December update

We recently traveled to California to visit family for the holidays. It was great to have the whole family together again, and for all the kids to get to meet and play together for the first time! The kids had a wonderful time spending lots of time with Oma and Opa. Adam now says Oma and Opa, and Reagan had a blast playing piano with Oma and baking lots of Christmas cookies. We returned home just in time for Santa to visit us here.

The kids had a wonderful Christmas, and Reagan was really into leaving cookies for Santa, and all those other good things this year. On Christmas eve we made a gingerbread house, and think that we would like to start a tradition of that. For Christmas morning breakfast we had panetonne and stollen with oranges from our stockings, and everyone loved that, so we will probably make that a tradition as well. :-)

I am also delighted and sad to say that Adam spent last night in his toddler bed for the first time. He's getting to be such a big boy. We still have the crib up, but he slept in the toddler bed for his nap too with no problems, so we may be taking the crib down soon. I'm excited about all the growing and learning he's doing, but it also makes me a little bit sad to see my baby growing up so fast.

Like Sister, Like Brother

I knew this day was coming because Adam has been really cutting back on his breast feeding. A couple days ago, he went form his normal twice a day to only once a day. And today, not at all! Just like big sister, 5 days before his first birthday he decided he was done. (She quit 5 days before her birthday too!)

Today Adam also used two new words! Meow-ah for kitty, and di-yah for diaper when he was dirty and needed to be changed. He came and told me even. He also has become a climbing machine. Climbing on top of the train table today, and working on figuring out how to climb the ladder to his sister bed! He's getting to be such a big boy! I'm so glad to see him grown, but it's also a little bittersweet to see my baby growing up so fast. ::Sniff::

Little Mover and Shaker

The past couple days Adam has developed some cool new skills. He has started using objects for their intended purpose... brushing his hair is a favorite! He also has been pretending to be a dog. He will make his dog noise and then tell us he is a doggy. It's super cute! He also recently decided that he was going to redecorate my kitchen... tearing down the towels I had out and replacing them with ones that he like better from the drawer. He hung it up and everything! Yesterday I enlisted his help in cleaning his room up.. moving furniture and vacuuming underneath, and moving things around a little bit. It seems like there's more play space now, and he also seems quite happy with it. Always a good thing! He also tried to climb the ladder up to Reagan's bed yesterday. He couldn't do it, but he sure had the right idea! I see a toddler bed in our future. lol Not for a couple months yet though!

Reagan walked holding Adam's hand yesterday and walked him all the way to the car. She was so proud of taking care of him. It was so sweet! Recently she is very excited about the prospect of going to preschool. We have found one that we really like. We still have to go look at it in person and such. But hopefully it's something that we can work out for her!

Walking Backwards!!!

This morning Adam took a few steps backwards all on his own! It seems like such a small thing if you're used to being able to go that directions. But when you stop and think about that this person has only been able to go forwards until now... it seems like such a bigger milestone! Hooray for learning new skills!

Rearranging

On Tuesday we cleaned the living room. Exciting, I know! We cleaned up all the toys, moved around some furniture, vacuumed under furniture etc. It was great to get it so clean, and moving a couple small things around made a really big difference. It's so refreshing to switch things up every so often. You can take the things you already have, move them around, and feel like it's a whole new room! Sometimes that's just what you need.

1 So Soon!?!?

My baby is going to be a year old in just a few short weeks! Where does the time go? He's been leaning and doing so many new things recently! He love to put things into containers. Which unfortunately means into the trash and toilet. Of course he also is putting toys back into the containers where they are supposed to e stored, so it's not all ad. lol His favorite game is peek-a-boo, and he loves to see how little he can cover his face and still manage for you to not see him! Yesterday he also showed a new skill; using a hair brush to brush his hair. It's an awesome milestone when they start using objects for their intended purpose. Adam's also been comparing objects, and will match things that are the same or similar in some way. Reagan has also been loving all of his new skills as they are able to play together more and more!

Trimming the Pumpkin Head

Tonight was the night for our baby's first hair cut (Reagan calls him pumpkin head- you can see why in the pics!) This is the first hair cut, or trim for either of our kids. Reagan did a great job bringing Adam toys to keep him busy, and daddy made a great barber's chair. lol It was more of a trim than a cut, as we just cut up a little over his ears, where the hair was looking long and starting to bother him. Mommy did an okay job with the cutting... but Adam was getting a little wiggly by the end.

The Before:


And the After:

Halloween!!

Sorry I haven't blogged about all that we've been doing to celebrate Halloween... but we've been so busy celebrating, and with all the other things life has brought our way, that I am only now getting around to it!

