The natives are restless

and I don't even mean my little natives. I mean the grandmas. Or one particular grandma in this case. I guess it's been entirely too long since I've posted and I knew I was going to get a reprimanding email sooner or later. Amazing that some one who is 29 (ha!) can still be told what to do by their mother :). I guess that wouldn't be half bad if said 29 year old wasn't also being told what to do by her 4 year old. It's fun when you get it from both ends.

So the other day, Miss C went through a pile of Christmas presents that haven't even been touched yet. I secretly put some aside so if we ever had one of those "break glass in case of emergency" days, I'd have stuff to entertain them with. This particular gift (thanks P family!) was a paint by numbers shadow box. She loved it! And so did I because it kept her busy for the better part of an hour.

Just look at that concentration.

She actually did really well with it. I'm going to have to get some more paint by numbers activities since it was such a big hit. So as I'm marveling at how artistic Miss C is, I look over and see this hot mess.

Gotta love the difference between boys and girls. Or maybe it's just the difference between first and second child. Whatever it is, it made me laugh.

When I was younger, my dad used to always say "well, that's what we had kids for" when it came to doing anything housework related. Washing dishes, raking the leaves, basically we were made for manual labor. It used to really irk me as a kid because you never really knew if he was kidding or not. My pop had the kind of sense of humor where it really could have gone either way. Now that I have kids, I think he might have been on to something.

Well, I'll post more later. We are having the house painted downstairs and I'm getting a head ache from the fumes. Hopefully this will keep someone at bay for at least a little bit!

old friend

I grabbed the old 50mm (which has been so neglected lately), set it at 1.8 and begged the kids to cooperate. It took a lot of coaxing and a lot of candy promises, but I had fun busting out the old lens. Mental note. I need to put this on my camera more often.

This one is my absolute favorite. I had the door open to get more light and she made it known that it was freezing outside :)

And here is the forced fake smile look. You would have thought I was torturing her for a smile.

Snow day part deux

The second day (Sunday) was even better than the first. The snow was a perfect icy mix that allowed us to make a snowman and sled down our front hill. Not so good for driving though :).

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. They had a blast!

First the snowman. Little J walked past it and said, "pretzels and carrots?" with a puzzled look on his face. Yes, Little J. That's all I could find.

Then we tried our hand at sledding again with the skim board. I'm glad we are getting some use out of it.

Snow day!

Well, we had our annual snow fall this weekend (seems we get snow every year this very weekend) and the kids couldn't wait to get in it. It started about 4:30 yesterday afternoon and when it was all said and done, it was about 4 inches. This morning when I got Miss C up, she ran over to the window and shouted, "This is going to be the best Christmas ever!" Somehow she associates snow with Christmas. Thank goodness she didn't ask if Santa was going to be coming tonight, otherwise we might have one disappointed little girl.

As soon as we got downstairs and the kids had their milk, they were ready to go outside to play. Unfortunately I hadn't had my coffee, so I made them wait. I think Miss C asked me every 5 seconds how much coffee I had left in my cup. Finally at 7:30, I was tired of the begging and got them dressed. Since we rarely have snow, we don't have any snow pants or suits around here. So it was good old fashioned long johns and sweats (or in our case, opaque tights and leggings). When I was a kid, that's what we always went out in the snow in. We never had snow suits either. We suffered with sweat pants (that were soaked about 5 minutes after being outside) and turtlenecks under our winter coats. Old school ghetto style.

We lasted outside for about 30 minutes (which was longer than I thought they would have lasted). The snow wasn't really conducive to making a snowman (it was wet, but I'm not sure why I couldn't get a snowball going) and we didn't really have any sleds (we tried using the skim board that J broke his foot on--it didn't work so well). So after about 30 minutes of trying to make snow angels and walking around, we called it a day and headed inside for hot chocolate and Star Wars. All in all, it was a pretty good day.

couple of things

Right after the new year, we took the kids to their first "official" movie. We had been to the theater before (maybe when Little J was about 13 months) but it didn't go well. We saw Shrek 2 or 3, I can't remember. Anyway, Miss C was scared of the movie and Little J was more interested in mastering the stairs in the theater. I don't think we even lasted 20 minutes. So, I count this as our first official show. We saw Alvin and the Chipmunks. The kids did pretty well, and were pretty interested in the movie until just about the end. Overall, I'd say it was a success.

