One of Aria's favorite picture book series is Doctor Ted, Firefighter Ted, and Artist Ted, all by Andrea Beaty. Ted is quite the character. In the books he becomes a doctor, a firefighter, and an artist. He "saves" the day with his new skills, while annoying his mom, teacher, and principal. They are quite funny! We can hardly go to the library without checking out one of them.
Most recently we have Artist Ted. In the book, Ted can't find a paintbrush or paint, so he makes his own. For paint he uses ketchup, mustard, chocolate syrup, toothpaste, and jam.
One day, as we were reading, I asked Aria if she would like to paint with those things. What four-year-old would answer "no" to that? Certainly not my kid! So we got out some condiments and started a masterpiece. We didn't have jam I was willing to use for painting, so we used some vanilla pudding with pink food coloring instead. Otherwise, we used the same things Ted did.
Aria had a great time! It was smelly and gooey, but oh so fun! Unfortunately, I said we could not keep the picture forever because the mustard smelled pretty bad. But, we do have a wonderful memory and an excellent connection to one of Aria's favorite books!
Last year, as I was slightly dissatisfied with our Advent activities, I came up with the idea of doing an A to Z for Advent this year. So I compiled notes throughout the year and looked over things I've done in the past and put together this year's Advent activities, or Jesus crafts as Aria calls them. I called it, "Christmas is Jesus A to Z." I don't claim to be any kind of expert and I don't plan to publish what we did, but what we did worked for us. I think Aria had fun and learned more about Jesus and it kept our focus on Him this Christmas season. I couldn't ask for much more.
After changing my mind a zillion times about what word to use for each letter and what order I wanted to go in, I made a chart for Aria to glue up the alphabet cards as we did them. Here is what our completed chart looks like:
We didn't go in alphabet order, but I tried to have kind of a through the Bible order. Here is what we did:
B is for Beginning. We read the Creation story and talked about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit being the only ones there at the beginning. She really got it. We made this craft, which is supposed to be the Trinity up above that created the earth below.
S is for Sin. We read the story of Adam and Eve and talked about sin entering the world. We talked about needing a Rescuer at that point. We made a snake out of pipe cleaners, which will be in a picture shortly.
O is for Old Testament. We looked through the Bible and discerned what part was the Old Testament and what part was the new testament. I made a "book" out of a box and Aria glued pictures of Old Testament stories on the OT side of the box.
D is for David. Instead of reading David and Goliath that she was familiar with, we focused on David being king and from Bethlehem. She got the connection there. Aria made a harp out of craft sticks and rubber bands. Here is a picture of those three things:
I is for Isaiah. We read about Isaiah's job as a prophet, to tell people that they needed a Rescuer and that He was coming soon. She enjoyed the connection of the Scripture that prophesies about Jesus. We made a megaphone to show that Isaiah told lots of people about Jesus coming.
R is for Rescuer. We looked back at the story of Isaiah (in the Jesus Storybook Bible) and talked about why Jesus was coming to rescue us. We played a game where we used Aria's swimming tube with a rope tied around it and "rescued" her dolls and her when they needed help in the "water." I think it was a good connection point.
X is for eXcited. There is a good story in the Jesus Storybook Bible about getting ready for the Messiah to come. We read that and talked about other things we were excited for.
This is a good time to mention that some of these took 30 minutes and some of them might have only taken 5. It depended on our time for the day. We also did some days with two letters.
N is for New Testament. This was essentially the same as the OT craft. We looked through the New Testament stories and Aria glued pictures of them on the NT side of the book. I was blown away that she immediately recognized the picture of Saul/Paul. She really knows a lot of Bible stories!
Now we move into the actual Christmas story. I didn't plan for it to turn out like this, but we ended up making puppets for each of the characters of the story. We did many, many, many puppet shows with them throughout those two weeks. It totally boosted her knowledge of the Christmas story. A video is coming...
Z is for Zechariah. Aria enjoyed being this puppet when he could no longer talk!
E is for Elizabeth. We used a puff ball for her baby and Aria had fun making the baby leap when Mary came to visit.
