Samantha: 29 Months, Week 2 {Preschool, Trunk or Treat, and Groundhog Spotting}

I have decided to take on something new.  The teacher in me is coming out, and I have decided to start preschool with Samantha.  She is so much of a sponge lately, I figured I might as well be teaching her something more productive and geared towards learning basic number and letter concepts.  My plan is to do preschool with her three days a week or so, on days we don't have anything going on and aren't watching Sadie.  I decided to pick a letter a week and concentrate on certain mathematical concepts like numbers or shapes.  I may have gone a little over the top in my planning, but there is so much out there on the internet and I found a great blog done for stay at home moms with TONS of fairly simple activities you can do at home with your toddler/preschooler.  I know this may be a bit nerdy of me, but I actually typed up lesson plans.  (I know, you can't take the teacher planner out of me.)  Just in case any of you are interested in what I came up with, here are my first week's plans:

Week 1: The Letter A and Counting 1 to 5

Day 1:

Books: Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Song:  Sing “Way Up High in the Apple Tree.”  Have red, yellow, or green socks rolled up.  Pretend to be the apple tree and hold the apples (socks) up in the air.  Then say the finger play: “Way up high in the apple tree, two little apples smile at me. (I smile).  I shook that tree as hard as I could. (She shakes the tree (my arm).)  Down came the apples, mm mm good! (Drop the apples).  Let her be the apple tree.

Craft: Do Apple Printing.  Follow directions in Apples, Apples, Apples book, using core of apple, paint, and paper or paper plates.  Read this story while you do craft: Once there was a little boy who went to visit his Grandmother. He was getting restless, so his Grandmother told him to go out on her farm and find a little house with no windows, and no doors, and a star inside. The little boy met his cousin. "Do you know where I can find a little house with no windows and no doors, and a star inside?" "No," said his cousin. "Maybe farmer Jones will know." The little boy continued to walk, he so enjoyed the country side. He looked all around him, but still could not discover what he was looking for. "Hello, farmer Jones, do you know where I can find a little house with no windows and no doors and a star inside?" "Sorry, son, I don't know, maybe if you walk into the orchard over there, you may meet my wife and she may know." "Thank you sir," said the little boy. He skipped merrily into the orchard. He didn't see the farmer's wife. But, he heard the wind blowing. Hooooo.....hooooo! Just then an apple fell at his feet. Out of the apple came a little tiny worm. The cutest, smallest little worm that he ever saw! "Hmmm...." thought the boy. "This apple is the little worm's home. I don't see any windows or doors, but I don't see a star either!" Well, he picked up the apple and went home to Grandma." Could this be the little house with no windows and no doors?" "Why yes, it is honey. Good job." The little boy looked sad. "But Gram there is no star!" Grandma (teacher) cuts the apple, and reveals the star. How amazing! ----Author Unknown.

Letter Activity: Discuss how the letter A has 3 sounds, practice those 3 sounds.

Familiarity with name activity: 1) Tape a piece of paper to the table. 2) Say the letters of her name as I write them on the paper. 3) Let her practice writing and coloring on her name.  Do the same thing with the letter A, writing “A” and “a” on the paper in a few places and having her color on the paper.

Snack:  Apples dipped in peanut butter.

Gross Motor: Play Worm Through the Apple.  Line up dining room chairs and cover with blanket.  She will pretend to be the worm and crawl through the apple (the chairs).  Have her go straight through and even weave in and out.  Hide the sock apples and have her find them in the "dirt."

Number Activity: Write numbers 1-5 on a paper plate as a number symbol, number word, and circles to show each amount represented by each number.  Have her fill in circles (use Cheerios) on each plate with item to show how many each number represented.

Fine Motor: Color Stickers Sort: Divide a paper into 4 sections, writing the color word using their respective color marker.  Hand one sticker at a time to her and have her say the color name, then have her match the sticker to its corresponding place on the paper and stick it down.

Day 2:

Craft: Homemade Apple Trees using toilet paper roll for trunk and pipe cleaners for branches, leaves, and apples.

Number Activity: Cut 5 sheets of construction paper in half width-wise.  Write one number symbol on each piece and write the number under each symbol.  Attach the paper to the floor in order with tape.  While holding her hand, step together onto 1 and say 1, then 2, and so on.

Letter Activity: Review the sounds that make A.  Have her color the A pages from her alphabet book, and write any words we can think of on the back that begin with the letter A.

Books: If You Give a Dog a Doughnut by Laura Numeroff

Song: Sing this to London Bridges: Stand holding arms above your head like branches.  Move arms up and down.  Encourage her to wiggle fingers as they move. “See the apples falling down, falling down, falling down.  See the apples falling down, down to the ground. (Then squat and pretend to pick up the apples, throwing them into the air.)  Pick the apples, throw them up, throw them up, throw them up.  Pick the apples, throw them up, up to the sky!”

