August iPhone Rewind

Cooper has been really into his stuffed animals and blankets lately.  He pulled these out of his bed and brought them to the dining room with him one morning to snuggle.

Pulled out the bubble blowing lawn mower for some afternoon entertainment.

Merry go round at the park

Making himself at home at Discount Tire-- we went to get our tire fixed before our vacation

Lunch and playing with our buddy Leon Lu.

When playing in the puddles turns into playing in the mud.

Cooper has discovered ranch (and other dips) this month and he is a BIG fan.

He loves reading all of his books and one of his favorite things to do is climb on the couch with a bunch of books and just chill.

I find lots of recipes on instagram and Facebook from people and groups that I follow, so I have lots of recipe screenshots on my phone.  I made this caulimac (mac and cheese made with cauliflower instead of noodles) to go with our barbecue this week and it was pretty good!

Cooper is always on the lookout for a new ball, so tennis courts are one of his favorite things.  He left this encounter with TWO new tennis balls from his friends.

He wanted more sauce for his taco.

Trying out his new backpack!

Cooper moved up to a new Sunday School class this past weekend and is now in the "toddler" hall.  So he came home with his first Sunday School craft.

Sunglasses on Monday morning with my boy.

How Cooper entertained himself while I put away his laundry.

Apparently he knows how to get on the dining room table.  I went to refill our waters before lunch and came back to him on the table to get his paci that was in the middle.

A morning exploring the park and chasing the ducks.

Our new book club book-- I got the book on CD from the library and sent a picture to my friends that I'm reading it with.

Cooper enjoyed homemade popsicles and his pool one afternoon this week.  This pool has been great this summer, but it is getting kind of sad-- it has 3 inflatable rings, the top one doesn't hold air for more than a few minutes and the middle one loses a lot of it's air by the time we're done playing.  But it was less than $10 and we've definitely gotten that much use out of it!

We are ready for College Football season!

August Date Night Jar

I mentioned in our anniversary post that I gave David a date night jar for our anniversary, so I thought I'd share a little more about it and share the dates we did this month.  I might not share about it all year, but we had fun coming up with the list and getting it going.

Here's our jar!  It has different colors for different categories.  We have:

1. At Home Date Nights that don't need any prep (Red and Purple)

2. At home date nights that need some preparation (Orange)

3. Out and about no prep or planning needed {and can be done with Cooper in tow} (Green)

4. Out and about prep/planning/babysitter needed (Yellow)

We created the list together our anniversary weekend and assembled the jar.  It ended up where we have about 12 each of orange (at home planned) and yellow (out planned) sticks, so we decided to draw one of each of those at the beginning of the month so we can make plans as needed.

August's dates.  We didn't get a green in with being gone on vacation, so we'll have to catch up this fall!

Well, neither of our planned dates really panned out exactly like we had originally thought.  In place of a ropes course we were going to do parasailing in Orange Beach, but it got cancelled by the weather.  There are a few ropes courses here, so we may do this one at a later date, but it didn't happen in August.

And the idea of a Chopped Challenge came off some different lists I'd found, but then when I started to plan one I realized how terrible it sounded for us.  Neither of us are creative or good enough in the kitchen to plan a meal with no recipes and a box of ingredients!

So I put a different spin on it.  I decided we would each pick a recipe and shop for the ingredients independently and then plan a night to cook together, but the other person wouldn't find out what we were cooking until we were in the kitchen together.  So not really a Chopped Challenge, but still lots of fun!

We planned it for Saturday night, but when it rolled around I actually was not hungry at all.  I went to a movie and a late lunch with friends on Saturday, so the thought of eating didn't sound appetizing at all.  So we actually ended up only making David's recipe.  He picked these World's Best Peanut Butter Bars.  We actually had most of the ingredients already on hand, even a few he didn't realize we had on hand and bought extra of.

Mixing up the dry ingredients

The chocolate frosting did not turn out well for us so the bars didn't have that, which was fine since that would probably have been David's least favorite part.  He also didn't read that you were supposed to let them cool before putting the layer of peanut butter over it, so we ended up with some melted gooey peanut butter on top, but that definitely isn't a bad thing!

We decided to draw a purple stick for an activity for the evening.  

We played a round of Trivial Pursuit and a few rounds of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire while we waited for dessert to cool a little.

David enjoying the world's best peanut butter bars!  It was a fun and different date night for us and we really enjoyed it!  Our other at home activity was a night sitting outside together and we enjoyed that earlier in August.  

Even though we didn't follow the plans exactly, the jar has been a fun way to do something different a few times a month and not just fall into our TV and Netflix rut!

