Chores for Toddlers

This past Sunday, Kevin brought the message at church.  He is going through a series on parenting, and the lessons are 10 things that every parent should teach their children.  They relate to everyone (even non-parents) because they are things that we all need to practice.

This week's lesson was that parents should teach their children to WORK HARD.   We've always said that our kids were going to have chores, and were going to contribute to our household. It really got me thinking though because I haven't purposefully tried to find things for Kate to "help" with yet. She doesn't have any real chores, but she's ONE.  I mean really, what can she do?

Well I started making a list of things that I've had her help with, and I want to be more mindful about being consistent with letting her help with stuff.  Never too early to start good habits, right? Here is the list of things that I've been letting Kate "help" with.

1.  After I get her dressed, I ask her to put her dirty clothes in her hamper.
2.  I'll ask her to go throw her trash in the trash can.
3.  She helps me put clothes from the washing machine into the dryer.
4.  This one is just funny, but she loves to push the vacuum, broom, mop, etc.  So of course we encourage it.

Of course, this really means that it takes me 10 times longer to do ANY of these things, but isn't that part of being a parent?  Teaching your children to do things for themselves.

So, what do you let your little kids do?


Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.  He who gathers 

crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

Proverbs 10:4-5  

Oops!

On Wednesdays, Kevin gets Kate dressed and ready for Mother’s Day Out. Normally on Tuesday night I’ll pack Kate’s bag, get her lunch ready, and sit out clothes for Kevin to dress her in the next day. My mom had given Kate some SUPER cute silver shoes with pink bows, so I left them out for her to wear to MDO last Wednesday. Well, I totally forgot that they were squeaker shoes and didn’t think to take the squeakers out. Of course when Kevin dressed her, the shoes were the last thing he put on her. He put them on, picked her up, and loaded her in the car. So, she never WALKED anywhere for him to realize the squeakers were in. When he got to the church, he carried her in and handed her off to her teacher. So Kate still hadn’t walked and nobody realized she had squeaker shoes on.

When I got home that afternoon, Kevin and Kate had just pulled into the driveway right ahead of me. Kevin put Kate down and we both heard the squeaking. I felt SO bad. Kate had gone the whole day with those shoes on, squeaking every step of the way.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure squeaker shoes serve their purpose when teaching kids how to walk. But they are ANNOYING, and Kate knows how to walk very well. I love the look of the shoes, but the first thing I do is pull out those noise makers and put in the silent “plugs”. I feel awful that her teachers had to listen to her all day. I’m definitely sending an apology note begging for forgiveness. I may have to bribe them with a Starbucks card. :)

And since I didn't get to finish sharing pictures from Saturday, here are a couple more.  Can you tell Kate is into everything?  Trying to pick up the pumpkin... checking out our tiny apple tree... climbing over the flower bed barriers... all over every inch of the yard... yep, she is everywhere!

Pumpkin Patch!

I love fall and have really been looking forward to taking Kate to a pumpkin patch.  We went to Denver Downs Farm in Anderson, SC this weekend and it was a lot of fun.  It will definitely be a place that Kate will enjoy a little more in the years to come (when she's a bit bigger) but I still think she had a ball this year.

When we walked in, the first thing we saw was the big jumping pillow, which was basically like a big bounce house without the sides.  Kate was amazed.  She loved watching.  Kevin took her out there...

She didn't HATE it, but I don't think it was her favorite.  She enjoyed watching a little more.  Here she is with her Uncle Ken...

It was so funny though because while she was on the jumping pillow, she didn't really understand how it was supposed to work.  But when she got off, she would stand on the ground and then bend her legs and straighten them, like she was trying to figure out how to "jump".

Next we checked out the swings and then headed over to the animals.  They had goats, a pig, a cow, sheep, etc.

If I had to guess, I'd say the corn boxes were Kate's favorite part of the day.  I thought it was a pretty good idea myself. :) 

We tried out the corn maze, but didn't make it too far.  It was 10 acres big, and we REALLY didn't want to get lost in there. 

And of course, what's a pumpkin patch without a pumpkin?  We ended up coming home with 2 pumpkins- a normal pumpkin and a Kate-sized pumpkin. 

Here is Kate getting a hand from her Aunt Angela.  

Happy Fall, y'all!

Open Adoption!

We love having an open adoption. Not all adoption situations are the same, so we definitely understand that it’s not always possible (or healthy) to have an open adoption. We do feel pretty lucky that in Kate’s situation, so far it’s been a very good situation for everyone involved for the adoption to be very open. We keep in touch with Kate’s birth family through emails, pictures, etc. and we even visit with them a few times a year. This year we had agreed to 3 “official” visits (visits that we plan in advance).

Last week Kate’s birth mom and I were emailing back and forth a few times and I found out that she and her Dad would be up our way visiting colleges. We asked if they wanted to meet us at the mall on Friday for dinner (because it’s easiest meeting somewhere loud when you’ve got a 1 yr old). It worked out for them too, so we got to see them for a little while for an “unofficial” visit.

