Little Fingers, Little Work

Lan Lan received this kit for her fifth birthday from a friend. Looking at it I thought there would be no way that she would be able to do it by herself or that she would have the attention span to work on it long enough to get anything done. But being the crafty person she is she was very interested in at least trying so, I sat down with her the other day and taught her how to do it.
There is a lot of work involved in doing this project, there is a pattern to follow that reminds me of counted cross-stitch. This pattern consists of little blocks representing different pegs either 1, 2, 3 or 4 pegs long. Once you determine the length of the peg to use, and find the location you poke it into the peg board. After hours of pegging what do we have . . . Snow White's face!! She is just about 1/4 of the way down with this project. In the end it will be Snow White & Ariel standing next to each other.
Just like in counted cross stitch it can be easy to lose your place so I taught Lan Lan to highlight the places she has finished. She is doing an amazing job! I'm so proud of her, this is a lot of work but she sits there, works hard, is diligent and gets the job done. There have been a few times that I have had to go back and fix mistakes (and they weren't all hers). But I think she is learning a lot from this little birthday present. I can't wait to see the finished product

A Big Reward

My Little Orchid has been working on filling up her behavior chart with stickers. Over the course of many months we were work on many different things to encourage good behavior. Things that we have worked on and she received stars for were obeying right away, saying "Yes mama" and then doing whatever mama asked, if told no instead of being upset and throwing a tantrum she would say things like "OK" or "that makes me sad, but alright", sharing, eating without having to be reminded to take another bite, being helpful, etc.

After filling up her chart we told her we would take her to the nearby toy store and she could pick out any toy she liked. After carefully looking at all the toys available she told me she wanted this Barbie kitchen set. It was a bit more money than I had originally thought we would spend but my husband reminded me how hard she had worked and that it took several months (plus I don't very often buy her toys).

LanLan was anxious to open her new prize and place it in her doll house her dad built. She and I had a lot fun playing with the new toys. We made mac & cheese, smoothies, tea and washed the dishes. Of course before Barbie could cook my Little Orchid had to do her hair. (I have to brag for a minute) LanLan is really getting the hang of doing hair! Braiding is still a bit hard for her but she will pick it up quickly.

Hooray for LanLan for completing the behavior chart!!