F is for Family

Family, home, travel, life

The Busy Toddler: Matching Game

         It’s official, my 18 month old micro preemie is bridging the gap between her adjusted age (little over 18 months) and her adjusted age (14 months). The problem at this point is keeping her challenged without frustrating her. So, I was at Target since it’s impossible to get in and only purchase what you came for, I ended up in the $1 area and I got a toddlers paradise worth of things. I picked up a few coloring books because she is now like to “color”. We are working on learning to not just jag the crayon although she maybe she’s just perfecting her Pointillism technique, what do I know!
               
Old Maid from Target $1

I also picked up a $1 pack of Old Maid cards by Crayola which I used to play a matching game with Little Miss Busy Pants. I only pulled out 4 sets of matching cards at a time. I would lay four cards down, hold 4 in my hand. She would “pick a card” and then I’d ask her to find the match. Example, “this is the pig. Can you find a pig?” This was WAY over her head, she just wanted all the cards and she also wanted to just fold them in half. Fail!







But this got me thinking about games I could play with a young toddler that would challenge her, lead to working on more complex cognitive skills and still be budget friendly. So off I went to the 2nd worst place to go if you are trying to live on a budget…Michael’s! And that’s where I found it, my young toddler friendly, matching game, well an improvised version that is. Searching the aisles, I looked for something that was easy for her to recognize and identify and I found just what I needed in the scrapbook section, Sesame Street Crafting Chipboard Embellishments.

 


Here’s how we set it up. The pack comes with individual character cut outs along with round “headshot” coins with each characters cute little mug printed on them. 









I held the round disc/coins and placed a few of the characters in a small container. I would then hold up a disc and ask her to find that character in her container. It went something like this. 

Mommy: “Who’s this?” (holding Elmo disc)
Sofie: “ELMO!”
Mommy: “That’s right! Can you find Elmo? (point to container) Where’s Elmo? Say, Elmo where are you?”
Sofie: (Looks through container) “ELMO!”


Granted that was on a good run. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t. If it was a miss, I would stay positive and say “who did you find, that’s ::insert character name::”. This turned into a huge success and has been a fun rainy day game that lasts maybe 15-20 min. She practices her memory and matching skills and it’s fun to watch her reaction when she find a “new” character every time she searches. That’s a win in our book!

The Busy Toddler: Matching Game

         It’s official, my 18 month old micro preemie is bridging the gap between her adjusted age (little over 18 months) and her adjusted age (14 months). The problem at this point is keeping her challenged without frustrating her. So, I was at Target since it’s impossible to get in and only purchase what you came for, I ended up in the $1 area and I got a toddlers paradise worth of things. I picked up a few coloring books because she is now like to “color”. We are working on learning to not just jag the crayon although she maybe she’s just perfecting her Pointillism technique, what do I know!
               
Old Maid from Target $1

I also picked up a $1 pack of Old Maid cards by Crayola which I used to play a matching game with Little Miss Busy Pants. I only pulled out 4 sets of matching cards at a time. I would lay four cards down, hold 4 in my hand. She would “pick a card” and then I’d ask her to find the match. Example, “this is the pig. Can you find a pig?” This was WAY over her head, she just wanted all the cards and she also wanted to just fold them in half. Fail!







But this got me thinking about games I could play with a young toddler that would challenge her, lead to working on more complex cognitive skills and still be budget friendly. So off I went to the 2nd worst place to go if you are trying to live on a budget…Michael’s! And that’s where I found it, my young toddler friendly, matching game, well an improvised version that is. Searching the aisles, I looked for something that was easy for her to recognize and identify and I found just what I needed in the scrapbook section, Sesame Street Crafting Chipboard Embellishments.

 


Here’s how we set it up. The pack comes with individual character cut outs along with round “headshot” coins with each characters cute little mug printed on them. 









I held the round disc/coins and placed a few of the characters in a small container. I would then hold up a disc and ask her to find that character in her container. It went something like this. 

Mommy: “Who’s this?” (holding Elmo disc)
Sofie: “ELMO!”
Mommy: “That’s right! Can you find Elmo? (point to container) Where’s Elmo? Say, Elmo where are you?”
Sofie: (Looks through container) “ELMO!”


Granted that was on a good run. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t. If it was a miss, I would stay positive and say “who did you find, that’s ::insert character name::”. This turned into a huge success and has been a fun rainy day game that lasts maybe 15-20 min. She practices her memory and matching skills and it’s fun to watch her reaction when she find a “new” character every time she searches. That’s a win in our book!

