Ella Jane

Ella Jane arrived on Monday, October 27, 2008 at 3:11pm. She weighed 8lbs and 7oz and was 20.5". She is a very content, sweet baby and a great sleeper!

Fun with Frappuccinos

Our grocery store was running a special on Starbuck's Frappuccinos - buy 2 and get the 3rd free. So we bought several 4-packs to take with us on our trip. Today, Arin found them. She had so much fun playing with these. First, she lined them all up in a row and counted them. Then, she just had fun taking them out of their carriers and switching them around. This entertained her for a long time!

Counting Ballerinas

I am not a big fan of keeping gift bags. However, my little sister gave Arin a gift this week (thank you) and the gift bag had ballerinas all over it. It's been a while since we have done any "school" and I think that Arin and I are both missing it. So when I saw the ballerinas, I decided to make it into a game for school. I cut out all of the ballerinas (all of the ones that you could see all of their body). Then, I glued the ballerinas onto cardstock. One ballerina on one piece of paper, two on another, three on another and so on up to nine because that's all the whole ballerinas I had. Next, I stenciled the numbers 1-9 on index cards. The purpose of this game is for Arin to count the ballerinas and then match the correct number to the amount of ballerinas.


Today, I had to take my car to get the a/c fixed, so we brought this game with us and played it while we waited. Arin did enjoy the game, but I think she would have played it longer in our home setting, so we'll try it again sometime.

Sticker Queen

Arin found the stickers today.

Family Gift From Candace

Last week, my little sister, Candace, gave us a family gift of money. We decided to use this money to go out for ice cream. We went to McDonald's so that Arin could play in the play place, as well as eat her ice cream. She had a blast! Thank you Candace!
After getting ice cream, we went to the library for storytime. I haven't been doing too much "school" with Arin lately. We've had so much going on and I am just exhausted since I am so close to my due date. So it was really nice that Arin was able to get out and run around and be with other kids.
The storytime theme was farm animals. The craft was gluing animals onto a spiral mobile.

Gifts from Uncle Brian, Aunt Angela & Family

Uncle Brian, Aunt Angela and family gave Arin a gift of money. We used the money to buy two gifts.

When we were at the kids' consignment shop, I found a wagon full of MegaBlocks. Arin already had some MegaBlocks, but I had been wanting to get her some more, because they are something that she plays with often. Also, when we go to one little girl's house for playgroup, she has a wagon of blocks that Arin loves to pull around, so I knew this would be a great gift for her.

She loved playing with the blocks. She also used the wagon to pull her baby doll in. Gotta love the toys that can be used for more than one purpose!

Yesterday, we were in Target. We were looking at toys, so Arin could spend the rest of her gift money. I found a game that I had been wanting to make for Arin. This particular game is BINGO, and when Arin gets older, we will play it that way, but for now we used it as a listening/matching game. Arin would push the button and hear the sound that an object would make (bark for a dog, ribbit for a frog, etc.). Then she would look on her gameboard and see if she had the correct object. If she did, then she would cover it up with a circle. This game was a huge hit.

Thank you Uncle Brian, Aunt Ang & kids!

Arin's Easel

Arin was given a gift of money by Mr. & Mrs. Rhodes at church this week. Andy and I have been wanting to get Arin an easel, because she loves coloring so much. I just haven't been able to bring myself to spend the $40-$80 that they cost. I went to a kid's consignment shop and I found an easel for $20, which we bought with Arin's gift money. The easel is in great shape.

Arin is having so much fun coloring on this.

This is the picture we'll be using for the thank you card.

New Shoes

My mom and dad gave Arin a gift of $20. She needed some tennis shoes. I had plans of buying her a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of casual dress shoes that could be worn with jeans or skirts. I decided to check out my favorite consignment shops for shoes before going to the regular stores. I hit the jackpot! For $22 I found five pairs of shoes for Arin (sizes 7.5-9.5, so she can grow into some!). Some of the shoes were brand new and some very lightly worn.

The pair of white shoes are Arin's favorite, even though they are a little big. She cried when I had her take them off so I could get a picture of them!

Bubble Gun

Arin loves it when we take her for ice cream because they have a big bubble machine on the top of their building. When we were in Wal-Mart the other day, we found a bubble gun. We bought this for Arin so we could do the "bubbles and ice cream" here at home. Last night, we gave her the gun and we let her play with it today.

New Room Furnished

I have been asked for pictures of our new room with the furniture in it, so here they are.

We still need to hang some stuff on the walls and I would like to buy some curtains that match, but those are what we already had, so they serve the purpose for now.