Orange Beach Vacation: Car Activities

In preparation for our trip, I once again researched and prepared a basket of things for Cooper for the car ride.  I figured I'd do a separate post so I can look back on these activities since most of them were a success!  And they will also be good ones to use throughout the day at home or when I'm try to cook dinner without him emptying all the kitchen cabinets.

Just a note-- A lot of these are ideas I found on Pinterest or have seen on instagram.  I tried to link the sources if I could find them, but many things are ones I've seen in the past and remembered when I was going through my supplies.  Some of my favorite sites for ideas are: Busy Toddler, Baby Devotions, and Mostly Montessori.

*Q-tip push-  I save a lot of egg cartons thinking they might come in handy for something and this was just the thing.  I cut the holes in the bottom and then I went ahead and put a q-tip in each hole for Cooper to pull out and then had a container with extra q-tips to refill it.  I know on our last trip he was more interested in taking things out than putting in, he is just now starting to do a little more putting in so I didn't expect much of that.  This was one of the first activities I gave him on our drive and it was a big hit!  He did take them all out and then I told him to put it in and he tried and was successful with a few, but had mostly thrown all of them by then.  We refilled it a few times throughout the trip and by the last day he put q-tips back in 6 of the 12 spots!  He was so proud of himself when he did it!

*Foil wrapped toys-- I had seen this idea and thought it would be fun.  I decided to wrap his shapes from his shape sorter in foil and then he could unwrap them on the way and we'd have the shape sorter to play with at the condo.  He didn't really understand what to do and mainly just threw the shapes out of the bucket at first.  Then I showed him how to do it again and he was able to unwrap a few blocks.  Once again, he was so proud every time he found a "block" under the foil.  I rewrapped them at our condo for the drive home.

*Dollar store baking sheet and magnetic letters.  I put on a few letters and kept the rest in a container in my bag.  He played with this for a little while, but mostly just wanted to take the letters off the board and not put them back on so it didn't last long.

*Velcro board-- I made another velcro board since it had been such a success for our drive to Taos, but the velcro I used this time was not good and it came off most of the toys, so we didn't really use this.  I did give it to him with the velcro pictures from the activity below for him to unvelcro.  He still mainly takes them off the board  and doesn't really try to put them back on.

*Animal and Food matching.  I bought a PDF with some activities from a blogger I follow. It had lots of matching and sorting activities which are really too advanced for Cooper right now, but I thought it was a fun introduction to it and we can definitely use it all again later.  So I laminated the pages and velcrod the pieces on.  Cooper enjoyed taking them off and we put them on the velcro board.  Now that we're home I'll start working with him on matching them when we can sit down together.  But he loves animals and fruits so he liked talking about the pictures as he took it all apart!

* Wipes Container with Fabric.  This activity we recycled from Taos and it was a big hit again.  He loved emptying the container and he even tried to put a few pieces back in!  I just cut up a bunch of different size and textured fabric scraps that I had and stuffed the wipes container full.

* Sensory bottles.  I filled one bottle with buttons and then water and then one with water, glitter glue, and glitter.  They both are fun to look at and catch his eye.

*Noise makers.  Cooper loves shakers, so I threw a few in (the pill bottles are what I used-- I recycled those by filling them with rice and he can shake them) along with a few bells to shake.

*The $2 phone from the thrift store has definitely paid for itself many times over.  We hid it away for the past month and a half so it was like it was brand new again and entertained Cooper for a lot of the ride.

*I threw in a deck of cards for him to empty if we needed it, but we didn't.

*Spice bottle and pipe cleaners.  We also didn't get to this activity of putting pipe cleaners in the holes of an empty spice bottle, but I've got it tucked away for an afternoon when we need some extra stimulation!

And of course lots of books!  I picked up a few board books from the Target Dollar Spot and hid them away for the trip-- animals and colors with lots of pictures.  We brought his Water Wow book and he colored on it some, but not much. 

His photo book is still one of his most prized possessions and this was the third edition.  I buy the cheap photo book from Walmart (less than $1) and print 4x6 pictures of family and favorite things.  I made him a new one for this trip and it had pictures of family members, pictures of some of his friends, and then pictures of a few toys.  I did groups of toys (like several animals in one picture or several books in one picture) and he liked naming them all.  This seriously kept him occupied for the first half of the first day and he loved going back to it every time we got in the car. 

*Oball with ribbons.  This one I added at the last minute so it didn't make the picture.  But I'd found an idea for taking scarves out of an Oball.  We didn't have scarves, so I filled his ball with different lengths of ribbon and left the tails out.  This is another one I gave him on the way to the beach so then we had his ball to play with all week and then I refilled it before we headed home.  He played with this at least 3 different times and seemed to really enjoy it every time.

