Changes are coming!

So I haven't posted in awhile because my mother had major back surgery(lumbar fusion) and I went home to be with her. Needless to say totschool has not happened. In addition to that I have been working hard with a friend to start a business and I so excited that we are almost ready to reveal our new etsy shop and in addition to that I will have a new, separate blog just for crafts and this one will remain our family and totschool blog. I can't wait to introduce it to everyone. Some things that I will have for sale are my custom canvases, digital greeting cards and photo albums, door and wall hangers, and camera strap covers.
Sneak Peak:
Here is an example of a set of custom canvases I did for a client's nursery:

**click on the picture to see a larger view

If you are interested in having me do something for your nursery or any room in your home, please feel free to email me and once my etsy shop is up I will update the site with that address.
Just wanted to let those that follow know where I have been and what we have been up to. Totschool is continuing and I will post along with my fellow totschoolers on Sunday, but you can always click on the button to the right to see what everyone else has been doing while we were off.

Tot School "F" weeks

**Shelby Lynn is 26mths

So we are still trying to do one letter for two weeks. We were supposed to go out of town this past Friday, so I didn't have too much planned. Unfortunately my niece who we were going to visit got sick so we reschedule the trip for Oct. I have not been to my sister's house in over 10 years so I was bummed to have to postpone.
Anyway here is what we did do:

One morning daddy didn't have to go into work until late so here they are working a farm animal puzzle that I got from the Target $1 spot (don't you just love that section!)


We also had some lessons in home ec. Here is Shelby Lynn "Folding" towels (it was more like unfolding, Ha!) My favorite thing though is she started singing the clean up song all by herself, I wish the video camera had been handy.








Whew! This is hard work!

We also listened to her silly, giggle songs especially the one on "F"ollowing Directions (maybe this one will stick like the clean up song). She enjoyed shaking her tomtom that we got on our vacation to Pigeon Forge, TN.



Here is a pic of her letter flip flash cards I also purchased at Target. I love these, on the back it has questions for me to ask her about the letter and picture. She really enjoys this activity.

We also learned the song "Father Abraham" and learned motions to go with it, she really liked the turn around part. My sister gave me several of the "Wee Songs" song book and I love them!

Here she is trying to play. She loves the piano and I am hoping that she will want to really learn how to play and practice! I always wanted to play but I hated to practice, so needless to say I am not that great.

I also started reading her toddler Bible to her and we talked about God creating the earth. I was really surprised at how much she enjoyed the pictures in the book, since they are pretty simple. She listen to whole part I chose to read and I was really excited because sometimes story time is pretty hit or miss.
We also reviewed letters A-E and she remembered them all, so even though my totschool is hit or miss at times she still is learning and that makes me happy!

I bought some really neat window clings at the dollar store and put them on the window above her little table and she talked about them alot as well. I wish I had more pictures to share, because I love seeing lots of pics on other blogs.

Next week we are heading to TN to visit Grammy and Granddaddy. Please say a prayer for Shelby Lynn's grammy as she is having major back surgery. We will be taking a break until we get back. Once we are back in town I hope to get into full swing with Totschool and have lots of pictures and links to activities we do!
Please be sure to go see what everyone else is learning in Totschool by going here:
http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2009/09/tot-school-at-beach.html

FAVORITE PIC:

This is just so sweet! I love that they are both in their pjs!

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!