Tot School - Birthday Edition!

We had an exciting week this week! Zachary said his first Bible verse : "obey your parents". I have a video to post (it's up on Facebook, if you're my friend on there), but I can't get to it right now to put it up. It is so precious, he says his verse in the sweetest little voice. :)

I thought I would include a couple of our favorite learning toys in this week's Tot School Edition: first of all, these stuffed letters (just stuffed fabric) are the way that Z learned all of his uppercase letters before he was 22 months old. They are soft, and fun, and so adorable. I can't even tell you who makes them, because I got them from a garage sale (sorry!).

Here is Z demonstrating a Q. He likes to throw them around, and we sing a little song, "Q says qua, Q says Qua, every letter has a sound, and Q says qua" (which I apparently picked up from a LeapFrog toy at some point, it is sung to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell"). Z can tell you now which sounds some letters say, but not too many. He's got "J says juh" down, so that's fun. :) Lately we've been discussing what words start with the letter, too, he thinks it's hilarious, we'll have a whole conversation that goes, "Juh Juh Juh, Jelly....Juh Juh Juh Juice" etc. ad nauseum. :)

And this is how the letters usually end up before too long:

Here he is playing with his Mega Blocks, making a tall tower.


Some presents for Z & baby sister came in a BIG box this week, and the box was FILLED with a million packing peanuts:

So before we threw them out, we decided to have some fun with them. :)


Z played with his sand toys in the peanuts for a couple minutes...


Dump!

But his favorite part was throwing them in the air and yelling, "It's 'Nowing! It's 'Nowing!"


As I was working on his birthday cake one day, I kept hearing him having this little conversation about pizza with himself, and then I heard him say, "I need a can opener. I need a can opener." and he went and got it out of the drawer, and when I looked down, there he was - 'opening' a can of olives for his imaginary pizza. :)


Here is some music time with Daddy - each playing their guitars:

The most exciting part of our week was Saturday, when Z celebrated his 2nd birthday! (I can't believe it!!!) He got many presents, and we had a pizza party with friends, and a tractor cake! Here's a picture of him opening his Chuck the Talking Truck...can you tell how excited he is? I'll be sharing more about his (and my) favorite presents next week!

And here is the tractor cake, which I just have to share because I made it myself, and it was a lot of work, but I was really happy with the results. The little wheels are stacks of 3 Oreos, covered in chocolate. There are still 1 1/2 wheels in my fridge (and 3 hay bales, too, actually), waiting for the next time I need a snack. :)

For Z's birthday present from us, I made him an I Spy Jar (similar idea can be found here). You start by getting your materials ready - you'll need rice, a container (recycled or new), a hot glue gun & glue stick, and some stuff to spy. :)

Then you layer rice with the spying stuff in the jar.

Another layer...

until it's almost full. Mine was too full. I ended up taking out 3 of the 4 monster trucks that I had put in, and a bunch of the rice, too.

Also, if you do this on your bed for some unknown reason, your bed sheets will look like this:

Here is the finished product:

I didn't take a picture of this part, but you're going to want to use the hot glue gun to glue the lid on VERY tight, so you don't have rice all over your house. Z may have to grow into this activity, he hasn't been overly thrilled with it so far...but also between the rest of his birthday presents, which he IS totally occupied by, he's been rather busy. :)

And, to begin his birthday celebration, Z decided to find a jar of Vaseline in his room, spread it on everything, and put at least a fourth of the jar in his hair. So it looked like he had gel in it all day. :) It was actually pretty cute. :)


Looking forward to getting into the Christmas spirit for Tot School this week...after we get through the busy beginning of the week (lots of dr. appt's today & tomorrow!)

Check out more Tot School activities over at 1+1+1=1!