 His basket all ready to go.  Every time we put him in his car seat, he'd reach over to pick which toys he wanted to play with.

And even though they're hard to see, here's a few action pictures.

Looking at his photo book

  

Q tip push

All of these helped keep Cooper occupied during the trip, but he also really liked having music on.  Usually when we're in the car I listen to podcasts and on our trip we usually find an audiobook to listen to together as well as some podcasts.  But this trip there were several times where we had to turn on some music to cheer Cooper up.  We didn't have any of our kid CDs with us, but we used a lot of Amazon Music and Spotify on our phones.  Some of our favorites to listen to are Seeds Family Worship, Party like a Preschooler, Laurie Berkner Band, Daniel Tiger, and a compilation of singalong songs for kids-- all found on Amazon.  Now when we get in the car at home he immediately asks for music, so we're striking a balance between what he wants and what I want ;)

Whew that was a long post, but I wanted to share the details for the activities that Cooper enjoyed along the way.  Overall, he did great in the car and we didn't even pull out a lot of the things until the last day, but they definitely helped on that day when he was over it!

Play Through the Bible

I had the opportunity to be on the Launch Team for the book Play Through the Bible by Liz Millay.  She has a website, Steadfast Family, that has a ton of ideas and there's actually a whole series on playing through different Bible stories.  She recently compiled several Old Testament stories into a book with lots of activities and crafts as well as teaching tips for each story.  I got to preview the book and thought I'd share our experience with the creation story.

First of all, she says the target age for the activities in the book begins at 2, so obviously Cooper is not there yet.  So some of the activities are ones he's not ready for, but I still thought it'd be interesting to try out the book.  And I found that there was a lot we could do even though he's younger.

Each chapter focuses on one Bible story.  There is a page with teaching tips and main points to review as well as some questions to ask and help your kids answer.  Then there are several crafts as well as several non-craft activities that are active and engaging.  Each story also has a sensory bin idea, a song to sing, and a snack idea.  

For this day of the creation story we focused on the story, the sensory bin, and the snack.  We have the Jesus Storybook Bible on audiobook, so I played the creation story on there while Cooper ate a morning snack and I gathered the materials for the sensory bin.  Then we sat down together and put the sensory bin together.

The sensory bin idea was-- green and blue filler to represent the land and the water (I used blue shredded paper and green easter grass that I'd gotten at Dollar Tree earlier this year), some leaves and twigs, animals and people.  Cooper sat with me as I put each thing in and retold parts of the creation story.  After I put each thing in I'd ask "Who made ______?" and then answer "God!" and he'd repeat "God."  We had grass, "water," leaves from our front yard, a monkey, a lion, a frog, a duck, and an octopus as well as a crossing guard and a dentist since those are the play people we currently have.

Then he dug in!  While he played I played a few songs from Amazon Music that went with the theme.  Our favorite is track one from the album "Ask me Whoo Volume 1" it asks and answers the questions Who Made You? (God!) What else did God make? (All things) Why did God make you and all things? (For his own glory).  We listen to this one a lot and Cooper can answer the questions Who made you? and What else did God make? pretty regularly.  We also added "God Makes Everything" from Big Stories for Little Ones by Rain for Roots and "God Made Everything" from Jesus Came to Save Sinners by The Village Church.

By the end of those 3 songs, Cooper was pretty much over the sensory bin and our living room looked like this :)  He helped me put it all back in and we put the lid on and put it up to play with another day.

After nap we tried out the snack.  It was to make a silly face out of a tortilla, peanut butter, banana and raisins and talk about how God made Cooper special.  Cooper was not so sure about this snack and it took him a long while to want to eat it, but he did eventually gobble it all up!

And here's a video of part of our "lesson."
Also, I am fully aware that ducks do not, in fact, live in the Ocean even though I said this more than once.  Oh well.

Overall this is a great book with a lot of amazing resources.  I know there's a lot of things that can be found free online, but I love how it's all compiled together.  And I like that we can use some of it now and then come back to it when he's a little older and incorporate different activities.  There's a digital version that can be found here and the print version on Amazon.  Today is the last day of launch week, so orders come with some special bonuses.

I also highly recommend checking out the Steadfast Family website and looking at the other Play through the Bible activities-- there's a ton of free resources.  Those are a little craft heavy, so I like the book because it gives so many non-craft ideas as well as the sensory bin and the snack and it has some stories that aren't on the website, but the website is a great starting point.

