Baby Annalee's Shower!

This past weekend, we traveled to Abilene to celebrate one of my most wonderful childhood friends & her sweet baby girl who will be born in December! Ashlee is married to Dallas (who is also a childhood friend!), they live in the Houston area & have an adorable blog,  here! :)

I had the privilege to help plan the baby shower for Ashlee with another sweet childhood friend, Mrs. Kelsey Holson.  With the help of our moms and many other sweet ladies, we had a blast putting it all together!

I just can't wait for little Miss Annalee Ray to arrive. :)

 I just LOVE the way her banner turned out!

I'll be giving a tutorial on my "No-Sew Bunting" banner soon. Stay tuned!

 Kelsey made this adorable picture display of Annalee's Mommy & Daddy when they were babies! 

I wonder who she will resemble?

 Mom and I had a blast making white chocolate covered popcorn & assembling these adorable "Ready to Pop" bags! I found the idea, here, but I couldn't find the exact bags. So, we decided to make our own! Hobby Lobby had these polka-dot bags and we designed the "Ready to Pop" logo.

 Kelsey & her mom made individual "Cake in a Jar" for all of the guests! They turned out so cute.  I'm not sure where she found the idea, but I'm sure you can find it on Pintrest somewhere!

 Here is Ashlee opening gifts! She got so many precious things!

 Here is another craft project I had fun making for little Annalee.  Michaels was selling these baby clothes hangers for a $1.25. I snatched 3 of them and also purchased some pink letter stickers to write her name on the hangers.  Then, I used modge podge to make sure the stickers will stay on! It was a great  personalized, but super afforable & adorable gift. :)

 And, Annalee got Texas aTm booties....I'm shocked. Sic' em Annalee. :)

 The sweetest canvas painting to hang in her nursery...

 Annalee Ray, you are the cutest little love bug! Can't wait to meet you!

It was so fun to see these amazing girls--it's been way too long!

Thinking about the miracle of a child reminds me of an encouraging verse that I love so deeply.  It's so important to remember that we were made perfectly in the Lord's sight. Here's a little reminder of that...

"For you created my inmost being; 

you knit me together in my mother's womb. 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, 

I know that full well."

Psalm 139: 13-14 

Fruit Loops & Rainbows

I've decided that as I learn & grow in my career as a Speech Therapist, I want to be consistently creative. I want to continually come up with new ideas for therapy & always keep it fun (for the kids & for me!)  So, as I "challenge" myself to think outside the box, I'm going to share some of my ideas on this blog.  It's mostly so that I can keep record of what I've done in therapy with my clients, but it's also to share with others! Maybe some of you out there are therapists, teachers, or you name it and maybe you can use some new ideas for your therapy or classroom, too!

These "ideas" were super easy & fun activities for the week! And, even better...they are all homeade. :) Here is what we did for our "Rainbow Week":

First, we SORTED the fruit loops into different colors.

Next, we organized the rainbow pictures from SMALLEST to LARGEST & vice versa.

 (For a few of my younger kiddos, I simplified this activity by having them arrange only 3 rainbow pictures.)

Finally, we made Fruit Loop Rainbows!

These activities were perfect because I was able use them for pretty much all of my clients to address each of their goals. This makes planning & preparing materials for the week super easy! Here are a few of the things we "learned" while making Fruit Loop Rainbows:

1. We learned a little bit about CATEGORIES and COLORS.  Splitting them all up into different groups according to the fruit loop's color.

2. We learned about SAME and DIFFERENT.  They are all the same because they are all fruit loops, but they are different because they are different colors.

3. We practiced ARTICULATION for various phonemes such as /k/ /g/ /s/ and many others in between gluing fruit loops onto our rainbow.

4. We practiced COUNTING the fruit loops

5. We answered SPATIAL questions such as, "Which color of the rainbow is ABOVE/BELOW the green?" or "Which color of the rainbow is at the BOTTOM/TOP? " "What color fruit loops comes FIRST/NEXT/ LAST?"

6. We learned to put pictures in order by size from little to big.

If you have any fun ideas involving educational activities please share them! I love keeping it fun & different. Some of my favorites include: crafts, games, food & snacks, music and more... I would LOVE to hear what your ideas are, too!