While Kate was walking around with her birth mom, we visited with Kate’s birth grandfather. I’m not sure if I have shared this yet, but Kate’s birth mom was actually adopted herself from Paraguay. While visiting, we actually found out that Kate’s birth mom is 100% Guarani Indian, which makes Kate ½ Guarani Indian.

It’s so funny because after we found this out, we have started asking Kate if she is Guarani Indian. She’ll look at us and then shake her head “no” as hard as she can.

Insta-Life

That's about how fast it feels like everything is going by lately.  It's crazy!  Like lots of other people, it seems like 90% of my pictures end up being taken on my phone (and then uploaded to instagram).  So here's  an instagram-recap of what we've been up to the last few months. Sorry for the random-ness!

Top Left: Kate is now a CLIMBER.  All over everything.
Top Middle: Gotta love bath time.  Check out that hair!
Top Right:  Daddy's souvenir to Kate when he got home from a mission trip.
Middle Left:  She loved the splash park when we went to visit my grandmother.
Middle: My high school piano teacher would be proud. :)
Middle Right: First Clemson game of the year.
Bottom Left: First attempt at using a spoon.
Bottom Middle: My first attempt at applique.
Bottom Right: My second attempt at applique.  I must love my husband.

Top Left: Trying out a new recipe- cherry pies.  It was a success.
Top Middle: Had to find out what all the hype was about.  I have to say, it's pretty good.
Top Right: Kate's first project at MDO. Love it!
Middle Left: Having fun playing in the yard.
Middle: Got to visit my Alma Mater.
Middle Right: Still one of her favorite things!
Bottom Left: Pretty girl on a walk.
Bottom Middle: Love my Galatians bible study with She Reads Truth.
Bottom Right: Getting ready to go to church!

Top Left: Always on the go!
Top Middle: Daddy definitely dressed her on this day!
Top Right: Playing around after church.
Middle Left: Finally got a REAL work space.  Only took us 20 hrs to put it together.
Middle: One of the first Fall outfits of the year.
Middle Right: Practicing with the spoon. Definitely missed the mouth.
Bottom Left: Playing in Daddy's truck.
Bottom Middle: Silly girl.
Bottom Right: Training her early. Kevin said she's earning her allowance. :)

And now for the Insta-Life (Boston Edition)...

Top Left: Touring Fenway.
Top Middle: Mike's Pastry!
Top Right: Chocolate Chip Cannoli from Mike's Pastry- YUMMM!
Bottom Left: Clemson/Boston College game!
Bottom Middle: Pretty sunset over the Charles River.
Bottom Left: We got pretty good at the Subway system in Boston!

Whew! I think I'm ALL caught up.  Has everyone else been just as busy??

Dressed for Success

I'll eventually get around to blogging some more about our Boston trip, but there are more important things to talk about- like Kate's wardrobe.  She gets lots of cute things from family and friends, but this one is one of my favorites.  My parents gave it to her for Easter and she's gotten tons of use out of it.  That's the good thing about dresses for girls.  You can buy them big so they can wear them for a LONG time.  And a long time for us is still just a couple of months!  Kate grows so fast. :) 

It's fun to go back and look at how much she's grown and changed.  You can definitely see it in these pictures, when she's wearing the same dress.  She went from a non-mobile stage (I can't believe how teeny!)....

To a standing and crawling stage...

And now to an into-everything stage...

And because I thought these are too funny not to share, here is a glimpse of our little drama queen.  She most definitely knows how to turn it on and off.  

I'm Ba-ack...

... from Boston!

I know it's been a while since I posted, but there's a very good reason.  Kevin, Kristi and I flew to Boston for a long weekend to watch Clemson play Boston College.  And Clemson won! :)

We had GREAT seats.  Well, our original seats weren't bad but we noticed a few things.

1. There were TONS of empty seats. 

2. People were moving all over and sitting in random seats. 

Our original seats were in the upper deck, all the way on one side.  We weren't all the way at the top, but pretty close.  The seats weren't bad.  The stadium's upper deck wasn't all that high, and we were on about the 5 yard line so we could still see the game pretty well.  But because of the above 2 reasons, we decided to move over one section to get better seats.  And man, were our seats great!  

First of all, we only moved over to about the 20 yard line, but we moved all the way up to the very last row.  The seats were extra wide (deep) and there was a wall right behind us that we could lean up against.  They were comfortable. 

 We didn't figure out the other advantage of our seats until a little later in the game, when the refs were reviewing a play to determine if DeAndre Hopkins caught the ball and then got a foot down in bounds or not. (shown below)

Anyway, while they were reviewing this play, I looked behind us (and up) and realized that the Clemson coach's box was RIGHT behind us.  They had a TV showing all of the coverage, and we could see it!  We looked up and the coaches were signaling it to us that it was a touchdown.  As you can see above, it WAS a touchdown.  Not sure what the refs were looking at because that's not what they decided.

So, from that point on, we were able to look up at the coaches and their TV to figure out what was going on. They were pretty nice and were telling us what the call should be.

The game was definitely fun, and luckily it didn't rain on us while we were there.  We did lots of other things in Boston, which I'll share in a separate post.  Overall, it was a fun weekend and it was great to be able to watch Clemson play (and WIN) in a new city.