Trim-A-Tree

 Well, Tis the Season, so a couple weekends ago we headed out to our favorite Christmas tree farm (Home Depot) and picked out a little tree for our house.  It seems like we pick the coldest day of the year to pick our tree (or maybe I'm just getting less tolerant of the cold).  But I have found that the more chilly it is outside, the more agreeable I am to the first tree we consider.  This year, Amelia picked it out and I was cold and therefore in complete agreement.  She picked a great tree--albeit a bit HUGE!

This picture cracks me up because she truly believed that she was holding the tree to the top of the car.  You can see that the rope comes through the crack in the window and she was holding on to it for dear life during the 3 mile car road home. 

Amelia was very into the whole decorating-the-tree-concept this year, so I pretty much just let her and Henry go for it (that is until Henry broke 2 ornaments in the first 5 minutes).  She did a great job, although I will say that most of the ornaments are in a band around the tree about 3 feet up.

The ornament breaker...

When he wasn't breaking them, he was trying to eat them.  He may have set the all time record for the number of times the word "ball" has been spoken in one day.  

Yep, fun stuff!  I can only imagine it will get better year after year--at least until the teenage drama hits!

Ready to Read

It's pretty hard for me to believe, but my little girl is right on the verge of reading!  She can sound out many 2 and 3 letter words and has started learning sight words at school.  Her teacher sent home a sheet of 58 sight words that the school district teaches in kindergarten and had 4 words highlighted that Amelia could already read.  Within a couple of weeks, she is now up to about 15 words from the list that she can read consistently.

I told her teacher I would work with her a couple times a week for a few minutes each time.  I refuse to do any sort of flashcards at this point because the last thing I want to do is bore her to death.  I try to keep the sessions around 10 minutes so that she stays interested without getting bored.  We've played Go Fish with the words, found words with flashlights in the dark, skipped up the steps reading words, made a monster to eat words she reads, highlighted words on magazine pages, typed the words on the computer (both large and small font), colored in the words that get printed out, and matched the larger and smaller print "moms" and "babies". 

The other night, she was showing Jason some of the words she knows and he decided to try to make a sentence with them.  (This is harder than it sounds since she doesn't know any sight word nouns yet).  I happened to get it on video.  I am so proud!

Chatty Cathy

I'm trying to play a little catch up with all of the funny things Amelia has said lately.  I am raiding many of my Facebook statuses to get proper documentation--otherwise I would have never remembered them all.  If you are a Facebook friend of mine, you may have already read these--sorry for the repeats! 

• Amelia to me: "How did you know my favorite restaurant is Bread Co? Have you been reading about me on the Internet?" 

• After brushing Jason's hair tonight, Amelia said "Now you have beautiful hair just like a man Barbie".

• While cleaning out the inside of the pumpkins with Amelia, she said, "come on, lady, work with me here". She was talking to me.

•  Amelia to me: "You know what my heart does every time Henry smiles at me? It gets warm like I have lots of blankets on it".

• Amelia to me: "I'm sick.  I think I caught Henry's growth spurt".

 

 

 

Extreme Dress Up

Why have one dress when you can have them all?

Rudolph & Co.

 

Here are two fairly quick and easy projects I completed for my little shiny nosed girl and my toy-making boy. Maybe I'm saying "quick and easy" because my mom made Rudolph's bow--which was undoubtedly the most difficult part.  Nevertheless, I am pretty happy with how they both turned out.  I'm also happy that I found a website to buy plain shirts and onesies for a fairly reasonable price!  Next up?  Henry's first birthday shirt!

Like Father, Like Daughter

Making a List, Checking it Twice

While I made out my list of people to buy Christmas presents for, Amelia made out hers.  Don't see your name on the list?  No worries, she has plans to come back and add more later.  I love how she has started adding hearts behind everyone's name.

Everyone Wants S'more!

While visiting Jason's grandparents (who spoil Amelia senseless with treats and other various goodies) a few weeks ago, we received two gigantic marshmallows.  Seriously, these things were each the size of a baseball!  Jason had the brilliant idea to roast them one night in the fire, and Amelia was on board!

I realize that the marshmallow doesn't look especially big in the picture, but trust me--it was huge! So after Jason jimmy rigged a marshmallow roasting device, he got right to it (Amelia chickened out once she realized she would have to be so close to the fire).

You can kind of see the size of the marshmallow here a little better in comparison with her hand. Huge, right?  She loved every bit of it and we still have another one waiting for the next fire!

Thanksgiving 2010

I'm pretty disgusted with myself--I got not a single picture of either of my children in their Thanksgiving outfits.  Sigh. 

I did, however, get a picture of the first outfits they had on in the morning.  While watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, Amelia decided that she and Henry needed to look way fancier than they did.

