Wall of Love

I'm apologizing in advance for the blurriness of these pictures. I think our poor camera is on it's way out :( But don't worry! I enter every drawing I can find to win a new camera and since I'm extremely lucky I expect to hear that I've won a new high tech camera any day now! Are you laughing too? Yeah, my chances of winning are slim, but hey! Crazier things have happened right!?

Anyway,.... I've had a list of fun traditions I've wanted to do with my family for years now and I decided that THIS year is the year we finally begin them. So...introducing our very first February Boyd tradition! 

Our Wall of Love  

 This wasn't originally one of my "traditions" but I was blog stalking when I saw this from Toddler Approved.

If you aren't following that blog yet, you need to start! I've gotten so many awesome ideas from there. When I saw her wall I knew I wanted to do the same thing. I just tweaked mine a bit ;) And let me tell you, it's not exactly easy to get small heart shapes into a big heart shape. It took me some adjusting but I'm pleased with the finished look. 

This Monday night we will have a FHE lesson on showing love and from now until Valentines day we will write things we love about each other on the hearts. 

Here are some other things we've been up to.

This is one little boy who LOVES his little brother. Collin is always the first one to Tate when he cries and just can't get enough of him. I love it! I'm praying this doesn't change even when Tate becomes mobile :{ 

 Collin is apparently learning how to take pictures. I found several of these when I downloaded my pictures onto the computer. The other ones aren't very flattering to Michael so I left them off :)

 Collin gives us instructions EVERY night as to his sleeping arrangements. He tells us where to place certain toys and he has to be covered with all three of his blankets. In the Florida heat that's a killer! He's woken up with hair soaking wet because he sweated so bad, but he won't let me take the blankets off! I've tried. I think I'll have to hide them.

 This was such a shock I HAD to take a picture of it. This is as close to cuddling as Collin gets! Michael sleeping during a movie really isn't all that surprising. Seminary teachers, sheesh.

 Don't let this picture fool you. He's not potty trained nor are we trying. He just stood up in the bath one day and said he had to go so I sat him down....He didn't go...put at least he's showing interest. I just thought he looked hilarious sitting there so I snapped a picture. That, and it might make good blackmail in the future :)

 This little, or not so little man turned 2 months! He weighs 13 pounds! I love my little chunker!

 And I just threw this one in because babies are just too cute when they are all clean and wrapped in a hooded towel.

  School

This week was tons of fun!

We know for sure Collin is not color blind because he finally learned his colors!

I saw several posts on Pinterest that suggested using the paint chip cards from Lowe's as a color matching game for your kids so that's what I did. Except I tweaked it a bit. ( can you tell I like stealing other people's ideas and then changing them?)  As I was looking at my choices I noticed the cards from Better Homes and gardens had a circle at the bottom you could punch out. I'm still not entirely sure why they're that way, but it gave me an idea. Collin isn't quite ready for the original matching game where you put all the cards face down and then try to match them up. He just doesn't get the concept yet.   

 So I punched the holes out of each card and then had him match the circles to it's color card. (as you can see in the picture below.) It worked really well and was right up Collin's ally!

Tuesday: J is for Jumping

This week I pretty much made up my own activities instead of just going with the ones from Preschool Alphabet like I usually do.

So Tuesday I threw some pillows down on the floor and Collin had to jump over them. Check out that hair!

 Then we piled the couch cushions on the floor and jumped onto them. Let's just say he was all over this activity! 

 We also did this color collage. I was pretty excited for this activity. I remember doing these when I was younger! I had several pictures spread out on the table that I had previously cut out and I let Collin choose his own pictures and put them wherever he wanted. And I just have to say that I am so proud of myself! I have this bad tendency to "fix" crafts that Collin is working on or strongly suggest how he should do certain things. I'm a bit controlling :)   I've been trying to be better though and let him do things on his own. Who cares if it's not perfect (insert eye twitch) the whole purpose is for him to learn and have fun. So here is Collin's collage that he did completely on his own!

I love how the Chihuahua dog is almost completely covered. And look how many sweets there are. He's definitely my son :) He really surprised me. I know it's hard to mess a collage up (I mean the whole purpose is to clutter the page with images) but I think Collin's is extra cool.  

 Wednesday: J is for Jesus
I showed Collin several pictures of Jesus and we talked about each one right before nap time. I can't remember what we were doing that day but I do remember we were pretty busy so it was a nice relaxing activity.