Snack: Applesauce in a cup, then crackers, continue until cup is full.

Gross Motor: Hide different color paper apples around the room (red, green, and yellow).  Have a basket for each color apple.  Have her find an apple and put it the correct basket.

Fine Motor: If you Give a Dog a Doughnut Detangle.  Make a kite out of paper and use sticks to give it stability on the back.  Tap a string to the bottom of the kite and tangle the string around the tree made during craft time.  Have her figure out how to detangle the kite from the tree.

Day 3:

Craft: Paint her palm and fingers with brown paint and have her press her hand on construction paper to make tree branches.  Then, she can dip her finger in red or yellow paint and dot on branches to make apples.

Number Activity & Letter Activity: Review the sounds that A make.  Draw A and a, as well as numbers 1-5 on paper and put paper into a Ziploc bag so that she can place shave cream to form the letters and numbers.  Put bag on top of cookie sheet.  Write her name on the cookie sheet and have her erase it with her hands by moving the shave cream around.

Books: Books requested from the library: Curious George: Apple Harvest by H.A. Rey, Ducking for Apples by Lynne Berry, Johnny Appleseed by Eric Blair, Rain Makes Applesauce by Julian Scheer, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons, and Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins.

Song: Johnny Appleseed Song: “Oh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun, and the rain, and the apple seed, The Lord is good to me. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen!”

Snack: Make apple pie following the recipe in the book The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree.

Gross Motor: Line a few pillows on the floor, and show her how to step on the pillows to walk along them.  Count each pillow as you walk all the way to the end.  Add pillows to increase the challenge. (Also can do Apple Toss, throwing “apples” (bean bags) into laundry basket, starting close and getting farther away.  Practice balancing bean bags on head.)

Fine Motor: Use a muffin tin to sort the pom pom "apples" by color, matching them to the correct place.

So, last Monday morning, we started preschool, and Samantha was really excited.  At first, she was a little confused, thinking that we were going to be going somewhere for preschool, but once we started the first activity and learned that I was going to be her teacher and had lots of fun activities planned, she figured out what was going on.  Here are some pictures from our first morning of preschool.

These first pictures are of Samantha doing apple printing during craft time.

Here is Samantha doing the letter activity where she is coloring on her name and the letter A, for familiarity purposes.

Then, we had a delicious snack of apples dipped in peanut butter.  Samantha has had plenty of apples, but she has never dipped them in peanut butter before.  We have tried giving her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but she never has liked them.  Apparently it's just the jelly she doesn't like because she devoured this snack.

Her favorite activity of the morning, by far, was pretending to be a worm crawling through the dirt looking for apples.  She could have done this the rest of the morning, and even requested to do it again the next time we did preschool.

We then did the number activity with Cheerios, but this one was a bit tricky.  My student just wanted to keep eating the Cheerios instead of putting them in the circles on the plates. :) Eventually, I convinced her to do it if that meant she could eat all the Cheerios at the end of the activity.  Here are pictures of the finished activity, with Samantha already eating Cheerios off of the plate for five.

And then we did the color sticker sort activity, which was another of Samantha's favorite.  Anything with stickers is a good idea in her book.

Our preschool activities lasted for about an hour and forty-five minutes on Monday morning, giving us the perfect amount of time to go play outside before lunch.  I felt like our morning went so well together.  I enjoyed spending time at home with her, not always feeling like we have to go out somewhere, and it was much better having a purpose in our activities, preventing Samantha from wandering around like a bored, uninterested, lost child which she tends to do after being cooped up with nothing in particular to do.  I am excited to keep this up with Samantha and to use my teaching abilities to teach the most important student in the world to me, my daughter.

Monday evening I caught a cute video of Samantha reading with her Daddy.  They were looking at a book full of pictures with words.  She would point to a picture and say, "Can you point to the bear, Daddy?"  Daddy would often pretend that he didn't know where the item was that she was asking for, and she would say, "No Daddy, it's right here!"  It's a pretty cute video.

It was nice spending the morning with Samantha on Monday because the rest of the week was pretty busy with watching Sadie, giving piano lessons, attending BSF, and going to Mom's REST Stop on Thursday morning.  However, doing these things are so nice because I actually have the freedom to do them.  I feel like I missed out on so many opportunities when I was working, opportunities to better myself as a Christian and a mom, and opportunities to be more involved in my daughter's life, what she's learning, and how she's being raised.

