Five Photo Book Ideas

I seek out deals and often wind up with "free" photo books.  I do photo books for our primary albums, but these free offers very rarely time out with when I am ready to print.  Plus, my albums are usually huge and free books are around 20 pages.  So, I have made some creative books for C's entertainment.  Here are a few of these ideas:  

1. " Who Loves Me?" book for babies and toddlers.  Features pictures of family members, pets, etc.  This was awesome at restaurants, and out and about.  Great way to learn everyone's name.  

2.  Alphabet Book - Ours has pictures of places we have been, our favorite toys, animals we love, etc.  I laid this one out in photo shop to format it the way I wanted, but it could easily be done in a design wizard. 

3.  "How Time Flies" book for school age kids.  Pages show families growing and kids changing.  It is amazing to see all this change in one place.


We did a page (or a few) for:
(1) extended family on each side (2)aunts and uncles dating, getting married, their family growing (3) each cousin growing up from baby to now (4) best friends that have been around for years (5) our family (6) our dogs (7) each birthday labeled with the age (8) each Halloween labeled with the year (9)  each Christmas labeled with the year (10) favorite pictures of my kid from birth to now



4.  Holiday specific books - We have one for Halloween and one for Hanukah / Christmas.  These are collections older than our child.  It includes our childhoods, and when possible our parents childhoods and pre-kids.   We keep them in our seasonal storage and pull them out and look through them and talk about them as the holiday approaches.  It allows us to refresh or teach our traditions in advance so the holiday is fun and not weird surprises.  These books are all packed up, but you get the idea.

5.  Recipe Book - Photos of baking or enjoying your favorite family recipes with the recipe.  I have not made this book yet, but it is on deck.  I plan to create it while she is little and hold on to it until she gets her own place and give it as a house warming gift.  I may never execute this plan.  I lose things, forget things, and who knows, but I love this idea.  

Today's Plan: Fun Work

We had a fantastic Christmas.  Lots of love and fun with our families was enjoyed.  Lots of presents were opened.  Lots of food was eaten, and savored.  

Today we need to get back to normal.  We have vacation for another week from school and therapy.  

We need to make sure we are doing our work.  Today we plan to paint with new do-a-dot paints.  Circle practice is also on the agenda

Practice our signs and verbalization with Sign to Talk cards.  The front of the card has a large 5"x7", full-color, glossy photo of the target item. The reverse side contains a photo of the ASL sign, a written description of the hand shapes, and a series of Kaufman Speech to Language "word shells," which are highly effective for shaping intelligible articulation.

Then I think we will make funny faces in the mirror or the camera and practice following directions and imitating.  "Touch your head.  Touch your toes.  Open your mouth."  or "Reach for the sky.  Reach to the sides.  Stick out your tongue."  These things help her mimic more advanced movements when requested.  

We are also trying to spend at least 20 minutes each day using our talker in a focused task.  Today we will be describing objects, what they are, their color, etc.  

Time to get to work.  

Homemade Christmas 2012

1.  Bottle Cap Magnets - We used our 1" hole punch to cut pictures out of magazines and craft paper.  We added glitter, buttons, and other small items.  Then filled it with dimensional mod podge, attached magnets to the back and packaged them on card stock with a washer behind to hold them in place.   

2.  Relaxation Eye Bags - I made these for all my friends in the 9th grade when I discover them in a yoga class.  I had forgotten how much I adored them until recently I saw something similar on pinterest.  You can make them any shape you want.  These are intended to rest on your forehead and eyes.  They are filled with lavender and rice.  You can microwave them for 30 seconds and then lay back and relax.    This is the amount of sewing skill I have.  I can make a rectangular pillow (more or less).  

3.  Book Page Letter Ornaments - I printed large letters in a font interesting, but not terribly complex.  Then I traced the letters on foam core and cut them out with my exacto.  I spent a few evening shredding book pages and mod podging over the letter to make sure all white space was covered.  Then I threaded a piece of embroidery floss through a hole I had poked with a skewer.  Voila!

4.  Salt Dough Ornaments - We mixed 1 cup of salt, 4 cups of four, and 2 cups of water with our hands.  Then we rolled it out, and used all our fun cookie cutters.  Next we pulled out our stamps and colored inks.  They bake in the oven FOREVER.  I think I wound up leaving them in for about 5 hours at 225 degrees.  We kept a few ornaments and used the rest as gift tags.  