Thursday: J is for Jingle Bells 
Collin's best friend came over for a play date so I got out my bells and let them play with them. Their quiet jingling only lasted for about three min. They quickly discovered it was much more fun to chase each other and shake the bells like crazy.  

 Friday: J is for Jelly Beans

Favorite day!! I bought Jelly Belly jelly beans and had Collin sort them by colors. Then we forgot all about school and just started eating them! There really wasn't much to this day. I didn't really have an agenda and maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. We kind of just did whatever we wanted. And watching Collin as he tasted each different flavor was so fun! We will definitely be doing this again next year.

 We used the black jelly beans (since that's a yucky flavor) and the jelly beans that fell on the floor to tape them to our J page :)

 And that pretty much sums up our week!

Parenting a Guinea Pig

Let me introduce you to our little guinea pig.

His name is Collin. Isn't he adorable? 

Collin is our guinea pig because he is our first child and every parenting technique we try on him is an experiment. We really don't have the faintest idea what we're doing. 

You can be sure we don't let HIM know that though. Once kids find out you aren't in control, they take full advantage of you. That's why you must practice and perfect what I like to call, "The raised brow" look. 

It looks something like this,

I give this look to Collin A LOT! But I'm basically just stalling.

What Collin's thinking when I give this look: Oh boy, I'm in trouble.

What I'm thinking: Great! Now what do I do?

Our recent experiment with Collin is getting him to eat. He's never been a great eater, but it's gotten even worse the past few months. I know every child goes through this stage, but parents are still suppose to encourage (force) their kids to eat right. It's just not easy at all! 

We've tried several different things to get him to eat. We even reverted back to the whole "spoon is an airplane" thing at one point. Yeah, that one didn't work. Even a 2 yr. old knows that ones for babies. 

The one we've religiously stuck with is the "no dessert until you eat your food" rule. Collin loves Popsicles so we thought this would be a good encouragement. I will say that this method has worked, but it's taken a good two months and there are still some rough nights full of tears and tantrums. My favorite was when I told Collin he could have a pop if he ate his food so he picked up his broccoli, licked it, and then said, "have pop?" He's only two and he's already trying to get away with things :) 

Last night was one of those rough nights. Michael was working late so I fixed Collin's dinner early. He took one bite and wanted a pop. When I told him no, there was a major break down. No matter how many times I said, " If you eat your dinner, you'll get a pop," he just wouldn't eat. I just left his plate there on the table for the rest of the night. 10 minutes before Michael got home, Collin climbed up to the table and ate every single thing on his plate. With mouth still packed full of food he turned to me and asked, "have pop now?" Of course I didn't say no to him after that! I was so excited because weeks and weeks of sticking to our guns and not giving in despite the tears had finally paid off! I have no idea if it'll work again tonight but I'm still geeking out about the fact that he actually ate!  

 

Another thing we just started trying is putting his food on fun place mats. For some reason Collin decided that he should be able to eat on the couch while he watches his shows and was refusing to come to the table. (I told you he could be really headstrong) Our dinners were not enjoyable at all. Once we brought the place mats into the picture it's been great! Collin is actually excited to come to the table! We're going on week two now :)

If anybody has any other ideas we'd love to hear them.

Anyways, I really don't have that many pictures from this week.

 We spent New Year's Eve with friends and had a great time! Collin actually stayed up till 1 and was still going strong.

New Year's Day we went to visit Grandma Ponder. I got a few pictures of them together but that was it.

  I sure do love this little guy :)

School! 

Here are the highlights of school this week.

Wednesday: I is for Ice cream

Well of course we had to eat some! (see the fun place mat I was talking about?)

 I didn't have any ice cream stickers so we just covered our I with "sprinkles"

 This week's color was pink. I have these pink bangle bracelets that I got for two dollars a few years ago so we made up a ring toss game using my paper towel holder.  It cost me nothing but was tons of fun!

He totally thought he made it :)

Thursday: I is for Indian

The PA website had several ideas for this day but we've been taking down our Christmas stuff and only had time to make a fethered headband and sing the 10 little indians song.

 Friday: I is for Ice

I'm going to be using these new years blowers for a game in Singing Time tomorrow and I had a few extra so I gave Collin what I thought was a pink one.....

 But it turned out to be red :(

 And then I made a ice and water bin for him. I waited and got this out while I fixed dinner thinking it would distract him, but he didn't really get into it. Maybe because it was kinda chilly outside? I'll have to try it again in the summer.

