Back to school

So Monday I started back at work. The first day of school is always very exciting! It is one of my favorite days of the school year.

This year, I was delighted to meet 11 (yes, you read that right, 11!) kindergartners ready and excited to spend the morning with me! I am amazed at how excited and sad the parents are to leave their children in my care. It is a bittersweet day for them, watching their child venture into the world of school. Several of my students are the oldest in their family, so this is their first experience. In the past, I never quite understood quite what the parents were going through. Last year, I TOTALLY GOT IT!!!!  It was so hard for me to leave Little Guy for the first time!

Anyway, we had a great first day, and all the kindergartners returned on Tuesday!  No casualties!

I thought I would give you a peak at my "home" away from home.

This is the view of the room when you walk in the door.  It has a very open feel to the room.

This is at the front of the classroom rug. I just added the rocking chair this year!

What kindergarten classroom would be complete without dress-up and blocks?

What about Little Guy, you may ask. Well, Little Guy has had the pleasure of staying home and playing with Grandma B! His daycare is closed this week, so Grandma B flew up here to play with him! They have had a great time watching the school buses on our street, playing outside, snuggling, and just playing together. We are so lucky that Grandma B could come up here!

Food

I am trying to make lots of food for Little Guy to eat. He is really a great eater, but I am also strategic in the order I feed him. Veggies get served first, then other foods except bread. Sometimes I hold cheese back too, because he loves to eat bread and cheese and will pick them out of the other things. Recently this recipe for broccoli bites was shared with me. I made these up and Little Guy seems to like them! I think they will be great for taking to school.

I tried another new recipe yesterday.  This was for Veggie Muffins. I figure if I can get Little Guy to eat a few extra veggies, its worth the try. Who knows, maybe even Daddy will like them!

Here they are, fresh out of the oven!

I made shallow muffins, so they would be just the right size for Little Guy.
And the verdict is...

Mmmmm!

He liked them!

Cloth diapers

When Little Guy was about 7 months old, I decided to give cloth diapers a try. I was looking for some ways to save money and thought that not buying disposable diapers every month would be a good way. I started with a diaper trial from Jillian's Drawers. This allowed me to see if I liked the cloth diapers and to see if I could keep up with the laundry before making a big investment. Well, I loved them!

7 months later we are still going strong. I have now built a big enough stash that I can wash diapers every other day and allow them to hang dry. Its easy to let them hang dry in the summer, I'll re-evaluate this fall and winter! Almost all of my diapers are pocket diapers. This means that I put the absorbent part of the diaper in a pocket in the shell, and it is ready to go!  This makes it easy to put a diaper on a wiggly toddler...it goes on just like a disposable!

Here are most of our pocket diapers!

I now own 34 cloth diapers.  We spent under $400 on our diapers, including the diaper sprayer and a few other accessories!  $400 would probably only buy disposable diapers for 8 months!  We should get about 2 years worth of use with these diapers for Little Guy, and will be able to use them on a younger sibling (when that time comes!)!

Daddy even got on board with the cloth diapers!  Even though I change diapers most of the time, Daddy is still willing to change the cloth.  Our daycare even uses our cloth, too!

In addition to buying lots of cute diapers, I even made a special diaper for Little Guys birthday! He wore it during his cake smash!

Here is the diaper I made!  Isn't my model cute, too?

Fingerpaint fun!

One messy activity that I like to do with Little Guy is finger paint!  From Pinterest, I found this recipe from The Imagination Tree.  I made 1/2 of the recipe (because that's how much cornstarch I had on hand!) and then colored some red, some blue, and some yellow.  I took an old sheet and put it on the floor, stripped Little Guy down to his diaper, and plopped us onto the sheet.  The first day we used it, I just let Little Guy smear it all over the paper!  We squooshed it in our hands and a great time.  When I got up to wash my hands, Little Guy started to crawl to follow me, getting paint on the floor!  Good thing it wiped up easily!
A couple of days later we were ready to paint again.  I tried another idea, from a Pin of As Time Flies.  Daddy put painters tape on the paper.  One paper had Little Guy's name, and the other paper had a heart.  We let Little Guy go to town! (This time I remembered to have wipes around for his hands!)

Concentrating hard on his art!

Hamming it up for the camera!

Little Guy's Artwork!

Here is some of the finished artwork!  The top was piece was painted with the cornstarch finger paint that I made.  The bottom piece was painted with regular store bought finger paint.  The advantage of the store bought paint was that the colors were so much more vibrant!  We plan on sending one to Grandma!

1 Year pictures

Shortly after Little Guy turned 1, we had some professional pictures taken. We spent about 60 minutes at the local botanical gardens with the photographer. Here are some of my favorites.Enjoy!

End of the summer

Well, summer is wrapping up quickly.  Next week I return to life as a working mom, teaching morning kindergarten.  It is a job that I love, but I will miss all the extra time I have been spending with Little Guy.

Before I head back, I want to share some of the things that we did this summer.  We have been to the zoo many times!  Little Guy is in a pointing phase right now.  It's great because I can tell if he is seeing an animal because he points at the animal!  I think that the giraffes are his favorite animals, but the penguins are fun too because they swim right up to the glass!

Mommy, Daddy, and Little Guy at the Zoo!  Look at those elephants!

We also take time to play outside (almost) every day!  For his birthday, we got Little Guy a water table.  Its a pretty simple  table, but he really seems to enjoy playing in it.  We have some wiffle balls that we can drop down the center, some toy boats, and some plastic containers.

Little Guy and Mommy playing in the water!

 In addition to the water table, we also have a sand sensory tub that we can play with.  I had a shallow plastic tub that we put some playground sand in (bought from the Home Depot!) and then I bought some beach toys to add to it.  We try to head outside for at least 30 minutes every day.  We get really nice shade from the house, so we can play for a while.  I think that Little Guy's favorite outdoor toy is the lawn mower that grandma gave him!  It makes lots of noises, including a "glug-glug" sound when you turn the gas cap!