Thankful Part II

Tweet

As part of our year of gratitude, we're posting our thankful list at the end of each month. In no specific order, here is February's list:

1. Cousins
2. Trampolines
3. Car that runs without problems at 190,000 miles
4. Dancing dolls
5. Spirals
6. Hot lentil soup
7. The broiler on the oven
8. Dollar stores
9. Bakeries
10. Cereal sales
11. Rubber stamps & play doh
12. Fireproof - the movie
13. A new bed
14. Hair cuts
15. Sleeping in the stroller
16. Jeans that fit
17. Potlucks
18. Chips at potluck
19. Lots of kids that love me at church
20. Ice cubes
21. Faces and the ability to draw them!
22. Comments
23. Naptime so Mommy can get some work done
24. The letter "V"
25. Spinning office chairs
26. Hearts & Valentine's Day
27. Dry-erase markers
28. Mirrors at eye level
29. Pebbles & Bam Bam of the Flintstones
30. Chewable vitamins
31. Snow
32. Night light
33. Toilet paper
34. Libraries
35. Grocery carts with seats for toddlers
36. No internet (temporarily) - quiet and a break
37. Books read on CD
38. Magnets
39. Dolls
40. YouTube & RealPlayer
41. Stars
42. Big fish & octopi
43. Love
44. Runs in the cold
45. Cows jumping over the moon
46. Bicycles
47. Blue sky
48. Daisies and dandelions
49. Bird songs
50. Cats in the sun
51. Cream
52. A day of rest
53. Muffins
54. Rocking donkeys
55. Scotch tape
56. Paint and paint brushes
57. Glue and paint brushes
58. Pooh and Piglet and Tigger bounces
59. Windows
60. Zacchaeus
61. Ketchup!
62. The letter "W"
63. Hot water washcloths
64. Camera flashes
65. Paper bags

Thankful...

Tweet

Saying thanks for my pizza...

For more thankful photos, check out PhotoHunt.

Happy Weekend!

Tweet

We have tons of blogging ideas today and can't settle on any, plus the internet connection is majorly slow. So we'll just leave you with a happy photo!

Wishing you a blessed weekend!

Thursday 13 - Pets

Tweet

Inspired by Strawberry Shortcake's Best Pets Yet, one of my favorite DVDs at the moment, here is a list of 13 pets I love or would love to have:

1. KitKats! Boy, do I love my kitty cats! They are such fun to pester and pet, and they are so soft! Mommy says they do have sharp claws, but I haven't experienced those yet. I can talk their language, too. I don't understand why they run away from me sometimes, but that just makes them more fun!


2. Puppies. Especially with little pink hearts in their mouths - I love hearts. I miss my Groban from Mozambique. He was fun to order around, even if he didn't obey me so well. And even if I had to fight him for my cabbage.


3. Monkeys. Like Curious George. That would be so fun, especially if they could ride a bicycle, forwards AND backwards!


4. Hippopotamuses. "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do. No crocodiles, or rhinocerouses. I only like hippopotamuses. And hippopotamuses like me too!"


5. Rocking Donkeys. These are the same as rocking horses, except that Mary rode on a rocking donkey to go to Bethlehem. I learned all about rocking donkeys at church!


6. Walruses. If I had a walrus, I could make him climb our walls!


7. Pigs. Pigs are cute, and smart! Like Babe! And Curious George likes to play with pigs, too - it would be the perfect combination!


8. Zebras. Zebras are smart, too, and they can run faster than a horse! Just watch Racing Stripes!


9. Bunnies. I had lots of fun playing with my bunnies in Mozambique. They have such cute long ears! And they're soft, too. And the baby ones are fun to hold.


10. Cows. They can jump over the moon! And they would eat the lettuce I don't want to eat at lunchtime. They chew chew chew and moo moo moo all day long!


11. Butterflies. They are so beautiful! I wish I could catch one and keep its beauty with me all the time, but they keep flying away!


12. Warthogs. They make the best cupcakes - with pickles in them! I read all about it this week. It would be fun to cook with them!


13. Really Woollys. Sheep are amazingly smart... There are lots of little lambs here near Roseburg right now, and they are so cute as they play together!

More Thursday 13 participants can be found here.

Thanks to Samulli for the Thursday 13 header.

Wordful Wednesday - Aberfeldy

Tweet

OK - now for the wordy part of our Aberfeldy experience! Yep, we got more photos for you (remember, we had to weed down from 20 zillion), and in this post, we're gonna talk about them!

First of all, here is the condo where we stayed at the Moness Country Club.
Here is the view out in front of our condo.


Here are the ducks or whatever kind of birds these are at the duck pond on the way to the front desk.

At the entry building, there was a play room just for kids my age! This was a great place to be when it was really cold outside and I didn't feel like riding in the car to go sightseeing.

Here is the center of Aberfeldy, the town where we stayed. Not a lot going on in the evenings, but then, it fits the peaceful tranquil environment, right?

And this was one of the highlights of my trip - discovering a black kitkat under the Christmas tree! If you look hard, you can see its shiny collar.

At Blair Castle, we took a very very long walk to get from the entry gate to the castle.

Almost there!

But it's all locked up and we can't get inside... One of the downsides of visiting Scotland in the winter instead of the summer. But we did get to tour the grounds. Here I am checking out a red deer.

And here's a family portrait of us on a bridge near the castle.

Here are Mommy and I at Lawers Pass.

And Pappa and I getting to ford a really big stream. It was SCARY!