Skip ahead about 8 hours and here we are at our final house of the evening--my parents.  Amelia decided she was going to sit in the high chair for her pumpkin pie.  She was already changed in to her pajamas.  Boo.

Seriously, this is all I have of Thanksgiving pictures.  I will have to do better at Christmas.  Here is Henry enjoying some pumpkin pie as well.  What you can't see from the picture is that he is getting forkfuls of pumpkin pie from both my mom and Jason and they can't shovel it in quite fast enough for his liking.  (Did I mention that I didn't give Amelia ANY sweets at all until her first birthday?  Maybe second children don't have it so bad after all).  This picture was taken after Henry had already shed his super handsome sweater he was sporting.

The day after Thanksgiving, Amelia found this handkerchief, put it on her head, and proclaimed herself a pilgrim.

What a wonderful year we have had with so much to be thankful for!

One to Go!

Oh, where have the last 11 months gone?  I am so thankful that I was careful to take a picture of Henry on each of his "month" birthdays so I can hopefully go back and figure it out.

There have been so many changes this past month.  More dance moves. Lots of standing on his own--dozens of times a day and for increasing amounts of time. An ever increasing appetite and rarely a food he doesn't devour. Kisses and hugs to not only people, but also every stuffed animal he encounters (or pictures of babies). "So Big" and "Peek-a-Boo" are daily activities around here.  He also started clapping days after turning 11 months!  And best of all?  The habit of SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT has returned!

Turns out Henry was probably freezing to death every night and waking up to let us know about it.  When his mom FINALLY figured out the correlation between fleece footed pajamas and sleeping through the night, things have been smooth sailing.  Duh. Duh. Duh.  Now, if only I can go back to sleeping all night....

I love that Henry's personality is starting to really make an appearance.  He says "dada" with gusto, especially when Jason returns from a long day at work.  He also says "mama" (mostly when he is tired and whiny).  Other than those, he still says "ball" quite a bit and I believe he has added "more" at mealtime.  He has also become more insistent on getting into his sister's things--particularly the things she happens to be playing with at the time.  This has caused the beginning of some sibling spats.  Amelia is starting to show less patience with her brother.  What was once funny is no longer.  But fortunately, most of the time they are still giggling at each other's antics and getting into mischief together. 

Henry has found himself up the stairs and into my room (without my knowing) a few times too many for my liking.  I will go into the kitchen for what cannot be more than 45 seconds only to return to the playroom and be unable to locate Henry.  I will hear a happy squeal and the sound of extremely fast crawling up above coming from the master bedroom.  We have to be VERY careful about making sure the gate is up.  I have been setting the gate about three stairs up so that he can still get some practice in going up and down the stairs without too much of a risk of falling.

Henry thoroughly enjoyed his first Thanksgiving.  He not only ate two huge Thanksgiving meals that day, but ate leftovers for nearly a week afterward.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, broccoli cheese casserole, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie (both traditional and no-bake varieties), he loved it ALL!  He is not unlike a human garbage disposal.

Henry really enjoys watching the cars go by our house and the highlight of the day is when the trash truck comes around.  He even makes the vrooom, vroooom sounds when he moves his cars around. Actually, he is pretty keen on anything at all with wheels--so much so that I started to get a little concerned that maybe it was a borderline obsession and brought it up to my Parents As Teachers Educator. Turns out, it's normal!

 

And so, the one year birthday party date has been set and the planning is in full swing.  Thank goodness that I have so much on my plate between Christmas and his first birthday that I don't have too much time to be sad that my "baby" is almost one already!

Eleven Months!

Splish, Splash

 Some pictures from our latest joint bath session.  These two really enjoy each other AND their baths. 

We're Going on a Thing Hunt

I was looking for a fun activity to reinforce some concepts Amelia has been learning at school and had the idea to do a scavenger hunt.  But, then I realized that if I gave her a list of 20 things to find and bring to me in the house, I would have a pile of 20 items that would have to all be put back.  Most likely by me.

So, instead, I gave Amelia our old(er) camera and told her each thing she needed to find.  When she would find the item, she would show it to me and hear her next object to locate.  I think I made it a little too easy for her, but it was a good experiment and an activity we will use again!

Here were the things on the list:

Something that begins with "D":

The scariest thing in the house:

 Something with four wheels:

Something with stripes (Henry's shirtsleeves):

Something in the shape of a sphere:  

Something square:

Something in the shape of a cube:

Something with exactly two colors:

 Something made of glass (this is a close up on a large jar in our house):

Something with a lid:

Something with polka dots:

Something with a pattern:

Something triangle shaped:

Something star shaped (do you see the tip of the hippo's hat?):

I cannot wait to try this again with a list that is a little more challenging.  Amelia LOVED taking all of the pictures, but I think she got bored pretty quickly with the items on the list.