The Busy Toddler: Matching Game

         It’s official, my 18 month old micro preemie is bridging the gap between her adjusted age (little over 18 months) and her adjusted age (14 months). The problem at this point is keeping her challenged without frustrating her. So, I was at Target since it’s impossible to get in and only purchase what you came for, I ended up in the $1 area and I got a toddlers paradise worth of things. I picked up a few coloring books because she is now like to “color”. We are working on learning to not just jag the crayon although she maybe she’s just perfecting her Pointillism technique, what do I know!
               
Old Maid from Target $1

I also picked up a $1 pack of Old Maid cards by Crayola which I used to play a matching game with Little Miss Busy Pants. I only pulled out 4 sets of matching cards at a time. I would lay four cards down, hold 4 in my hand. She would “pick a card” and then I’d ask her to find the match. Example, “this is the pig. Can you find a pig?” This was WAY over her head, she just wanted all the cards and she also wanted to just fold them in half. Fail!







But this got me thinking about games I could play with a young toddler that would challenge her, lead to working on more complex cognitive skills and still be budget friendly. So off I went to the 2nd worst place to go if you are trying to live on a budget…Michael’s! And that’s where I found it, my young toddler friendly, matching game, well an improvised version that is. Searching the aisles, I looked for something that was easy for her to recognize and identify and I found just what I needed in the scrapbook section, Sesame Street Crafting Chipboard Embellishments.

 


Here’s how we set it up. The pack comes with individual character cut outs along with round “headshot” coins with each characters cute little mug printed on them. 









I held the round disc/coins and placed a few of the characters in a small container. I would then hold up a disc and ask her to find that character in her container. It went something like this. 

Mommy: “Who’s this?” (holding Elmo disc)
Sofie: “ELMO!”
Mommy: “That’s right! Can you find Elmo? (point to container) Where’s Elmo? Say, Elmo where are you?”
Sofie: (Looks through container) “ELMO!”


Granted that was on a good run. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t. If it was a miss, I would stay positive and say “who did you find, that’s ::insert character name::”. This turned into a huge success and has been a fun rainy day game that lasts maybe 15-20 min. She practices her memory and matching skills and it’s fun to watch her reaction when she find a “new” character every time she searches. That’s a win in our book!

Meal Planning: The Intro!

I’ve explained in an earlier post that we are Simplifying Life in 2013 and part of that is making sure that we are budgeting and sticking with it. We pulled up Mint.com earlier in the month and realized that we had spent an astronomical and embarrassing amount of money on food and eating out. This had never been a huge issue before but with balancing work and parenthood we have sort of been running by the seat of our pants just trying to get through dinner and bedtime routine at night and trying to catch our breath on weekend.
We decided, to truly get a handle on the food budget we needed to change a few things. First, cut out the 500 individual trips to the grocery store a week. Second, start planning the week’s meals and lastly, get a handle on the prep. At this point we have some of these things in place. We are far from that now but we are working on it. For example, here is what a week’s worth of meal planning looks like. With everything written out, it’s much easier to see what we need and what can be used in each meal, what can be used in multiple meals.

For example, with Monday‘s sausage and pepper and onion meal we always have extra sausage and most of the time extra peppers and onions. By chopping the extras, I can use the green peppers in Wednesdays pasta dish and the onions in my Crock Pot minestrone on Friday. I can also take the extra sausage from Monday and buy a full pound of shrimp for Wednesdays pasta and use the excess for an easy Jambalaya recipe on Thursday. The goal is to have as little waste as possible and as many meals with the least amount of spend. I also try to decide what will freeze well and mark what needs to be frozen if we find good sales on certain food.
I’ve also been experimenting, which has proved great and disastrous results…apologies to my poor family for the disasters…on what meals are healthy, tasty and QUICK week day meals. I’ll have those recipes up over the next few weeks. I’ve also set aside some great Crock Pot recipes that I’ve made some tweeks to perfect and….wait for it… Crock Pot meals that can be 100% frozen and just thrown in with remarkably little morning prep. I was a little hesitant about throwing frozen meat or chicken in but I have to admit, it comes out great.

Coming Soon…weekday, almost completely homemade, chicken pot pie. This was an amazing accident

Meal Planning: The Intro!