In case you were wondering, this is what the band looks like at Aberfeldy center on New Year's Eve...
Oh, I also spent a lot of time cracking up in the back of the car...

And sucking on my toes when I wasn't taking pictures of my beautiful feet...
One of the cool things about Scotland is its access rights - people have non-motorized access to most of the outdoors, as long as they don't interfere with certain things like privacy and livelihood of land owners. It is definitely a great place to visit!

And don't think we're done going through the photos yet. We still have to get through Edinburgh and finally London...

For more Wordful Wednesday posts, visit:

Wordless Wednesday - Aberfeldy

Tweet

Miscellaneous photos of Scotland, mostly around Aberfeldy, taken December 29, 2008 - January 3, 2009. Most photos courtesy of Mr. Lynn B., our traveling companion and helper of carrying our zillion pieces of luggage...

Black & White

Tweet

One more "W" for you - "white!" I got a new white shirt at Ross last night, which I have already smeared with ketchup, which is my NEW FAVORITE FOOD, by the way. Ketchup on pasta is good; ketchup on fingers is even better...

Moving on, I wore my white shirt (with black trim) today so we could get a black & white photo for iHeartFaces this week. Here it is...

WFMW - "W" Crafts

Tweet

Wow - "W" is one of those weeks you could stay on forever! There is just no way to get to everything we wanted to do in "W" week...

And "W", or "dub-oo" is now my third favorite letter! I can point it out to you in the alphabet, and I know it goes down-up-down-up. Seeing as "V" is my second favorite letter, you can figure I'd like "dub-oo," cuz it's just 2 "V"s connected!

Here are some of the activities that worked for this 22-month-old this week.

Wind. We did windy stuff with my pinwheel...

World. Using blue and green paint, I painted worlds on some shatterproof Christmas ornaments that Mommy got - a big pack of them for $0.50 in the after Christmas sales.

Weather. We started keeping a weather chart.
Since all of our weather this week has been looking like this, though: wet!, I got tired of coloring raindrops on each day and started adding stickers as well...
Wishing Well. I painted a piece of card stock. After it dried, Mommy cut it into pieces and stapled it into a "wishing well" shape, putting one of those individual applesauce cups (emptied, of course), into the middle. Then she gave me a glass of water, which I poured into the well. Then she gave me a handful of coins that I carefully put into my "wishing well."

This was so much fun that I had to do it twice, and even then I kept emptying the well and refilling it with water and coins.

Worms. Look what Mommy put in front of me for breakfast this morning! Doesn't that look scary?!
After I had Mommy taste test the worms a couple of times, I overcame my fears and tried one out. Not too bad! Though it does live a sticky residue on my fingers that drove me absolutely crazy... Play Doh worms are really cool, too, by the way.

Watermelon. Now this went down real well for breakfast! I don't eat it the messy way, though. I insist that Mommy cut it up in small pieces first.


Color Sorting. If you look at my three banded fingers, doesn't that look a lot like a "W"? OK, we're stretching on the W thing here. But I did have fun color-sorting little hair scrunchies this week. Mostly I played with them, though. And Mommy says next time she'd just put two or three colors out for me to sort instead of all seven.
Winter. Mommy and I wanted to go outside and collect wintery things for a winter basket, but it's been raining nonstop. So I made a winter wonderland out of glitter glue instead...
Washing. I've been wishing I could help wash the dishes and clothes, but we're not really set up for that here in Oregon. I HAVE been helping wash the floors and windows, though.
Whistle, Walrus, and Wolf. We walked through the house collecting "W" things. Here are some of them. I still haven't figured out the whistle thing, though I've been practicing!

Oh, and when Mommy said this thing was a walrus, I knew exactly where it belonged. I made it start climbing the walls!

Watercolors. I haven't really liked watercolors until this week - maybe because it hasn't been "W" week before! But I really enjoyed it, and even got the sequence of water, paint, paper down pretty well. Maybe because I got Crayola paints, which are much brighter than the watercolors I had in Mozambique.
Windows. Speaking of painting, Mommy got me a set of different kinds of paint brushes, sponge brushes, etc. I had lots of fun with them. And I really enjoyed gluing this week! I've always used a glue stick, but this time I used white glue in a bowl with a paint brush. What fun!

We made stained-glass windows by gluing tissue paper pieces onto window-shaped paper. This would make a good suncatcher if you used contact paper instead, but I wanted to glue, so this is what we did.
Wheel Art. Mommy poured some paint onto a paper bag, and I ran my wood car through it to make wheel tracks in the paint.

Waitressing. I really appreciate Mommy's waitressing! I even left her a tip - see?! Now her cooking - well, that's another story. If she would just always give me whipped cream on my waffles for "W" week, then maybe I'd eat her food more often.

Songs. There are lots of cool "W" songs you can find on YouTube, like "Walking in a Winter Wonderland," "What a Wonderful World," and "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Books. Since we have access to a library for the time being, Mommy checked out some books on "W" things, including:

-Warthogs in the Kitchen, by Pamela Duncan Edwards

-Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin

-Thank You, World, by Alice McGinty

-He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, by Kadir Nelson

-What Shall We Do When We All Go Out? by Shari Halpern

-What a Wonderful World, illustrated by Ashley Bryan

We already posted about wonder, wrinkle, and warm. Some other ideas we had included wreaths, wagons, watch, wave, and writing words...

So that's what worked for us this week! Now on to "X" - which I'm sure is going to be another favorite letter of mine!

----------------
If you have a post or link related to "W" Activities for toddlers, link up here!