A Girl and Her Accessories

I couldn't resist uploading the picture I took of Amelia before sending her off to her school Valentine's Day party. She pretty much came up with the outfit herself. I insisted she add the turtleneck under the sweater so she would be warm enough. Its hard to tell from the picture, but she has two tiny hair knot ponytails, a clip in her hair, stick on "diamond" earrings, and two bracelets. She is holding the plastic rose from her tea party set because "that's what you do on Valentine's Day".

Luckily, she didn't insist on the Cinderella shoes in the back ground.

Amelia's First Sleepover

GG (my mom) gets herself into trouble often with silly things she says that are taken quite literally by a certain 3 year old. The other night she was over and it was snowing outside. She told Amelia that she would have to sleep at our house because it wasn't safe to drive home (even though there were only a few flurries). So, Amelia got it into her head that GG was staying that night for a sleepover and thus the idea was born.

She didn't stay THAT night, but we planned to have her sleep over another night later that week. Amelia was beyond excited! Jason called from work the afternoon of the scheduled sleepover to make sure it was still on. He then offered to pick up pizza for dinner and when I told him I was making a chicken casserole, he commented that that wasn't very "sleep over like". He came home from work that night bearing bags of treats like Super Pretzels with cheese and the ingredients to make Puppy Chow. (I'm not sure if he or Amelia was more excited!).

As you can see, Amelia enjoyed making the Puppy Chow even more than eating it.

Jason also came home with the movie, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"--a flick that Amelia has been requesting to rent for a few months now. I'm not sure why she was so set on seeing it, but after dropping her off at school that morning Henry and I tracked down a copy at a local Redbox too. So, we had two copies of the exact same movie.

When I asked Amelia what she wanted to do at the sleepover, she listed three things: build a tent, watch a movie, and listen to a song.

The tent building was intense! Yes, those are wood planks. Amelia decided that she was Little Red Riding Hood and that the tent was Granny's house. (She has since taken to calling my mom "Granny"). She would fill her basket with food and knock on the door to help out her sick granny.

As you can see, Little Red and Granny weren't the only ones in the house. Truman was appointed as the Big Bad Wolf (we combined a couple of fairy tales here) and she took her role seriously--repeatedly huffing, puffing, and knocking over the tent.

The tent made the perfect spot to watch the movie (which was a HUGE hit).

Its no surprise the the snacks were a hit too: popcorn, Puppy Chow, and Super Pretzels with cheese. How could you go wrong?

Henry was less than impressed with the set up.

Despite the tent building, snacks, and movie, Amelia was STILL in bed and asleep at a reasonable hour (I think it was around 9ish). GG was a trooper and slept in Amelia's bed. We made a little "bed" for Amelia on the floor using the couch cushions and some blankets (she only fell off once during the night). GG got a 7 AM wake up call. I believe it was something like, "GG! Its daytime out!" probably spoken mere inches from GG's face in a rather loud voice.

All in all, I would say Amelia's first sleepover was a huge success! Although, I wouldn't say I am ready for a gaggle of 3 year olds over here or anything......

Mama's Boy

Grocery Shopping

Don't worry, this was all staged. No actual pushing took place.

And besides, he loved it!

See?

Henry Entertains the Ladies

The kids were lucky enough to receive a visit from the two youngest Wiegand children a couple of weeks ago. Only the girls came out this time because their three older brothers were in school that day.

Amelia really enjoyed playing dress up with two year old Claire. The two were a pair! At one point I found them both upstairs jumping on Amelia's bed. Any girl who loves the princesses as much as Amelia does has a special place in her heart.

Rachael and I couldn't resist putting the two babies next to each other on the floor to "play". As you can see, we weren't the only ones who thought that was a good idea. They were so cute together and Cambrie is possibly the happiest baby I have ever seen! At one point they were even holding hands.

Four month old Cambrie and one month old Henry. With all of the pink in the room, Henry opted for his manly red and blue sports sleeper.

