TOT SCHOOL - WEEK OF JULY 11

I forgot to mention during Tot Tuesday that last week's Tot School is posted on our other blog: Hart2Hart. Go check it out!

4H FAIR

We went to the 4H Fair yesterday with our friends, Lydia and Hank (and their Mommy, Stephanie). Morgan LOVED all the animals....obviously. Her favorites were the bunnies and the goats. But we also saw roosters, cows, pigs, and sheep.

ADORABLE!

Aunt Jamie sent us this picture from our "cousins photo shoot" that she edited and worked with....she has a great photo editing software of some kind. Didn't it turn out so super cute?

COUSIN MOLLY'S BIRTHDAY

Molly's birthday is a week before Morgan's, and we celebrated it Thursday night with a picnic in the park. It turned out to be a gorgeous night, and we had so much fun.

EATING BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES

OPENING PRESENTS

She LOVED this baby doll from her Grandma Amy.

MORGAN HAVING FUN

Aunt Cali had BUBBLES!

Clapping along with Grandpa Doug to the live music that was going on in the park.

Playing with some of Molly's tissue paper.

Eating a popsicle with Mommy.

CUTE COUSINS

I had to take Morgan to get one last shot today at the health department. She did great, only crying hard right when they did it. Then, just as quickly as she started, she stopped. Whew! Anyway, since we were in town, we stopped by Cousin Natali and Cousin Connell's house. Fun times!

They love each other so much!

They always enjoy each other's company.

I love Connell's face in that second picture...

It's always hard to get all three of them looking AND smiling at the same time. But sometimes it's the random pictures that are the best. It shows their true personalities.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

(I have to remember that she can now reach things quite well....even if I think they are out of her reach.)

TOT TUESDAY

Okay, there is so much I could write about for Tot Tuesday. But something that stands out in my mind right now is how I absolutely LOVE being able to actually carry on conversations with Morgan. She understands pretty much everything I say now, and I can understand about 90% of what she says. I love this age because of that. Something we have been doing randomly throughout our day, but always before bed after we read our two books, is doing "categories" and "sequencing." In other words, I'll ask her what she wants to talk about today and she'll say something like, "Parade" or "park" or "zoo" or "sky" depending on what we did or saw that day. Then, we'll take turns listing all the things that are at a parade, or park, or zoo, or in the sky, etc. She kinda started this "game" on her own after going to the 4th of July parade. She'd come up to me and say, "I go to praid." I'd say, "What did you see there?" Then, she'd list all the things she saw. I begun to realize this was a good memory excercise as well as good work with vocabulary, so we continued with the idea for other things in her day. When she'd say, "Let's go park." I'd say, "What will we see at the park?" Tonight she obviously wanted to talk about the zoo since we went to the Springfield Zoo today to meet up with one of Jared's college buddies and his family. We had so much fun taking turns listing the things we saw. (The monkeys and goats seemed to be her favorite.) I have also started to do some sequencing with her as well. During our before bed conversations, I will also ask, "What did we do today?" I'll start off naming some things in order that we do every day, and then ask her to fill in the special things we did. She loves this quick "conversation" time before bed (and other times in our day that lend to it), and so do I. I also love that she is learning some important skills without even knowing it! :) That's the teacher in me! :)

BIRTHDAY TOYS

So much fun has been had the last two days playing with new birthday toys. Morgan spends forever just "pretending" with her kitchen and baby doll set. She fixes breakfast for baby, takes baby for walks, talks on the phone to Aunt Cali (every time she plays with her little phone from the kitchen set she says she is talking to Cali), feeds baby a bottle, takes baby to the potty, and puts baby to "seep." I have fun just sitting on the couch watching her imagination work.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Today was Jared's birthday. Morgan was so cute as she said, "Happy burtday, Daddy!" and attempted to sing him the birthday song. We sang it many times today.

We ended up having a combined birthday party for Jared AND Morgan since we aren't going to be here on her actual birthday. We decided that we could get away with combining celebrations at this point, as she doesn't really care yet. I had blown up quite a few balloons for the party, and she decided to make a balloon boat before everyone got there.

Opening Gifts

Morgan got a magnadoodle, some Crayola Color Wonder paper, a Tag Junior Reading pal and some books to go with it, a baby doll set with a stroller and highchair / swing, a baby doll, a puzzle, some books, a Little People ABC/123 set, a bubble set, and a kitchen. Daddy got a Sears gift card, a Lowe's gift card, a Chili's gift card, and some money. Thanks everyone!

Morgan's friend, Lydia, who had her birthday last month, helped Morgan open her gifts since she is the expert at it now. :)

PLAYING WITH GIFTS

The kitchen was a big attraction for all the kids.

EATING CAKE

OUR GUESTS

We tried and tried to get a good picture with some of the kids....This is the best I got on my camera.

Cousin Molly

"DALK"

I introduced Morgan to chalk yesterday.....She loved it!

MORE 4TH OF JULY

I totally forgot to post pictures of our get-togther at Grandma and Grandpa Hart's house on the 4th of July.

Morgan spent a long time in the basement with Cousin Natali playing with Aunt Jamie's and Daddy's old toys from when they were kids.


She especially loved the kitchen set and accessories...and making playdough creations for "food."

All that cooking makes one tired....

She really enjoyed blowing bubbles with her cousins....

....and Daddy.