Also, for an update on napping, things have still been going extremely well.  She has not thrown her blankie out at all and is even going to sleep faster than she normally has in the past.  We are pleased and glad that we seem to have moved past that issue.

On Friday, since we had no plans to go anywhere out of the house, Samantha and I had another preschool day.  We followed the plans for day two, and Samantha was really excited to do preschool again.  She said, "Mommy, you're my teacher!"

We started by reading If You Give a Dog a Doughnut, made trees out of toilet paper rolls and pipe cleaners, and then made a kite to demonstrate the part of the book where the kite gets stuck in the apple tree.

Samantha really liked the number activity where she could jump from number to number.  She knows her numbers and can count all the way to twelve if you don't ask her to or if she is counting when you are not paying attention to her, but it's always good to reinforce the numbers with her in a different way.

Samantha loves to have books read to her.  She will sit next to you for over a half an hour any time of day to listen to books.  We go to the library every week for story time and always come home with more books.  Well, she was excited to read the apple books I requested from the library for our A theme this week.  I was reading one to her on Friday about applesauce, since that's what we were having for a snack, and she saw that I had one more apple book that I hadn't read yet.  I was going to save it for the next day's preschool activities because it went with that day better, but she got so upset that I wouldn't read it to her right then.  So upset that she actually started crying!  There's no reason to cry over when to read a book, so I went ahead and read it to her. I hope her love for reading continues throughout her entire life.  A love of reading makes so many other things come easier when you get to your elementary school years.

Reading one of our apple books, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree, inspired us in an activity we could do with Daddy when he got home from campus that afternoon.  There was a recipe for apple pie in the book, and Samantha wanted to make it.  When Daddy got home, he was in charge of peeling and cutting the apples given to us from Grandma Toll's apple tree.  I made the pie crust, and Samantha helped us place the apples in the pie crust and roll out the top crust for the pie.  She was so excited to eat it that she could hardly wait for it to come out of the oven.  We had plans to eat our apple pie with some yummy vanilla ice cream for dessert that night.

The whole time Samantha was eating her pie, she kept saying, "Mmmm, this is good Mommy and Daddy."  There's nothing better than a pie made completely from scratch with fresh apples as the filling.

On Saturday morning, we took a family trip to Chick-fil-a to use up some free breakfast sandwich gift cards that were about to expire soon.  We had a great breakfast, and Samantha had some fun climbing around on the indoor playground.  (She was the only kid there playing on the playground.  I guess it was 9:30 a.m.)  Daddy went to a conference at our church, and Samantha and I went to the Farmer's Market together to buy some apples and broccoli, went grocery shopping, and then walked around the toy section at Target for awhile until we could go back and pick up Daddy.  She's such a fun little girl to hang out with.  We love her so much.

Saturday night, we decided to go to a local church for a Trunk or Treat celebration.  The forecast for Halloween looked pretty rainy, so we figured if Samantha will get a chance to go trick or treating, this night would be our best opportunity.  Samantha chose to dress up as Belle and was so excited to carry her little pumpkin around collecting candy.  The funniest thing was right when we got there because she spotted a little girl dressed up as Ariel with a red wig on her head, and Samantha made a beeline for this girl wanting to say hi and look at her dress.  She loves looking at anyone dressed up like a princess, just like her.

 It was a bit difficult to get any good pictures of her because she didn't stay still for too long.  However, she had a great time trick or treating and being called Belle by all the nice people handing out the candy.

And last but not least, Sunday evening we decided to go on a little family outing to a local park because the weather was actually nice for the first time all week.  We went to a park that we pass by all the time, but have never visited.  This park had a long bridge, giving us the opportunity to play a nice family game of "Red Light, Green Light."  Samantha had never played this game before and thought it was pretty fun.

We decided to get hamburgers and fries at Five Guys, which definitely hit the spot for my pregnancy cravings that night.  And on our way back home, we passed our church and Samantha said, "We are going to go into ECC (the name of our church), and I will go into my classroom and play, and you guys can just leave, okay?"  She makes us laugh.  We are just glad that she loves our church and is comfortable there.

As we pulled down the frontage road that leads to our apartment complex, we saw the best surprise of the day.  Over the last few weeks, we have noticed a groundhog that will come up from the reeds out onto the grass by the road to eat, and now, every time we pass, Samantha asks if the groundhog is out or not.  Occasionally, I have seen it and try to pull over so Samantha can see it out her window, but it always runs away.  Well, on Sunday night we spotted it again, slowly pulled the car over into a driveway near the grass and spent the next several minutes just sitting there watching the groundhog.  Samantha was so happy she finally got to see it.  It just made her day.  It's the little things. :)

Samantha: 29 Months, Week 1 {Apple Works, Napping Problem, and Fall Family Fun}

Ever since the season changed to fall, I have wanted to take Samantha to a pumpkin patch or something like that.  The place we visited last year was not open this year, so I had to find a new place.  I didn't want to drive too far away, but I wanted it to be something that was worth visiting.  I got some advice from moms at church, and we decided to visit a place called "The Apple Works."  We had a great time there.  It was a beautiful day and apparently it was Columbus Day so many kids had off of school, and it was very busy.  Our first stop was pretending we were riding the bus.

