The Life of a Running Momma

She's always grabbing her shirts or dressed and pulling them up!

He still plays with my hair when he's tired.

At the garden for Storytime in the Garden.

He wrote his name in the sand and it actually looked like his name!

Elise loves holding and trying to turn the pages when we read.

Elise rolled over until she was right against Harper.

In the news truck during the library's Touch a Truck event.

In the ambulance during the library's Touch a Truck event.

Talking to an EMT during the library's Touch a Truck event.

Checking out the ambulance equipment during the library's Touch a Truck event.

Inside a Scooby Doo van during the library's Touch a Truck event.

The police helicopter may have been Carter's favorite during the library's Touch a Truck event.

In a police car during the library's Touch a Truck event.

Coloring at an easel in the library.

Reading one of the books we picked out at the library.

Silly face!

Side tracked while taking Harper on a walk.

Elise's new thing is to grab and hold her car seat cover.

I tried to talk Carter into getting into the stroller but he said he was just resting...

My dinner helpers!

Carter showing Elise a toy to play with.

Just like his daddy, he accidentally knocked he tray off.

Carter was so proud that he had helped make dinner.

He found a roly poly and asked me to take a picture for his Gma and Gpa because they have them in their garage. It was so cute! After I took the picture he thanked me.

Enjoying some Dip N Dots at the waterpark with Uncie Taco.

Trying out the new cover for the wagon I got for my birthday.

Carter loves holding Bobbie!

Enjoying an outdoor concert on my parents' anniversary.

Carter enjoying the music.

She really reached so she could play with Carter's ball.

Making his grocery list.

The best running buddies you could ever have!

Carter wanted to take pictures of Harper.

Then he wanted me in the picture.

When we got to the aquarium he climbed up by the shark statue and posed without me asking!

I snuck Elise in the picture.

Elise loved the jellyfish. They were also Carter's favorite for a long time.

Carter wanted to hold Elise so she could see the sting rays.

We got to watch the beavers eat.

Harper jumped up so she could walk behind Carter.

Carter made the train track all by himself!

Elise rolled to her tummy while asleep.

It made me nervous, but she looked so cute!

It was so cute to see her lifting her head and looking out the slats when she woke up!

Harper watching over Elise while she slept.

Drawing in the dirt.

Carter decided he wanted to pull the wagon.

Elise watching the jelly fish.

Such a good big brother!

Carter and Uncie Taco at the concert.

Carter absolutely loves bubbles and they are just such a perfect summer activity so I figured why not create a whole theme around bubbles. I planned to do the theme when I did because we went on a trip to St. Louis and they have an amazing children's museum. I knew the children's museum has an awesome section on bubbles. What a perfect field trip for our week!

Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. I have updated our objectives a second time because I felt like we were ready to focus on something new. I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives. Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

Continue to improve fine motor skills and drawing (specifically I'm looking for him to be able to copy a circle and a square as well as draw a person with 2-4 body parts).
Understand same and different.
Accurately tell stories as well as retell the story from a book.

Use age appropriate scissors.
Develop a better understanding of time (for example, be able to describe when things happen using morning, afternoon, night)

Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature).

Count and understand what the numbers mean.

Activities/Movement:

Obviously we spent a lot of time outside engaging in free exploration, blowing bubbles. I saw an idea here for making a bubble station. It was a genius idea as Carter tends to always blow bubbles for quite a while and then suddenly, unexpectedly dumps the rest of the bubble liquid on the ground. So first thing Monday morning I was electrical taping some bubble tubes to a pole in our backyard and we had a blast blowing bubbles. We'd take turns running and chasing the bubbles to pop them. As we'd pop them we'd count to see how many we got.

