A GreatHouse Wife

Being a stay-at-home mom is an experience I never thought I would be able to have.

But with my husband's job, I have been able to take advantage of our situation & time in Germany to do so! Up until recently, Greyson has obviously been so young & I haven't been able to do much with him other than play with him.

So I decided I should take start something new for us! Why not use my time at home with Greyson to teach him things that he would otherwise be learning in daycare?! I'm not a teacher, just a mom who has some experience with preschool aged kids & a desire to teach my son!

I made a loose schedule for us to follow on our normal days. With him being only 19 months, he isn't the most cooperative to be honest. I have found it best to kind of go with the flow. I have a loose plan of what I want to do that day & rough times of when to do it. But if you look closely, the "structured" times are short & can easily be shifted around.

I made sure to have plenty of time for him to play how he wants. If he wants to read a book, we read. If he wants to play with his puzzle, we do it. I started this off trying to convince him to do what I wanted without much thought to what he wanted & we would both end up frustrated. So I took a new approach & it has been working out much better.

I've read a few articles & information I found through Pins on Pinterest about teaching 18 months-2 year olds. And I decided to start with colors.

First up: Blue!

I pulled out all of the blue Mega Bloks to build with

I made flash cards of the colors with the name written on them & set out the blue one as well as the various blue crayons & some paper to draw on.

I collected some blue things from around the house & made a simple sensory bin. I used the last bit of quick oats for the material & just set it down for Grey to explore. I also gave him an empty container so he could move the items back & forth if he wanted

I broke out 2 shades of blue paint & set him up to make a picture! He loves to paint & its sort of a sensory activity too, which I love! & I'm totally "that mom" who put her 19 month old's artwork on the fridge!

On top of that, we read various color books throughout the day. He's slowly catching on. He doesn't pick out the blue items always yet, but he's getting there. He will know his colors in no time, I'm sure!

Hope this inspires you to do some fun activities with your little ones!

So Greyson is 19 months old now!

His personality is just starting to grow by leaps & bounds! He is independent, smart, talkative and friendly. He knows what he wants [or doesn't]& isn't afraid to let us know.

He loves making this face all of a sudden! It is beyond me where it came from but it is funny as can be! He mostly does it when he wants me to read to him. He likes to take a book & flip through it to random pages, in no resemblance of an order, & have me read them to him.

Example A:

And B! haha

His favorite book the last week or so is his Wizard of Oz ABCs, but he really only wants me to read the S & T page over, & over, & over... But on the plus side, he knows the letter T now! He picked it out of the magnet letters on our fridge the other day!

He is acting so grown up & silly! Like how he drinks his milk like this!

Or makes silly faces when I say, "Hey! take a picture with me!"

He just loves to play outside & run around, causing chaos! Though he's crazy cute doing so!

He's getting as excited as I am for the upcoming festivities of Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas... I could go on & on, but you get my point!

Keep an eye out for a glimpse into our little slice of life & my plans to teach Greyson some fun things!

Our week is winding down to an end.

Greg is away for work for another week or so. I snagged a few movies from a friend to help make the weekend a little better! Now all I need is a good bottle of wine & I'm all set!

Here is a random look into my Friday thoughts!

{One}

Football is back!! Yay! I only really got into football the last few years, but I'm loving it! I joined a fantasy league this year with some sorority sisters & their friends/family, which means the stakes are higher! It's fun to flip around to different games to check on my players, always coming back to our Browns game!

Haven't gotten my hands on new Browns gear for Grey this year yet, but managed to squeeze him into his 12 month jersey we got him last year. About time to retire it I'd say.

Plus Grey's recent obsession with footballs in adorably fun! Ours became the dog's ball awhile ago (when he put a hole in it) but that doesn't stop Greyson from swiping it & running, always checking to make sure Dexter is following. He's going to be a little QB one day for sure!

{Two}

I made the most delicious pumpkin cheesecake muffins the other night! I found a can I'd stashed awhile ago & was craving more pumpkin deliciousness with our cool weather & happened to have all the ingredients!

I even got Greyson to help stir for like 10 whole seconds. I call that a win! Plus anything where I get to use my KitchenAid mixer & wear my apron gets a thumbs up from me!

[Recipe found here: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/10/24/pumpkin-cheesecake-muffins/]

{Three}

We finally have a Starbucks here on base! I'm crazy excited! I know it's going to be busy as no ones business, but I can't wait to go! There is another coffee place on base that brews Starbucks stuff and makes similar drinks, but it's just not the same. I'm a brand whore! ;)

{Four}

I may have watched my first Christmas movie already... Bring on the holidays already!

I already told Greg I'm going to start putting them in for Greyson in early November periodically so I have enough time to get him obsessed with them by the time Christmas season rolls around on November 28!

{Five}

I am gathering my stuff, slowly but surely, to apply for graduate school next year when we get back to the states. This statement of purpose is tripping me up & making me so anxious. I guess it won't write itself so I better get on that. I'm the kind of person that will stress about it until it's done & I've put it off too long anyways. Guess what my weekend with Greg gone will consist of?

That's all my randomness for the week! Hope everyone has a great weekend & enjoys some football & fun!

Salons & barbers here are just more expensive than it seems reasonable to pay for a toddler's haircut. So we decided to cut Greyson's hair again by ourselves at home.