I’ve explained in an earlier post that we are Simplifying Life in 2013 and part of that is making sure that we are budgeting and sticking with it. We pulled up Mint.com earlier in the month and realized that we had spent an astronomical and embarrassing amount of money on food and eating out. This had never been a huge issue before but with balancing work and parenthood we have sort of been running by the seat of our pants just trying to get through dinner and bedtime routine at night and trying to catch our breath on weekend.
We decided, to truly get a handle on the food budget we needed to change a few things. First, cut out the 500 individual trips to the grocery store a week. Second, start planning the week’s meals and lastly, get a handle on the prep. At this point we have some of these things in place. We are far from that now but we are working on it. For example, here is what a week’s worth of meal planning looks like. With everything written out, it’s much easier to see what we need and what can be used in each meal, what can be used in multiple meals.

For example, with Monday‘s sausage and pepper and onion meal we always have extra sausage and most of the time extra peppers and onions. By chopping the extras, I can use the green peppers in Wednesdays pasta dish and the onions in my Crock Pot minestrone on Friday. I can also take the extra sausage from Monday and buy a full pound of shrimp for Wednesdays pasta and use the excess for an easy Jambalaya recipe on Thursday. The goal is to have as little waste as possible and as many meals with the least amount of spend. I also try to decide what will freeze well and mark what needs to be frozen if we find good sales on certain food.
I’ve also been experimenting, which has proved great and disastrous results…apologies to my poor family for the disasters…on what meals are healthy, tasty and QUICK week day meals. I’ll have those recipes up over the next few weeks. I’ve also set aside some great Crock Pot recipes that I’ve made some tweeks to perfect and….wait for it… Crock Pot meals that can be 100% frozen and just thrown in with remarkably little morning prep. I was a little hesitant about throwing frozen meat or chicken in but I have to admit, it comes out great.

Coming Soon…weekday, almost completely homemade, chicken pot pie. This was an amazing accident

Meal Planning: The Intro!

I’ve explained in an earlier post that we are Simplifying Life in 2013 and part of that is making sure that we are budgeting and sticking with it. We pulled up Mint.com earlier in the month and realized that we had spent an astronomical and embarrassing amount of money on food and eating out. This had never been a huge issue before but with balancing work and parenthood we have sort of been running by the seat of our pants just trying to get through dinner and bedtime routine at night and trying to catch our breath on weekend.
We decided, to truly get a handle on the food budget we needed to change a few things. First, cut out the 500 individual trips to the grocery store a week. Second, start planning the week’s meals and lastly, get a handle on the prep. At this point we have some of these things in place. We are far from that now but we are working on it. For example, here is what a week’s worth of meal planning looks like. With everything written out, it’s much easier to see what we need and what can be used in each meal, what can be used in multiple meals.

For example, with Monday‘s sausage and pepper and onion meal we always have extra sausage and most of the time extra peppers and onions. By chopping the extras, I can use the green peppers in Wednesdays pasta dish and the onions in my Crock Pot minestrone on Friday. I can also take the extra sausage from Monday and buy a full pound of shrimp for Wednesdays pasta and use the excess for an easy Jambalaya recipe on Thursday. The goal is to have as little waste as possible and as many meals with the least amount of spend. I also try to decide what will freeze well and mark what needs to be frozen if we find good sales on certain food.
I’ve also been experimenting, which has proved great and disastrous results…apologies to my poor family for the disasters…on what meals are healthy, tasty and QUICK week day meals. I’ll have those recipes up over the next few weeks. I’ve also set aside some great Crock Pot recipes that I’ve made some tweeks to perfect and….wait for it… Crock Pot meals that can be 100% frozen and just thrown in with remarkably little morning prep. I was a little hesitant about throwing frozen meat or chicken in but I have to admit, it comes out great.

Coming Soon…weekday, almost completely homemade, chicken pot pie. This was an amazing accident

Sharing the Preemie Love

I just wanted to give a shout out to some of my favorite Preemie Mom’s and their amazing little munchkins. These are just a few of the amazing ladies in the Facebook Preemie support group. If you ever want to see the preemie experience from different perspectives check out these sites.

The first set of blogs are babies who were all due January 2011 but are just a few weeks older than Sofia. We went through our NICU experiences together.

This is Liam, the amazing 15oz preemie who was even voted the smallest Saints fan while in the NICU! Who Dat!
www.micropreemiemom.com

Nora is actually our local preemie buddy. We were in different states during our NICU days but we even got to go to Nora’s 1st birthday!
http://jackies1stblog.blogspot.com/

These are our new preemie friends who we have “met” over the last few months.

