TIMEOUT!

Today I picked up my sons from daycare. When I got there my oldest, Colt, was outside with his class at the playground. I noticed he was sitting off to the side all by himself. While he was sitting there I watched one of his friends go up, sit beside him and talk to him, then stand up and talk to him..but Colt never moved. 

My husband is always concerned that Colt doesn't know how to play with other kids. He isn't one to play independently. It doesn't bother me at all, he's still young and he isn't really used to being around that many other kids.

On the way home I started talking to Colt about what I saw. I was concerned, and a little sad for him...

Me- "Colt, why were you sitting over there while y'all were outside? I know you had friends out there, why don't you play with them, buddy?"

Colt- "oh cuz that one teacher put me in time out"

Oh. 

What do you do?

I continued to question him and it turns out he got in trouble for climbing up the slide. This is a rule he knows. Mainly from going to Chick Fil A during the summer and playing in their annoying little inside playground, that's a whole other story.

Now, the mom in me was wondering if the teacher gave him warnings or just put him in timeout the very first time. Did they even go over playground safety? Does she think he's supposed to just KNOW these things, I mean this is his first school ever and he has only been there 3 weeks.

And then, the teacher in me. Is this kid out of his mind? He KNOWS we don't go up the slide...I have probably said that 1,000 times. 

In the end I backed his teacher up. He was upset because he thought he would have to go in time out at home. I assured him that that is not how I work. He already went in time out for it so it wouldn't be fair to do that again. 

What would you have done? How do you feel when your kids tell you they had to go in time out at school? 

Eight Days

We've got 8..EIGHT days of school left until it's summer time and I get to relax, hang out and have fun with my baby boys ALL day EVERY day!!! In case you can't tell, I am SO excited. 


I've been talking to Colt about summer and what it means. When I asked him what he wanted wanted to do this summer with me his response was "play outside all the time".


So that is what we did :)


[Excuse their precious messy faces and clothes- we didn't waste any time when we got home from the sitter's]

Going Clean- Taco seasoning

For a while now I have been reading up on the idea of going clean. Slowly but surely I am replacing our processed foods with good clean alternatives. One of my favorites I found via Pinterest, but you can find it here! I am still new to the whole cooking thing so when I saw this pin my first thought was- you can do that?!!?...I had no clue, ridiculous...I know. I first made the taco seasoning and we have been using it for a few months now! We use this seasoning with ground turkey when we make tacos.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chili powder

1/4 cup onion powder

1/8 cup ground cumin

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon sea salt

(the paprika is MIA in this picture..guess we are out!)

Put all of the ingredients into the jar of your choice and shake it up!

Using it while cooking:

Brown your meat in a skillet (we prefer ground turkey) and drain the fat 

Add 3 tbsp per pound of meat and 2/3 cup of water 

Mix it all up and let it simmer!

We use this in a variety of ways. My husband enjoys tacos and his own creations that imitate Taco Bell dishes. I prefer taco salad and we use the meat to make quesadillas for the boys!

3 Day Weekend

I absolutely love 3 day weekends with my family. Daddy was gone this weekend so it was just me and the boys. We had a lot of fun! Friday night they spent the night with Nana & Papa. Saturday we went to Austin to see Sesame Street Live (they LOVED it) and spent the day eating lunch in Austin. Saturday night Alisha and I attempted our first cousin sleepover. The kids had fun but we didn't get much sleep. Sunday we met up with Nana & Papa for lunch and then they took the boys while I ran a few errands, aka went shopping at Target :) Today we made a quick trip into town and then came home to relax and get ready for the week! Here are a few pictures from today :)

My handsome 3 year old

One of my goals this year is to take more day to day pictures of my boys. I have realized that the most pictures I have of my kids are on my iPhone. So from here on out I am taking more pictures of my handsome babies!!

Here are a few pictures of my little cowboy today while he was watching Space Jam (his favorite movie of the week)

And my favorite....

Welcome 2012

It’s a new year and time for some changes. This year I have 5 resolutions! I’ll go into detail about them later but for now here they are!

I believe in the buddy system! If you have people around you who are working to accomplish similar goals you can motivate each other and keep one another accountable.

What are your resolutions? How do you plan to keep them?

My Favorite Apps for Toddlers

My son is almost three and I want to get him an iPod touch for Christmas. I know, I’m crazy, but he wants my phone constantly and it drives me insane.

He has his own folder of apps on my phone and he knows how to navigate through them to find what he wants. He could do this before he was even potty trained! 

He has nine apps on my phone but I’ve decided to share the top 5.

#5. Swapsies {$.99}

 

This game is super cute. You get to pick your character (boy or girl) and you can even pick the skin color, how politically correct is that?! Once you’ve picked the character you get to put together different outfits. The outfits are based on professions; a rancher, a doctor, an astronaut, etc. There are eight different sets. Once you get an ensemble right the name pops up and it plays a little music. My son has yet to get them correct but he loves swapping them out and making different combinations!

#4. Peekaboo Barn Lite {Free}

This one is fun but not as interactive. It plays an instrumental version of Old McDonald Had a Farm in the background while your little one “opens” the barn door to see what animal is there. When the barn door opens the animal makes its sound. My son likes it only for the cow. Once he has found the cow, he is done!

#3. Voice Toddler Cards {$1.99}

I LOVE this one! There are nine different sets of flash cards you can choose from and both are available in English and Spanish. There is a recorded voice that says the word of each picture. My favorite part is that you can go in an record YOUR voice on the cards. On the ABC ones I recorded myself saying familiar words that begin with that letter. For example, I said “A, Avery” (this is his cousin’s name).  So everytime the A card comes up it plays my voice. He gets to see the letter, hear a familiar voice say the letter name AND hear a word. The teacher in me gets excited every time I think about it.

#4. ABC Tracer Lite {Free}

This app is probably a little advanced for my baby but he has found parts of it he can do on his own and has even come to me asking for help to learn how to do the rest. This one has a few different games in it. My son’s favorite that he does independently is the ABC song. The screen has all of the letters of the alphabet and you can set it to tell the name of the letter or the phonetic sound. When you touch letter it wiggles and says the sound you’ve set. His favorite part, and the one I hear like five times in a row, is the ABC song. He loves to play the song and sing along to it. At the end it plays a little beat and of course, we fist pump to it J

#5. Monkey Preschool Lunchbox {$.99}

I. LOVE. MONKEY. GAME. This is by far my son’s favorite app. Or “farit” as he would say! There are seven different activities that are presented at random (I think.) Every so often your little one gets to put a sticker on the board. They get to see their stickers build up as the play. Once the app is closed out the sticker board clears and you start over. There are no levels it just presents the activities over and over with a variation each time. When I first bought this app I thought the puzzle and matching game would be too hard for him. He struggled through the matching game the first time but by the time it came around the second time he was a pro! I just can’t even explain how much we love this app! If they had a spokes person it would be me!

I am always looking for new apps, as these can get old (and annoying to me). What are some of your favorites?