What does a stay at home mom do all day??

As a newbie mom I'm always looking for things to do with my 1 year old that are fun, age appropriate, and educational. Sometimes we fall into a rut where I'll just let her play with her usual toys but on our creative days we have a lot of fun together! So if you're stuck in a rut like I often get, here's our top 10 of activities we enjoy. :)

Top 10 Activities for children ages 9 months - 1 year

Dance Party

Shaving cream ( we put shaving cream on the wood floors and have a blast drawing in it)

Playing in her water table - (We are also getting ready to try different things other than water, such as corn starch, flour, and jello!)

Lego's- I build and she takes them apart :)

Drop In- I used an old coffee can and cut a slit in the lid so that she could drop in lids from her fruit pouches. She really enjoys this simple game!

Bubbles are always a hit
Coloring- I bought a simple scrapbook with the paper already in it and she colors with colored pencils or fat crayons
Cooking!- My little girl loves the kitchen! She loves to stir things so whenever I get the chance we are baking together. Yes its messy, but it's absolutely worth it! We also have a cabinet just for her in our kitchen and she gets to play with her own bowls and spoons and such while mommy does dishes.
Fabric Scrap Bin- I'm sure we all know how hard it is to fold laundry with a toddler in the house! You're folding while they unfold..well I made a little bin of my fabric scraps and let her play with them while I fold laundry. She's practicing folding while I'm actually getting something done!

Baby Obstacle Course- I sometimes set up a little obstacle course for the princess, it was really great when she was learning to crawl and stand up. I used diaper boxes, pillows,she would even try to crawl under our coffee table. It was fun for her and I had fun crawling around being silly with her :)

So..what are some of your favorite things to do with your toddlers?

Valentine's Cards!

So I said before that February is a special month for my guy and I. We have our 3 year anniversary on the February 2 and of course Valentine's day is the 14th. I thought why not just make it a full two weeks of love? Starting Feb. 1st my love will be getting a present each day until Valentines day! Well..it's also my sweet baby girl's first Valentine's! I'm super excited to celebrate with both of my lovebugs so I decided to make a card for her daddy from Paisley!

These are a few of my absolute favorites from her mini shoot :)  I know that her daddy will treasure these forever. <3


(For the heart I just used the free Picasa editing software to write all of the different sayings. )

Where did the time go?

Yesterday my beautiful baby girl turned 9 months old! I can't even believe it! So we just moved into a new house and I've been decorating and being slightly sentimental about Paisley,and I found this in one of the boxes I unpacked!

I made this when she was about 3 months old. It was pretty simple to do, I just bought a shadowbox on sale at Hobby Lobby and put scrapbook paper on the back. Then I hot glued all of her hospital stuff in there. Her preemie onesie she came home in,the socks her aunt bought her,the little bow she wore home,and her hospital bracelet. I love having it hang on the wall beside her hospital picture.

This is Paisley at 3 months old with her coming home outfit! I love my little princess!

Baby girl&apos;s first ornament!

The tree is up! I am so beyond excited for baby girl's first Christmas :) We really wanted something special for her first ornament and we did alot of looking at stores but didn't really find what we wanted. We did get her an adorable picture frame ornament that says baby's first Christmas and we let her pick an ornament and she got a pink baby bottle but that just wasn't what I wanted. So we went to pick up some glass ornaments to put pictures in (more on that later) and I already had paint for another project so we decided to go for the handprint. Next to impossible with a very curious 8 month old! I'd recommend doing this one when baby is asleep ;) I put a little squirt of paint in her hand and she closed it and squished it everywhere of course. Then daddy held her while I let her grab the ornament. Voila! Instant cuteness and a great reminder of baby's first Christmas. I used a paint pen on the other side of the ornament to write her name and 2011 and then tied a sweet baby ribbon at the top. We left it to dry for about 30 minutes and then put it on the tree. While we were making one for our tree we also made up a few extras for her grandparents and aunts. We'll pair those with their other gifts for a cute present from the princess! Best part? I got everything half off so it only cost me about $5 to make all of the ornaments!