Summer Project-Share, Spend, Save

We have alot of summer projects planned. Things to do around the house, and little crafts with the kids. 
Today Chloe and I went to A.C Moore and Joann Fabrics and got a few things to do together. We also put together her money jars. I got the idea when I was reading a magazine at the library a few weeks ago. It was an article that talked about PNC Bank and Sesame Street teaming up to teach kids about saving money. I went home and did some research on it, it talks about the important of the 3 S's, Spending, Sharing and Saving. So I talked with Chloe about it and the importance of it all. She is always hearing the Mr Softy truck drive by and wants an ice cream, or we go to the store and she sees something that she wants, so explaining this all to her in a way that made sense was great, and she got really excited to do this herself. We decided we would use jars that we had. A small mayo jar and 2 small pb jars, all the same size, plastic and had tops that screwed on. Pergfect. 
She had money in one jar that she had been saving. She gets money when she helps mommy, daddy or grandma. She will help us when we do laundry, dishes, cleaning up her room, or cleaning up in the den. Little things here and there will earn her a quarter or a few coins. So today we split up the money into the 3 jars. She helped to sort the money so that it was evenly split, she picked out 3 colored notecards and I wrote each S word on them. We taped it to the jars and there we go.  Now each time she gets money she will split it between the jars. 




Here is the info if any of you are interested in doing this with your kids. Liam is too young now but when he gets older and understands I would love to do it with him too. There are other activities at the links that you can do with the kids. There are even printable labels.
http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/save
http://www.savings.com/blog/post/Sesame-Street-and-PNC-Bank-Team-Up-to-Educate-Kids-About-Saving.html

Chloe's Jars  :) 

Share, Save, Spend

<3 Liz

My 15 month old boy!

I meant to do this 2 nights ago but the internet was being slow so here goes. 


Tuesday, June 21, 2011.. Liam is 15 months old! 
Really, I know I say this ALLLL the time but where does the time go?! When it comes to my kids, time goes by way too fast! 


Liam is doing so much now, and he has been getting into everything. He has no fear! Which scares me alot! He will climb up and down anything, we constantly find him on top of the table, pushing chairs and stools around to get what he wants, opening cabinets and getting snacks. He loves to find opened boxes of pasta and then tries to eat the pasta. He throws almost everything, mostly balls but he will throw anything and has a good arm, so you need to watch out that he's not aiming for you. We are trying to teach him not to throw everything....wish us luck with that one!

Since he was born Liam has been very easy, he isn't a fussy kid, sleeps great, eats anything and doesn't give me much trouble. Although the past month sure has been difficult. His sleep was so messed up, he was hot and climbing out, tried the toddler bed...failed and now that he has his crib tent, sleep is back to normal. As 8pm nears he is sooo ready for bed, grabs his teddy bear and snuggles on my shoulder. I turn on his music, kiss him goodnight, he lays down and I zip up the tent and he is out! It's great! I'm so happy to have found something that works for him again, because I know his lack of sleep was affecting us all and I felt so bad for him during those times. 


He isn't saying anything new but he def knows how to communicate with you so you know what he wants or needs. I'm breaking out more baby signs this week and we'll see where that takes us. He also has 12 teeth now and is working on more so our next step is taking away the pacifier. Not sure how I'm going to do it but want to do it soon. He only gets it to calm down at bedtime and naptime so that is a good thing. Just not sure if its better to just take  it away like I did with his bottle back in December or slowly take it away...hmm?!


He loves saying hi and bye to everyone, you will walk in the room and he says "hi" and keeps waving at you, he does the same thing when someone leaves he will say "byebye" and wave like crazy. He even likes to stand by the window and say hi and bye to the cars that drive by. 

Liam this time last year (June 21, 2010)

silly boy

he did not want to sit still

cheese!

love this boy!! <3

POOL FUN!!

So normally I would be on top of getting a pool right away but with moving and the summer weather coming later here in NY that it does in NC we just got one this week. I searched around for the past few weeks to find one that I liked, one that would work well for both kids. I've seen Barbie ones and princess ones which Chloe would love but that's no good for my little man lol. So Sunday morning I was browsing thru the circulars and saw Target's sales. I love Target so any excuse to go there is a good one for me, so Monday we checked it out and found the pool! It has a volcano slide, waterfall, palm tree sprinkler and an alligator ball thing (basically basketball but instead of throwing the ball in the hoop, you feed the balls to the alligator.)
The kids love it and I was definitely pleased with the $25 price tag :) 
Chloe loves sitting under the waterfall and going belly first down the slide, and Liam loves playing with all the balls. He runs around the pool, chasing after them yelling" all all all!" He hasn't gotten the "B" sound yet but its soo cute! 


Here are some pics :) 

They absolutely LOVE it!! and it makes me soo happy to watch them having so much fun together :) 








<3 Liz 

Father's Day!

Father's day turned out to be a really great day not just for Sean but for all of us :)
Chloe wanted to make daddy a card so we worked on one throughout the week while he was out at dr appts and his night classes. She also reminded me how much Daddy likes Bagels for breakfast so we went out and got fresh warm bagels that morning and let daddy sleep in. 
Later in the afternoon we went to his dad's house, I think it made the day even more special that they could spend the day together since it's been quite a long time that they have been able to spend this day together.




Here are some pictures from our day

Grandpa, Chloe and Liam 

grandpa and Liam

Chloe dancing in the kitchen to Taylor Swift

momma and Chloe

momma, Chloe and Patricia

daddy and the kiddos <3

our family <3

can you tell he's beat! that what happens when he only takes a 20 minute nap on the drive there, and at this point it was also past his bedtime


We also took daddy out to lunch at J&R's Steakhouse a few days earlier and here's pics of our happy kids...such a blessing to have happy kids when we're out to eat ;) 

<3 Liz