5.  I love making these.  One day you will see me at an art fair with my own booth selling my favorite sayings.  There are many layers and steps, but I really like the way this one turned out. 

6.  Scrabble Name Ornaments - I started by drilling holes in the end letters.  Then I glued the letters together and let them dry.  I used copper wire and pliers to create the hangers.  

7.  Cookies - This year we just made Peanut Butter Kisses and Cranberry Coconut Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.  They were delicious, but gone :(  

8.  More Treats - We made 120 Spinach Balls, 1 Bananas Fosters Upside Down Cake, 1 Cheesecake and 1 Batch of Caramel.  Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of most of it.  

I am thankful for...
20.  60 degree days in November
19.  good deals
18.  photos to capture my memories
17.  books to take me on adventures I will never have myself
16.  the smell of pumpkin pies baking
15.  technology that lets me see the ones I love who are far away
14.  drinks with friends on long days (or short ones)
13.  showers that leave me feeling refreshed
12.  bedtime stories
11.  sleeping in
10.  warm cozies; blankets, dogs,slippers, and snuggles
9.  coffee to wake me up in the morning
8.  sunshine, and rain to make me appreciate the sunshine, and beer in sunshine
7.  our home, the roof over our head that protects us
6. the food that fills our bellies
5.  my smart beautiful daughter (who is using her talker to ask for carrots as I type)
4.  the ability to stay home while she needs me
3.  my parents moving closer to me, I am so happy to spend so much relaxed time with them
2.  my husband - I am thankful he smokes the turkey outside so I can monopolize the over.  I am thankful he makes me laugh.  I am thankful he wants to protect us and will always check when I hear a noise.  I am thankful they play acrobatics before brushing teeth at bedtime.  I am thankful he loves us with his whole heart.  
1.  the love and support of family and friends I have been blessed with, I am so lucky

Hold on, Mom.

We were late for school.  Shoes were on, jackets were zipped.  I grabbed the talker to walk out the door.  She firmly ripped from my hands and sat down on the steps.

Me:   "Honey, we have to go.  We are going to be late for school."
C (via talker):  "Good Morning.  Hello.  How are you?" (big smile at me)

Sometimes I need a reminder to slow down.  It doesn't matter if we are a couple minutes late.   This made my day, maybe my week.

CVCV

We have been working on consonant vowel consonant vowel since we started with our current speech therapist mid-August.

We practice Mama, Dada, Papa, Baa Baa over and over.  Sometimes with flash cards.  Sometimes with pictures.  Sometimes just in play.

We also attach gestures or signs to words whenever possible.  This provides additional input to jog her memory about how to make the sounds.

Last week she brought me something and said "Mama opa peas" (mama, open please) without any prompting.  We are making progress

Letter Magnets

Today we sat at the table after we ran around the house a while.  On a cookie sheet I had all the vowels lined up.  Approximations we attempted for each sound.  Then a sucker was rewards for about 30 seconds.  She then had to give the sucker back and do another set.  We added "B", P", "D", and "M" one at a time and moved them along the vowels.  Again, after each set the sucker was given as a reward.  She was getting tired, but trying hard after the last set.

Then we changed to a comprehension game instead of a verbal production goal.  I put e, w, d, h, s, b, a, u, t, n, g, and k on the cookie sheet.  Then I made a sounds and asked her to give me the letter that makes the sound.  Initially this went very well.  After about 5 correct letter she started just handing me letters before I asked.  When I held her hands until I finished it was about 50/50 for the remaining letters.  When I refilled the cookie sheet with the letters we talked about eggs, dada, hat, ball, apple, gum, kite as each letter went down.  Then I asked her for the letter kite starts with.

Long Vowel Supergirl

We have been working on elongating our vowels and increasing our breath support for a while.  Each growth spurt if it difficult again to support out vowels.  One example is "E", without proper support is collapses to "ish".

We blow things; bubbles, bubbles in our drink, cotton balls through straws, paint, whistles, recorders, etc.