Orange Beach Vacation: Getting Home

Monday morning it was time to head out.  It was a great weekend at the beach, but it had to come to an end.

I woke up pretty early, so I sat on the balcony and read while I watched the sunrise.

One last selfie at the beach before hitting the road.

We decided to go back a different route than we came.  When you look up directions to Orange Beach, there are two options that take pretty much the same amount of time.  So on the way to the beach we drove East and then South through Mississippi and Alabama.  On the way back we drove west and then North through Louisiana.  So we stopped at the Mississippi/Louisiana border for some pictures and to run off some energy.

We made it Alexandria (where our hotel was) around 5:00, so we grabbed dinner at Cracker Barrel and then settled in for the night.  Cooper went to sleep pretty easily and David and I watched a show on his iPad.

The next morning we were up and ready for breakfast.  We had considered trying out a children's museum in Alexandria before heading home, but decided to forego it and go ahead and get on the road.

Driving North, the East rising sun was in Cooper's eyes, so we made a quick stop to get him his sunglasses and a paci.  I was surprised he kept his glasses on and then he promptly fell asleep.

He woke up just as we were getting to Shreveport, so we decided to stop for some play time at a park we'd found not far from the highway.  He did some climbing on the playground, but also just loved running through the grass.

Last lunch on the road before the final leg of our trip.  We grabbed some Raising Cane's and some gas and hit the road.  We were able to drive the rest of the way from Shreveport to home without any stops.  We made it home around 3:00, got unpacked and then went to pick up Lily.

Lily stayed with my brother while we were gone and Cooper was so excited to see her when we picked her up!  We were glad to be reunited and settled back home.

This beach vacation was definitely a great end to the summer.  After Labor Day, we start up some activities and will be getting into a new routine.  It was fun getting away with our family and we really had a good time on the road together.

Orange Beach Vacation: Saturday and Sunday

Saturday we got up and were ready for another day outside.  We decided to try out the pool and the lazy river at our complex in the morning. 

We put on Cooper's puddlejumper and he floated the lazy river for quite a while.  We also spent some time with him riding on a tube with us, splashing in the pool, and exploring their splash pad by the pool.  David and I were planning to go parasailing that afternoon, but we got a call around 10:30 that it was cancelled due to weather (it was raining/storming off and on the whole time we were there) so we rescheduled for the next day and settled in for a day at the beach with Cooper.

After the pool we went up to the condo for lunch and a nap.  David and I watched some TV and then as soon as Cooper got up we headed down to the beach.

Ready to go!

Cooper loves carrying bags and buckets around, so he carried his bucket with toys down to the beach and was pretty precious with it.

It was a little harder for him to walk the sand with the bucket, but he still insisted on doing it.

He filled the cup with sand and then tried to drink it #toddlerlife

We had bought this little tent off Amazon so we had somewhere shaded to play at the beach.  Cooper played in it for a whole 5 minutes and then was over it.  Even though the rain and storms made part of our trip harder, it did help us not worry as much as about the sun and kept us all from getting burnt.  We probably would have used the tent a whole lot more if it was sunnier, but it worked out well and I'm glad we had it in case we needed it.

We headed back out to the water and splashed some more.  I also took Cooper a little further out and he loved splashing in the waves.

We were all pretty worn out after a day outside!

The rest of the evening was spent back at the condo.  We did have more family come in, including some of Cooper's 2nd cousins (my cousins' kids).  Cooper had a blast with these girls and they were so good with him!

The girls left to go shopping and Cooper was heartbroken.  He recovered pretty quickly with tacos and guacamole.

Sunday morning we woke up to rain and storms, so we all stayed in the condo most of the day.  Cooper once again had a blast with his second cousins.  They would run with him up and down the hall and he would immediately ask for more and they were happy to oblige.

Our parasailing once again got cancelled, so we decided to sneak away for a different date.  We found a place that supposedly had an indoor ropes course.  When we got there it was a pretty small course and it was set right over the arcade, so we decided to forego that and do some bowling.  We played one game of bowling and then spent some money on arcade games.  It was fun getting to spend an afternoon together while Cooper napped at the condo with family.

After we got home from our date afternoon, we headed down to the beach for some family pictures.  

Cooper much preferred walking around with grandma and daddy and climbing on the beach chairs.

We hadn't planned on swimming again, but he was so excited about the water that we quickly ran upstairs and put on our swimsuits and went back out for a little while.  We were only out for about 30 minutes, but he had a lot of fun once again.

Then we settled in for dinner and bedtime.  We packed up some and got ready for our last night in the condo.  Hard to believe our beach vacation was pretty much over, but we had a really good time.