We'll never be bored again!

I have come across the best blog article ever!!!!  101 Things to do with your toddler.  I was on pinterest, my new favorite website and saw this blog entry.  It's amazing.  Lila is still kinda young to do some of the stuff, but there are plenty now and we'll get to the others later!

http://counting-on-me.blogspot.com/2011/05/101-things-to-do-with-your-toddler.html

101 Things to do with your toddler

1. Color
2. Blow Bubbles
3. Play Hide-and-Seek
4. Peek-a-Boo
5. Play Chase
6. Do Finger-plays
7. Sing a song
8. Collect rocks in a basket
9. Make an obstacle course out of cushions and/or furniture
10. Make a fort out of cushions and sheets
11. Go for a Walk
12. Make a Car out of a Box
13. Read a book
14. Go to the park
15. Finger-paint
16. Play with Play-Dough
17. Toss Bean bags into a Bucket
18. Play the shell and pea game
19. Dance to music
20. Download games for toddlers from the Internet
21. Practice putting things in and taking things out of boxes and bags
22. Make a temporary slide out of a table leaf and your couch
23. Roll a ball back and forth on the floor
24. Scoop dirt or sand into a child's bucket (or use a serving spoon and bowl)
25. Practice climbing by stacking boxes on top of each other (only with adult supervision)
26. Put on a puppet show
27. Go fishing with a yard stick and yarn
28. Make a Horseshoe game
29. Make a Shape Puzzle
30. Play paper basketball
31. Run through a Sprinkler
32. Play with a bucket of water and a sponge (PLEASE WATCH CHILD AT ALL TIMES!)
33. Make a Drum out of an oatmeal box
34. Play with a kazoo
35. Wash windows together
36. Bang on Pots and Pans with a spoon
37. Brush each other's teeth
38. Play dress-up with stuffed animals and your child's clothes
39. Stack canned or boxed food on top of each other
40. Let child stack mixing bowls inside each other
41. Make a playhouse out of a large box
42. Let child play with a sticker sheet (make sure your child doesn't eat them!)
43. Put stickers on fingers for finger puppets
44. Play a musical instrument together- i.e.recorder, piano, etc.
45. Go on a Smelling Hunt
46. Frost Cookies
47. Plant a flower or vegetable plant together
48. Roll a tennis ball into an empty trash can or bucket
49. Draw on a mirror with dry-erase markers
50. Play hide and seek together- trying to find a stuffed animal or other object
51. Have a splash party together in the bathtub
52. Put a leash on a stuffed animal and walk around the house
53. Record each other on a tape recorder (great for scrapbooks or journals!)
54. Make and try on paper hats
55. Give a piggy-back ride
56. Play "Horsey"
57. Talk into an electric fan (it distorts your voice)
58. Play tug-of-war with a blanket
59. Collect flowers (felt, artificial, real...)
60. Make a camera and go on a Safari
61. Play games with frozen juice lids
62. Disconnect your phone and pretend to make phone calls to relatives
63. Leave your phone connected and really make phone calls to relatives- let your child talk too
64. String large beads onto or along a shoelace
65. Squirt each other with squirt bottles
66. Glue shapes onto paper
67. Make sock puppets
68. Make paper puppets
69. Fill an old purse with toys
70. Use a paper towel tube as a megaphone
71. Make binoculars and go "Bird Watching" or "Stuffed Animal Watching"
72. Put snacks in different fun containers (paper sacks, empty canisters, etc.)
73. Act out a story from a book
74. Walk on a balance beam- use a 2x4 placed on the ground
75. Draw with chalk on the sidewalk
76. Sketch an outline of your child on the sidewalk or paper with chalk
77. Paint child's palms with tempura paint and blot on paper. Makes a great card for loved ones!
78. Put lipstick on child and kiss a mirror
79. Make a puddle on cement and splash barefoot in it
80. Let child decorate and eat an open peanut butter sandwich
81. Make a toilet paper barricade for child to go under, over, or through
82. Do the Hokey Pokey
83. Make a super-hero costume out of household items
84. Do Knee-Bouncing Rhymes
85. Play "Red Light, Green Light" saying "Go" and "Stop"
86. Make a shoe-box train for stuffed animals
87. Make a pillow pile to jump on (keep it clear from any hard surfaces, including walls!)
88. Make an easy puzzle with felt and Velcro
89. Make bracelets or collars for stuffed animals out of pipe cleaners and jingle bells
90. Learn numbers from a deck of cards
91. Play the matching game with a deck of cards
92. Make a domino chain
93. Have a picnic in the park, backyard, or living room!
94. Play dress up in Mommy or Daddy's clothes
95. Make a tin cup telephone and talk to each other in it
96. Make a nature collage
97. Mirror each other
98. Make a "Mummy Mommy" with toilet paper
99. Make a tape recording of short music selections and instructions to move in different ways
100. Make and walk along a toilet paper trail
101. TAKE A NAP!