After figuring out what all there was to do and buying some tickets, we went for a ride on the train.  Samantha couldn't wait and was doing a very good job waiting patiently in line for our turn.  The little train took the kids around on a bumpy trail, showing the apple trees out in their orchard.

After our train ride, we checked out the playground area that was a barn with a hayloft with a slide coming down from it.  The slide was a black tube, and it was fairly dark inside.  The kids that went down before Samantha went down pretty fast and kind of bumped once they got to the bottom because the tube leveled out and went flat.  Samantha watched the others go down the slide and still wanted to try it herself, so I helped her get on and sent her down.  She did just fine going down the slide, and I went back down the stairs to meet her at the bottom.  She, of course, wanted to go on again.  We then spent some time playing in the hay and riding on the wooden rope swings they had hanging in the barn.

Next, we went to pet and feed the animals.  There were chickens, alpacas, goats, and a baby cow.  Samantha enjoyed walking around and feeding the animals, although I think most of the food ended up on the ground when she was trying to hold it out for the animals.

After feeding the animals, it was time to wash our hands and eat our picnic lunch. She was a little distracted by everything else at the farm and all the people around us, but I was able to get her to eat enough.  After eating we took a little walk across a bridge to a gazebo and then on a little path through the woods.  When we walked into the woods, Samantha turned to me and said, "Shh!  We have to be quiet.  This is where the wild things live!"  I love when she takes references from books and applies them to her life, like they are real.  It's so fun to see what ideas she takes hold of and what stories stay with her.

It was already close to Samantha's nap time, so I decided it was time to drive back to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin.  It was a very large patch and there were rows and rows of pumpkins.  Samantha had a grand ole time wandering from row to row looking around.  I told her to try and find one that was a nice orange color, that wasn't too big or too small, so of course she had to point out all the pumpkins that were smashed, green, or tiny.  I love our little girl.  :)  I wanted to let her pick out a special one by herself, but it was just too hard for her to choose among all the different pumpkins.  Eventually, I picked two that looked good and let her pick which of those she liked best.  Otherwise, we may have been there wandering through the pumpkin patch all afternoon!  Here's a blurry picture of Samantha posing with the pumpkin she chose.

After waiting in line to weigh and pay for our pumpkin, we were on our way out, so that we could get home for Samantha to take a nap and before my piano lessons started.  Samantha and I had a great day together outside enjoying some fall festivities.  I was so glad that we could spend this time together.  It's days like these that make me not miss teaching, at all.  I love this time with my little girl.  It's just wonderful to have these days with her, days that I will never get back.

Now, just to be ironic, the next day was not such a wonderful day with Samantha. Every day can't be a wonderful day, right?  Well, it was a Tuesday so we had Sadie at our house, and we went on our normal morning excursion to story time at the library.  Now, for the last several weeks Samantha has been resisting napping on Wednesdays after BSF, but we have never had problems on Tuesdays before.  However, this day was a different story.  Sadie was already asleep and had a great nap that afternoon despite all the noise coming from Samantha's room.  Well, when I put Samantha down for her nap, she was up there making all kinds of noise and kicking the side of her crib.  I didn't want her to wake Sadie up, so I went up to her room to tell her to be quiet and go to sleep.  When I walked in her room, she had thrown her blankie over the side of her crib.  Our rule lately has been that when she does this, we take her blankie away at least for that nap, but sometime longer.  She knows that this is what happens, but chooses to throw her blankie over anyways.  Well, I followed through with what we usually do and took her blankie away which, of course, resulted in her crying and being upset for awhile.  And, pretty much every time we take her blankie away, it is guaranteed that she won't take a nap at all, so I braced myself for a long afternoon.  I had a piano lesson that afternoon at 2:30 and just left Samantha up there making noise in her crib.  I apologized to the family afterwards and explained why there was banging coming from upstairs.  They thought it was pretty funny, and it didn't bother them at all.  After they left, I could hear a strange noise coming from over the monitor, so I decided to go back in Samantha's room to see what was going on.  When I walked in, I saw that she had gotten into the top drawer of the changing table, which is attached to the side of her crib, and had dumped out all her hair bands from a bag that we keep in that drawer.  I cleaned up all the hair bands and laid her back down in bed.  I was determined to at least keep her up there for two hours, even if she didn't end up sleeping at all.  Well, when the two hour mark came, I went to her room to get her up and found her sitting on top of her changing table, which she has only ever done once before.  I didn't want Samantha to think sitting on the changing table would result with her being able to get out of bed, so I made her climb back into bed and lay back down.  