We had quite the busy day yesterday! Reagan helped me decorate the front porch, we carved pumpkins, and went trick or treating! We decided to do our trick-or-treating at the mall this year where there's plenty of light and it would be safer for the kids to walk or run around. lol Reagan had a good time, and chose to enter a costume contest. She didn't win, but had a lot of fun doing it, and when we talked about it later she told me "enjoy the game," which is from a Super Why episode. Today she insisted on watching that episode. lol Last weekend when we went to the Prescott fall festival she was in a costume contest as well, and had a blast. She won 1st place for her age category for Funniest Costume dressed in a home-made costume as Cleo the dog from Clifford the Big Red Dog. She won a huge prize package, and thought it was the best thing ever! I was minorly disappointed that she didn't win best home-made costume... but I really thought the other 2 entries were better anyway. lol



The only descent picture I got of Adam in his costume, was of the kids together when they were competing for best family costume in the contest: Clifford and Cleo.


We were so rushed, we ended up forgetting Adams costume at home when we went to the mall.. luckily he was wearing his jack o'lantern shirt, so he still looked kinda dressed up. Other notable things from the evening.. when we ran out of candy, and 2 more trick-or-treaters came to our house, Rob and I were about to send them away and Reagan said wait! and gave each a piece of candy out of her own bucket. We were so proud of her!!! We also shared some yummy worm cups! (Reagan made them for daddy to take to work to share with his friends, but we just had to keep a couple for some spooktacular snacking.) Last week at the festival Reagan won a cake in the coffin cake walk that we ended up sending most of to work too. She did an awesome job picking the lucky tombstone! And the same night we went to Oktoberfest at the Pub and she won a beer girl costume contest for her dirndl.. winning a $20 gift certificate, and a t-shirt for mommy! Sorry the picture of that is so bad.. I will make sure to get a better dirndl picture next time she wears it! Also last week at the festival Adam chose his own pumpkin! And also while we were there, Reagan went on her first pony ride! Now to the pictures!!!!!

Trick-or-treating at the mall.


Pub contest.. Reagan decided she was shy, and our friend Ashley had to hold her.


Adam picking his pumpkin... he doesn't look so happy in the picture... but he LOVES this pumpkin.


Reagan's first pony ride!!


Here are our beautiful pumpkins! Reagan designed the light right one herself! She told me what colors for which parts, and what shapes things should be, and I hammered them in. Then we did Adam's pumpkin with a Cinderella design... not that it looks like that.. but I tried! Anyway, Adam loves calling Cinderella on his sister's princess cell phone, so Reagan decided that would be a good idea for his pumpkin. lol

Speaking of pumpkins... We carved our pumpkins just before trick or treating, and refrigerated them right after so that we could bake them and remove all the yummy pumpkin insides to eat! We're trying to make our pumpkins go the distance this year- jack o'lanterns, toasted seeds, and what to do with all the rest!? One of the recipes we're anxious to try is Pumpkin Soup! I'll post a comment if and when we make it to let everyone know how it's turned out.. but it sure sounds yummy!

Pumpkin Soup

2T butter
1/2c chopped onion
4c chicken stock
1/4t ground ginger
1/4t ground nutmeg
3c cooked pumpkin pulp (canned works too!)
corn chips

In a soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat on the stove. Saute the onion in it for 5 minutes. Add the stock, ginger, nutmeg, and pumpkin. Brig the mixture to a boil. Turn the heat down to low, and simmer the soup for 10 minutes until it is thick. Stir it every so often so that it doesn't stick to the pan and burn. Serve with corn chips.

Halloween Photopalooza

Today we've been busily taking Halloween photos, and decorating for the holiday. Just wanted to share a few pictures of the kids! There will be trick-or-treating ones later of course too!

Reagan loving the Halloween puppets (courtesy of Oma.)
The pumpkins from left to right; Adam's that he picked at the festival, Reagan's she picked at the festival, Adam's that Reagan picked for him at the store when we went with daddy, Reagan's that she picked at the store.


Adam in one of his pairs of Halloween jammies getting some pumpkin time!




Our front walk by the door.^
The front porch. v

Reagan loved helping build the "ghost beds" and putting up the spider webs. She insisted that we had to include her tarantula toy spider so we hung it on the porch light. :-)

Porch from front walk. v

Happy Halloween Treat

Happy Halloween to everyone!

For Halloween I wanted to include a treat for all of my readers! I haven't figured out whether it's really a tutorial or a recipe, but since it's edible, I'm going with recipe.

