Tots and Me... Growing Up Together

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Sunday Photo Round Up- January 13, 2015

I realize I am starting off the year poorly by being a couple of days late getting my Scavenger Hunt Sunday post up. However, one of my goals is to be DILIGENT in posting these posts I enjoy joining in with. Going to try to be faithful this year. It helps that so far the prompts have been taken from another photo challenge I am participating in on Instagram. Without further ado, it time for some Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

New, Red, Breakfast, Simple, Circle

New

Though this counter is not new, it feels like it is new after decluttering it the other day as a part of the 2015 in 2015 challenge.

Red

Wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with this one. It would have been better if he had been wearing red. While we were in the nursery last week I just sort of threw this together.

Breakfast

Eating my breakfast while trying to get our school week planned.

Simple

A simple message on a simple coloring sheet. I got to color on this day because Tabitha was taking advantage of her Coupon Book and was the teacher for the day, so mommy got to color.

Circle

My morning routine includes a nice hot (or warm) cup of green tea in a circle mug.

Photo A Day Round Up

I am participating in a few different photo-a-day challenges this year. The photos are being shared daily on Instagram, but I thought it would be nice to include a collage of them here on my blog as well. I am sharing from when I began the challenge through this past Saturday.

The first one is the Photo A Day Challenge from Fat Mum Slim.

The second one is The Bethadilly Challenge (this is where the Scavenger Hunt Sunday prompts have come from so far this year).

The third challenge is the Capturing Live, Laughter, and Love challenge.

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: January 13, 2015

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children.

We have been working on some letter review. This is an activity I did with the older girls a few years go when we were doing Letter of the Week. I love making these tactile letters. This time we used the letter papers I printed out from ABC Twiggles, a fun preschool site I reviewed this past summer as a part of my Back to School/5 Year Blogiversary Celebration. In the past, I have just printed out letter templates to do this activity.

I try to find objects that start with the letter the children are making. So, for A, they glued on apple seeds and for B they glued on beans. I hold the glue and they hold my hand while we form the letter out of glue in between the lines of the letter. Then they glue on the little objects. Not only do they learn the shape of the letter, they are developing fine motor control.

We didn't quite have enough apple seeds for each of the children to do the upper case and lower case A's.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 2 wonderful posts linked up. I will be featuring both of them this week.

The First Featured Post:

Kayla from Wild Berry Trail shared Literacy Connections: The Very Busy Spider Web Making.

The Second Featured Post:

Jen from Chestnut Grove Academy shared her Volcano Workbox Activities post.

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddlers and preschoolers? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up- January 13th, 2015

Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Karen @ Tots and Me and Emily @ Emily Reviews

So glad you could join us as we share our giveaways on Tuesday's Giveaway Link Ups.

Our co-hosts this week are Sue from My Photopage and Shelly from The Attic Girl.

Now, onto this week's Link Up!

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Here is how to use the Giveaway Link Up

1. Post your reviews and/or giveaways, as many as you have, be sure to add the end date (family friendly please)

2. Help spread the word about the giveaway link up by grabbing our button, Tweeting or posting on Facebook. (Not mandatory- but it helps get more exposure to your giveaways as well!)

3. Take a moment to enter any giveaway that strikes an interest to you!

If you would like to follow the hostesses, we will gladly follow you back! Simply leave us a message to do so.

Featured Giveaways

Motivate Your Child Giveaway {3 Winners} US only Ends 1/28

The Book of Life Blu-ray US only Ends 1/22

Thank you for linking up with Karen @ Tots and Me & Emily @ Emily Reviews along with Sue from My Photopage and Shelly from The Attic Girl.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Throwback Thursday Blog-Style #29: January 8, 2015

Welcome back to...

Happy New Year!

I know, I know, Throwback Thursday seems to be all about sharing pictures from the past, great memories that mean something to you, that you would like to share with others. At least that is how it appears to me. Throwback Thursday wasn't something I was participating in, and then I came up with an idea.

I thought it would be great fun and a help to my blog to share old content, but not just any old content. Each week I will share an old blog post from a previous year, any year, BUT it has to be from the current week (for example, something I've posted around January 7th, from any previous year) I will go in, edit the post if needed, add a pinnable image if I don't already have one, and share it on Facebook.

Would you like to join in? You do not need to edit your past post in any way, you don't need to create a pinnable image, though it couldn't hurt, in fact it will help your blog traffic to add quality pinnable images to your posts.

Just go into your archives, choose a favorite post from this current week from any previous year, and link it up below.

I will be pinning posts to my appropriate Pinterest boards and will be randomly selecting a Featured Throwback Thursday post to share next week. Just a note, I will be sharing a picture from your post if you are selected as the featured post, but I will link back to your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. By linking up you are giving me permission to use your picture in the post.

Here is my Throwback Thursday post:

Originally posted January 7, 2014
A Celebration of Snowmen

Here is this week's randomly selected

Featured Throwback Thursday:

Finchwren shared:

Art Observation "The Annunciation"

To participate, link up below. It would be great if you could visit several of the other posts that have linked up. Stop by, comment, and pin images so we can help each other.

If you would like to help spread the news:

Happy Throwback Thursday!

