It's a Boy!!!!!

His arrival was just as big of a surprise as his gender. After a very hard to accept emergency C-section this baby made his arrival at 34 weeks. It was hard, heartbreaking, and scary but I am so thankful to say he is here and healthy. And I am now a proud mama of three boys. 

Things have been long and overwhelming. He is still in the NICU and we are anxiously waiting for him to get a hang of the whole eating thing before he gets released. Life has been a giant balancing act between spending time in the hospital while still trying to sneak in some cuddles for my older boys. No matter where I am I feel like I am missing something. There is just no easy decision  these days. 

I am thankful for a loving and amazing family that all came together and came ready to wipe tears, give extra hugs and overall take care of all of us during this time. My MIL has been amazing and I am so thankful that she is sticking around for a while to help. 

Maybe one day I will share my birth story as I have with the other two boy. One day when we are all together under one roof  and I am able to contain the tears enough to see my screen. For now I am holding on to the fact that he is healthy and will be home soon and we will all be together again. 

Family Hike and a fun announcement

        

  Today we spent the day as a family and went for a much needed hike. I was so proud of Bear he hiked a whole 1.5 miles with the first half being a total incline. It was a proud parent moment. Wolf spent his time trying to spot dogs on the trail, eating PB&j  and pulling on my hair. Needless to say it was a fantastic day. And surprisingly this is the first photo I have actually taken while being pregnant. That's right I have somehow avoided being infront of a camera for half of my pregnancy. In retrospect I am not really sure why. We have been thrilled with this news but we haven't really shared it with anyone besides our close circle. Whatever the reason was it's all going to change because this bump is growing and it's time to start celebrating. Here's to a soon to be family of 5.

Birds of a feather

We started our morning with breakfast and some art. The boys were in exceptionally good spirits and eager to get dirty. This project is simple, all you need are some paints, paper and some feathers (plumes if you want to be fancy). 

The great thing about this project is it gets better as the time goes on. The feathers start sticking together  and sticking to your fingers as you go on painting. Bear was not only creating art but experiencing a whole new texture at the same time. I have to say that sticky, paint filled feathers made him giggle and get frustrated all the same time. As you can see W only used his feather to paint for a total of two seconds before attempting to eat his paint. 

They both spent the rest of their morning giggling and getting messy. Afterwards we hung out paintings to dry. Look at Bear's face in the last image! He was so proud of his work.

Sound Hunt

 Thank you again to Thomas for sparking up Bear's latest obsession. "The wise old owl" I can't recall the episode but somehow there is an owl in the plot.  Now,that is all he talks about.  My MIL and I were talking about where we should take the next curriculum (she helps write it). In conversation I told her about the "wise owl" story and how B talks about them all the time. We thought it would be great to take that subject and run with it for a while. Incorporating the five senses was a perfect way to expand on this a little more.

Our first day we started with hearing. We went over the sounds that owls make. We found this YouTube video that really captures a clear owl sound and watched it a few time trying to mimic the sound that we heard. I explained that we listen with our ears, having him identify his ears as well as the ears of the stuffed owl we had. Then we were off on our sound hunt.

Here's how to play.

1. Identify the sound you will be looking for. In this case it was the owl sound from the YouTube video  that we listened to earlier.

2. Have your toddler walk away or cover his eyes. Then hide the "sound"( I used my phone and played the video once I decided on the hiding spot) I also hid the stuffed owl along with it.

3. Have your toddler come back or uncover his eyes and try to find sound. Tip: Make sure that the track  or video is long enough to give them enough time to locate. The clip I used was a minute long and that was just enough time for both the boys to find.

4. For younger toddlers make the hiding spots more obvious. I noticed that W (15m) was able to find the general location of the sound but if the spot was too tough he wasn't able to find it.

5. Continue hiding as long as your little one wants. Bear played about 4 rounds of this game before loosing interest while W only played twice before walking away to play something else.

Don't feel limited to just owl sounds this game can work with any sounds or music. The main objective is having to listen to find the object.

**This post was submitted to: Kid's Co-op, Tot School Tuesday 

Pumpkin Science

 This by far has been one of the cheapest, most fun activities I have done with the boys thus far. At a total of  47 cents for this little pumpkin at our grocery store, my only regret is that I didn't purchase a ton to decorate with. One of my very favorite types of activities to do with the boys are the ones where all I do is set up and watch the show.

First of I set up their small work table in the kitchen. I cut the pumpkin in half and gave a half to each of the boys. Wolf only stayed at the party for  a little before he had to take his nap but I am so happy he got to experience this.

Bear got right in at first and I helped describe the texture using words like "squishy, slimy, sticky, yucky" he wasn't totally sold about the texture so I gave him a spoon to help him keep playing. He began sorting out all the pumpkin seeds so I gave him a few small bowls to sort out the guts and the seeds. And like any toddler with a spoon of course he had to taste test it. Apparently not a big fan of the taste but I believe that may be the only thing he disliked from this whole experience.