Spooky Jello Worm Cups

4 small boxes of green gelatin
3 small boxes of gelatin of your choice- I recommend a light color like orange
12 cups of water, divided
gummi worms
clear plastic party cups

Boil 4 cups of water. Stir in all of green gelatin until completely dissolved. Add 3 cups cold water. Stir to combine. Ladle into cups and refrigerate until set. After green gelatin has set, boil 3 cups of water. Add remaining gelatin to hot water and stir until completely dissolved. Add 2 cups of very cold water. Remove cups from refrigerator and place gummi worms on top, reserving 1 per cup for topping. If you have smaller ones like we did they will be covered by your second layer, if they are large, you can dangle them over the edge of your cup etc. for a different look if you choose. Ladle second flavor of gelatin over worms. Refrigerate until firm. Top with worms just before serving. Keep leftovers refrigerated.

First Camping Trip

A little bit ago Rob had his first vacation from his job. We had a wonderful time! We took the kids on their first camping trip, and everyone loved it!! Adam was a little frustrated that we would just let him walk and crawl around everywhere and play in the dirt, but he had a good time anyway! We took tons and tons of pictures during the 3 day, 2 night trip, so of course I have to share a few of them! Oh and also during Rob's vacation we got most of the kids' swing set built! We're still not quite done, but it's playable, and the kids LOVE using the swings on it. :-)

The kids Tuesday morning before taking Reagan to her gymnastics class mid camping trip. Luckily we were camping between where we live and gymnastics, so it was actually a shorter trip than usual.
Adam having his "smore" - a grahm cracker.
Reagan having her first smore on Tuesday night. She roasted her first marshmallow on Monday night!
Adam in the backpack for a hike on Tuesday.
Reagan had a great time camping and we did a lot of schooling activities, including learning about Smokey the Bear!

We Have a Tooth!!!

Finally, one of Adam's teeth has popped through!! You won't really be able to see it for awhile yet, but it sure is there. Now he just needs a few more and he'll happily be eating everything we put on the table! lol (The picture is actually from yesterday.)

Mommy's Little Mummy's

Just some gratuitous pictures of the kids in their matching mummy jammies. I couldn't get a very good one of them together though. :-/

Adam's Genius!

Well, our little guy is getting better at walking every day! The other day he even climbed up on a kid sized chair in the classroom, and then stood up on it and was trying to climb onto the twin bed in there! Crazy little man! He sometimes "falls" forward and puts his hands down.. but he can get back up and keep right on going. He's doing so well with his new form of locomotion! He also carries things around with him while walking around the house too. Little things wouldn't be so surprising... but he's carried some pretty big and bulky things too! But getting to his genius.... tonight we were watching Zoboomafoo before putting the kids to bed. There were a bunch of pigs in animal juncton, and they had this whole long thing about them... actually they were wild boars... but close enough.. anyway.. so Adam goes over where he and Reagan had had out one of their farm puzsles. He pickes out the pig, and puts it up on the TV screen next to the pigs. Holy cow!!! You could say it was just coincedence.. which it might have been But he was SO proud! I'm willing to give him credit for that one. lol He also took a nap all on his own in his crib today. Doing the Frnakenstien walk around the house all day, must be tiring! Here's a picture I took of the little angel today.Reagan's taken to actually building things with her blocks! The first is "a beautiful castle."And this second one is an "L Shaped Sailboat."Yesterday we took a trip to the new Home Depot in our town. The kids LOVED riding in "Tony Stewart's car." While we were there we got a new thermostat for the house. :-)

Adam Walking

I don't have any good pictures of it yet, but Adam is walking!!!! He can walk for a good long time holding just one hand, and loves to do so at the store and such. At home he can walk half way across a room almost any time he wants too, and all the way across if he doesn't get too excited and knock himself over. lol And although he can do it on his own, he loves using things that help him go faster than his still wobbly little legs can carry him by themselves. So if you're over visiting and think you see a blur or color out of the corner of your eye, don't worry, it's just him tearing around the house pushing the Sesame Street walker/ride on. Oh, and when he isn't pushing it, you'll often find him crawling along chasing his sister riding it n laps around the kitchen island. Boy do those two have a good time together! It makes me so happy to see them playing, and having such a good time together.

Also Adam has started whistling recently. He seems to really enjoy it... and though who knows if he will remember how to do it later... it's a skill I didn't learn until 5th grade! Go baby go! OTher little notes... he loves playing in the play kitchen still.. his favorites are a blue and yellow play knife, and a frying pan. He carries them around with him constantly. Adam also like to collect treasures. He'll find and item and decide it's his treasure for the day and carries it around with him for the entire day. Sometimes it's something more normal like a toy, but others it's his sister's empty raisin box or some such item. It's very sweet, and you can tell that he really does treasure that item and enjoy exploring it throughout the day. His favorite song right now is the CanCan, and he will stop crying most any time if you start singing it to him. He even loves kicking to it! He's just so much fun. :-)

The Past Week

This past week was such a busy one for us!

