The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmet and Poly Bernatene

Wow, what a great story. Five stars from our 3.5 year old!

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

FINALLY got The Gruffalo in our bookshelf! I, as an adult, really like this one. A good addition to our Julia Donaldson book collection.

The Princess and the Wizard by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks

 

Got this book for my 3 year old…I’m not sure if she gets the story but when we look for the princess, she knows where she is. I want to like this story more than I do, but some how it felt rushed the closer one gets to the end. It is an ok story. We give it two stars. This book is for older kids, age 5/6 or so I’d say.

Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul

We like this story! This is our first Winnie the Witch book, also the first in a series of 12. Did you know that this story was first published in 1987??? The one we got is the 25th anniversary edition,  published this year 2012. It comes with ‘Lots of FUN Stickers inside!’   LOVE the illustration style. It has a lot going on and that keeps little eyes glued to the page while being read to. A definite 5 stars from us!

Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson & David Roberts

This is one  I really like to read to our kids (Cadence 3 years old and Miles 7 months). Very cute story about a Duckbill Dino egg rolling  in to a  T-Rex nest. The illustrations are good. Coves most pages in the book fully. We give it 5 stars!

Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort

Aliens Love Underpants…it’s ok. Funny Illustrations that kept my little 3 year old girl looking at each page while I read the text.  The text does not rhyme as well as some of the other children books we’ve read to our kids. For example:

“Their spaceship’s radar bleeps and blinks

The moment that it sees

A washing line of underpants,

All flapping in the breeze.”

….satsumas/bloomers….hide/slide….

Yea, the story is ok. Not disappointed and not overly exited about it.

Have decided to add a 5 star rating to our book review. And this one gets a 3 from us.

Banana ! by Ed Vere

A very simple book containing two words ‘Banana’ (repeated 12 times, including front cover and back) and ‘Please’ (repeated twice). The back cover has 5 sentences that does not get repeated in the book…it’s kind of left up to you/your child to ‘get’ what’s happening from the illustrations (done by Ed Vere, 2007) that is really cute and the actions clear. Leaning to say please and sharing.

My 3 year old girl can ‘read’ it herself. She finds it very funny. Simple, yet great. We give it 5 stars!

Family and friends Visiting, Moving, Uni, new Baby…2012

…just have had no time to blog.

Have started a new Uni course and it’s a ‘slow moving’ lump of a thing…

…anywayz….

 

Our little baby boy is almost 6 months old!! Time has just wooooooooooshed by! We have moved to a City called Wiesbaden. Liking it. Found a Kindergarten spot for Cadence and she has been going every day from 9 till 13:00 and she is REALLY enjoying it, so much that she does not want to go home when I go to pick her up! haha

Miles rolles around and is not sitting all by himself yet, but getting there. He can sit, but will fall over to the side or forward with his head touching the floor. He LOVES ‘eating’ his toes. Itchy gums makes him a bit cranky at times. He has slept streatches of 6 to 8 hours only three times so far. As I’m too lazy to go feed him at night, he usually ends up in bed with us.

Cadence has been going to Kindergarten with no diaper on. Last Friday was the first time in the two weeks that we have been doing this that she had an OOPs. So things are finally looking up in the potty department WHOOP WHOOP!! We have also thrown out her sippy cups. We used them for her chocolate milk. Instead we are now giving her her milk in a cup with a straw…soon we will take the straw away too, and the ‘nanna’ milk will come to an end too.

O, and with Cadence at Kindy we are getting alot of ‘NEIN! Nicht!’ from Cadence haha So glad we got her a spot.

 

 

Potty Training

So…”here we go go go, on an adventure!” We have been potty training our little one for about 2 months…could be more. We  have been taking it pretty slow and trying all sorts of things. We started by just letting her run around with out anything on over the weekends when both her Daddy and I are at hand to help out. Then we started putting on some big girl pants. We found that setting a timer and putting her on the potty every 20 min when the timer goes off helped. When she hears the timer she will now say :”Potty Time!” and rush to the potty. She does not always go so we adjusted the timer to every half hour and that seems to work better.  We did that for about a week. Now, we just ask her, often, if she wants to pee pee.

I feel like its important to not just let her sit and sit (we did do this in the beginning)…I feel like she should know that when she sits on the potty she should be doing her business and not just use it as a chair to just chill out on. So I will put her on the potty and keep reminding her that she should pee pee. She will then tell me that she is done (even when she has not gone and that is fine) or she will make a game of it. I then just take her off.

Today, we are going to go out for the first time with no diaper on….I am a bit worried about how this is going to go down. This is as much a learning experience for our little one as it is for us! I am planning on just taking her potty with us. I am going to put it in a shopping bag and take a bottle of water with to give it a rinse if we are lucky and actually get to use it today. Maybe take something like toilet paper with to give it a wipe too. Yes…this is going to be ‘a fun day’ 😀

The thing I have learned from potty training so far is to take it day by day. Stay calm…really, don’t do it if you are in a bad mood. And lots and lots of praise helps!

Please, any little tips is welcome! As I said, this is as much a learning experience for our little one as it is for us!

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Let’s see…have been doing this potty thing now for about a week and have gone out with our little one…armed with the blue potty….about twice. She pooped in her potty on the first day, but peed in the splash pool. And on the second outing she peepeed in the back of the car, on the potty. Found this nifty little trick on some other blog…can’t remember the name of it though. Was googleing about how one goes about with a toddler and potty training.

Yes, its still not perfect. She still gives us the ‘pee pee’ after it has happened, but have a couple of bright moments too! Have this blue potty and one that goes on a normal toilet. We use a washing basket for her to get onto the toilet. Yesterday we found pee pee on the washing basket, so she ‘kinda’ made it to the toilet by herself ! Very proud of her!!

This is hard work, and I don’t have the patience for it most of the time, but its one of those things that she has to learn.

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09/10/2011

Aggggg, what can I say…it went really well, and then really bad. I have given up until my exams are over and I have more patience for our little girl and her blue potty….

Had days when she would tell us that she needs to use the potty and then peepees in the potty no problems and then we had days that she just did not care…well, that is what it felt like to me. I had to ask her if she wanted to go, and she would say no, and then she would just pee in her trousers a minute later. Agggggggggggg, went through all her clothing one day! It just seemed to get worse, so decided to leave it for a bit. I hope that when we start trying again she will be more keen.

Then we go visit a little friend of hers and this little girl does not need any help. She can pull down her trousers and use her potty with no help from her Mommy, pull her trousers back on and off she goes!

What am I doing wrong ???!!!???!! Agggggggggggggggggggggg !!!!!!!!!!

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07/07/2012

She now gets it…after what seems like for EVER, she gets it. She is now almost 3.5 years old. Still needs a bit of help pulling up her knickers and trousers properly, but hey, she is pooping and peeing IN A POTTY!! And with out me having to constantly remind her too! Its great!

Cadence

2 and a half years old