She's Crafty

Confession: Organization makes me irrationally happy.

I swoon at color coded file folders.  Binder clips make me weak in the knees. 

There is a special and specific place for every thing from potato chips to slivered almonds to tomato paste in my pantry and when they are not in their designated location, it makes me itchy.

Even my junk drawer is organized. Seriously.

So, I created an epically organized calendar for my 2 year old son.

Here's how I did it-
1. On snapfish.com you can create a sheet of 20 stickers for about $5.

• I did 4 sheets- Pman and Mommy, Pman and Daddy, P and Gramma (she watches him every other Friday- WAY awesome), and another of his school.

2. I bought a $5 calendar from Target.

• I had paper clips and index cards at home

3. I put a paperclip on the index card.  Then I stuck one of the stickers on top and cut around the index card, so each picture fit on the day square on the calendar. In the end I had many reusable papercliped stickers featuring the above mentioned people and place combos.

4. Then I cut slits in the top of every weekday.  I slipped the paperclipped picture into the slot so that when you look at the calendar you can see who P will spend his day with- every day for the entire month.

Here's what it looks like:

After dinner each night we go to the calendar and talk about what we did that day.  He pulls off the current picture and places it in a bag. 

Then we talk about who P will be with the next day.  He is learning how to tell today from tomorrow from yesterday AND he always knows what's coming next.  It's working! He woke up last Thursday (yesterday) and said, "Skoooo." (translation: school)  He remembered! (Or that's what I'm telling myself anyway.)

There it is.  I'm an organizing freak and I am passing the obsession onto my son- it seems. 

Judging the Dutch

Confession: I generally do not like amusement parks. 

I get horrible motion sickness if I even sit in the backseat of a car- hell I've even gotten sick while driving a car.  When you introduce whirly twisty rides to a lady like me, bad bad things happen.  For this reason, I usually avoid amusement parks.  However, Josh loves them.  So now that Parker is getting older we have taken him on a few rides and so far he seems to love them as well.  Just after his 2nd Birthday he got on a non-kiddie version of the Scrambler with Josh.  As his little body was whipped around and whizzed by me, I stood watch, gnawing on each one of my fingernails.  He was squealing with delight, I was gripped with terror.

I have family in Lancaster, PA, which is near Dutch Wonderland- a kiddie focused amusement park.  Josh and I drove to my family's house on Friday and Saturday we headed to DW.  Here are some photos, but first a quick review:

Cost- a ticket for anyone 3 and above is $31.95, unless you can pass for a senior citizen, then it's like $25.95 or something.

Rides- there are rides the 2's and 3's can do alone and tons of rides they can do with their parents.  There is also a great selection of rides for kids up to about 10 or 12 years old I would say.  There is a waterpark as well, but P was coming off a fever, so we did not venture over there.

Food- crappy and expensive

Location- it's super easy to get to and there are a ton of hotels around it.  I've heard there is a kids hands-on museum a few miles away from the park and a train museum close by that is pretty cool.  We only went to the park though.

Overall- we had a great time.  The park was not so big that we felt overwhelmed and we were able to do all the P appropriate rides.  Most of the park is shaded, which is great.  Save for the collective toddler 2p.m. meltdown performed simultaneously by the hundreds of kiddos at the park, it was a fun family trip and we will be going back for sure.

On the trip P discovered a love for Strawberry Pop Tarts, fell off a bench and hit his chin-typical, thoroughly enjoyed the log flume(!), slept without incident on the air mattress- guess he is more ready for a big boy bed than I thought. (He is currently still in his crib. Santa is bringing him a big boy bed- stay tuned...)

Thanks to Anne and Uncle Herpman (Herman) for hosting this super fun weekend!

Mom. Dad. Just pull the wagon and please stop talking to me directly.

*Happy*

*Awesome*

Anne and Uncle Herpman