Thankful Tree

This is year two for a November Thankful Tree in our house.  Last year we put paper leaves on a stick tree.  This year we just made a tree out of paper on our window and added paper leaves throughout the month.  Here is the finished product:

It was fun to notice Aria's growth from last year in her thankful statements.  They were a lot less random and a lot more thoughtful.  Usually she was thankful for something we did that particular day.  My favorite was when she was thankful for reading the Bible.  It was also fun that she wanted to write on the leaves herself.  Sometimes she wrote one word.  Sometimes it was just scribbles, but it is fun to see her excited about writing on her own.

I have to admit it wasn't always easy to come up with something I was thankful for.  There were days I didn't feel well or days I was stressed out, but writing a thankful leaf every day was a good reminder that I have plenty to be thankful for even if I am not in a thankful mood.  It is good to be thankful for things like a warm house and a pantry full of food.  There are people in this world who don't have those things. 

Finding something to be thankful for on my down days also helped pull me out of the low point.  Instead of focusing on what was wrong, when I turned my attention to things God has blessed me with, it made the day not seem so bad after all. 

We took our thankful tree down today and put up our Advent calendar and Jesus craft chart.  But even though the reminder is gone, I hope we continue to praise God for the blessings in our life.  We truly have so much to be thankful for!

Here are some leaf close ups

More Augie Dress Up

I posted about Augie, the butterfly, but I forgot about this picture from awhile back.  I don't remember what I was doing, but I heard, "Mom, take a picture of me and Augie.  We're windows!"

It's another one of those 'why do we have toys when Styrofoam packaging will do?'

My Parents Are So Cool

There are many reasons my parents are awesome, but the most recent is for the awesome box maze they built in their basement for Aria and my cousins' children for Thanksgiving!  Inspired by a long ago Halloween event at our church when I was a kid, they designed a fun maze, provided flashlights, and provided hours of entertainment!  For some silly reason I didn't take any pictures when all the kids were playing in it, but here is a shot of the whole thing...

This was designed with 3.5 year olds in mind, so it wasn't an amazing labyrinth, but it was absolutely fantastic for them.  It was a big entry tunnel and a complete circle with another smaller entrance on the side. 

It had lots of pop open windows and sunroofs...

And it had a courtyard in the middle...

Every stuffed animal at my parents' house had to have a bed in that courtyard to sleep.  Can you tell Augie is in the middle, too?  Both Augie and my parents' lab, CJ, loved going through the maze, too!

Here is the crew that loved it...

Like I said, my parents are so cool!  They love creating lasting memories for Aria!

In other news, Aria has this really awful stye on her eye that has it practically swollen shut.  She has been a real trooper and it hasn't bothered her constantly, but it sure looks painful.  Hopefully it goes away soon!  In the meantime, blue frosting cupcakes will serve as some consolation.

Mandatory Leaf Post (a little past due)

Watching Her Think

A few weeks ago I hit a rut in my preschool at home time with Aria.  I knew it would happen.  Most of the time I get this crazy idea in my head that what we are doing is not good enough.  I then think I need to make things more elaborate or I project abilities on my daughter that are still beyond her.  And then I get mad.  And then I give up.  Oh the joys of a recovering perfectionist.

But thanks to my good friend Lindsay, my enthusiasm picked back up by simply picking a new time of day for our "school time."  Part of my problem was figuring out when to do school stuff on days that our mornings were busy with other involvements.  I was trying to do too much on those mornings, and really on all mornings.  I thought I needed hour-long, elaborate lessons all focused around the same theme. 

Lindsay shared with me that she does school time with her daughter after lunch.  I thought that might work for us, too, because Aria does not have rest time until 2.  Plus, we are almost always home around 1:00.  We tested it out for a few days and loved it!  In fact, we've probably done more school in the past week than we had done in the rest of the month combined!  My attitude has changed, as well.  I am trying to do a few short things instead of one big thing.  We play a lot of phonics games, work on patterns, practice writing and coloring a bit, count, sort, and even work on skills like buttoning buttons.  Aria has enjoyed it so much that she asks for school time now.  One day I was not feeling well and we didn't do it.  She came running out during rest time and said, "Mom!  We forgot to do our school time!" 

I really enjoy her enthusiasm for learning and I love seeing things click for her.  Today we were working on patterns.  We were using some apple cards we painted back in September.  We attempted this same pattern activity in September with not much luck.  Aria had a hard time figuring out what came next.  But today she got it.  I can't say we have worked on patterns a ton, so it could just be cognitive growth that helped the light bulb go on today. 

We started with a red, green, red, green pattern.  She easily completed that one with all the cards we had.  She also counted the colors and observed the pattern very carefully.  Then we moved on to red, red, green, green.  Again, she completed it with ease.  The next pattern provided a little more challenge.  It was red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green.  This is the point where I was watching her think and seeing the light bulb go on.  I watched her look back in the pattern to see what came next in the first sequence and then repeat it in the second sequence.  It was almost like I could see the thought process in her head, "Let's see. There is a red one on the end.  Back here a yellow one came after the red one, so there must be a yellow one next." 