I honestly can't wait!  I'm going to try to take pictures of all the things that we do and post them on here!  Hopefully everyone can follow along!

Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite.

My mom used to always say this to us when we were kids.  It wasn't until I was an adult that I understood what bed bugs really were.  Nasty, gross, incredibly annoying bugs that live in your mattress and make your life hell...apparently.

As of right now, I can say we don't have bed bugs, but now that you're itching all over just from the mentioning of it, I'll let you in on why this is the lovely title to my blog today.  A few weeks ago, Lila had this bump, welp, knot, thing on her arm.  I didn't think anything of it since she has been known to get mad and bite her extremities when she goes down into her temper tantrum 8,395,863 times a day.  Then about a week later, another one popped up on her leg.  this one looked worse, but I just thought she had gotten bit by something.

Last week we were at the doctor for another ear infection and I had mentioned that they were popping up more and more.  Dr. W thought that they may be hives from trying to fight the ear infection.  Common in young children when their bodies are fighting any infection.  So we left with antibiotic for the ears and Benadryl for the hives.  Thought we were good to go until Monday night, she had like 5 pop up on her arm.  I, obviously concerned, emailed the picture of her arm to Dr. W and then went in the following afternoon.

Of course, they always get better right before you go to the doctor, right!  Damn!  Dr didn't really know what it was so he sent me to a dermatologist.  Trying to make a long story short (for those of you who know me, you know that's hard for me to do), we went to the derm today and WHEW! it's just bug bites. While I'm sad that my baby is getting eaten alive, I'm through the roof that it's JUST bug bites.  I was getting myself prepared for all kids of bad shit!

Back to the whole bed bugs thing.  I asked him if he thought that these "bug bites" could be that.  Thankfully he said no, but that it could be a possibility.  I've looked, Neil has looked...we can't see them.  So I'm really just hoping that this is an isolated incident and that the bites will heal and be gone quickly.  I also asked about fleas.  We have 3 dogs that are primarily outside, but occasionally we let them in.  We treat them for flea and tick, but I know it can't fight them all.  Next on my list, off to Rural King to get some flea spray.  This worked one other time when my sister dogsat for a friend who's dogs had fleas...then I had fleas!  The heavy alcohol-based spray seemed to work.  So I'm going to try it again!

Stay tuned for what happens next!

I also want to share a little something that Neil and Lila did last night.  If you haven't seen the commercial with Jimmy Fallon and the little boy where he asks he if wants cash back, you need to.  Apparently, Neil and Lila should've auditioned for the commercial and apparently, she's nothing like us....we always could use/want more money back!  LOL

Goodnight Moon

My good friend, Medley Wilson Ford, got my sweet 5 day old baby a gift last year...a book titled Goodnight Moon.  I have always loved this book since I was a kid.  It was a book we read at my Grandma Jane's house and at Cousin Linda's house.  So simple, yet I loved it.  I was thrilled when I saw that Medley got Lila this book.  I read it to her almost immediately.  Over the months she began to understand the book.

She would point to the "3 little bears sitting in chairs" and to the "kittens" and the "red balloon".  It wasn't until tonight that I go so tickled because this time she knew what was coming next.

Every time I read the book we talk about each one of the objects (some listed above).  My favorite part is "the little old lady whispering hush".  When I say hush, I always put my index finger over my lips.  A time or two in the past she would look at me when I was getting ready to say hush.  She knew it was coming.  Tonight, we went through the book.  We saw "the comb and the brush and the bowl full of mush".  She looked at me immediately when she heard the "shh" sound.  Then we saw "the little old lady whispering hush".  At the point, she put her index finger to my mouth as I said hush.  I about melted.  It's such an amazing feeling knowing, not only that she is learning, but that she is learning from listening to me.  She is comprehending now, which completely blows my mind.  How can she be this big already???

