My Prima Ballerina!

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my daughter Chloe enjoying her ballet/tap combo class. She is the cutest little ballerina, if i do say so myself ;)

Chloe started to show a huge interest in ballet right before she turned 2. It was disappointing for Sal & I when we found out all the studios by our house only accepted children ages 3 and up. Like Really? How are we going to make our two year old wait a WHOLE year to start ballet?!? Something she loves so much and even at two years old, would ask us ALL the time "can i go to my ballet class today?". It was heartbreaking. Of course we improvised and practiced ballet at home, but still it wasn't the same.

I'm now so thrilled to say Chloe is in ballet and she LOVES her class, the teacher, and other students! YAY!

Her ballet school is the best! Teachers from her school graduated from Julliard and the Academy of Colorado Ballet School, and the Director of this school studied ballet in Tokyo! Yes, her school is THAT awesome! Here is the link to to their website: http://www.northwestballet.net/Site/Home.html

She has class once a week for an hour. first 40min are ballet, the last 20min are tap. She loves tap, too! At the end of the "School" year, which is in June, there will be a huge Recital which is at the William Saroyan Theater. It's going to be AWESOME!

Practicing at home, before her class.

The Little Sharks

Chloe had her 4th soccer game yesterday. She is such a priss i swear. She loves practices but isn't too into games. Its like when the jersey is on, the pressure is on haha. She always tells me "mom i love my preschool and ballet school, but not really soccer". She is still young, so i could care less if she is scoring goals... as long as she is running around and having fun.

Muffins!!

Chloe helped me bake banana nut muffins. Unfortunately i don't have a recipe for you because These were out of a box. Def not as good as homemade but it was still fun to bake with my princess :)

Sensory Bin Friday!

So this is something new we are doing. Sensory play is important for preschool aged children. It utilizes all 5 senses, especially the sense of touch.

Here is some more info on sensory play http://citibabesblog.com/2010/06/messy-play/

&& here are pictures of Chloe enjoying her first sensory bin. This week I used oatmeal!

Oatmeal with some measuring cups and a few other kitchen gadgets :)

She played with her sensory bin for over an hour straight 

:)

Thanks for looking!

Brooklynn eats FOOD now

For the past few weeks Brookie has been eating baby food. She only gets organic/homemade food.

For those of you wondering... we delayed solids until 7 months, for the following reasons:
1. Baby's intestines need to mature
2. Young babies have a tongue-thrust reflex
3. Baby's swallowing mechanism is immature
4. Baby needs to be able to sit up
5. Young infants are not equipped to chew


You can find out a lot more information on the benefits of delaying solids here: http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-infants-toddlers/starting-solids/6-reasons-delay-introducing-solid-food
here http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/delay-solids.html
here http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;100/6/1035
&& here http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/131235/why_delay_solids_until_your_baby_is.html?cat=25


Anyway, she looves it! She has eaten quite a few different types of food like Avocado, Peas, & Banana!

Here are some pictures of my girl :) 

Aww big sissy was feeding her

She was studying the food on her fingers haa

Car wash!

Monday was a beautiful day to be outside!
Sal & I went for a nice walk around our neighborhood, then came home and i surprised Chloe by setting up her very own car wash! She was really excited and had a lot of fun washing all her little cars, and "detailing" them. LOL

Detailing her wheels :)

Brookie had fun, too!

:)

Today was a rainbow kind of day

Chloe's playdough is all messed up from all the colors running together, soooo i decided to make her homemade playdough again. This time i made some rainbow pastel colors.

she was about 18months here. We would always make breakfast food with it :)

What you need:

-1 1/3 cup flower

-1/3 cup salt

-3 teaspoons oil

- 3/4 cup hot water

-food coloring

Mix dry ingredients first. Then add water, oil and food coloring.

Then kneed dough for 5-10 minutes. Dough might be slightly sticky, just add flour as needed to firm.

This recipe is only per color. So if you want 5 colors, you will need to complete this process 5 times. I learned the hard way not to try to make dough all at once, then separate and kneed in food coloring. It takes a lot longer to try to kneed it all in evenly.

Keep fresh in container and store in refrigerator.

Brooklynn even got to play :)

&& after we made playdough, i was inspired to make something else colorful!

Rainbow cupcakes!!

This took time & a lot of patience! lol

They were SO yummy!

I used slightly different ingredients then the recipe i originally had, to make it healthier. & let me tell you, they were SO good i ended up not using any frosting at all.  

*I will update later with my recipe

Thanks for looking :)

First day of fall craft

In honor of the first day of fall (ehhh.. today might actually be the second day) we did a fall craft! Chloe got to paint her arm brown for the tree stump which she thought was SO cool lol. After that she used a paint brush to paint on all of the pretty fall colored leaves.

The Giving Tree

So We decided to do a craft based off a book. The Giving Tree is definitely a favorite in our house. First we read the book then Chloe got to make her tree! Super easy craft and my daughter loves to paste so this was perfect!

What you need:

-paper

-crayons/color pencils/markers

-glue

-green & red construction paper

First, with markers, i drew out the outline of the tree stump with brown, then the tree leaves with green. then Chloe and i ripped up all the green construction paper, and the red, which are the apples. Then Chloe colored in the tree stump, and after that put glue all over the tree area and started adding her green construction paper. Finally, she added the apples.

See, very simple!

She loves her giving tree :)

&& after we were done, she insisted on doing a ballet craft. Well, i needed to start cooking dinner asap so we did something quick. She wanted to trace, color match, and practice spelling her name.