However, throughout this time, and really anytime she refused to nap, I can just feel my anger rising.  I don't know why I get so upset, I don't know if I feel like she is stealing my private time away from me or if I'm upset that she isn't sleeping and then will be cranky all night, but I get so frustrated on days she doesn't nap.  In fact, I even posted something on Facebook asking other moms for opinions on what to do.  Here's what I said:

I need an opinion from some fellow moms. We are having some trouble with Samantha taking naps. It doesn't happen every day, but probably twice a week. Ever since she was a nursing baby, she had a little pink blankie and eventually started sleeping with it. It started out just at bedtime and then progressed to nap time, too. She used to just have it in bed, but now she takes it out and plays with it around the house, sometimes even bringing it in the car with her. She has grown a lot more attached to it.

Well, probably the last month or so, mostly during nap time, Samantha will throw her blankie over the side of her crib and then start crying because she doesn't have it anymore. When it just happened occasionally at first, we would give it back to her and then she would go to sleep right away. But then, she started throwing it again after we already gave it back to her. So we started talking to Samantha about how we would take her blankie away if she kept throwing it. Well, she has, so now when she throws it, we take it away. But when we take it away, she will not take a nap, she will just sit in her bed and play and talk the rest of the nap.

What do we do? Is she just throwing her blankie as a way to avoid her nap or is it her being defiant against us? Should we try to cut the blankie out of the picture so that it's not an issue anymore (but how would we do that)? Should we limit the blankie to just bedtime since we don't usually have this problem then? Should we move her to a toddler bed instead of a crib so that she can just go pick it up off the floor and get back in bed (but that may open up a lot more problems with playing at nap time)? Has anyone else had this problem? I don't think she is ready to give up naps yet, because other days she will fall asleep fine, and on days she doesn't nap she is a crazy, upset girl from dinnertime on. It is just frustrating to me when I know she needs a nap but is refusing to take one, and then she just laughs and smiles when I go into her room to reprimand her or tell her she needs to sleep.

I was just at my wit's end and felt like there must be something I was doing wrong as a mom that was causing her to not nap or some magic solution that could fix the problem.  I got some good advice from fellow moms, but mostly people that were in the same boat as me, which is reassuring to know that I am not alone.  However, I only felt better about it all once Ben got home, and I was able to talk through things with him.  I'm so glad I am married to him.  His levelheadedness balances out my tendency to jump to the worst possible conclusion or the most drastic measure.  We talked through a few strategies and steps we can take, starting small and getting progressively harder, if necessary, to take care of the problem of Samantha throwing her blankie.  Our first step was to make the blankie a special thing just for nap time and bedtime, to stop allowing her to take it out and play with it during the day.  When we first started her on this new rule that day, she protested a bit and cried for her blankie, but it only took a day or two for her to get used to that.  She just gives it a big hug and kiss before she gets out of bed, and that seems to take care of it.  Also, we have not had any napping problems since instituting this new rule.  We have no idea if keeping the blankie just for sleeping is what is making it better, but it certainly seems like it.  We (especially I) were so glad that it was an easy fix to this problem, and we hope that we never have to go beyond step one.  I'm so glad I have such a wonderful husband to bounce ideas off of and to support me when I get worried over nothing (and to love me anyways!)

Wednesday and Thursday progressed normally.  Daddy working, Sadie coming to our house on Wednesday, BSF, and most importantly, Samantha taking good naps.  In fact, on Wednesday I took a nap that afternoon, too.  Our little girl is so much more pleasant to be around when she takes good naps during the day.

I have been trying to be more creative at home, now that I have "more time on my hands," whatever that's supposed to mean.  But on Thursday, I decided to make some Rice Krispie Treats with the large amount of Rice Krispies we have in our house, and I made homemade play dough, something I've been wanting to do for a long time.  I used this recipe that was recommended to me by my sister-in-law.  I used recipe 1, split the dough into three balls, and then kneaded food coloring into the dough according to Samantha's color preferences.  So now we have red, green, and blue play dough to use.  It is so much softer and more malleable than the brand name play dough, plus we have a large quantity of it, making it so much easier to make more shapes.  We even went out that morning to run errands, and I bought a set of 101 cookie cutters!  Samantha has really been enjoying play dough at church and at BSF, so I was looking forward to having it at home for her, especially now as it is getting colder outside.