So as if that wasn't enough, she even started waving goodnight to all the objects in the house...even "the little old lady whispering hush".  You can obviously see why this is one of my favorite books to read to her.

ONE Big Birthday!!!

Sweet little Lila Jane has turned one. It's a bittersweet moment, I think, for most moms, me included. For her actual birthday, we went to Mackie's Pizza to celebrate. There, she prepped for her party by eating her cupcake. Quite the lady, I must say. Her party was the following Sunday. It was SUPPOSED to be at our house in our backyard or the patio that we spent so much time building so we could host occasions like this, but due to the 6 inches of rain that feel that day, we had to move it to my grandparents house. Thanks so much to them for offering their place! It was truly a life saver...well maybe a day saver!

Here are some of my favorite pics from her birthday celebration!

Eating some birthday pizza

Loving the candle

Ready to eat it!!!

I'll try a little....

yum

Gorgeous Birthday Cake made by Charlene Stover of Norris City

Lila's little smash cake

My banner that I spent so much time on....just to tape it to a mini fridge! LOL  (damn rain)

2 of the topiaries that I made for table decorations.  They turned out so cute I think I will have to make one for Christmas.  (maybe all holidays!)

Peggy Jadia, Lila's new Cabbage Patch doll

Very good at reading the cards

Good Birthday Girl

New piano from mom and dad

I think she's ready for her cake

Happy Birthday to you...

Num num num

Fam

Good stuff

Getting ready for 1

This has really just been the craziest month. Trying to get ready for Lila's birthday has been nuts. Thankfully I started early and got a lot of stuff done. Then came the kitchen mini-remodel.

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but just never made the decision to go for it. Two years ago when we bought this house, we both loved the idea of staining the cabinets dark. We thought that it would really modernize the kitchen. I knew from previous experience of refinishing my bedroom set that this would be no easy task. But, of course, I was ready to jump in. It was fall and we had just moved in. There were lots of other things going on so we put it off to spring.

Well, in January of that lovely year, we got pregnant. There were other things on our mind than refinishing the kitchen cabinets so they just got put on the back burner. Early this spring, I made the decision to paint our countertops. I absolutely knew that this was something I wanted to do from the moment I found out it could be done. They were an atrocious burgundy/maroon color. It was awful! I got those painted and while I doubted the color that I had chosen for a little bit, I have come to be very thankful that that is what I chose. Because then I made the decision to paint more!

Finally, two weeks before Lila's first birthday party that we were hosting at our house, I went and got the paint and just did it! I had been thinking for a while that instead of stripping, sanding, and staining the cabinets that we would just paint them dark brown. My mom said not to, that I would regret it. Of course, I did it. After all, mom hadn't seen the countless number of blogs that I had of people who remodeled their kitchens for less than $100. I was very "sold" on the idea of painting rather than staining. Plus it was a lot less work for me! :)

I went to Wal-Mart and got some color sheets. Once I found the color that almost exactly matched our new kitchen table, I took it to Barnes Lumber Co. in Harrisburg, IL (There's your shout out. If you had a website, I'd hyperlink this, but ya don't!) and the matched it for me. I found a gorgeous Coral color while I was there and decided that I also needed to paint the walls to brighten up the kitchen. Another point for me, because it totally brought everything together.

So here are the shots starting from the very beginning!

When we moved in. This countertop is just ugly. Oak is just not our style...especially light oak that is apparently cheap! LOL

I found this Rustoleum Countertop Paint and decided to try it. Glad I did.

Looked a little better, but not quite exactly what I wanted yet.

I liked the wall color ok, but it was a little minty for my taste and our old kitchen chairs rubbed marks on the walls that I couldn't get off. So I had to change it.

New kitchen table and chairs. Excuse the mess!

Dunzo! We also ripped the top "detail" off of the cabinets. Neil said that took 10 years off of them immediately...I agreed.

I still need to find some material for a valance and get a new one made. That's next on my list, not only because this one doesn't match, but it WAY to country for our taste!

Once again, please excuse the mess. Arts and crafts for Lila's party going on! I also still need to get some other artwork or decor up on the wall. The south wall is very bare!

If anyone has any suggestions for artwork or an accent color for the valance, let me know. I'm not sure what to do with it! Also, I'm wondering if I should just stick with the valance or do a cafe curtain and valance...I don't know. Whatever I do, I'm sure it will be fine!

