~Smiley is currently 16 months old~

We had fun walking around a Chinese Garden early in the week. Smiley loved to look at the fish and other animals...

The best part however, were their kid fountains. So much fun playing in the water!

We practiced fine motor skills by transferring straws into this sport bottle.

He had fun coloring with jumbo crayons.

However, putting them back into their box was just a lot more fun :)

We painted with dot paint.

He had fun stacking pegs.

The pegboard was a little tricky because it requires you to push the pegs in pretty hard. We may have to get another pegboard until Smiley is a little older.

We got a new puzzle this week that requires him to match two pieces by color. We haven't really figured this out yet though :)

But you can just chew on it....

Smiley was a great helper this week. He likes to help mommy unload the dishwasher and is usually in charge of the flatware (minus the knives) and the tupper ware.

putting the flatware in the right drawer. Now we just have to learn to put the spoons with the spoons and the forks with the forks.

He even helped mommy clean the floors...

We worked with little pom poms this week. Smiley transferred them into egg holders. This was pretty difficult for him, but he managed to do it.

Of course, stacking the egg holders is great fun too!

Smiley absolutely loves to dance. It doesn't matter what the tune, he will dance to it. Here, he has just turned on his leap frog fridge dj, and is dancing to one of their songs.

We did some more dot painting later in the week. Smiley made this paintaing for his Nena's birthday next week.

Smiley really likes music and he learned how to blow a whistle. He now wants to practice his new skill almost every day ;)

If you would like to read more tot school posts, please visit Carisa's blog at 1plus1plus1equals1.

Tot Food

Here are some easy lunches *Smiley* had this week. He is only 15 months old and does not eat a whole lot for each meal...

One day, he had organic split pea soup, organic carrots and organic blackberries. He absolutely loves split pea soup and it is a staple lunch item around here :)

Another day, he had organic carrots, all natural, nitrate-free turkey breast, cheese cubes, and organic grapes. He finished everything except the turkey breast. He's not very big on meat and just had a couple of bites.

Another day, he had fried rice made with brown rice, organic eggs and green onion. With this he had one organic meatball (only ate half), and mixed organic berries.

If you would like to read abut other tot food ideas, please check out totally tots.

Tot School

~Smiley is currently 15 months old~

We had a fun tot school week and I actually had the camera handy for most of it. We started by playing with our PARENTS blocks. He still enjoys them.


We practiced stacking them...
He loves loves loves these nesting cups. He's gotten pretty good at stacking them now.

He played with his magnadoodle.

He's really mechanically inclined these days, and just loves using screwdrivers or anything similar to twist screws...

We colored this week. He's getting much better with his crayons and no longer tries to eat them :)

He really enjoyed taking the crayons out of their box and putting them back in. He probably did this longer than he spent on the actual drawing ;)

We worked again on transfering these sticks from one cup to another.

He's really into climbing these days and spent much time climbing on and off our chair and couch. He also managed to walk up stairs (instead of crawling) holding on to the railing.

He liked transferring pasta into a bottle so much last time that we did it again this week.

We used stickers for the first time this week. I was a little hesitant and didn't know if Smiley would be able to do it, but he did great and ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!! It was the big hit this week. He did really well with it.

I removed the outside part of the stickers, so he could grab them more easily.

The finished product:

He always loves watching daddy do the Wi fit and likes to participate as well.

We played with the xylophone a few times this week and Smiley did really well with it.

He practiced putting his finger puppets in their little pockets.

He got a new toy this week. A little people shape sorter boat. He really likes it. He still doesn't really know which shapes go in which hole, but he's doing well with it, eventually finding a hole through which they fit :)

Another new activity we tried was putting pasta in holes that I made into a cereal box. I saw this activity at the wilson ramblings, which is a great resource for younger tots. Smiley loved the activity and did really well with it. I am always surprised how much more even younger tots can do than we give them credit for.

If you would like to read more tot school posts, make sure to check out Carisa's blog at: 1plus1plus1equals1.