Henry attempting to get away, but apparently Cambrie wasn't done playing. She got a good hold of his sleeper and didn't want to let him go! Looks like the girls already find him irresistible. (Actually, Cambrie figured out pretty quickly that if she was holding on to Henry, she could use him to help her roll over easier).

Rachael brought the most impressive diaper cake I've ever seen--complete in the theme of Henry's room no less!

Yep, another talented friend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

From my two sweet hearts!

Hearts Galore

As with most holidays around the Ward household, we start our celebrations early and often. Valentine's Day was no exception. In fact, we started making our valentines in mid-January. I guess it helped that we have been housebound for about 6 weeks now. Our first batch of valentines were made using a sponge cut into the shape of a heart, some white paint, and our leftover pre-folded Christmas cards.

Perhaps you got one of these gems in your mailbox. Amelia has been big on mail lately--both sending and receiving it! And since we have an endless supply of artwork, we've been opting to share it with many friends and family. Luckily, we have some great family members that get a kick out of getting mail from Amelia and send some back in return.

Our next activity was found on No Time For Flashcards. We decided to make up a batch of glitter playdoh (Amelia chose to make yellow), then pretended to make beautiful Valentine cupcakes. We even added some of our fancy heart sprinkles. We saved them to show Jason and "ate" them after dinner for dessert.

I've been on a mission to clean out extra junk around here (which is an ongoing job!). When I came across a bunch of old magazines and some scraps of paper from Amelia's birthday party, I decided to put it to good use with this heart collage. We also added some stickers and aluminum foil. This was quick, easy, fun, and looks great when it is finished!

We decided to use up some of the duplicate pictures I had around on another heart. I was thinking she would cut the photos into small pieces, but she wanted to cut around the pictures and use them whole. I love the way this one turned out too!

This idea came from a recent issue of Family Fun magazine. I had spotted these super cute valentines and thought they would be perfect to make for Amelia's class. I folded down the corner of the page (which is usually as far as I get for most projects) after getting Amelia's approval. But it just so happens that a few days later my mom came over and was looking through the magazine and commented about how cute they were. With her help we knocked almost all 21 out for her class in one day. Of course, when my wonderful husband got home from work, he jokingly reminded me that you can pick up a pack of valentines from the store for about $2.

On one leaf it says, "From you Bud-dy".

Once we actually made it to the holiday itself, I had a special surprise for Amelia set up to help her find her valentine gift. When she got up from her nap there was a trail of tiny paper hearts leading from her room all through the house and finally to her present. I had her pick them up as she went hoping to both slow down the process and essentially make her clean up the 100+ hearts. About halfway through she asked for help picking them up--I may have gone a bit overboard. It was fun though, she's really been into making "animal trails" lately.

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

Here's the slightly more uplifting post about Henry's one month milestone. Granted, he is almost 6 weeks now, but as they say--better late than never.

First things first. Here are the stats for Henry's one month check-up!

Weight: 11 lbs, 8 oz. (85th percentile)
Length: 23.5 inches (96th percentile)
Head Circumference: (65th percentile)

The appointment went well. The doctor thought he was "enormous" and healthy. Even though he had just been in the office on Friday to have his cold checked, she said that she couldn't believe he was only one month old. He had to get a single shot, during which he whimpered a bit before falling asleep. Then we were out the door, short and sweet.

Now, on to the pictures:

Henry in puppy robe at 3.5 weeks. Check out those bird legs!

Amelia in puppy robe at 1 week. Talk about bird legs!

This is Henry at pretty much every diaper change that takes place in his room. He really, really LOVES the black/white pictures. We use this several times each day. I have it on a clipboard so I can easily transport it back and forth from the changing table to the crib.

I always thought these kinds of shirts were ridiculous---until I had a boy.

Looking handsome in what Jason calls his "astronaut suit".

These shoes were made for sleeping...

More snoozing pics. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Hibernating....

Pretty unhappy about his forced role of "Prince Eric". Apparently he's not into beautiful, scantily clad, red heads. He's also been involuntarily cast as Dopey, Tinkerbell, and Scooby Doo (among others).