We had moved Reagan's gymnastics day, and Wednesday, only to find that she's promoted to the next level, and we ended up having to change the day again to get her into a class at that level. We're so proud of her, and hope that being around some older kids will help her concentrate and follow along a little better now that mommy and daddy are supposed to participate less.

Rob was actually off Saturday and Sunday!
Saturday we went to the county fair and had a great time! First we took a tractor pulled hay ride to visit the farm animals.Reagan loved seeing all the animals and was especially excited that they had a petting zoo area where she got to intereact with lambs, baby goats, and a calf.After the petting zoo Reagan got to Be A Farmer For A Day. Going through a set up farm and harvesting different types of items; picking an apple form a tree, getting corn of the stalk, digging up a potato, pulling a carrot, and finding an egg. Once she had collected one of each she got a ribbon award. It took a little convincing to get her started, but she had such a good time doing it. She doesn't look very happy with her ribbon... but it's only because she was grumpy that we told her she couldn't do it again. lol
We then headed over to the indoor area where we looked at the kids craft entries. (Reagan is really excited to work on projects to enter next year.) And visited a whole bunch of vendor booths. Reagan's favorites were the Forest Service table where she got some very cool Smokey the Bear things, the gemological society table, where she got a pretty rock, "To put with my Opa rock," and the county sheriff's table where she got to pretend to be a deputy!Finally, we went to the midway and rode on some of the rides! Reagan was such a big girl and rode by herslef on a unch of rides for the first time. She was also tall enough to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl with daddy!! She thought that was "super duper!" Adam slept most of the time we were there, or just hung out very relaxed in the stroller, but he was getting into the rides too. :-PWe finished up the weekend with a nice visit from Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday. :-)

My Etsy Store

Just a quick update on my goings on.

In case I forgot to blog about it, I have an online store now; SMOX

I also have created a blog for my store that gives you a behind the scenes peek at what I'm working on. You can read about my crafting projects that I'm not selling, see new and coming soon items, and read features and product reviews of other Etsy stores. And of course there are LOTS of pictures. So check out the SMOX Workshop!

Reagan, Tumbler Extraordinaire

Today was Reagan's cartwheel-a-thon for gymnastics. They were cartwheeling, or in Reagan's case, forward rolling, to raise money to purchase some new mats for the program. Obviously mats are super important for gymnastics, so we were excited to participate. Reagan had a great time, and complete a whole 15 forward rolls in the 2 minutes she was given. She was a little disappointed that she didn't have more time to tumble, but thought it was so cool that she got a medal for participating. She was also pretty excited that they gave her popcorn, but didn't seem to notice the stuffed monkey. lol While we were in the car headed to the grocery store afterward she told me that she thought she should have a rack in her room to hand her medals up on. I think we might just have to do that for her. It was very sweet.

Adam's Busy Week

Adam has started doing some walking! He can walk 3 to 5 steps by himself now, and loves to stand on his own as well. One of his favorite things to do is dance! He loves to do it by himself, holding on, sitting.. anywhere! Before we know it he will be walking all over the place. He's also done some other great things in the past week, like waving byebye, clapping his hands, and saying cat and dog. I can't believe he's almost 10 months old. His birthday will be here before we know it!! I must admit that I have already started planning though. hehe

Catching Up

Wow.. so I haven't updated the blog in awhile. Either this or the home school one... or even my Twitter for that matter. I don't think anything super exciting has really been going on for the most part. Everyone has been sick at least twice. Ugh. Besides.. I never get any comments, so I am pretty much operating under the assumption that virtually nobody even reads this. Yet I am still updating. lol

Rob: pretty boring- same ol' same ol'

Reagan: Mostly potty trained! Still some poop issues that I won't go into.. and some trouble staying dry EVERY night. But going VERY WELL. HOORAY for such a BIG GIRL!!!!

Adam: Standing on his own, and squats to sit by himself from standing without falling. He loves to cruise things too! Walking is probably not too far off! lol

Me: I opened an online store!!! SMOX. Today I even made my first sale!!! It was great to make a sale.. but even better because they are charity bows, and 25% of the purchase price is being donated to the ASPCA! Please check my store out and share it with anyone and everyone you think might be interested! I'll let you know as new types of products are offered, but I am adding new items all the time.

I think that about sums it up!

Puppets!

