided to take turns watching her, so about every hour or so we'd get a break.  This turned out to be the best way for us,  because its just long enough before you go completely crazy following around a toddler just waiting for her to "go".

Anyway, it wasn't too long before we were whisking her over to the potty and celebrating little drips of success. Ha!  She was super excited to get the MnM reward.  (She never has candy- so this was a great treat!)  I thought it was the best incentive for her to learn to use the potty and it seems like it's working!

It seemed like she picked off where she left off from the last weekend we tried this, even though it was a couple months ago.  So really, we were super excited that by the afternoon she had some great successes of starting to realize she needed to go, but not quite in time.  So yes, many accidents were cleaned up, but we went to bed hopeful that the next day would get even better.

Day 2:
The day started out a little rough, because when I took off her diaper in the morning she cried and cried all upset to be naked again.  Luckily, she's still in the stage where distraction works and soon she was drinking her milk and having fun.

By 11am she marched herself to the potty and went, all by herself with no accidents!  I was thrilled!  Could it be she gets it already?  Well.. then another half hour past and soon I realized my mistake in letting my guard down.  I didn't really ask her much if she had to go potty and then all the sudden she just peed ALL over the place and proceeded to stomp in it like a puddle!  Yikes!  It was probably the biggest mess I had to clean up yet.  Oh well.. practice makes perfect, right?

After her nap she rocked it!  We counted about 8 times in a row of going to the potty on her own with no spills!  Hurray!  We even had a small outing to play outside a bit, where I just put her in a dress.  We brought the potty out with us in case she needed to go too.

Day 3:
On the final day of our 3 day potty training extravaganza she started out with a smile and we did too.  She made it all morning long with no accidents.  Then after her nap she made it afternoon/evening with no accidents!  Including when we went outside to play and she let us know she needed to go in to use the potty and actually did!

We are so happy and although there may be days with accidents ahead, we feel that she's mainly potty trained now... all in a simple weekend.  Thank you Lord!  I feel confident for the week ahead and even letting her play on the carpeted areas. :)

The 3 day potty training extravaganza was a huge success!

**UPDATE 9/7/12**

Ok- so we had a rough couple days, with many accidents so I decided to implement the idea of a timer.  Basically I set a timer for 30 minutes and we go try to go potty.  It has been so helpful!  She went almost every time we went to try.  So I think that we'll keep up with the every 30 min and then tomorrow go to 45 minutes.  Then once she is staying dry for 45 min at a time increase it to an hour, and so on.  I think she just needs lots of reminders!

Just thought I'd add this for anyone who's trying the method and needed some extra tips!

Bits of Random Fun

So the past week or so we've done several fun activities!

One day I took out the ice cube trays I had frozen colored water in, and since the inflatable pool wasn't up, I decided to just stick her in the tub.  She had a blast!  I gave her about 4 or 5 at a time along with some cups and a bucket to play with.   I only had a small amount of warm water in the tub so she could watch them melt and how the colors mix to create new ones. Once the water got ugly, I'd drain it and fill it up, giving her some more.  This went on for well over an hour! Score!  I was a little afraid she might come out looking like a multi-colored easter egg, but all the food color washed off with no problems.  So simple and so fun.  A definite win in my house!

We also had a lovely wedding to go to on the weekend, so I decided I needed to find some super quiet activities that would keep her busy during the ceremony.  I remembered I saw something online where people used old spice containers to put pipe cleaners through the holes.  I didn't have a spice container but I found an empty Gerber puff's container and poked some holes in the lid just big enough for the pipe cleaners.  Then I gave her a handful and showed her how she could put them in the holes.  I wanted to make sure she liked it before I took it along to the wedding.  She did, and it kept her busy for quite awhile.  She was even able to open the container and pour the pipe cleaners out to start all over again.  She seemed to really enjoy this activity too, and it is great for developing her fine motor skills!  Another win.. unfortunately at the outdoor wedding, some of her pipe cleaners started to blow away.  Oh well, she still likes to play with it at home.  We have another variation of using the same container but with one small rectangle hole and putting popsicle sticks through it - but that is a lot noisier!  She still plays with that one too.

I also had her break out her water color paints again and she seemed to enjoy painting for awhile.  Both with her brush and fingers...they always have to be messy to have fun it seems!

And one last fun activity we did was visit the zoo!  I was really looking forward to it because lately she has been into animals and their sounds.  I thought she would love it this summer.  And even though she had fun, she still might be a little young to get too excited.  She saw the animals but when we found a puddle, that is where she wanted to stay.  I mean, who doesn't like a good puddle to jump in right? :)   At the end she also got to take her very first Carousel ride with Daddy!  She really had fun on that, and kept signing "more" when they had to get off.  

It's been a fun and eventful time for us!  And this weekend we are gearing up for a 3 day potty-training extravaganza!  Wish us luck!

Finger...Feet painting?

Today I decided to whip up a quick batch of homemade finger paints.  I got the recipe from Easy Peasie Blog here after doing a quick Google search for a recipe.  All it requires is water, corn starch, a little sugar and salt - all things I happen to have on hand!

You cook it up until it thickens and looks like this:

Then I just used some cool-whip lids for small plates

Add some food colors -

(no it won't stain your kiddo, but it may stain their clothes so you may have them wear an apron)

I decided since it was a nice morning, we best go outside!

Let the fun begin!

She really started getting into it...

And decided feet-painting was the way to go...

Realllllly glad we are outside now!

And of course, some water play afterward to wash up before going inside. :)

She had a wonderful time and was giggling and loving the feet painting especially!  The finger paint was great, cleaned off easy and everything.  Though I find it gets to be a bit more like slime or goop after it cools off for a longer time.  That made it more fun though, smushing it around and in-between her toes..

Overall a great activity, though I'm not sure I'd do it everyday.... :)

Welcome!

Hello Everyone!
You may be wondering about the title of my blog, and if you haven't guessed already - it's about my sweet  daughter and one of her favorite stuffy's right now - her duck.  She's full of energy at 22 months old, and her duck and giraffe are never far behind in her adventures, so don't be surprised to see pictures with them tagging along.

Really though, I just wanted a place where I could keep track of all the fun activities we do and also to be motivated to continue to try new things with her.  Because let's face it... being home all day with a toddler is exhausting!  They flit from thing to thing to thing!  And though my sweet girl does enjoy some Barney or Kipper on TV, I'd love to make sure it's well balanced.  So my goal is to continue to do fun planned activities a couple times a week to break up the normal routines.  She loves art and pretend play right now, so it should be fun!  Stick around and see what fun I can cook up!  (Probably with the help of Pinterest!)

Yours Truly,
 Mindy