While I was making the play dough, I overheard this from the living room:  Samantha was pretending to talk on the phone in her play kitchen and said, "Hello?  Do you want to come over to my house Llama Llama, Nelly Gnu, and baby?"  Those of you who have read Llama Llama Time to Share will recognize this.  Whenever she talks on her pretend phone, she is always inviting people over to play.  Is she trying to give us a hint?

Thursday night, once Daddy got home from work, it was going to be a family night.  We had a great time playing together and dancing together.  First, Samantha thought that her table would be better in another place, so she pushed it from the living room all the way to by the front door.

Then, later in the evening when we were upstairs, Daddy and Samantha had a wonderful time dancing to some Irish music.  I love to watch the two of them together.  He is great with her, and she is so in love with her Daddy.  Dancing is just not the same unless it is with him.

As far as updates for how I'm feeling with my pregnancy, this week I was 13 weeks along, so I am getting closer to the end of the first trimester, closer to the time when my chance of miscarriage drops significantly, and closer to my next appointment when I can hear the heartbeat of my little baby again.  My nausea seems to have subsided, which I am grateful for, even though it wasn't near as bad as what some women get.  The biggest symptom I have felt this past week is just exhaustion.  I can get a full night's sleep and still feel like I hardly slept at all.  I'm used to not waking up at all during the night, and now I am waking up many times a night to readjust my position or to roll back on my side when I find myself on my back.  

Also, Ben's side of the bed has been getting crowded with the four pillows I have been using at night to try and keep myself comfortable.  I researched these special pregnancy pillows online and found one that was reasonably priced, seemed to meet my needs, and wasn't so gigantic that it would take up half the bed.  With Ben's permission :), I ordered it off of Amazon and it arrived at our house on Friday afternoon.  I was so excited to use it that night and see if it helped me sleep.  This is the pillow I got, and I love it.  It was like an immediate fix to my sleeping problems.  I use it under my head and behind my back so that my back is supported and I don't keep rolling over on my back all night.  I am so glad I got this, especially since it can be used in so many different positions, like in supporting my growing belly later in pregnancy.  And, I think Ben is grateful to have one pillow in bed with him rather than four.  Ahh, the joys of being pregnant, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

On Friday, we had an oil change scheduled for the car, so we had Daddy around more than normal, which we will always take. :)  Samantha and I did take a trip to the Banneker Center to play for awhile that morning.  Although this is what playing at the Banneker Center looks like for Samantha:

She likes to sit in these little cars and pretend to drive her stuffed animals around.  Sometimes she will move and sometimes she will just sit there and watch all the other kids play around her.  Either way, it's cute, and we love her.

On Friday night, we drove up to Indianapolis to meet Grandpa and Grandma Toll for dinner at Jason's Deli.  We used to meet them for dinner more often, but I don't think we've done it since last February or March.  We discovered that it's kind of hard to pull this off now.  Samantha took a nap and then pretty much right when she got up, we stuck her in the car to drive up to Indy.  It takes about an hour and half to drive there, and then we were in the restaurant eating and visiting for awhile.  That is just too much sitting for Samantha, to go right from her bed to the car to a high chair.  She had too many wiggles that were just itching to get out.  It was also difficult for Samantha to fall asleep once we got back in the car to go home.  We were probably halfway home before she finally allowed herself to fall asleep, even though it was already past her bedtime.

After dinner we went to the mall to walk around for awhile before we got back in the car again.  However, Samantha was getting sleepy and ended up having an accident while sitting in the Mickie Mouse car that you can pay money to ride on.  She hasn't had an accident in so long we almost didn't know what to do.  We had an extra change of clothes, but no extra socks or shoes or even a plastic bag to put the wet clothes in.  We certainly weren't as well prepared as we should have been.  We have just taken it for granted how well potty trained Samantha is.  When she is not really sleepy and overstimulated, she does an awesome job of telling us when she needs to go potty.  Luckily, this was an exception, not a norm, but Samantha still will randomly say, "Sorry I peed on the Mickie Mouse car and made him sad."  To which I'll reply, "It's okay, it was just an accident.  We'll just make sure we don't do it again, right?"  I think our little girl remembers every place that she has had an accident.  I guess it's good that she has learned her lesson and feels sad when she has an accident, right?

On Saturday I had all these grand plans to hit up a couple local fall festivities.  However, the weather changed our plans.  It rained most of the day, so we just had a nice day playing inside and painting pumpkins.