Yesterday we flew in the air like super girl as long as we held our vowels.  This was an outstanding motivator and may have resulted in the longest vowels to date.   Combining big gross motor movements with speech seems to make a big difference.

Apraxia Focus

I have decided to change the blog for the time being.  Most of my readers know Corinne has apraxia and is learning to talk.  I need a metric to see us making progress and ideas for days I can not think of what to do for our speech goals.  So, I am going to track some of these ideas here.  I think it will be good for me and might give you an idea what we do.  You can stop reading.  It will not hurt my feelings.

Nova Chat and Wheels

Lots going on over here.  Now that we are back to school we finally got Corinne's talker.  She now carries a Samsung Android Tablet with Nova Chat.  She is using it to answer questions.  While we continue to working on talking we are now also working on using the talker to communicate.  I am so excited.  I know she has so much she wants to say and I am thrilled to hear it through any method.

In other news, Corinne is mastering her tricycle, big wheel, and roller skates.  We have been loving this fall weather and playing outside as much as possible.  She is making giant leaps on all fronts and having lots of fun.  

6th Anniversary Ring

Kevin had this ring made for me for our anniversary.  I love it!  Thanks, dear!

Indian Springs Awesome Park

Fly Swatter Painting...aka Body Art?

eh...this is okay

sponges are better.

I think green is my color.

ta-da

(note to self: the problem with painting your tummy 

green is it tickles like crazy when mommy tries to scrub it off)

the next logical step

Rainbow Party

 We had a super fun rainbow party today to celebrate Corinne turning four.  I gathered all the best ideas and could find, and added a few of my own.  It was so easy since rainbow colors are everywhere.

We made this banner with foam glitter sheets cut into letters and then sewn together quickly with the sewing machine.  

 A few of the decorations, wind spinners, felt shapes sewn to make garland, and ikea art.

We did some pop bottle bowling.

We used different sized balls down the ramp to knock down colored water bottles

 Marble painting

 Veggie Tray

(tomatos, carrots, yellow peppers, broccoli, eggplant)

 Fruit Skewers

(watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, honeydew, blueberries, blackberries)

 M&M Bar

Rainbow made from everyone at the party.  

The invite told them to dress in their favorite color.

Rainbow cake for the grown ups.  This is just double white cake recipe split into 6 bowls and gel food coloring was added.  I wanted a light a fluffy frosting, not something heavy like butter cream.  So, I made this with banana pudding and pink food coloring.  I took one spoonful of each color in the ice cream cones.  

And then just a wee bit of parachute time.

I think it was a great rainbow party and I know my four year old had a blast.  We gave all the kids the big bubble test tubes (we had one of each color).  

Towel Joy

Those who have always been thin or fit can stop reading right now. I promise, you can not relate to this post.

I had something exciting happen the other day. I was out of bath sheets (giant towels that are soft and wonderful to wrap up in) and had to pull a standard towel out of my linen closet. When I got out of the shower and dried off I wrapped the towel around me. Do you know what I found out? It closed!! I was completely decent, no hip peeking out, no diagonal towel that closed at the top and had a big gap at the bottom. It has been a while since I used a standard sized towel. So, I don't know when this happened, but I am strangely thrilled by this development.

other exciting developments:

- I can do more than 10 pushups

- I weigh less than I have since Kevin has known me

- I have muscles, you can feel and see them

- The smallest clothes I own are out of the under bed storage and on my body

Christmas Break

Well, vacation has flown by. The first week was spent in the holiday whirlwind and we have been low key and not feeling well this past week. We all return to our regular schedules tomorrow. I know Kevin would prefer not to be sick (or deal with us sick) over his vacation, but I think he has enjoyed me not wanting to do anything for a few days. I am so ready to feel better. Kevin and I did manage to stay awake to see the ball drop.

I decided to do a a 365 project this year. I will be posting a picture a day. My goal is to experiment and try new things with my camera. I am not off to a great start since I was low on energy yesterday, but I am confident this will be an enjoyable project. If you want to follow you can do so here.

No resolutions over here for 2012. We are doing well on our 2011 fitness programs. Kevin is doing great not smoking. I am so proud of him. It will be a month smoke free tomorrow. Yay!! I have lost 27 pounds and am antsy to get back to the gym when Corinne goes back to school this week.

Go State!