Skiing and Snowboarding

See his skiing in action here

We went to Lake Tahoe for Christmas. We are very blessed to have a family vacation home in such a beautiful place!

Levi went skiing again this season, he started last spring (at 2.5yrs old) and did great last year, but this year was even better! He is doing very well with his turing, and has good control over his skis. He can start/stop/turn/get off the chairlift all on his own (he needs help getting on because he is so short!). He can even "make a pizza" (wedge) without using an edgie wedgie now (an aid to help kids make a wedge shape, last year he just wasn't strong enough to put his legs in the right position without it!)

He also insisted on trying snowboarding, after using a box lid as a snowboard for several days, I let him try it out at a tiny resort with a great beginners kids area. He is 10lbs too light to make a snowboard flex (the starting weight is 35lbs), so he could pretty much only go straight. But he thought he was SOOO cool. I'm hoping he will stick with skiing for a while, he is good at it and its easier to teach!

Also he got a new helmet - a MUST for winter sports (skiing, snowboarding, sledding, ice skating).

November's Harvest

From the co-op garden

Creative Movement - Ribbon dancing

You need:

A ring (wood or metal, big enough to hold)

ribbon any kind

Tie the ribbon through the ring, at whatever length you prefer. Thats it!

Supervise use closely as ribbons can be a strangulation hazard.

Let the child try it out! Turn on some music and dance, or go outside and let the ribbons blow in the wind.

Jumping Boy!

Levi likes to jump on everything, so he was excited to try out the bungee trampoline!

Here is my jumping boy:

Levi jumping when he first got on

And here is when he got to go super high!

And today I entered to win some boys patterns! Check out the give away here

Levi's First camping trip - And a BEAR!

We went on Levi's first camping trip, just an hours drive from our vacation home in Tahoe. We went to a campsite at Fallen Leaf Lake and decided to just stay one night for the experience. It was fun!

The bear story:

I rosted marshmallows for my mom, and she decided not to eat one of them so threw it in the fire. Jokingly I commented on how "a bear was going to come and eat it now"

5 min later, Levi and Nai Nai were getting some lemonade out of the bear-proof storage box, and I was sitting in a low chair on the ground by the picnic table.

All of a sudden I heard a 'crinkle' sound coming from behind me. Sense I could see Levi/my mom, I knew it wasn't one of them. I turn around thinking its a person, and its a BEAR!

There was a bear on the picnic table! It looked up at me, I think it saw me at the same time I did. I jumped up from my seat and said "Get in the car". My mom hadn't seen the bear yet, I said again "there is a bear, get in the car".

I started towards Levi (mommy instinct, even though my mom was already picking him up and slamming shut the bear-box) and we all got in the car.

The bear lumbered around for a while and walked off.

It had ripped open an empty cookie packet that we had JUST set on the table, knocked over the lemonade, stuck its nose in my lemonade, and sniffed the grill.

We asked the park ranger what we should have done, and she said walk diagonally away from the bear, which is exactly what I had done when I headed towards Levi.

It made Levi's first camping trip 'official' and will be a great story to tell!

Some other camping adventures: (We also went to Stanford Camp during the camping trip, also on Fallen Leaf Lake)

Kayaking

Paddle boat ride

Nature Walk (guided tour)

Catching crawdads (and letting them go right after pics)

Aquatica

We got a season pass to Aquatica, and Levi really enjoys it. They have a bunch of rides he can go on, as some don't have a height limit, they just have a 'must be able to hold the handles' requirement (which he can hardly do, but he is a strong swimmer, AND they require kids his height to wear a lifejacket anyway!)

While we were there, we learned about commissary dolphins, which are beautiful black and white dolphins. Levi asked the lady working there all sorts of questions about their names, what they eat, why they are black and white, how to tell them apart etc.

Sunflowers!

Levi planted these sunflowers from a tiny seed, transplanted the seedlings into his garden, and watched them grow! They got to be over 6feet tall. Unfortunatly, something ate the seeds before we got the chance to save them.

Safety Patrol

Levi loves to ride his bike and is big on safety. He always wears his helmet and watches for cars! He also is very concerned about other people on bikes, and is always checking to see if they are wearing a helmet (usually they are not).

Bike saftey vest - white and yellow, with reflection tape and glow in the dark paint for visibility, there is a a big reflective triangle on the back (like a 'caution' sign)
And a shirt I made in honer of Levi's favorite question to ask fellow bike riders!

Between Levi with the bike safety and compleating the ISR course (survival swimming), and me with my carseat checks (Im a carseat tech!), we have the saftey thing covered!

From the co-op garden

Honey-comb: its amazing how perfectly each hole is shaped! We checked this out with a magnifying glass and also read "The Magic Schoolbus Inside a Beehive".

Levi showing off what he helped to grow! Potatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant.. made a tasty dinner!

And of course we got some more fresh made honey too... its a lot lighter in color this time!

The Letter 'T'

Here Levi is doing a shape activity, I just traced popsicle sticks so he could match them up. We counted corners, and sides and compared the two shapes.
I also did a similar activity where I put colored dots on the end of the popsicle sticks, matching colors would make a shape!