A is for Angel. This was my favorite puppet with a gold sparkly dress and white feather wings. We counted, angels appear in the Christmas story 7 times.
M is for Mary. Jesus' mom on earth. Enough said.
J is for Joseph. Jesus' earthly father.
T is for Trip. We looked at a map of Nazareth to Bethlehem and talked about how far it was. It is about the distance from where we live to my hometown, so that was an easy way to explain it to Aria. And of course we did puppet shows.
K is for King. I struggled with not doing J is for Jesus, but decided I needed Joseph in the story and we could talk about Jesus as the King of Kings. We made a baby Jesus puppet with a crown. We talked about leaving Heaven and becoming poor.
Here is our puppet show from our Christmas celebration as a family of three using all the above characters (warning: quite long):
U is for Under the star. This was for the star the shepherds saw above Bethlehem when Jesus was born. We made a big, shiny star.
L is for Light of the world. We added a little key chain light to the tail of our star and hung it above our nativity scene and shined it on Jesus. We also started learning John 8:12, "Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life."
It is kind of hard to see the light at the bottom and I will explain the cross in a minute, but this was a hit addition to our nativity this year.
P is for Pray. Now we moved into Jesus' time on earth and our relationship with Him. He taught us how to pray. We spent some time praying.
Q is for Quote. Another way we can talk to Jesus is to read the Bible and memorize the verses. We continued practicing our new verse and reviewed several of the ones we already know.
W is for Worship. We talked about how it feels good to get compliments and that God wants us to praise Him. We talked about what we could praise Him for and then we sang worship songs. This was a day where I was struggling with some stress and it felt so good to worship my King and give it all to Him. Amazing how God works in our lives.
F is for Friends. Jesus wants us to love God and love others (that is our preschool verse). So, we loved on a few of Aria's friends and made them some homemade play doh and delivered it as Christmas presents.
C is for Cross. The whole reason Jesus came to earth as a baby at Christmastime was to die on the cross for our sins. I hit this hard this year and I think Aria understood. We made a cross and used alpha beads to put Jesus' name on it. When we were trying to find a place for it, we thought of attaching it to the star above the nativity to remember that was why He came. (See star picture)
V is for Victory. We read the story of Jesus' resurrection and talked about how he won over death. We had to explain what victory was by comparing it to playing a game and winning. We did this letter on the same day as...
H is for Heaven. We read the Jesus Storybook Bible story of Revelation and John's description of Heaven. Then we drew pictures of what we thought Heaven would look like. We talked about going there someday. This was done as a family and was really fun!
Y is for You. We reviewed all the things we did for these A to Z activities and read the very last part of the JSB where it says that "it is your story, too." We talked about how much Jesus loves each of us and did all of those things in the Bible because of His love for us.
G is for Give. This was our family of three Christmas celebration day. We incorporated this into our celebration which included a puppet show, opening a present from God that was baby Jesus and a cross, and picking out presents for Jesus from the Samaritan's Purse catalog. We also give each other three gifts at Christmas, which match the wise men gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And that is the end of our "Christmas is Jesus A to Z." It was excellent for where we were at this year. I would totally do it all again, but then again I never do the exact same thing when it comes to special learning and activities.
Okay just kidding. I have one more post about vacation. Kind of. It is about vacation in general. I decided I wanted to teach Aria about the geography of our world and our country so awhile back I bought a world map and a US map and hung them on the wall in our office. One day I had an idea to put stickers on the places we've been on the US map (because we haven't been outside of North America). So, our map filled up with Js and As on the states each of us has been to. There are 25 states with Js on them and 11 states with As on them (plus one province with Js and A). I've only been to a few places that Justin has not, otherwise if a state has a J, it likely has 2. Also, I think it is pretty good that Aria has already been to 11 states at the age of 3. When I went to Kansas City with the middle school group this summer, some of those kids had never been out of Iowa at 13 years old! It is a very Midwest and east stickered map. We're going to have to start planning some western trips. Speaking of trips, when we got back from our vacation, I thought it would be fun to use a marker and draw the path of the trip we just took. Now it has become our family vacation map. There are 3 marker routes for our 3 family trips we've taken labeled with the year. I decided not to draw in smaller weekend visits to places at this point. Hopefully it will be really fun to watch it fill up as the years go on. Plus I think it is a fun way to learn geography.