Reagan is really into puppets these days, especially finger puppets! A couple nights ago when we were finishing up dinner, she was starting to take her eating apron off, and stopped when she had started to take her arm out of one sleeve. She made it into a puppet and started talking to everyone at the table with it, including herself. She's done it one time since as well. It's very cute, and extremely creative. Quite the fun way to end a meal.

Today Adam started doing some actual hands and knees crawling, although at the rate he's going with his pulling up, standing up and cruising, I don't know how long he'll need the crawling! lol We had quite the day today, shampooing our carpet, running to the store, doing school work, and then going to a going away party for some of our playgroup friends who are moving away. :-( It was a long and busy day with lots of running around, but it was a good day.

It's amazing how many skills Adam has developed recently... just earlier this week he started "dancing" to music... actually moving to the music with purpose. It was quite adorable! He's also taken to stealing his sister's snack foods when she has her bowl on the coffee table (his favorite cruising site,) and now eats goldfish, saltines and Cheerios.

The Letter B

This is the story Reagan just told me about making banana bread as part of our learning yesterday.

"I made eggs, and a little bit of flour on top. Reagan eat the pie up, and Reagan goed outside. Bana bread. I make sugar on it. I sprinkled on it. Before Reagan make it, use stirring. I did stirring! YAY! I did stirring with the spoon. I did that!"


And here's a picture of her "B" word collage.


I'm thinking of starting a school blog just for posting her school work and updates on what and how she is doing with that.

Advancements, Advancements!

In the matter of a week and a half, Adam has gone from new crawler, (really taking off for the first time and crawling all over the house,) to standing holding on, to pulling up, and now cruising a little! How crazy is that?!? Today when I went in to get him from his nap he was standing in the crib. He could have fallen right out on his head! Nor worries though, he didn't, and we're planning to lower the mattress all the way tonight before bed.

Reagan and I cleaned the classroom today while Adam was sleeping, and did our first day of class. Today we just practiced writing some letters, got her cubby and work folder set up, and read two interactive activity books that ended with a snack. I'm really excited to set up my lesson planner, and wrote today's work in there. Hopefully I can get some of that organized ahead of time tonight with some worksheets etc. for her.

Circus and 'Poles

On Saturday we went to see the Ringling Brother' Circus. It was Adam's first time, and Reagan's second. We had a wonderful time meeting the performers before the show and watching the show itself. Here's Reagan at the show.



On Sunday we took a walk to the park. By the time we got there Adam was asleep.

Reagan and Yukon had fun playing on the baseball field, and then I took Reagan down to the wash. We'd never been down there before, but since it is the rainy season there is a flowing stream and lots of pond/stream life. Reagan was super excited to see the tadpoles especially, and we were able to catch a couple for her to hold briefly. When we came back up from the wash she was thrilled to get to tell daddy all about it. And as soon as we got home she insisted we watch her Curious George DVD with the episode about the tadpoles on it. We hope to take her back down there to explore more soon! Here's Reagan holding one of the bigger, older tadpoles that was starting to grow legs.

Summer Sig

Here's my first try at creating myself a web signature using Gimp. I think it turned out pretty well, considering I still only have a clue what maybe 30% of the tools do!

Our 4th

We had a wonderful 4th of July yesterday, although it wasn't what we had planned. We had thought Rob would be off work on the 3rd, so we would have time to organize and get things done around the house then, and have the 4th to relax and just have some family time. Due to changes at work, Rob had to work on the 3rd, so that kind of went out the window.


We managed to get all of our chores done in the morning. We started crate training the puppy... which is going very well. And did some other various things before having a picnic lunch in out back yard. We had planned to let the kids splash around in their back yard pools a little in the afternoon, but ended up having to run a quick errand, and just ended up not having the time.
We did have plenty of time to get our things ready to go to the fireworks though. Reagan helped yesterday to make a gallon thermos jug of lemonade, and blue Jello jiggler stars, as well as insisting that since it was the USA's birthday, that we had to make a cake. (We made white funfetti with blue and red confetti, then frosted it with white and red and blue sprinkles.)

We had a nice time at the fireworks too. We got there early enough to get a really nice spot on the grass. The kids we having a great time playing, and we had KFC for dinner.. we had thought of grilling, but decided it would be too much to try and do with the kids this year. Then of course there was rain in the distance, along with some amazing rainbows. Unfortunately the rain came our way and we had to hand out in the car for awhile waiting out the storm. After the rain, we didn't want to go back to sit on the wet grass (we had brought a blanket, but forgot to bring our camp chairs,) so we found a nice spot that was pretty dry and put our blanket there to watch the actual fireworks
.
Blue Jello tongue!