Brushing teeth! We used an old toothbrush to brush 'teeth' to make them white and clean! We talked about WHY it is important to brush your teeth, and how to make sure to brush them all.

Outdoor time - we looked at all the different trees around our house, did some tree rubbings (which we later made into a little book), and pretended to be a tree!

Arts and crafts tree - popsicle stick for the trunk, strip of paper for the grass and crumpled tissue paper for leaves. Discussed the parts of a tree as well (he already knew them though)

Another activity Levi initiated was with his trains. He took my small ironing board and made a ramp to race them down. I found some poker chips that we used to mark where the trains landed, and compared different trains, and then different angles of the ramp. This kept him entertained for a looong time, but because he was using my ironing board I couldnt get much sewing done without it!

T is for:
trees
toes
teeth
ten
tomato
tiger
train
triangle
tractor

Mini Garden

We got a little garden kit that came with paints, seeds, little mushrooms/house, fairy, gems and a plastic tray (you could use one of those trays that go under potted plants to catch water). We planted the seeds and, like everything in Florida, they grew very fast.

It was an easy and fun project to make a little fairy garden!

Let's go Fly a Kite

Levi's first kite! This one cost $1 at walmart, and has a HUGE tail. But I held it up and it took off right away! Levi ran all the way down the beach and back again and had a great time.

Butterfly Lifecycle

He wanted to hold it, but changed his mind once it was on his arm!

We were able to watch the lifecycle of a butterfly from caterpillar to butterfly! Much better than just reading a book, we watched the process from start to finish.

Skiing in Tahoe

Levi learned to ski! I was expecting to just get him used to the equipment and ski with him between my knees, but he got the idea very quickly! He was riding the lift, getting off on his own! And he was able to stop and turn and do blue runs (green is easy, blue is medium). It is VERY easy to teach such a young child to ski (he is 2.5 here), because he is so low to the ground. My first job when I was 16 was teaching kid's skiing, and I learned how to ski at this resort when I was little.
The weather was beautiful and we had a great time!

Video here (Click me!)

Guy's Day Out

Happy Birthday Shawn! (Shawn and her friend Tyler)

For my sister's birthday we had a 'girls day out' and went to the spa. So Levi stayed with my dad, whom he calls 'Buddy'. It was 'big truck day' so he had the oppertunity to check out some big trucks! He even got to pull the horn on one.

Afterwards, Buddy took him to a baseball game. He got really into it and actually wanted to sit and watch the game. Buddy wanted to take him over to 'the hill' over by the out feild where the kids play around, but Levi insisted on 'seeing if the guy can hit the ball' first.

I don't know who had more fun, Levi or my dad!

Setting Boundries - Bike riding

Levi loves to ride his bike, but I don't always want to chase him up and down the sidewalk while he does it. He already knows not to go in the road, but he was heading all the way down the sidewalk, where I couldn't see him. So I drew a STOP sign and a 'U-turn' arrow at the point where I wanted him to turn around. It took a few times of reminding him to stop there, but he got the idea, so now I can actually sit down and read a book for a while while he goes back and forth to his stop sign!

Other ideas for setting boundries:

Play 'red light, green light'. We play when walking around the block, and take turns calling out the 'lights' (but everyone stops when red light is called!). The idea being once the child understands what 'red light' means, you can yell that when they start running off in the mall,, crowd or by the street, and hopefully they will stop! With enough practice, it becomes an automatic reaction for them to stop, and saves you from running after them yelling 'stop stop stop'.

Visual boundries are a big help, in locations like parks and the zoo, I tell Levi 'don't go past the ____" (fence, Rhino's, edge of the mulch, etc.). That way he can SEE when he has gone too far (vs. telling him something like 'stay where I can see you')

Establish rules for crossing the street. Our rule is you stop, look both ways, listen, and wait for an adult to say 'OK'. Now he does this EVERY time we get anywhere near a road, even when I forget he will stop me!

Community Service

Levi, my mom and I volunteered at Space Coast Early Intervention Center.

It's never too early to stary helping your community! Levi loves gardening so this was a fun activity for us too. We planted a ton of flowers, trimmed and removed some plants, cleared debris (Levi dragged huge palm branches!), watered, and some people even extended a sandbox area.

It was dirty and hard work, but lots of fun!

Adventure walk

When you're two, and adventure walk can be anywhere! We just walked around the block with the dog, and brought along a zip-lock bag to collect treasures. Walks can be an oppertunity to talk about all sorts of things - the neighborhood, the weather, different things you can hear (wind, birds, leaves, people), etc. We also say 'hi' to the neighbors and somtimes get to stop and play with friends!

This is Levi reading all of our names! I wrote them on the driveway and then asked him to stand on each name, he got it right every time. I was suprised that he recognized everyone's names right away, as his own name is the only one he see's written down often. He read me one of his books (a David book) the other night as well, getting most of the words right.

Levi takes some pictures

Levi loves to use my camera to take pictures. I'm trying to teach him how to take good ones instead of just pics of the floor or part of someone with their head cut off! I might look into getting him his own camera, he uses mine every day and really enjoys looking at pictures as well.

Here is a few he has taken!