Little J finally got his first haircut on 1/6/10. Well, about a week before that, he decided to give himself a little bit of a haircut. But we won't really count that. I took him to one of those kids salon's one morning because I was tired of the frizz. He sleeps most of the time on his back, so the back was looking a little scrappy. They cut a little too much off for my taste, but I guess it was necessary to keep it healthy.

Little J didn't love getting it cut and it took quite a few bribes (and threats) to get him to sit there long enough. I couldn't even get a picture of it because most of the time he had a death grip on me. But here's an after:

Now, Miss C couldn't wait to get hers trimmed (she knew that meant a lollipop).

Will someone please tell my kids that quiet time means being quiet. Mama needs that couple of hours to herself, without any noise. If you don't want to nap, fine. But at least sit quietly and read books or listen to music. Quiet time does not mean, however, singing at the top of your lungs, banging your feet against the wall, constantly yelling "mooooommmmmyyyyyy" over and over, or talking to each other through the bathroom door.

Nana sent the kids darth vader capes and they love them! I'm pretty sure this halloween (even though it is still over 9 months away) the kids will be something related to Star Wars. So here they are. Prince and Princess Darth Vader.

Parenthood

Have you ever seen that movie Parenthood? It's a classic. Now that I'm a parent, I appreciate it so much more. In fact, it's been awhile since I've seen it. I think I may go rent it soon and watch it again. Anyway, remember the part in the movie where Steve Martin is talking to Rick Moranis about kids (Steve's are down to earth, normal kids where Rick's is a brain child) and in the background Steve Martin's kid has a bucket on his head and is banging his head against the wall? Rick Moranis quips something to the effect of, "you must be so proud".

Well the other day I walked into the room and saw this:

As if that wasn't enough a couple of days later, I saw this:

I guess the other bucket wasn't big enough.

I swear, I can't make this stuff up. I'm so proud :)

Christmas and other what nots

So I'm finally getting around to sharing Christmas, only what, 17 days late?! Oh well, again, better late than never!

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. Both kids are really starting to get into it. Miss C more than Little J, but I imagine next year will be his year. And both kids couldn't be any more opposite when opening presents too. Miss C is fast and furious, just ripping wrapping paper left and right. She barely has time to even look inside before she moves on to the next thing. You can bet that she's the first one done and probably within 15 minutes flat. Little J on the other hand is a little more patient and deliberate with his whole process. You have to coax him to even open a present. Once he does, he's content with playing with it for the next hour. At 2 hours into it, Little J had maybe opened 3 things and we decided to just move his pile aside and open them later. All morning Miss C asked, no begged, to open his presents (and all of ours). At some point we are going to have to get a little more control over the situation because she ripped through everything so fast that I had no idea who was giving her what. What fun to be 4!

The present du jour this year. She asked for a trampoline. I swear it must have been a hot item for 4 year olds because a couple of her friends also got one.

Little J and his tractor. We haven't had a chance to take it out yet since it's been so cold.

Taking a little time out before the mayhem

After much debate around here (well actually it was more like I was trying to put my foot down and J was calling me "lame") we decided to get her the original Star Wars movies. Well, episode 4 and 5 that is. Someone didn't tell Santa that you really can't have 4 and 5 without 6. What was Santa thinking?!

And a game for her leapster

Little J got quite a bit of construction items, including this tool set. He just loves it. I mean, really loves it. He walks around with the get up on calling everyone "Joe" as in, "what's up Joe", "See you later, Joe" and "what's going on here Joe?". Too cute.

And the favorite gift of them all. Light savers as Little J would call them. They play with these things constantly. I don't know why we even bothered with the rest of the gifts. Honestly.

And you knew this was coming. Bwhaaaaaa!!

Back off ladies, that's my man!