For Father's Day I really wanted to do something Justin loved. Of course his first love is baseball, but it just wasn't going to work to travel to LA for the day to see the Dodgers. It really didn't even work to travel to Omaha for the College World Series, so we did what we have and went to the Kernels game. His dad really enjoys baseball, too, so it was a family event. We were quite lucky to use Justin's company's suite for the game. And another great perk was run the bases Sunday. Justin and Aria headed down to the field after the game and ran around the bases together. Ultra cute!
This girl loves Mr. Shucks!
Hey this base doesn't squeak like blast ball.
This might be one of my new favorite pics!
I didn't even take a picture when we gave him his present. Nor did I even take a picture of the present, so a description will have to do. We traced around Daddy's shoes on a big piece of paper. Then we put painted Aria footprints inside the outline of his shoes. I found a cute little poem that says:
Here is my little footprint.
One day it will fit your shoe.
I watch what you are doing
Because Daddy, I want to be like you.
I wrote that in the middle and Aria wrote her name and decorated it a bit more. I thought it turned out great and Justin seemed to really like it! Aria also wanted to get him a silly hat, which I thought was great. She picked out a chef's hat from the Target dollar bins that says, "Greatest Dad." It is prefect. Justin wore it while grilling the other night, which brought big smiles from the giver.
We finished the night at Aunt Teran's for supper and it was a really great day. Aria has one fantastic Dad!
I love spontaneous fun activities with Aria, especially when they involve food. This morning we made pancakes for breakfast. Aria asked for a small one and it lead to a whole plate full of small pancakes. She spread peanut butter on her own small pancake really well and the pancake sandwich idea popped into my head. I'm not sure why the small size made me think of making a sandwich, but it did. Aria's sandwich was pancake, peanut butter, pancake, peanut butter, chocolate chips, pancake, syrup. She did it all herself, with a little help pouring the syrup so we didn't use the whole bottle. It was a lot of fun! And it wasn't planned at all. I didn't even plan to make pancakes until about 2 minutes before we started. My pancake sandwich was pancake, peanut butter, banana, pancake, peanut butter, banana, chocolate chips, syrup. :)
This post is long overdue, but oh well. One of the last activities we did with our Resurrection Eggs this year, was Jesus ascending to Heaven in the clouds. There were cotton balls in her egg and as we were reading the story, an idea popped into my head. We should make a picture of Jesus in the clouds. Aria thought it was a great idea, mostly because it involved glue. We had to use a glue stick and Elmer's. I asked her what paper we should use and she suggested blue like the sky. Then she said, "Maybe you could cut out a yellow circle for the sun." I thought that was good thinking. So, we put our popsicle stick Jesus in the sky and added some clouds. Aria really enjoyed covering Jesus with the clouds. She wanted to make sure every inch of him was covered. It was a fun, last minute activity for both of us!
Last fall we had a parenting series in our ABF where I learned, what I thought, was a fabulous discipline technique. One guest speaker mom suggested using lemon juice/vinegar as a punishment for saying yucky things with your mouth. I really like the concept of "you said something yucky with your mouth, so now you must have something yucky in your mouth as a punishment." Around that time we had a problem with Aria spitting when she didn't like an instruction we gave her. After hearing about that technique, I applied it the next time Aria spit. I grabbed lime juice because it was the first thing I saw that I thought Aria wouldn't like. It worked like a charm. I think I only had to do the lime juice punishment twice to cure her spitting habit.
Recently, Aria has developed another sassy behavior. When she doesn't like an instruction we give, she deliberately does not obey and says, "huh" in a not very nice tone. I decided it was time for the lime juice correction.
Today Aria made the noise after I asked her to stop whining and ask nicely for whatever it was she wanted. So I got out the lime juice and gave her a spoonful. She promptly spit it out so I gave her another one. She was trying so hard not to swallow it, yet hated having it in her mouth, and didn't want to spit it out. The result? She barfed. It was so gross.
