DIY learning activities

Hello again!
Recently my husband and I decided that we would jump start Sirah's education a little. Her birthday falls at a time that if she were going to traditional school, she would have to wait an extra year to start. My husband and his siblings were home-schooled. After lots of consideration and prayer we have decided that our children will be as well. Sirah has always been a little ahead of the game as far as development goes, so I am capitalizing on that a little. I have decided to go ahead and start having "school time" as often as she wants to have it. I think that if we instill a love of learning early, it will always be there.
Now that I have rambled, on to the fun stuff! I managed to score a pretty decent starter set of educational books and workbooks from Walmart, The Dollar Tree, and Target. I wanted to have something else that we could do that would be fun too. Sirah loves these little flashcard sets I picked up at The Dollar Tree.

We might go back to these once she gets a more firm grasp on her letters and shapes. However, the pictures on the cards are proving to be more distracting than anything for her right now. So, I did what anyone would do. I went to Pinterest and I heated up the Scotch Laminator. I found worksheets for colors, shapes, letters and numbers. I just printed everything out and laminated them. I cut everything down and boom! Flashcards.

I also decided to make a matching game. I printed two more pages of the shapes. First, I took one set of shapes and cut them all out and glued them onto a piece of paper. Then, I ran it through the laminator. Next, I laminated the other set. Once those were laminated, I cut out the shapes and put velcro on all of them. It turned out to be a very simple project. She hasn't had a chance to play with it yet, but I know she'll love it.

If anyone has any other suggestions for DIY learning activities, I would love to hear them.

Thanks for reading!

20 days or less

Hello again!
 This blog is pretty much going to be me rambling on about all of the things I need to remind myself to do before E is born. I am finally at a place with his room that I feel like I can relax a little. Which is actually pretty wonderful given the random pains I have been feeling the last week or so. There are a few last minute things I would like to do, but I will survive if they wait until after he is born. I snapped a few quick pictures of how his room looks now. Mostly to give myself a little perspective and realize that,even though it feels like I will never finish my list of a million things to do, the room has actually come pretty far.

Now, I obviously need to hang the whale pictures and the anchor. I also have one last DIY project I would like to do. And I need to find a curtain. Or make one. I'm still a little unsure what I want to do with that. Other than that, there are just a few other things left to do before we head to the hospital. I of course need to pack for everyone. Thinking of it is kind of overwhelming, but I know I'm making it a bigger deal than it will be. We need to install the car seat as you see in the picture above. I would love to have a day to clean the carpets in the living room. I still have a few recipes I need to get together so I can take a day to prepare some meals. I would like to have at least a week or two worth of meals in the freezer. I'm not sure how realistic that is, but initially I wanted to cook for an entire month. I need to clear the storage on my phone and cameras.  I have a tendency to take twenty photos when one is clearly sufficient. And lastly, I need to make a list of everything I need to have ready to go, but don't necessarily want stashed in a bag for 3 weeks. That list seems to grow and grow. Making me think that actually packing everyone's bags will probably be a grab and go type of situation. But, as long as I have my list, I should be good to go. Right?

Anyway, I have otherwise been spending my time soaking up my last few weeks as a parent of just one. I know the dynamic in our house will change. I just hope that S is ok with everything. I'm sure she will adjust fine. But I wouldn't be a mother if I didn't worry about it a little. We have 20 short days until he is due. Some days I feel like he could come any minute. Others feel like I will have this basketball under my shirt forever. Hopefully it's more like the first scenario.

Thanks for reading!

-BreAnn