Happy and Blessed Home

Firetrucks, a stuffed frog, and a fire chief hat filled the sensory basket, and mommy posted flash-cards with a fox, fish, flower and frog on the magnet board.  “Fox” was a new word for Peanut.  Also featured here are some great books if you are on the letter “F”: “Hooray for Feet” by Susan Pearson, “Froggy Gets Dressed” by Nathan London, and “Trout, Trout, Trout (a fish chant)” by April Pulley Sayre.

I found a craft kit at Walmart to create a fishbowl.  You can see the completed small blue fishbowl in the picture above.  There are some colorful foam fish in the kit.  My 2-1/2 year-old enjoys stickers so it’s a fun kit to have at home.

You can’t forget about fun when studying the letter “F”.  To share some of the fun memories we’re creating with the boys, I’ve included a short video of them playing.  If you are receiving this post in a reader, please click on this link, Two boys playing, to watch the video.

For this letter I got a great idea from a children’s magazine to create a “go fish” game using card stock paper, paperclips, a magnet, string and a short stick.  I used a cookie cutter to trace shapes of fish out of card stock and then I cut the shapes.  Then I attached a paperclip to each fish.  I tied one end of a short string to the wooden pole and the other to a magnet and then reinforced the knots in the string with tape. 

I gave Peanut directions on how to fish each fish out of the bowl but as you can see he did not start doing it right away.  He did catch on eventually, and this little game lasted well over an hour – which is a long time to keep the attention of a two-and-half year-old. If you are receiving this post in a reader, please click on this link, Go Fish, to watch the video.

In the photo below, our little Peanut was mesmerized by the picture of our family.  I kept pointing to the picture and explaining to him that he, daddy, his little brother and I make a family. Pictured on the table are free printables from 1plus1plus1equals1.com which are great for coloring with crayons or painting with paint.  The pages included pictures of feet, frogs, fish and flowers. 

And no blog would be complete without a recent picture of our nine-month old.  So here he is giggling and laughing because he’s on his big brother’s Mickey Mouse pull-out mini-couch.  He loves being in on all the action.

For me, the letter “F” brings to mind the word “Faith”.  To live by faith in that I hope I am raising these boys the way God wants me to raise them – even though I will not know for many years the impact my time with them will have on their lives.