I surprised Carter with a bubble blowing gun. He thought it was the coolest thing ever and it worked great to blow bubbles toward Elise. I was so excited to get to incorporate an activity geared toward Elise! We took turns blowing bubbles near, but not at, her. We'd pop them and yell "pop" as we did so which really got her attention. I'd look at her and say "more?" when she made eye contact or a noise back at me I'd say. "Okay, we'll blow more!" Carter loved playing with Elise and it will be fun to do with her again when she's older and can reach for the bubbles.
When I saw this activity when searching for books about bubbles I knew it would be perfect since our first week of our bubble theme involved a 5 hour car trip to visit family. I ended up not making it for our trip and then instead of drawing pictures under the bubbles on the bubble wrap I used stickers. I would tell Carter which sticker to find and then he'd pop the bubble over the sticker. Then he enjoyed picking a sticker and telling me which bubble he was going to pop.
One of Carter's favorite activities throughout our time was playing with bubbles in the bath. After he had a bubble bath he started asking for one every night. We didn't do it every night but we did do quite a few. He had so much fun with it.
It also worked out well that our bubble week happened to coincide with Carter really starting to take off with potty training. He'd wash his hands after going to the bathroom and I'd let him play with the soap making bubbles. He thought it was an absolute blast!
I had been looking for different shaped wands all summer so we could try them out and Carter could see that bubbles are always round spheres. I mentioned it to my mom and she'd seen some at Wal-Mart so she bought them for us. Thanks to her we got to sort the wands based on their shape and then we tried them all out. There was even one that you put in your mouth and blew into. That was probably Carter's favorite.

Using the special blow wand.

My mom had given me a bunch of bubble wrap a while back for Carter to play with and I had stored it after he'd gotten to play with it a little bit initially. The bubble wrap had small bubbles so I also bought some with large bubbles. We popped the bubble wrap and talked about why it made noise and what was inside the bubbles. I also told Carter we can't see air but we can see how it fills things up like bubbles and balloons. He had a blast with the bubble wrap and would drag it along behind him in the house. Then he'd lay it down and walk or jump on it to pop it. Then this past weekend there was bubble wrap around a present I got for my birthday. It was made like little bags with the sides connected together. We'd put them on our hands and clap, wave, and use them as puppets. They were a blast and Elise loved them too.

I've had so much fun finding ways to incorporate Elise into our themes. This time I taped bubble wrap to the table. I let Carter pick out a flavor of pudding when we went grocery shopping. Then Ty made the pudding for us while I got the kids stripped down and ready. They each had their own section to play with. We put the pudding on the bubble wrap and watched to see what happened and how it went in between the bubbles. I used the large bubble wrap and then did another one with small bubble wrap so we could compare. I even let Elise stand on the bubble wrap and feel the pudding on her feet.

Craft:

I cut different shapes out of bubble wrap and we used them to make a painting. We would dip them in paint and them place them on our paper. Carter hadn't been interested in popping the bubble wrap until we got to this activity. Then, naturally, he put one shape on his picture and then followed Harper around popping the bubble wrap in her ear and laughing hysterically.

We made a bubble picture by drawing circles all over a piece of paper. It also gave Carter some practice with drawing circles.

Special Snack:

For the theme I bought bubble gum. I chewed some gum and showed Carter how I could blow bubbles. I let him have a little bit because he was desperate to try blowing bubbles. He ended up swallowing it but I figured it was such a small chunk it wouldn't matter. He loved reaching over and popping my bubbles and Elise also enjoyed watching me blow them. We actually had quite a bit of fun with the game!

Make Believe:

We watched bubbles float away and then I talked with Carter about what they would float over. I asked him to think about what he would see if he were a bubble. Then we pretended to float around as bubbles and described what we saw on our journey.

Songs:

We sang a cute song I found here. It is sung to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot" and goes like this:

I'm a little bubble, shiny and round.

I gently float down to the ground.

The wind lifts me up and then I drop.

Down to the ground where I pop.

I also found an adorable song with actions on the same website. It goes like this:

Here is a bubble (make a circle with your thumb and index finger).

And here's a bubble (make a circle with your other thumb and index finger).

And here is a great big bubble I see (use your arms to make a large circle).

Let's count the bubbles we've made,

1, 2, 3! (repeat the previous actions as you count)

I found another cute song on this website. It is sung to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel" and goes like this:

All around the playground

The toddler chased the bubble.

The toddler thought twas all in good fun.

POP! Goes the bubble!

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

When we were at the St. Louis children's museum we made sure to stop by the bubble room. It was so cool because they have stuff set up for kids to try different shaped wands to see what shape bubbles they made. That was both Carter and my favorite part of the room.

Making large bubbles.

Trying different shapes with the bubble mix.

Using tubing to make bubbles.
I had a small container of bubbles in the car all throughout our bubble theme. We took them with us multiple places to blow bubbles. Carter even blew bubbles during a run a couple times.

Blowing bubbles from the stroller on a run.