Labor Day Weekend

You'll have to forgive me, a few weeks ago I tried to start my blog on our iMac in an application called iWeb. It's really cool how it works and I really enjoyed getting started...then I found out that I had to pay for it. I didn't get deep into the details, but just the word "buy" set me off at the time. I had already written my entire post on our Labor Day weekend festivities and thought to myself, I'll give Lila a bath and come back in and repost it to my blogger account.

That was 3 weeks and 2 days ago. Like I said, I'm sorry. I'll just go ahead and play the "we've been really busy card". Actually if you know me, you'll know that that isn't a lie! :)

So here's my post for Labor Day!!

We had a wonderful day today. We actually got to sleep in a little, with a little bribery to Lila. It was about 9:00 or so when we ended up getting up. We hung out and played this morning. Drank some coffee and ate some breakfast as a family. I got a few things done before Lila got down for a nap.

About 20 minutes after she crashed, unwilling mind you, we got a semi-surprise visit from Aunt Megan and little cousins Nicolas and Halle. They were quite disappointed that L was sleeping when they got here, but she must have known they were sad because about 30 min after they arrived, she started stirring! It’s so fun to watch her with kids. She just loves being around them. The looks that cross her face crack me up. It’s almost like she looking at me saying, “Mom, do you see what they’re doing? It’s so cool.” or “Mom, can I do that too?”. It’ll only be a matter of time before I don’t even get a look anymore....excuse me while I wipe my tears.

We made it over to Grandma Jane and Grandpa Jacks for the “Cardboard Boat Rigatta” contest. This was supposed to be on July 4th, but we had a date change. Neil and I didn’t get to make a boat, but we thoroughly enjoyed watching the success of everyone else’s boats.

Lila will be 1 year old two weeks from tomorrow. I look at the list of things that I still need to do for her birthday and thank God that I started about 3 weeks ago. I would’ve never gotten anything done. I just got off the phone with our cake lady. She did our wedding cake and L’s baptism cake...both of which were so cute! I just can’t wait to see what she has in store for this special occasion. I did give her a picture of something that I liked. We’ll see what she does with it!

I’m trying out this new webpage/blog thing with our new Mac. I’m not completely sure how it’s going to work out, but hopefully everything will turn out ok! Go easy on me while I’m making these changes to my blog. Let me know how you like it and if I should stick with it or go back to my blogger account. Have a wonderful short work week!

You can see how it turned out....I'm going to make a few more posts on the events of the month!

Football Season has arrived

We are so excited in the Atkins household. Why you ask? It's time for FOOTBALL!!! Last year we started football season with no baby and finished with Miss Lila. This year, she is getting to enjoy it too. I have to say she likes the band more than anything right now, but she'll catch a glimpse of the boys on the field and oohhh and ahhhh. I think she's gonna fit right in this fall. :) We have been enjoying high school football thus far, but next week will start Saturday morning college football and Sunday/Monday night football. I would say Neil is pretty lucky. For the past couple years he has asked me if I wanted to have my own fantasy team. I reluctantly declined because there's no way I could keep up with my own. I told him I would just help co-manage his. Together, we make a pretty good couple. This year is gonna be even better! I think we might even win!

Lila got some new kicks this week. I'm trying to put her in shoes more often so she will feel more comfortable walking. She can stand on her own, but completely freaks out when you let go of her hands and she just sits down, screaming, like "how could you let go of me like that?". It's pathetic. She crawled at 9 months and from some of the articles that I've read, babies usually crawl for about 3 months before they walk. If that's the case, we're looking at right around her birthday. We'll see. I'm being kinda selfish here, but if she would start walking, it would make football games a lot easier for us. Right now, we either have to hold her and pass her around or sit her on the track and then she crawls and picks up rubber pieces off the track then eating them. I'm not saying that the walking thing will keep her from eating the track, but being off the ground more may help a little. Don't get me wrong; I don't want my baby to grow up any faster than she it, but it's time for her to get brave and walk!

In my last post, I shared that we had gotten a new dog. She is a weim, which is what I have been wanting. I used to have one (he was NUTS), but had to end up giving him away because I moved into an apartment and just didn't have enough room for him. I'm sure he's happier now! The newest addition to our family is Emma. She is very sweet and very active. She and Jasper fight over who gets to fetch more! We have discovered that she may be a bit of a digger, but we're hoping that we can fix that. I tried to snap some pics of sweet Emma, but she was following me around everywhere. This is the best I could get!