Flash Cards

Dyer has done an awesome job of learning his letters & letter sounds at 18 months! I can't take much credit for it since I think he has picked most of it up from watching a LeapFrog DVD when we are on long car rides. He's hooked to them and says "please" for a movie almost every time we get in the car. Dyer can pick out letters out of order and knows most of their sounds. We discovered this one night when we were outside playing & he walked over to my car and pointed to each letter and said "GMC" as plain as day.

At home we have a really great set of flash cards that I picked up at Barnes & Noble that have letters, shapes, colors, phonics, etc... all in one pack! Today we laid out all of the capital letters and did some practicing on recognizing them and their sounds.


Here he is after we laid them all out on the coffee table. I tell him "touch the A" and we talk about the sound and the picture that is on each card. His favorites are apple & sun.


Right before bed he picked out to focus on these, which we pulled out of the pile. I think my favorite is when he says "Q, qu, qu." It's pretty cute, and I think he likes it because we talk about ducks going "quack" when we talk about Q.


My plan is to totally steal my friend Mindy's idea and focus on more concepts one at a time. Just a little glimpse into our days at home!

Rowe & Ryder's Farmland Adventure

It doesn't seem like we've been to that many birthday parties in the past few weeks, but I find myself posting about them all the time! Last week, Dyer was invited to an awesome celebration for his two little buddies turning two! Rowe and Ryder are the adorable boys of our interior designer & friend, Casey and her hubby Roman. Casey is super-mom, managing these two busy guys and working her hiney off making homes (especially mine!) look gorgeous. Here is the only picture I got of the birthday boys, and you can really only see Ryder. Bummer!



The party was at the coolest new place in town, Farmland Adventures! We are definitely going to be heading out there a lot this fall!

Instead of a sandbox, they have a huge box full of corn and lots of scoops, buckets, and bowls for playing. Mark showed Dyer how to fill up a bowl using a shovel & he was hooked!



They also had a hay bale pyramid that Dyer wanted to climb. I thought it would be the perfect spot for some Fall pictures, but he just ended up trying to eat the hay! The pictures did turn out pretty cute even though he never once looked at the camera!





Here's some climbing...


Dyer also had his first pony ride ever, and let me just say that he LOVED it SO much! I had to hold on to his shirt because he would bounce a little to each side, but he did great! We took more video of this.


Farmland Adventures also has a small petting zoo with a cow, lots of goats, pigs, and much more! Dyer especially loved feeding the goats out of his hand and cracked up laughing the whole time.





We also got to go on a "wagon" ride! Everyone from the party loaded up in the big wagon & we were pulled around the property by a big tractor.


At the end of the night, Dyer got to hop up in the tractor and "drive" it! If you know our boy at all, you know that this made his whole day! Buttons, steering wheels, beeping & clicking noises are his heaven on earth!






Thanks again to the Roark's for inviting us out for the fun, and happy birthday to Rowe and Ryder!