a glimpse at summer totschool

So this summer was hit or miss with official totschool. We traveled so much and had company a couple times so we didn't keep to any sort of schedule. A lot of learning took place in life school however (this applies to both mom and Shelby Lynn). Shelby Lynn is learning about sharing, patience and showing kindness to others and mommy has learned some of the same lessons in her adult relationships, lol! We tried to still implement a letter every tw0 weeks and I was not successful at all, but we did learn the letter "D" and since she already knew "E" we did some review. This week will kickoff our official Totschool and we will continue with the letter "F" and also start our Before Five in a Row curriculum. I also got a new cabinet to organize all of Shelby Lynn's learning toys that I don't keep out all the time and can't wait to share that with you. I also want to try to be better about implementing the system that the Duggars use with their toys, I try to rotate the toys out but after her birthday this year it has gotten out of control, Ha! Here are few pics of what we "officially" accomplished and hopefully this week I will finish our Lancaster vacation posts and other fun activities we did this summer!

Here she is coloring her "d" coloring sheet from her sesame street and working on a number puzzle. She kept going back and forth between the two!

This was Shelby Lynn's favorite "D" activity, growing sponge Dinosaurs, she played with this for almost a hour, and I was shocked and please to get the kitchen clean while she did this! It was a great activity that we started together and talked about colors and she counted the dinosaur and sorted them and then I was able to let her play on her own. She loved squeezing the water out of them!

Here is is working with her magnetic "d"s and trying to draw with chalk. She also got the Leap frog magnet toy for her b-day that not only sings the alphabet but also when you put in a letter is says the name and sound. She loves it!

Here is a few pictures from this summer that I want to share but probably would not do a separate post:

Love this summer outfit.

Just a swingin'

The girl loves her pink boots and her music!

A sweet baby bunny we found outside our gate, apparently our neighbor had a nest in his backyard! We don't see this too often since we live in a townhouse!

please be sure to check out all the other fun times that were had at http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/search/label/Tot%20School

Update

If you would like an update on all the we have been doing please check out my BFF site. She is so much better at posting than I am! But not only does next week officially start a new year of totschool for us, I am also recommitting to updating the blog hopefully twice a week!

Here is Melanie's blog

picturecrazymomma.blogspot.com

She has a lot of great pics from the past two weeks!

Vacation Alert

Just posting really quickly to let anyone who follows me know that I am on vacation and that is why there have been no posts. I have limited internet access. When I get back I will probably have to do 3 or 4 post a day to get caught up! I hope I still have followers left, lol!

Our Family Vacation to Lancaster

In July, we decided to take a family vacation with just the three of us. This was the first time since we had had Shelby Lynn that we were able to do this. We chose Lancaster, Pa as our destination and let me say we had a blast. We stayed in a bed and breakfast called

Laurel Inn the Hollow

and the name of our house was the Carriage House. It was wonderful because we had the whole house which was build in the 1800s to ourselves. Jay and I kept saying how peaceful it was and how we felt like we were at grandma’s house. After staying in a B&B I have decided that is the only way to travel with a toddler. I will say it is difficult to find ones that will take children under the age of 10 but we found a great family ran one! The house had a sweet fenced in yard which is where we at most of our dinners. The weather was perfect for sitting out on a blanket. I loved how Shelby Lynn was free to run around. We live in a townhouse and she doesn’t have that much room. It also had a swing set and Shelby Lynn swung on the big girl swing for the first time!
I have decided that since we did so much on our vacation that I will break them up into days for the blog posts.
Here is Day 1:
We couldn’t check in until 4pm so we took our time driving up (only about a 3hour drive). Once we got to Lancaster we just kinda drove around until we could check in. When we saw the yard and the little bar-b-que we decided to run to the store and cook out! This is how we spent the first evening and it was soooo relaxing!