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Workbox Wednesday- January 7, 2015

Welcome to Workbox Wednesday!

We didn't have anything new in our workboxes this week as we just got started back to school. How about you?

If you use workboxes, tot trays, or anything similar, feel free to post a link to your blog post or a picture (pictures can be from facebook, but please make sure they are PUBLIC so we can see them, or use a host like photobucket.com to get a URL for your photo) that shows WHAT IS IN YOUR BOXES!

Please don't forget to visit my co-hosts at Chestnut Grove Academy and Line Upon Line Learning.

Visit others that link up, leave comments, follow, etc. The favors will be returned! Feel free to grab a button too, so others can find the link up and join in the fun!

What is in your workboxes?

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: January 6, 2015

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children.

I wasn't sure what I was going to share today, seeing as we only just got back to school yesterday. However, I decided I would share a little bit about how we go about "potty training" the children. Little Harold is at that stage, so it seemed like a good time.

Now, I have to start out by saying, I am in no way an expert. Even though I have 3 older children who are now out on their own, I felt like a new mom when these little ones were born. There are so many suggestions and tips for just about every aspect of parenting, but one idea will contradict another, and so forth and so on. I remember being called lazy when I didn't have one of my oldest children potty trained by a certain age. I've heard tips about getting infants trained. I've seen reward chart ideas for toddlers. While working at the Montessori, I've seen children at different stages and being taught in different ways.

Here's how we did it with the girls...

We waited until they were ready. Sure we introduced a potty chair and tried to get them to sit on it. But I didn't have time to be running them in the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. So, they remained in a diaper and just tried to go when they showed an interest. We had a pack of underwear waiting for them in their dresser, but didn't push anything. Then, one day when Tabitha was around 2 1/2, she woke up from her nap and asked to wear her underwear. Gladly, I let her don the underwear. Yes there were accidents. But she was horrified when she saw the pee running down her leg, and this only happened a few times. Within days she was going potty regularly, with some reminders from mommy and daddy of course. She still wore a diaper at naptime and bedtime. Eventually, the naptime diaper was no more, and then we said adios to the bedtime diaper as well.

It was almost the same scenario with Amelia, and at the same age as well. Now, Hannah was delayed a bit because of her hearing delays. However, as soon as she had gobs of wax removed improving her hearing, she was ready to start going potty as well.

Now, we are again doing the potty thing with Harold. We didn't have underwear for him yet. I was planning on putting some in his stocking for Christmas, but I couldn't find any dinosaur underwear locally. I had sort of tried enticing him to go potty by offering underwear. I went through different characters and such, and then he grabbed a hold of the "dinosaur underwear" idea and wouldn't let go. Every day he would talk about getting his "dinosaur underwear." He would occasionally sit on the potty and sometimes he actually peed. We would tell him he needed to go pee and poop in the potty and he could get his underwear.

Well, the day after Christmas, we ended up at Walmart. I was thrilled to see they had a pack of toddler underwear that actually featured dinosaurs. He was so happy to receive them.

Since that day he has been wearing the underwear. Unfortunately, he has had more accidents than his sisters. There are days he catches himself and heads for the bathroom. There are other times he sits in a wet diaper. And he still doesn't go poopy in the potty. I know this is usually a bit harder for children. So, we don't punish him or anything. Just change the undies and try again. Just another thing to be diligent about this year.

Here are several tips:

We don't use a potty chair. They get themselves right up on the big potty and mommy or daddy will help support them if needed.
We do not use Pull-Ups. I feel they are worthless. While working at the Montessori, I saw way too many little ones pee in those things the same way they would a diaper. They just don't realize they are wet the same way they do in underwear.
We will not switch back and forth between underwear and diapers (except for sleeping time).
We don't use any type of sticker chart or other reward reinforcement. We encourage them and praise them for being big kids. The underwear was the special gift, when they were ready.
We will remind the children every so often to go in and go potty, even though they think they might not have to go. Most of the time, they will end up going. I don't set a timer, though I think that might be helpful, so mommy doesn't forget when I am busy.

So, there you have it. How do you potty train your little ones? What has worked for you?

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 5 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus I would like to highlight all of the remaining posts as there were no clicks last week. Hoping to get back in the swing of things now that the holidays are behind us.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Hint Mama shared her post: New Year's Eve Celebrations You Can Bring Kids To.

Here are the other wonderful posts that linked up last week.

1- Jennifer from Hint Mama shared her simple idea for Easy Cookie Decorating - No Baking or Icing Required.

2- Meghan from Quiet in the Chaos shared her post: Tot Time- Sorting by Color.

3- Shecki from Greatly Blessed shared her post: Katie's December Tot Trays.
4- Martianne from Training Happy Hearts shared her post: Let Nina Teach You How to Make Play Dough Roses.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up- January 5th, 2015

Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Karen @ Tots and Me and Emily @ Emily Reviews

So glad you could join us as we share our giveaways on Tuesday's Giveaway Link Ups.

Our co-hosts this week are Mellissa from Something Like Life and Danelle from Our Wolves Den.

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Thank you for linking up with Karen @ Tots and Me & Emily @ Emily Reviews along with Mellissa from Something Like Life and Danelle from Our Wolves Den.