I immediately switched to caring and concerned parent mode because it really freaked her out. Aria hasn't thrown up much in her life that she can remember. The only episodes we had was right around her one year birthday when we were trying to switch to regular milk. Anyway, I got her all cleaned up and cleaned up the floor and then talked to her again about using her mouth to say nice things.
For the rest of the evening I've been evaluating whether or not the lime juice is a good discipline tool. It certainly is effective and I like the idea of the punishment relating so closely to the poor behavior, but I don't know if I'll be dealing with vomit every time I do it. Aria does gag easily. One time, as an infant, she was crying so hard in the MOPS nursery she threw up on a volunteer. Tonight I think she was trying so hard not to swallow it, it made her gag and throw up. However, it could totally cure her sassy "huh" noise since she had such a bad experience with the lime juice this time. Or I might have to find another yucky liquid to try.
We just love snow in our house! I had a three year old literally bounce out of her room like Tigger this morning in anticipation of playing in the new snow. I made her eat breakfast first, so we made snowman pancakes to reduce the whines. Can you tell which snowman belongs to which Pegump girl?
After all that, not much eating occurred and then we did this (turn the sound down or ignore my loud voice!)
Aria had a hard time picking what she wanted for her cake/theme this year on her birthday. Some of the ideas she suggested included: Grover, Thomas, Dora, Hello Kitty, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, candy cane, guitar, piano, and probably more that I forgot. I couldn't decide which one I thought she would like most because she likes all those things. Finally, it came to me; an idea she didn't even suggest. I've mentioned a few times that Aria LOVES Wild Animal Baby Explorers. It used to be a magazine she got in the mail, but it was discontinued. Her love for them, however, is not discontinued. She owns the movies thanks to the grandparents at Christmas time and quotes them constantly. They are little known and you can't really get any memorabilia since they aren't in print anymore. So, I got creative. In each movie the wild animal babies, Sammy, Skip, Benita, Izzy, and Miss Sally, go exploring and they travel in a hot air balloon. Aria loves hot air balloons anyway, so that is what we went with.
The brightly colored cupcakes for the "basket"
Add 3 craft sticks, a balloon, and a character, and you have hot air balloon cupcakes!
Not every cupcake was a balloon because they wouldn't have fit on the counter.
The play hot air balloon in the living room. It's just a box with streamers attached to the ceiling. Aria absolutely loved it! And so did her friends!
Originally, my idea for her party with friends was to have a pizza factory. When everyone arrived, we did a scavenger hunt in the basement for all the pizza making supplies. Here is what they searched for:
Then each child got a pizza crust and their requested toppings and made a pizza!
I forgot to take a picture before they started eating, but here are the finished pizzas!
I think they all had a lot of fun! Making pizza, or just helping me cook in general, is one of Aria's favorite things, and my goal on her birthday is to do her favorite things. I know she felt extra special on her birthday this year!
And one more photo because it is so cute. Grandmas always seem to attract the kids. :)
In our Truth in the Tinsel activities there was a link to an activity called "Joseph's Obstacle Course." Basically, it was making an indoor obstacle course for your kid(s) and having them be Mary and Joseph travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem. I loved the idea, but didn't do it during whatever day it suggested. Instead, it was our lead in to our family of three Christmas celebration. I changed it to fit our lives and it was a big hit. I've included the video, but it is 11 minutes long. So, if you don't want to watch the video, here is a synopsis:
When Aria woke up from her nap, we went in her room and dressed her up as Mary. We told her she was going on an adventure like Mary did with Joseph. Then we followed the Christmas story and had different characters or objects to find in our house. The angel was in the bathroom. Joseph was in our bedroom. The donkey was in the office. She had to count some people like Mary and Joseph were counted. Then she followed the "road" to Bethlehem, which was a string that went all throughout our house. I wanted to highlight that it was a long, difficult journey so she had to climb over things, in things, and under things. There were two "inns" in our basement that were full of people (stuffed animals on the beds) so there was no room for Mary and Joseph. Finally, she came back upstairs, through a tunnel, and found the stable (a blanket fort) with baby Jesus in a manger. We even hung a star from the ceiling above the stable. We read the Christmas story as she travelled and it was a lot of fun! I can see this become a tradition each year with the journey becoming more elaborate as her understanding of the story grows. It was also nice to focus on Jesus, God's greatest gift, before we opened our own gifts, which we did after playing with the stable animals for awhile. :) I didn't buy anything for the activity. It took me about 20 minutes to set it up. But the memory and the tradition started will last a lifetime.