Daddy was attempting to work at the dining room table through all of this, but it's pretty hard from him to work when he'd rather be hanging out with Samantha and me.  Here is Daddy pretending like he is riding on Samantha's shoulders:

 I think they enjoy each other. :)

After Samantha woke up from her nap on Saturday, the rain had stopped, allowing us to go to a fall festival for a little while.  We got there on the tail end of it, so there weren't too many people there.  And with the rain came colder temperatures, so we didn't want to spend too much time outside anyways.  Samantha got to watch some kids fishing, which she thought was really interesting, and she also got to jump in a princess bounce house.  The bounce house had a slide that you could climb up and slide down the other side, and at first she didn't think she could do it, but as soon as the other kids left and she had the chance to take her time and figure it out, she had a great time.  She then rode the slide many times in a row, with a huge smile on her face every time.  I'm glad when Samantha accomplishes something challenging and feels satisfaction over figuring it out by herself.

We had a great evening outside and even used some of our tickets to buy some brownies for a snack.  We stood on a bridge watching the boys and girls fish while we ate our brownies.  In reference to her brownie, Samantha kept saying, "I want some more Brown County!"  I don't know where she got that from because we only called it a brownie, but we thought it was pretty adorable.  I'm going to miss her little toddler/preschooler talk when she grows up.

Samantha: 28 Months, Week 4 {Dress Up, Tea Party, and Zoo Boo}

Back in the middle of September, on a day that it was just Samantha and me, I decided to surprise her and have a tea party.  I had Samantha dress up in her Belle dress (her favorite one), and we had lunch at the coffee table, using her tea kettle, little cups, real plates, and little dishes of finger food.  She LOVED it, even though she was too distracted and excited to really eat any of the food that was out.  It was a lot of fun, but I forgot to add it to my blog last month.  Here is a cute picture from that day.  I sent it to Daddy, and he was sad that he missed the tea party.

Samantha has really taken to her blankie and blanket lately, which will come up again in next week's post as not such a good thing, but this week, she has enjoyed bringing it downstairs and curling up underneath it while laying on the rug by the patio door.  She does look pretty comfortable!

This week was a pretty average week, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Daddy was feeling pretty good, and Samantha and I followed our normal weekly schedule.  I think she really enjoys having Sadie come over on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  She loves to bring her toys, talk to her, and hold her.  These pictures are sort of old, but they are too cute not to include.  I think Samantha will enjoy being a big sister full time come April.

Whenever the weather is nice, we like to go on family walks together.  On this particular walk, Samantha wanted to bring her dog along, which sometimes is named Bowie and sometimes is named Bella, it just depends on the day.  The only problem with the dog coming with us on walks is that Samantha gets tired of pulling it about halfway through the walk and will just leave it on the sidewalk.  However, our rule is that she has to either pull it or carry it, and sometimes that becomes a bit of a problem.

We have started letting Samantha dress up in her princess clothes when she goes poo poo in the potty, mostly as an incentive for her to go in the potty rather than in her pull up at nap time or bed time.  Monday night was one of those nights where she got to play dress up, and she was pretty excited.

And this is the princess song that she sings every time she dances like a princess.

Of course, Samantha had to dance with her Daddy, it's just the way it has to be.  Whenever she sees the Disney princesses dancing, or listens to a song of them dancing, she will ask, "Where's her Daddy?  Is she dancing with her Daddy?"

Wednesdays are our BSF days, and I don't know why, but this was the third week in a row that Samantha didn't take a nap on a Wednesday.  I don't know if she gets overstimulated by all the attention she gets in her class or what, but she will not sleep, even though she is tired and desperately needs sleep.  Needless to say, we were very happy to see Daddy when he got home for the day.  (She ran out to say hello to him and then decided to pretend like she was driving his car.)

Thursday morning was another meeting of Mom's REST Stop, which is always a wonderful place to go.  It's fun to have a morning away with other moms, and Samantha always has a great time playing with other kids.  However, we had something else interesting happen on this day.  When Ben was walking Roscoe in the morning, a cat started following them and Roscoe could have cared less.  The cat followed them all the way home.  Then, for most of the rest of the morning, that cat sat outside our door meowing.  When Samantha and I got home from church, we couldn't get in the door because that cat was ready to run right in the house with us.  It seemed like a nice enough cat, and we were sure it belonged to someone and that it wasn't just a stray.  Ben called the offices of our apartment complex and the apartment complex next to ours to be sure no one had reported a lost cat.  Nothing came up, so I decided to take it to the animal shelter so that it could be cared for and fed.  I got Roscoe's kennel and brought it outside, and the cat walked right in and laid down.  It did not act nervous or scared at all.  Samantha went with me to the animal shelter and was very concerned about the kitty, wondering why it was lost and why it left its home.  It turned out that the cat had a microchip and was just adopted back in August, but the people who adopted it live on the opposite side of town from us, so who knows how it ended up near our house.  Hopefully its owners will come claim it or some other nice family will adopt this friendly little cat.  If I wasn't allergic and we didn't already have Roscoe (who is not a fan of cats), we may have considered taking it ourselves.

