A Summer Education

Remember how I was doing all these mommy school updates not too long ago? We were having so much fun jumping from letter to letter and crafting and coloring and repeating sounds. Well, we got to P in February - P was for penguin and pregnant. Emphasis on the pregnant part. It took a month to get through P and then I was so sick pretty much all the time that I lost my motivation to do anything but the basics (i.e. keep Ava alive). That's also when I kind of developed a TV addiction (and an aversion to meatballs).

So. Mommyschool, as it existed, stopped happening and I felt guilty about it for 5 seconds and then, guess what! I noticed that Ava was still learning, even though it wasn't structured and planned and crafty. She still wrote 5,000 Ps and we still read a bunch of books. She certainly didn't get dumber. So I stopped feeling guilty and we all survived winter in Michigan.

And then spring/summer finally hit and beach. Beach beach beach. And she learns lots of stuff at the beach: what a dead catfish looks like, what to do with the dead catfish, how to eat fruit snacks without eating sand, the proper sand-to-water ratio for building sand castles, etc. She's also learning just how big a belly with a baby in it can get. Although, she is still quite confused about what's in her belly. You see, since I have a baby in my belly that kicks that means she MUST have something in her belly that also kicks. Regard: the other night, she grabbed my hand and put it on her belly and said, "The Holy Ghost is kicking, mom! Can you feel it?" (We have gone over the Holy Ghost thing 5,000,000 times so I'm hoping she'll just grow out of that line of thinking.)

I will be vigilant about my child's beach education all summer and then preschool will start and I will have this baby and she will get all sorts of learned and educated. Heh heh. And she, in her usual Ava fashion, will wax philosophical about it all in the car.

A princess with secrets

So here is a picture of my kid's outfit today. One of her best, I think. I feel like you need to know that she would not hold still long enough for me to take a picture. But she did stop so that she could let one. And she thought it was funny. So yeah. Here's my farting princess bahahahaha.

I'm the nicest mom ever.

Some slight organization

So I have been needing a command center of sorts in my house for a long time. Right where this blank wall with a single picture hanger sat for months and months. 

So this is the before:

And this is what I have so far:

I made a magnetic chalkboard and a letter bin. Since I already had black latex paint and unsanded grout lying around, my only cost for the chalkboard was the $4.58 I spent at Lowe's for the piece of metal. I went to the plumbing section and got this piece by all the duct work (you can get bigger, heavier pieces for $15-$20 but Iiiiiiiiii'm cheap and this was the perfect size for my space). It had a little piece at the top that I bent to create a little ledge for holding the chalk.

 I roughed up the metal with some sand paper, primed it (spray paint primer is my favorite), and put 3 coats of homemade chalkboard paint on it. I rubbed it all over with chalk and erased it - to "cure" the chalkboard surface and attached it to my wall with 3M picture hanging strips (GENIUS, those strips are). 

For the letter bin, I used these plans from Ana White's website and some spray paint. My cost for this was $5 for the 1/4" plywood and $4.67 for some spray paint. 

So. For about $15, I have a little command center. Not too shabby. And, as with everything in my house, it is a work in progress so this corner will probably get more awesome later on.

This was the first of MANY organizational projects I am attempting to get done before this baby boy gets here. Wish me luck!