All tagged Toddler
Mornings (and evenings) can be quite the battle with Melody. So last year I created some daily routine charts to try and help keep Melody on track. It worked most of the time. To be honest, we don’t use it much anymore. But we did find it helpful at the time. At the bottom you can find printable ones as well.
Back in September, my aunt did a photoshoot at an old diner back in Florence. She had an opening, so Emily and I took the girls. We went vintage with blue jeans and white shirts. I think the pictures turned out adorable!
So unfortunately we have missed the Pumpkin Patch the last two years. In 2019, every chance we could go it rained. In 2020, COVID happened. So this year I was determined we were going to go back. Once again, our opportunities to go were limited. We finally narrowed down a date, and it was supposed to rain. But we decided to go anyhow. The forecast projected it to miss us until later that evening. Unfortunately Brad was told to travel for work last minutes, so he was unable to go. But we met up with the Owen clan.
October has been quite the busy month, and it has yet to slow down. But I finally have some time to sit down and blog again! One of the many things I have thrown together is Melody’s annual Halloween happy. I try and give it to her on October 1st. This year I got her a Pete the Cat book, Halloween puzzle, glow stick set, and some Halloween pajamas that matches my pair.
We decided to let Melody try gymnastics one more time this summer. She despised it during the summers before, but this one would be different. It was no longer a “mommy and me” style class, so we hoped this would give her more confidence with the independence. And it did! She loved it, and she has even asked to continue doing it in the fall.
With this being the last summer before Melody starts kindergarten, I feel like I really need to make the most of it. I mean while she has been attending school for the last three years, it has only been for 2-3 days a week, 4-6 hours a day, and exceptionally flexible. Well all of the will go out the window in August. I only have 8 or so weeks with my baby before she becomes a big girl (at least in my eyes). So I wanted to really make the most of those 8 weeks. I decided to come up with a bucket list for the summer. We are already so busy (and nearly half way through the summer), so there is a chance we won’t accomplish all the things. But it at least gives me some goals.
Melody graduated from her preschool a few weeks ago. It was super emotional leading up to it, but the night of I didn’t cry as much as I expected. I absolutely loved her preschool, and I am most sad to be leaving it versus her simply going to kindergarten. I am excited to see her grow and continue on at her new school, but I will really miss her teachers and small school for sure!
So two weeks ago, we celebrated Melody’s THIRD dance recital. The stress around recitals never gets easier. Every year there is new circumstances that make it even more chaotic than the previous year. I am also bias in that I thought our recital last year was the best. It was NOT a full recital due to COVID, but for kids this age, I think it was perfect! But we had a traditional recital, but with less people due to social distancing.
By much surprise, we finished our dance year without any COVID related issues or delays. We even had a little sense of normalcy by the end of the semester. We would get to go inside and watch the girls the last 10 minutes of class. We only got to do this maybe a handful of times, but it was still something that made it feel a little more normal. I am hoping next year will provide us a greater sense of normalcy as well. Here are some photos I took throughout the semester!
So Melody just graduation from her preschool last week. I debated whether we did a gift or not, but we ultimately decided to get her a book.
I was hoping this was the year Melody decided to smile in her dance pictures. I mean she finally smiled in her school picture. Well she tried. I just don’t think she is as comfortable with the dance photographer as the school one. But she tried. And the pictures did turn out cute.
I thought it might be fun to take a look back on last year through some pictures. Sure, it was one heck of a year, but we made the best of it. We spent a LOT of time together as a family, and we did come out with a lot of great memories, even if they were not the memories we expected to make! Follow along below!
So Melody started going to food therapy back in August. We have been discussing this as a possibility with her pediatrician for a few years now at her well visits. Well this year we finally decided it was time. While we are still attending food therapy, I thought I would share what we have been doing at home so far to assist.
By a miracle, we managed to attend in-person dance class for the entire fall! Things are slightly different than years’ past though. We had to drop the kids off instead of take them into dance, we then returned to pick them up an hour later, and masks were highly recommended. But Melody had so much fun!
After Melody outgrew her crib, we converted her crib into a toddler bed. We intentionally asked for this crib because of its conversion abilities. She would have this crib forever basically. We bought the full size bed conversion kit when we got the crib so that we knew we would have it when the time came to transition her. While we were having no issues with her in her toddler bed, we knew it was a matter of time until she would outgrow it. So in early November, we decide to take the plunge and convert it to a full size bed.
October was a month full of a lot of fun! We traveled, we visited with grandparents, the weather got cooler, and we celebrated Halloween!
Back during our “unexpected homeschooling” days, crafts were critical. I was reaching for a lot of our crafts, but this one turned out to be a fun one. We made a caterpillar game.
It is hard to believe it is already October, and we are thinking about Halloween. But here we are. Like previous years, I threw together a Halloween Happy for Melody. We have not been getting out as much, so I didn’t get as many things from the Target Dollar Spot was previous years, but I was able to snag a few things a few weeks back, and I ordered the rest on Amazon.
One of the fun things Melody likes to do with her newish swing set is play with the telescope. She thinks it is so much fun to point it at us throughout the yard and find us. So we had the bright idea to let her make her own telescope using paper towel rolls.
One of Brad’s presents for his birthday was a fun and very hard craft I had Melody make for him before she went back to school. I made the template on my computer, and as we worked on it, I had to keep adding space because she has such big hand writing. It was a really adorable craft though, and I think Brad loved it.