Our local recycling center has a place where you can give things away that you no longer want or need, and Samantha loves looking through there when we go to the recycling center together.  She has found a baby doll, some toy polar bears and house, and now this time she really scored big.  A little old man came up to us right when we were about to leave and asked Samantha if she wanted any of the toys in his bag.  He had a whole bag of little girl toys.  Samantha immediately went for a drawing board with princesses on it and a giant tea pot with cups and plates with pictures of Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  I was hoping we'd leave there with no toys this time, but instead we left with several things because we just couldn't resist the generosity of this little old man.  Maybe next time Samantha will have to bring a toy to donate to the recycling center if she wants to get a toy.  We have so many toys, we don't need any more!  Anyways, here is Samantha enjoying her "new" tea party set once she woke up from her nap.  I guess free is better than whatever you would have to pay for something like this brand new!

Thursday night, just before bedtime, Grandma Toll arrived at our house to help watch Samantha the next morning while I took Ben to get his colonoscopy.  Samantha was so excited to have Grandma staying with us and couldn't wait to play with her.  They did a lot of playing both inside and outside that morning.

Ben's colonoscopy went well.  We were just glad to get to this point to hopefully get some answers about what has been causing him so much pain lately.  Unfortunately, the doctor said that more of his colon was affected than he hoped, which means that surgery would be more difficult.  In order to remove all the affected parts, the doctor said he would have to remove half to a third of his colon, which is not ideal and a much more invasive surgery.  So, for right now, we are just going to wait and see if he gets another diverticulitis attack.  If he does, then surgery will become more viable again.  We will just continue to pray that maybe his bout with diverticulitis is over, and that maybe he will never have another attack again.  That would be wonderful!

After several weeks of a low fiber diet, Ben's doctor gave him the go ahead to resume his normal diet and go back to eating foods that are high in fiber.  After resting most of the day and allowing the sedation to wear off, Ben was craving one of our old standbys, Mother Bear's pizza.  So we went out for dinner as a family that night and then walked around campus, looking at the fountain and strolling along downtown.

This pregnancy has not treated me well in the category of sleep.  I normally sleep straight through the night without waking up once.  However, now I wake up multiple times throughout the night because I am uncomfortable, because I need to turn over, or because I wake up on my back and have to turn back over on my side.  I think this waking up multiple times a night is really taking its toll on me and is causing me to be so tired all the time.  I think it's more than just a first trimester symptom at this point.  So, Ben being the great husband that he is, got up with Samantha on Saturday morning so that I could sleep in.  It was wonderful and made me feel so much better.  Here's what they were doing while I was sleeping in.

After breakfast on Saturday, we decided to go to the Zoo Boo at the Indianapolis Zoo.  We went to Kroger and bought some sandwiches for a picnic lunch and headed to Indianapolis.  Since the zoo is all decorated for Halloween, the kids are encouraged to dress up as well.  Samantha, of course, chose to wear her Belle dress.  She thought it was pretty awesome that she got to wear her princess dress at the zoo, and she really enjoyed seeing all the other kids dressed up, too, especially those dressed as princesses like her.

This picture below is when we were waiting for Samantha's turn in the bounce house.  They had several special Halloween activities like pumpkin bowling, trick or treating in the Plains area, the carousel going backwards, and a special themed train ride.  Samantha had a wonderful time, and the weather was perfect for a day at the zoo.

I think it's funny that she chose to ride the tiger because right now it is one of her favorite animals at the zoo.  It has been so active the last couple of times we have gone to the zoo, and Samantha loves to watch it walk around really close to the glass.  If you ask her what her favorite animal at the zoo is, she will say, "Tiger."  If you ask her why it's her favorite, she'll say, "It's my favorite because it's my favorite!" 

We stayed fairly late into the afternoon.  I think it was after three o'clock when we left the zoo.  We had done everything we wanted to do, and Samantha was getting tired.  Once again, she took a nice nap for us in the car on our car ride home.

And here is our little girl checking out some berries on a tree outside of church.  I don't think we'll have too many more days where she can wear a sleeveless dress and sandals to church.  We had a great family weekend together.  I am always sad to see weekends end because that means Daddy goes back to work.  I am such a quality time person, that I like to soak up as much family time as I can get. :)