Fall sand play {Kids Co-op}

Fall is almost here!!! I, like so many would say that fall is my favorite season. That slight chill in the air, pumpkin spice, the extra blankets you throw on the bed at night. Oh yes it is all so sweet. 

Over the weekend we went on a nature walk and collected rocks, sticks, and some pretty freshly fallen leaves. The next morning we placed those collected items in the sand table and let the boys explore. W mainly liked hitting the sand with his shovel while B dug the sand with the sticks and had fun hiding the rocks under the sand and coming back to dig them up. He even made a "tree" from one of the leaves we collected. 

B loved collecting items during our walk in his little pail and seemed to like playing with them afterwards as well. I loved that it was such a simple activity that can change each time we do it based on what we collect. 

Music Time *Kids co-op*

The Boys Favorite Album I've had it since B was born 

For Wolf's birthday I was pretty stumped as to what to get him. We have some amazing family member that are always very generous to our boys so we really don't NEED anything. Still I am a firm believer that birthdays are a big deal and he still had to get a present. Husband and I took a while to decide on something and finally we decided on instruments. We didn't own any and when I though about it I realized we don't ever do any music play. 

We listen to music often but I have never really made it a planned activity besides my occasional morning time songs that I learned at the preschool.  This avoidance probably comes from my complete lack of musical abilities. Both my brothers are very musical but not me.... it's bad.

So the last couple of afternoons I have really stretched my comfort zone and had music time with the boys. Yesterday it was just us being silly exploring the instruments and me attempting to sing songs to the best of my ability... Guess what, Wolf loved it! He didn't care that I couldn't carry a tune. He shook his shakers, beat his drum and danced along the entire time. Bear was not quite as engaged but came around from time to time to dance and bang on something. 

Today I tried again this time with music in the background and it was a hit for both of them. Bear danced his little heart out and Wolf banged his drum and wood blocks. 

How do you incorporate music with your little ones? I would love to hear some of your ideas. 

Have your paint and eat it too *Wee Can Too**

If you follow me on Twitter (@cuteandpeculiar) you know how excited I was to receive our Wee Can Too paint. If you are not familiar with Wee Can Too they are an all natural, vegan, edible paint specifically aimed to babies and toddler. As I have mentioned before W is still very oral and most of his art projects end up in his tummy. I was so thrilled to hear that with Wee Can Too paint that is 100% okay. SWEET! I host an art group at my house from time to time and it is so reassuring to know that I am able to offer such a safe product for even the youngest artist. (once they are eating solids of course). 

I had to try them out the minute we got them. The first product to sample was the Baby Finger Paint.  It calls for equal parts water and paint mixed in a separate container. ( I ended up using more water than this to make the paint more spreadable. The texture is a bit grainy but I was so pleased with the pigment in the paints especially the yellow. Both the boys loved it and I was so excited to not have to worry about W eating it. I was also very surprised by how much paint you get from such a small amount. I used a little less then a tablespoon of each paint color and that was more then enough paint for both the boys. I still have a few products that I received and will let you know how those work out as well.  I can't wait to try them. 

**paint courtesy of Wee Can Too all opinions were my own**

I am sharing this post on: Two in Diapers Mommy-Brain mixer

Wolf first birthday present

I can't believe that W will be one in just a couple of weeks! This time has gone by so fast and our lives have changed so much since he was born. We moved from California to Oregon when he was only 6 weeks old. Insane! Now here we are wrapping up the first year of his little life as well as our first year back in OR. It is a little bittersweet. When B was turning one I was sad to see the baby stage go, but I was pregnant so I knew that I would be doing it again soon. But now with no plans for baby #3 yet I am even more sad to see it go. But in NO rush either. Just to be clear :).

Monday morning had a few interesting surprises (read more here) but this was one of the best. W received his first birthday present from my brother and his family.  Please note how eager B is to "help" W open those cars :) BOTH the boys have been very excited to play with W's new toys over the last few days. Thanks Uncle B!!!!!

pvc pipe- part 1

I have been pretty inspired to make a few PVC toys for the boys and I am still working out the process in my head as to what the finished product will be. In the mean time I pulled out a few pieces of PCV pipe that Husband had left over from a previous project. We had a 4' long piece that is 2" wide and a few pre-cut pieces  that are 2" long and 1.5" wide. My initial idea was to have them use it as a tunnel to roll a ball or a car in but we don't own any toys small enough. So I decided to pull out the good ol' pom poms.

The verdict: Though I really think rolling bells, balls, or cars would have been a little more entertaining (I feel like this project needed noise) It was still fun and W even came up with a game of shoving all  the pom poms into the smaller PVC pipes. He was very surprised to find them all on the floor after all his hard work.
B had fun shoving as many pom poms as he could into the longer piece that had a small bucket at the bottom of it to catch them. He also enjoyed trying to stack the smaller pieces and finally he took a turn at W's game.  Has anyone made kids toys with PVC?