Taken when he was supposed to be sleeping. Evidently he didn't get the memo.

Still prefers the be swaddled even though he is rapidly outgrowing the receiving blankets. We've moved on to Swaddle Me blankets.

And how could I not throw in a couple of the (still) proud big sister?

The Honeymoon is Over

Let's back up a week or so and that is when I realized the honeymoon is officially over. And by that, I mean we were thrown in, head first into what the life of the parents of two children is really like. Amelia, who had recently fought a virus--complete with fever, sore throat, and rash--immediately came down with a cold. Which Henry caught. Ugh.

Thankfully it wasn't THAT bad for him. But Amelia, on the other hand, sounded terrible. Nasty cough, seriously runny nose, and near the end, ridiculously enlarged tonsils.

You might be thinking that doesn't sound that bad. Sick kids? Trips to the doctor? Big deal, every parent has been there. But here's the kicker that pretty much did me in--on top of all the illness floating around our house, my sweet little lady seems to have caught a serious attitude along with her cold.

That's right, I seem to have jinxed myself. Amelia has probably spent more time in "time out" these past two weeks than she has in the time since she's turned three. Thankfully, her aggression is aimed towards me mostly and Jason at times, but never towards Henry. In fact, she can say a very rude, snotty sentence to me and then turn around in the next breath and talk sickingly sweet to little Henry (who she affectionately refers to as "Hen" or "Henny" now).

So Little Miss 'Tude and a house full of germs has made for a challenging two weeks. That, of course, combined with being stuck inside and the loss of sleep that has been adding up. And did I mention that I am again solely responsible for feeding our family again? My month long stretch of provided meals from my playgroup has sadly run out.

There is good news: Henry is still consistently sleeping in 4-5 hour stretches at night and he loves to take a 3-4 hour nap that overlaps with Amelia's naptime. Which means that we all manage naps (or at least down time) simultaneously. And, both kids also seem to be well on their way to recovering from their illnesses. And, this week has been SLIGHTLY better than last week now that Jason and I have tried to take a step back and really observe the situation with Amelia and attempt to change our interactions with her.

Amelia has assured me that my "sweet girl" is showing up tomorrow and the "mean girl" will stay home. Sigh. Good thing she is so darn cute or I'm pretty sure she would be on ebay by now.

Not too long ago, I heard someone say, "The days are long, but the years are short". Seeing Henry and Amelia next to each other each day only reinforces just how fast time goes. I am going to work on remembering that everyday--especially on these super challenging ones!

Charlotte and Harold

A few months ago, I thought I'd give a chapter book a try with Amelia. I chose one of my favorites, Charlotte's Web. Despite the few pictures in the book, Amelia did pretty good following the story and seemed to enjoy reading a chapter or two each day. So, imagine my excitement when I saw that the Florissant Civic Center was putting on Charlotte's Web as part of their Family Theatre Series.

That was the good news. The bad news was that given the mid-January date of the performance, I would unlikely be able to attend the play with her. Luckily she has a great daddy who took her for a special afternoon at the Civic Center to check it out. Incidentally, I remember seeing plays at the same Center as a child.

Not surprisingly, Amelia was engrossed with the play and even insisted on sticking around afterwards to get all of the cast members' autographs on her program.

After checking the Family Theatre Series schedule again, I was again delighted to see another well liked book-turned-play on the list. In February, they will be performing "Harold and the Purple Crayon".

Although I had never read this book to Amelia, it just so happened that I had a copy in the ever-growing toy/book/game area of my closet where I stockpile future birthday and Christmas presents. So out came the book and in a 24 hour period, she had requested it no fewer than 10 times. When request number 11 came, I no longer had it in me to reread the story right then, so I asked her if she'd like to draw it out on her new easel instead.


And if you know the story of Harold and the Purple Crayon, you can just about imagine how much fun we had recreating all of the scenes. If you don't know the story, I recommend giving it a look-see and THEN imagining how much fun we had recreating the scenes.