Man, I thought watching my students learn when I was a teacher was awesome.  Now it is my own kid!  So exciting!  I am thankful for this time with her and the chance to see the light bulbs go on.  I am thankful for a renewed sense of direction for our school time.  And I am thankful for her enthusiasm and for just being a great kid!

For the Love of Books

It has been awhile since I took this picture, but I still had to post it.  Aria doesn't take a nap every day and apparently some days even her own efforts to stay awake are thwarted.  I have actually found her this way multiple times during her rest time.  My other favorite I haven't been able to get a picture of because it is while she is still awake.  She often lays in her bed with one ankle propped up on the other knee and a book propped up on the little back rest it creates.  Sometimes she tells the stories to her stuffed animals.  Other times she looks at the books quietly.  And sometimes I can tell she is trying to read them to herself.  It is not uncommon to find 5 books in her bed once rest time is over.  Obviously she can still fall asleep when she really needs to. 

I love that we share a love for books.  We both could sit on the couch for hours and read.  I love reading to her and I love to see her learn and imagine and delight in a story.  I am excited for the day when we can read the same books and discuss them with each other like I get to do with my mom.  The love for reading has easily been passed down through three generations in this family.  However, while I have caught Papa asleep on a book and Aria asleep with a book on her lap, once I am reading, it is awfully hard for me to put it down.  Justin can attest to some 4 am Harry Potter reading sessions from me.  But I can wait for those days to come for Aria.  Right now she can get her rest when she needs it!

First Snowman

Today was the perfect day for there to be snow on the ground!  It was about 30 degrees, sunny, no wind.  The snow was sticky and of wonderful snowman quality.

Too bad there was less than half an inch.

We still made the most of it!

He might be small, but he sure is cute!  Or maybe cute is the purple clad girl next to him.

This year's bonus?  SHE CAN PUT ON ALL HER SNOW CLOTHES BY HERSELF!!

Dress Up

In our house, a day does not go by without Aria in some sort of dress up attire.  She loves wearing dresses, hats, masks, scarves, wings, shoes, skirts, doctor attire, and more.  She also likes it when others play dress up with her.  Even those who are unwilling...

Yes, that is one patient dog.  Most of the time Augie tolerates whatever Aria has in store for her.  I often get a look that says, "what is this child doing to me?"  But she doesn't react.  She becomes stiff as a board until the costume is removed.  Unless it is covering her face and then she will paw it off.  One time we even made a bracelet for Augie that she proudly wore around the house.  Life these days is just so fun!

Operation Christmas Child

If you haven't heard of Operation Christmas Child, you need to click on this link and read about it and pray about it and then hurry up and pack a shoebox.  We found out about this awesome opportunity through our church and had a wonderful time packing our boxes together as a family last weekend. 

Let me back up and say that we did a shoe box with Aria last year where she got to pick out things for the box, but I'm not sure how much she understood as a two-year-old.  It was a good experience and Aria claimed she remembered doing it last year, but I'm not so sure.

This year was a whole different story.  We started our Saturday morning at Perkins as a celebration for Aria's completion of our church's obedience challenge. (I should write about that, too.)  With full tummies we headed to the dollar store to pick out our supplies.  This year we decided to each fill a box.  Aria and I chose the 2-4 year old girl category and Justin chose a 2-4 year old boy. 

Before we started our shopping, we talked to Aria about a couple of things.  First we told her we were only shopping for our shoe boxes that day, not for ourselves.  Next, we told her we needed to pick things that would fit inside the box.  We also talked about choosing more than toys and selecting things like toothbrushes, washcloths, and socks.  We encouraged Aria to choose things that she likes because the present would be going to a little girl her age who doesn't get any presents. 

I could tell she really felt compassion for the kids we were building shoe boxes for and she did a fabulous job picking things out.  She chose a baby doll, a package of pretend jewelry, markers, crayons, a book about baby Jesus, fingernail polish, stickers, bubbles, a ball, Hello Kitty toothpaste, and a few more things.  All of those things are very much her favorites.  She also wanted to help us pick things for our box.  She really got into it.  She didn't like it when the person checking us out mixed up the items that were supposed to go in each box.  So, when we got home we had to immediately sort and pack our boxes with the correct items.  She didn't even want to play with the things once we brought them home and never once asked for anything for herself.

The last piece of our boxes were handwritten notes to the kids.  I wrote the note for Aria, but she told me what she wanted to say.  She talked about things she likes and told the girl that Jesus loves her.  It was a very sweet letter.  We also included a picture of Aria and a map that shows where we live. 

On our church's monthly family night we brought our boxes to turn in.  She carried her own box in and added it to the pile.  I love Aria's heart because she asked if we could deliver the box to the girl ourselves.  I explained that we would drop them off at church and they would have them delivered for us because they are going far away.  We filled out the form online to track our boxes and I am excited to find out where they went and learn a little more about that country.  Hopefully that will help Aria remember the experience even more.

I hope this can just be a start to helping Aria and Justin and I to care for people all over the world and love them like Jesus does.