I had a random idea for a treat to take to the middle school kids I work with at church. It was fun to make and I look forward to doing these types of things with Aria, so I'm going to put it on here for future reference!
Marshmallow Snowman
Need:
extra large marshmallows
regular sized marshmallows
fun sized marshmallows
frosting (I used black)
mini M & Ms
orange sprinkles
chocolate chips
skinny craft sticks
What to do:
1. Put extra large marshmallow on craft stick followed by 2 regular sized marshmallows. I suggest putting all marshmallows on sticks first.
2. Melt desired amount of chocolate chips.
3. Use one fun sized marshmallow for each snowman's hat.
4. Roll fun sized marshmallows in chocolate until completely covered.
5. Use a craft stick to spread chocolate on top of snowman. Place fun sized marshmallow on top for hat.
6. Stuff sprinkle in middle of top regular marshmallow for nose.
7. Use frosting for eyes, mouth, and buttons.
8. Add M&Ms to frosting for buttons.
Yes, green oatmeal is what we had for breakfast this morning! No, it did not contain any mold or even spinach for that matter. It was regular oatmeal with a little green food coloring to spice up our morning! Most of the time, when asked what color something is, Aria responds with ye-yow. It must be her favorite. So, I have been making sure to label the colors of everything lately to expand her color horizon. The past two mornings I have color-coordinated her cup, bowl, plate, and utensils so we could talk about that specific color. Today, it randomly crossed my mind to color the oatmeal, too. Aria thought it was great! She laughed and had fun pointing at all the green items saying, neen. Success!
Aria was never much of a mushy substance eater, once she could have more solid things. It has been a chore for me to get her to eat oatmeal, ever. I had actually given up on making it for her until she wanted to try mine one day recently. She liked it and I have been making it more lately. She still usually doesn't eat much, but today she chowed down 3 helpings! It had to be the color effect! It also helps that I add applesauce and a little brown sugar. Unfortunately, when Daddy (prompted by me) asked her what color her oatmeal was this morning, she still said, ye-yow. So, it was a short-lived success. I guess that means we'll just have to do it again!
This summer I've started to realize an 'accidental parenting' moment. I'm a big fan of Aria using these cups for her snacks. There is much less mess, they are easy to take on the go, and she really likes them. However, I discovered I was always using those cups for snack time, even if we weren't on the go. That brought two problems. First, those cups limit the type of snack to small, dry items like cereal or goldfish. Second, Aria thought she needed to carry that snack cup around all morning and all afternoon slowly snacking on the contents. I did limit the amount in the cup, but it felt like she was just eating all day. I've actually read that it is good for toddlers to eat small amounts multiple times throughout the day, but I felt we had taken that a little too far. So, I decided to break her of the snack cup carrying routine. It actually went much better than I anticipated. I did it by offering her some really fun snacks like blueberries (one of her favorites), crackers and cheese, and fruit bars. None of those snacks would work in her little cup, so we had to sit at the table to eat them. She immediately caught on. Now, I give her a choice between a couple different snacks. She chooses one, runs over to the tupperware cupboard, gets out her bowl, and takes it to her seat at the table! I love how independent she is becoming!
After a few days of our new routine, I thought I would try to fix another problem we'd been having lately...sitting still for stories. Aria still really loves books, but she is so busy she often doesn't want to sit and read an entire book. One day, while she was eating her snack at the table, I decided to try reading her a story. Caught on like wild fire! Now we have snack and story time every afternoon and it is one of my favorite times of the day. Aria explores the books way more than she does when we aren't at the table. We can spend several minutes looking at the pictures on each page and talking about the story!
I know these are simple concepts that other parents probably figured out from the start, but for some reason they just registered in my brain. They have definitely been positive transitions in my house! And even though the type of snacks and stories will change, I think it is a habit that can last forever!