Our wonderful old Carriage House:



The sweet backyard where we did most of our picnics:

Shelby Lynn’s favorite part of the B&B:


My favorite picture from day 1:


Some more pics from our great first day:

This Old Schoolhouse

This Old Schoolhouse

I have recently found a new company that I would like to share with you. If you are considering home schooling, already do, or just want to enhance your child’s learning then this company has something for you! This Old Schoolhouse produces a home school magazine that I have just ordered and I can’t wait to receive my first issue. They also have a fabulous offer right now. The first 5000 customers to sign up or renew for the magazine will receive over $400 in freebies! I did this and was so excited to find out that I was their 100^th customer for the month of July and I received a $50 gift certificate. It was using this that I got to experience their fabulous customer service! I goofed up and didn’t check the box when I went to use it and the amount wound up on my card. They were very quick and helpful in getting this fixed for me and so sweet over the phone! I highly recommend this company, not only for the magazine and customer service but also for the wide variety of learning products. They have a fantastic variety of Ebooks to choose from to help with your child’s learning and playtime! I ordered 2 and can’t wait to start implementing them. I also ordered the Noah’s ark matching game. It is produced by another company and as soon as I ordered it that company was very quick in getting it to me! Please be sure to visit TOS and see if you can still take advantage of the free gifts!

**I have not be asked by the company to do this review. I just was really satisfied with them and wanted to share!

100th Post!

So this post is really late. We wound up going on a vacation and I have not had time to update. I really wanted my 100th post to be about something special so I waited until I had time to do a good one!


Wow, I can't believe this is already my 100th post. I was going to post part 2 of Shelby Lynn's first 2 years. But I think instead I will show what we did for her second birthday! On Friday we decided we would take her to the Children's Museum of Richmond. Well mommy and daddy slept in and we got a late start. So needless to say she wasn't in the best mood, be once we got there and started playing we had a good time. And then mommy and daddy decided to really push their luck and took her to Chucky Cheese. Bad Mistake! She so wasn't into, plus mommy didn't realize how full her diaper was and it leaked. And normally I ALWAYS have an extra outfit in the car, but for some reason I didn't. All I had was a bathing suit. So she was running around Chucky Cheese, screaming her head off wearing her shirt and bikini bottoms, LOL! And I didn't get any pictures of this! So mommy and daddy decided it was time to go. When we got home our fabulous friends, Melanie, Oz and Zoe sent Shelby Lynn a birthday gift. So without further adieu, here our the birthday pictures:



Since on Friday she was birthdayed out we waited until Saturday to do cake and presents. Orginally I was going to attempt to make a fabulous cake in the shape of the number 2. When I went to get the eggs for this cake I realized I was out. Soooo we settled for a store bought cake instead and it was pretty yummy! I guess the terrible twos have really struck, because once again she had totally melt downs when we tried to do presents and cake. We finally put the gifts in the floor and let her go to them in her own time. As for the cake as long as we didn't sing Happy Birthday and the candles weren't lit she was fine!


Whew, what a Birthday for Miss Shelby Lynn!

My Baby is 2!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Pretty Little Shelby Lynn ( when she was just a little tiny baby I used to call her this)!
I wanted to tell the story of my pregnancy (long awaited and high risk) and her birth ( 5 Weeks Early) but I didn't get it done because we have both been sick and then tonight I went shopping for birthday goodies; so hopefully I will get done for this weekend. But here are few of my favorite photos over they last 2 years...I can't believe 2 years have passed already!
( I don't have any pics on my computer from the 1st 3 months but will post some in the next post.)
3 MONTHS:

Thanks Melanie for always taking our pics; I don't know what I would do without you!

Here she is with her umbilical hernia (used to worry me to death), we call it her radio knob, lol! The docs said it would go away and what do you know it did!

6 MONTHS
My mom always says she looks like a little boy in these pics, lol. She cute even as a boy!

I love her sweet little clasped hands

"Come on Mom, are we not done yet?"

FIRST CHRISTMAS

Look what all Santa brought me!

9 MONTHS

Thanks Melanie once again for being a fabulous friend and taking these!

There are so many of the photos and I love them, but I will have to compress them down before I can put any more up.

Some more of my favorites from the first year:

The one and only time she showed interest in a paci and it was in her mouth backwards!




I love this pictures, we were at playgroup and she was upset with another playmate, and I couldn't help myself!

One Year!


Year Two and birth story in part 2!