A Little Bit of Everything

 This Christmas was wonderful! My mom and sister were able to come down and since Christmas day happened to fall on a Tuesday this year, Michael actually got a 3 day weekend! 

 I let Collin help me make our annual cake balls this year. He really got into it. I might have to bake more with him next year.

 Christmas Sunday we went to Michael's parents house for dinner.

 The food was delicious and it was such a relaxing visit.

 Buddy's legs, Laura, Ken and Mikey

 Becky, Uncle Richard and Aunt Cheryl

 My niece Tiffany won best dressed that night. Isn't she adorable? 

 Ken and Amy

 Collin was spoiled of course.

Check out his head light from grandma Boyd :)

 Tate was passed around and loved all the attention.

 It really was a fun night. Collin was pretty tuckered out when we got home.

 I got up in the middle of the night to feed Tate and when I went to check on Collin this is what I found. Just in case two big bears aren't protection enough, he's got his bat. I seriously don't know how he slept like this. I did NOT move him though. I've learned my lesson :)

 Christmas Eve we went to hear my Aunt Patti sing at her church Christmas program. Sadly the only pictures I took were of Tate's outfits. I retract my statement that boys clothes aren't cute because these are adorable!

 Unfortunately, Tate ended up not being able to wear this particular outfit due to an eruption 

(from the mouth)

 So we dressed him in the back up outfit. The cutest thing about this one was the bear face stitched on the bum :)

 After the Christmas program we rushed to my grandma's house because Tori and my mom were coming in! 

They were going to spend the night with my grandma so we chatted for a few hours before heading home. Collin hooked up with his Aunt Tori right away. She hadn't seen him since he was 6 months old! 

My mom warned her that Collin makes nick names for people so whatever he calls you the first time he sees you is the name you're stuck with. When we introduced Tori to him we said, "This is Aunt T." (Thinking this would be easier to pronounce than Tori) When we pointed to her and asked him what her name was he said, "Boo boo." And her name has been thus since. I have no idea how he got boo boo from Aunt T but at least it's better than the nickname he gave to my little brother, ruff ruff. :)

 Christmas day was packed full of family fun! 

And of course, the day we actually WANT Collin to get up early, he sleeps in!

 Santa brought him a basket ball hoop which he really likes.

 And mommy and daddy bought him extra track for his trains. Not sure who has enjoyed this more, Collin or Michael. Collin plays with his trains for hours!!!

 I love this little boy. Thomas shirt, car shoes, and of course his toy trains. He doesn't go anywhere without them.

 We started Christmas Day back over at Michael's parents where we had another delicious meal.

 

 This has got to be my favorite picture of the day.

 Collin got more presents from grandma. Books! I was pretty excited too!

 We left Bill and Anne's around 5 to go to our 2nd Christmas get together with my family.

The boys fell asleep on the way there and we were really tempted to just leave them in the car :) 

Look how peaceful they are!

 Tori and the boys watched a movie

 While the rest of us ate and talked.

 Tate with his grandma Peeler

 My mom and sister came home with us that night and when we got up the next morning we had Christmas part 3!

 Collin opened his presents from grandma and grandpa Peeler, a lightning McQueen track and more books!

And several little zoo animals from Aunt T aka Boo Boo :) Tori had also gotten him those Lightning McQueen shoes he was wearing in the other picture.

This little boy was in Heaven!

 Tate fell asleep. Guess all the action wore him out. Our old family friend, Norm, came to visit us a few weeks ago and brought Tate that huge bear. He gave Collin one too when he was born.

 And I just had to throw this picture in because it makes me laugh. :)

We enjoyed every minute spent with family!

 School

Tuesday: H is for Hands

The week before Christmas we learned the letter H! I had some hand stickers laying around the house so I let Collin stick them to his H page. I love how Tate is always watching Collin and laughs when Collin talks to him. I hope that's a sign of them being good friends.

  

 To show Collin some things we do with our hands, I got out a few pans and plastic containers so he could beat on them. We had fun with this activity.

Wednesday: H is for House
Collin did this house activity page that you can find on the Preschool Alphabet website under the letter H.

We were also studying the color brown this week so we took a little walk and went on a stick hunt. 
Do you see the white tailed squirrel in the tree? Collin was pretty excited about it.

 Once we gathered our sticks we brought them home and did some stick art.

Very fun and VERY free :)

 Thursday: H is for Hats

Of course we had to gather all the hats in the house and try them on!

 You can never wear to many hats

 Even Tate got in on the action.