This is Jack Ryan who is a 2yr old 28 weaker.
http://www.jackryansjourney.blogspot.com

Jaxson is an amazing 23 week micro preemie who is currently recovering from a few surgeries but is doing well and is such a strong little man.
http://anearlystart.wordpress.com

Hattie is our youngest just under 2 wks old, in the beginning of her NICU experience but a beautiful 26 weaker.
http://www.hattieharper.com

Sharing the Preemie Love

I just wanted to give a shout out to some of my favorite Preemie Mom’s and their amazing little munchkins. These are just a few of the amazing ladies in the Facebook Preemie support group. If you ever want to see the preemie experience from different perspectives check out these sites.

The first set of blogs are babies who were all due January 2011 but are just a few weeks older than Sofia. We went through our NICU experiences together.

This is Liam, the amazing 15oz preemie who was even voted the smallest Saints fan while in the NICU! Who Dat!
www.micropreemiemom.com

Nora is actually our local preemie buddy. We were in different states during our NICU days but we even got to go to Nora’s 1st birthday!
http://jackies1stblog.blogspot.com/

These are our new preemie friends who we have “met” over the last few months.

This is Jack Ryan who is a 2yr old 28 weaker.
http://www.jackryansjourney.blogspot.com

Jaxson is an amazing 23 week micro preemie who is currently recovering from a few surgeries but is doing well and is such a strong little man.
http://anearlystart.wordpress.com

Hattie is our youngest just under 2 wks old, in the beginning of her NICU experience but a beautiful 26 weaker.
http://www.hattieharper.com

Sharing the Preemie Love

I just wanted to give a shout out to some of my favorite Preemie Mom’s and their amazing little munchkins. These are just a few of the amazing ladies in the Facebook Preemie support group. If you ever want to see the preemie experience from different perspectives check out these sites.

The first set of blogs are babies who were all due January 2011 but are just a few weeks older than Sofia. We went through our NICU experiences together.

This is Liam, the amazing 15oz preemie who was even voted the smallest Saints fan while in the NICU! Who Dat!
www.micropreemiemom.com

Nora is actually our local preemie buddy. We were in different states during our NICU days but we even got to go to Nora’s 1st birthday!
http://jackies1stblog.blogspot.com/

These are our new preemie friends who we have “met” over the last few months.

This is Jack Ryan who is a 2yr old 28 weaker.
http://www.jackryansjourney.blogspot.com

Jaxson is an amazing 23 week micro preemie who is currently recovering from a few surgeries but is doing well and is such a strong little man.
http://anearlystart.wordpress.com

Hattie is our youngest just under 2 wks old, in the beginning of her NICU experience but a beautiful 26 weaker.
http://www.hattieharper.com

Simplifying Life in 2013

The end of the year brings reflection and this year was no different. With so much to balance working full time, raising a little one and trying to manage a household both Jonathan and myself had lost focus of what was really important and what we are truly working toward. In the past we pretty vigilant about following a budget and keeping financial goals in mind. We were even pretty good at keeping on top of housework, eating well and staying active.

Our time in the NICU had clearly thrown a wrench in our normal habit, for obvious reasons. It was closely followed by moving our life to another state, into my parents house and within a few into our first home. Throw in starting a new job for me, Jonathan transitioning to a new position in his career and having a little one growing leaps and bounds each month and becoming more active by the day and  it’s safe to say we’ve lost our groove. Until now of course! This year will be about balance for our family. And here are a few of our changes so far.

We’ve signed up for Mint.com and thoroughly assessed where we are spending our money (FOOD), where we can cut back (cable) and how we can fix it. So, we have implemented meal planing and in just a few days we will be cable free in our house! I’m still a little on the fence about this last one but I’m committed to giving it a shot.

To get ourselves moving again, we’ve signed up for a 15k run in March. This will be my first big race since my half marathon, pre pregnancy. This will be Jonathan’s first road race…ever and we have signed up Sofia for the kids fun run so, this is a big family first and we are excited. I want to be able to set a good example of staying active and healthy for Sofia so she has a good foundation for her future.

I’m sure I’ll have more to share as we go through the process but I can honestly say, at this point, it’s really nice to have refocused our goals. Next on the journey organization!

Michael’s AD