We did it once before back in May & it went well so we figured we'd give it a whirl again. It was a bit different since Grey is 4 months older & much more vocal.

Here are some things we've found that helped us both times, but especially this second time, to give Greyson a haircut with only a bit of crazy!

{One}

Have everything ready to go before starting. This seems like common sense, but it helps so much. We didn't prepare the first time completely, but remembered for this time. Having everything ready helps cut down on time it takes to get the job done, because eventually the toddler will get antsy!

{Two}

Booster seat! We moved his chair with booster seat into our living room where there is more room to work. We used it mostly because we could strap him in to keep him stationary, since I'm positive he would definitely run away!

{Three}

Snacks & favorite cup. An easy way to help occupy a toddlers hands & attention is to fill their hands with a snack & cup. We started this adventure right after naptime, which is when he usually gets a snack, so it worked out great. He was very interested in it & they helped keep him calm for a good bit of the time.

{Four}

Put on a movie. A sure fire way to distract Greyson is to put on one of his favorite movies. Straight up zombie mode! Keeping the volume up helped because he didn't like the sound of the clippers at all. The areas around his ears were the most difficult because the buzz was much louder right there.

{Five}

Hugs & praise! Like any toddler, Grey loves knowing he's doing a great job with anything. Getting so excited when he would sit nicely made him very happy & made it last a little longer. And sometimes he just wasn't happy about a spot we were working on, like by his ears, so he got some mommy hugs while daddy kept going.

By no means are either of us trained to cut hair. The best we have is my husband who has to get hair cuts every 2 weeks or so thanks to the military. So we just tried to emulate what the barbers do when cutting his hair.

It's not perfect by any means. But he is definitely a cutie! And no, the goal wasn't a mohawk, just a happy coincidence. ;)

He definitely looks so much older now! It's kinda crazy! I'm a little sad because I liked his longer hair, mostly because of the epic bed head he always had, but he is a stud & love this just as much.

Hopefully our trial & error will help others in their adventures to cut their own toddlers' hair!

Have you tried this before & have more tips to share?

I just love the little personality that is developing in Greyson. He's just a tiny person now instead of a baby & I love it!

He is constantly trying to copy everything we do. Sometimes a little better than we imagine he could at his age!

But along with that comes this cute desire to actually want to hang out with us. It's not just him playing with us being around him. He wants to actually engage with us - attempt conversations, share things, & play with us, you know as long as we're doing what he wants to do.

And I must say, it's so much fun!

Some days it's hard to believe he's grown this much already & then others I can't remember him being smaller! The days are long but the years fly by!

Joining the link up this week over at Sadie Sky Boutique & Words About Waverly

Ah cloth diapering. One of the best decisions I feel like we've made since becoming parents.

So many perks to it. I'm sure most people who are parents to young kids in diapers have heard them all - great for the environment, super adorable, good for baby [less rashes, fewer blowouts, etc], can save you money, easier to potty train...

All that sounds great, but when you grow up & only know disposables, how do you get to that point?! They're a hard thing to commit to without knowing someone who cloth diapers or at least seeing them in action.

I remember when we were in our OB group while I was pregnant. We talked about all sorts of baby things, starting with pregnancy problems, labor & delivery & post-partum goodness. There were about 10 couples in our group that met once a month. We heard all sorts of things everyone planned on doing - breastfeeding? "Cool! Us too!" Natural birth? "Not for me, but good for you!" Cloth diapering? "What sort of hippies are we in this group with?!"

All I could picture was the old fashion white cloth diapers that you had to safety pin together! Ha, no thanks!

But as I started meeting other moms in the area at various groups, I saw more & more moms using cloth diapers. And whadoyouknow?! They looked just like disposables, except way cute! So easy to use. I was intrigued!

There's a cloth diapering group here in Germany that had an info table that I convinced my skeptical husband to visit with me at a breastfeeding event. We got the same spiel, but still weren't sold on them. Then I was told they have a bag with a hodge-podge of different brands & styles of diapers that people can borrow to check out.

There were pockets, All-in-ones, some hybrid diapers, a fitted and some prefolds with covers. Every type of diaper you could think of basically. I found the pockets to be the best for us at the time - yes they require stuffing, but then they're basically used just like the disposables we were used to already. And they dry faster than All-in-ones or hybrids.

Major selling points for us were saving money & less trash! I hate, hate emptying trash! Especially diaper trash. Ew! But laundry isn't so bad in my book! I already do enough of it, so what's a few extra loads a week. We chose to start our stash with Charlie Banana one-size pocket diapers.

We were late into the game, not starting until our son was already just over 5 months old. But better late than never, right?

I would recommend anyone with a kid or kids in diapers to check into cloth diapers! Such a great investment! We cloth almost exclusively [haven't mastered traveling with them yet & some rashes sent us into disposables because of the cream needed to clear them up!]. And there's so many ways to go about them! Super cheap & economical or a little more expensive & convenient!

Our stash now included the Charlie Bananas, Sunbaby pockets and Best Bottoms All-in-two diapers & I am in the market to expand our stash! Up next - Cloth Diapering Lessons Learned By a Rookie!

What made you choose to cloth diaper? What are your favorite cloth diapers & why?