Advent Season!

I don't know about y'all, but when I was growing up I had an advent calendar for the Christmas season every year. It was one of those that had the chocolates hidden in an image of Santa and every day we got to open a little "window" and eat our one piece for the day... It was great! I had NO idea that, that was a calendar. I had NO idea what it meant. I just knew that during Christmas I got to eat a piece of chocolate with breakfast every day until Christmas morning, it was great!

I have found and implemented a new advent calendar into our lives this year. One that it not chocolate, but one that will help your child grow! I think I originally found this on Pinterest, but I can't be too sure.

Above is a picture of the first 6 days in my advent calendar for Joc. What's inside them you ask? BOOKS! Yes, books! Small, inexpensive, books. I fell in love with this idea when I first saw it, wherever that was, and had to make this happen! I'm not sure I'll do it every single year, but I may do other things with a similar concept to them. This did get a little costly and had a good bit of work into it.

Most of the books I bought were right at $1.00. I would look everywhere I went for books that would interest her! I found a ton of them at Target, in their dollar section and a few of them at Michael's, Walmart, and other random places.

So far she has loved opening these every day! That's something else great about this calendar. You know that once you start putting gifts under the tree the kids start to get super antsy and excited and are dieing to open a present because they are there! Well, this way they get to open a present every day until Christmas!

So, what you need to make this happen for next year is:

25 small books

wrapping paper

tape

marker

tags, paper, stencils... ect. (optional)

1. I started out by organizing my books by what day I wanted her to open them on. I have a special book for the 25th of the month and I had a few others that are Christmas themed, so I wanted her to be able to enjoy those during the season, so I placed those stragically throughout the 25 days. And I had a group of three books that I wanted to give to her continuously.

2. I would then just wrap my books how they were, I did use a few gift bags to mix it up a little.

3. Then I used stencils and a large permanent marker to number the books 1-25 right on the packaging! I did not on my gift bags, however! I stenciled those onto some stock paper and then cut out the number and taped it on the appropriate bag.

 Here is Joc on day one of our calendar!

And here she is day three!

We have been taking pictures everyday of these as well, just to document it as we go! It has been such a fun experience for all of us here so far! We open a new book in the afternoon and then that's what we read before bedtime every night! So far she's opened two My Little Pony books found a Target a while back, a Winnie The Pooh book and Treasure Island! (We are slowly starting to incorporate "big books" into her collection for us to read together here soon!)

I strongly encourage you to try this with your family next Christmas! It was been such a fun blessing so far! The kids love it and it gives them something to do every afternoon, and it's not chocolate! Haha!

- Stephanie

It's Coming... SUMMER!

Either summer has already started for you and your busy family or it's on the brink... We have one week left and then we're done for a few months. I'm SO not ready! I've been compiling a list of things to do this summer with our little one. In the process I've found a lot of really great websites to go off of for local events and such!
Maybe you're in the same boat... Looking for things to do. And lets face it, you can't go and do something every single day to keep your kids occupied! (If you can, go you!) Everything costs so much these days. We're planning on going to do something really great, like, once a week. On the other days we may just go to the park or the zoo, we have a membership so it's free to go at this point for us. (By the way, I HIGHLY recommend getting a membership at your local zoo or park. It is an amazing way to go kill time, do something fun, and get out doors! We LOVE our zoo membership, and the price was fantastic!)
Anyway, we also have a brand new splash-pad opening up this summer, which I fully plan on visiting often! 

If you live in the Birmingham, AL area or those around here this is a great website that I check out all the time to find fun things to do around here for me and my love and my little one.
Check it out: Birmingham365 This website is pretty up to date on anything and everything going on in our great city! I urge you, if you don't live near here, to go look for a similar website for your area... This has been a life saver for us here!

Maybe you already know what you and your family will be doing this summer, maybe your calendar is FULL of exciting things to do... Bravo! (I envy you, please give me your list :D)
If you're that mom, or dad, and you have your summer planned but still are missing something here is a list for you! I found this recently, it's a list of websites for kids to use to keep their brains going over the summer. To keep them going and learning. A lot of kids NEED this during the summer! That long gap can really hinder some children with their learning, they forget things and don't continue to learn and then they get back into school in the fall and they're playing a small game of catch up.

 

Here is a more comprehensive list, briefly explaining what your kids can do on each website: (sorry it's a little blurry. :/)

These websites are excellent resources to use during the summer to keep your kiddos interesting in learning and broadening their horizons!

I plan on using these with Joc a couple of times a week. Maybe while I'm cooking dinner or needing to do some cleaning, I'll set her up with one of these websites to keep her occupied until I'm finished with whatever it is that I'm doing! I found this wonderful list over on A Year of My Firsts blog... Lots of other neat things to peruse through over there! :)

I hope I could help you with some of your summer planning, if you needed it! The most important thing is to just spend time with your little ones while you can! They cherish that more than anything while they're young!

-Stephanie

Sofia the First

I just ran across these on Money Saving Mom... I can't wait to show Jocelyn!! She LOVES Sofia the First!!! She so wanted to be Sofia for Halloween this year, but when we went to pick out her costume the Party City we went to was sold out of her costume! (She was really heartbroken over it.)
It was resolved when she saw how cute she was in the Izzy costume from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"... Izzy it is! I also told her she could probably wear Izzy to her pirate birthday party in a few months, that really got her attention!!

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/10/sofia-the-first-printables/
It has all of your typical worksheets for number and letters, sound recognition, shapes and colors, and cutting and so on... And it's all Sofia themed!!! Super cute for your little girls out there that want to be princesses like Sofia!
I hope you enjoy these cute activities with your little ones!

-Stephanie