New Comfy Cozy Seating

Last weekend on Saturday and Sunday we went shopping for a new recliner for downstairs.
Downstairs is also where our "little" Christmas tree is. This recliner is sooo comfy. Come over and try it out. You can sleep in it, it's that comfy cozy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

St. Nicholas Shoes

Today I am making St. Nick shoes with Claire. We will leave them "outside" aka in the garage since it's a little windy out...and St. Nick will come and put some goodies in them tonight while she's sleeping! Here's the pattern... http://www.stnicholascenter.org/stnic/assets/craft_shoes.pdf It's super easy. Have them color/decorate it while flat, then put it together.

I always did these with my German students when I was teaching, and it was huge hit. St. Nick usually brings lots of little things like pieces of candy, but I also found some totally plastic scissors and some water colors that "St. Nick" will be leaving Claire as well.

Biking around the house

Today was really really cold!!! So Claire has her bike inside to still practice pedaling and pushing around. Hopefully she'll have pedalling down really well once spring gets here!
She's actually cooperating and looking at the camera more and more lately!

Now getting her to look and have a decent smile is another story...

She puts her baby on the back since her baby bike seat is on the back of my bike.

Breastfeeding Protecting Moms Health

Interesting article here about breastfeeding protecting moms health.

Barbie has the Stickerpox

Life-size Barbie has got a bad case of the Stickerpox. I gave Claire a sheet of stickers and told her to share them with Barbie. It kept her busy for a good 20 minutes!!!
Notice how Elmo is leering at Barbie in the background. He's a creepy little red guy. Claire's hand is in the photo because she is trying to grab the camera. She demands "SHOW ME DA PICTURE!" after each picture I take. I should have never shown her the little screen on the back...

Yes, Barbie is a state of half-undress. Most Dolls or toys with clothing will probably spend the next year or so like this. Perhaps longer? When is it fun for kids to re-dress the dolls? Not just strip them? She likes to take off Barbie's clothes so she can be in her pink swim suit. Because we all need dolls wearing their swimming gear in December.

Ahh...what would I do without the cheap entertainment of stickers, playdough, and coloring books?

Advent has begun!

Advent Season has already begun! It's hard to believe that there are only 3 more Sundays in Advent this year! We just had Thanksgiving! I'm so pleased that this size 24 month outfit still fits Claire. It's a little short on her limbs when sitting, but standing up, it looks ok! Last year, it was a little long! Good thing she has a thin build or it wouldn't fit!
Here she is playing with her wooden Nativity Scene. She got this wooden one from my parents this year to play with during Advent so she can learn all the people and the story.

I broke down and gave her 3 of her Princess Barbies early as an Advent gift, for the first Sunday in Advent. I probably should have only given her one. But I gave her 3. And does she love them. They play with her with whatever else she does. They sit on the table to watch her eat. They sit on the sink and watch her bathe. They sleep with her. They have been to several stores. Today they went to the post office as I mailed out my Christmas cards. (I'm not always this organized. I just have been bitten by that nesting bug with the urge to get stuff done. Now. ASAP. It's actually kind of an annoying feeling.)

Her bib says "MY LITTLE TURKEY!" I will have another little turkey to put this bib on next Thanksgiving...who will be about 7 months old! Notice her Barbies all on her tray. Yes, she loves them. I don't know where she got her fascination with them. She's never seen a Barbie cartoon or an animated movie about Princesses, although I should check some out at the library. I think she just likes that the are little dolls with faces and names that appear in several books I've picked up at garage sales and other items. She had some croc shoes last March that had their faces on them, and called them "Barbie Shoes." We do have a princess sing-a-long that I got at a yard sale for $1, but I bought it because she already liked them, not the other way around. Oh well, it's an easy obsession to feed. I always had tons of Barbie Dolls growing up, so I'm glad to continue the tradition.

Gobble Gobble!

Baby Needs Stuff

A trip to the mailbox is complicated with a 2 year old. She used to just need to find a toy to bring with. Now she needs to bring with toys for her toys to play with. I will tell her she can only bring what she can push or carry herself! She likes to bring her stroller or shopping cart out to get the mail, but she has to fill them up with stuff. I will say, baby doesn't need any toys. She will protest and say, "NO! BABY NEEDS STUFF!"

Animal House

Ok, so the toys in this one are not as neatly arranged as in the other two, but I still think it's cool that her play has changed so much in the past few months. She is also taking objects, like the Melissa & Doug turtle and pretending it's something else. She folds the wooden turtle up (it's the green oval) and has the animals sit around it to eat food!

OMG PONIES!

This is Claire's self-declared "Pony-House"! If you are thinking that these ponies look a lot like the original 1980s Pretty Ponies...it's because they are! These ponies belonged to my sister Holly and I growing up! My mom and dad just threw everything in the attic and saved pretty much everything which is pretty cool now!

Claire definitely does not want me rearranging her toys. She will know if I moved something too. I've accidentally picked up stuff she had arranged like after she goes to bed, and she gets really mad in the morning. Now if I can tell something is nicely arranged, like this, and not just random toys thrown all over, I will leave it alone!

Playing with a Purpose

Along with coloring with a purpose, like I posted about in my previous post, Claire is now putting her toys in very careful arrangements and playing with a purpose. This absolutely floored me, when I saw how she arranged the animals on the train track. They are even facing the same way, not just standing up. I would've asked Josh if he helped, but he wasn't even home.

Coloring Books

One of the things I try to have Claire do every day, or at least every other day if we are busy running around is getting the chance to color. This is her artwork from age 24 months. She filled up the pages randomly and really just put a lot of color on all the pages.
At some point, probably from having various adults coloring with her, she figured out to color the shapes. Her is progress from about a month later at 25 months.

Now, I'll admit, I threw some coloring books away already because 1.) they are cheap and 2.) there is no way I can ever store everything she makes...but jump now to this month and you see she is definitely coloring with more of a purpose. (2 years, 4 months)

Here she colored Happy, and even colored his name at the top of the page.

I just thought I'd share some pictures of her artwork with you guys! She is also starting to make "scribbles" on blank paper and then tell me what they are. I'll have to post some pictures of that sometime soon.

Feeding Mr. Bear

Man. If looks could kill. Click on this one to make it full size. I think she was mad about her chocolate milk being all gone. I do want to say that Claire loves her share of sweet junky and carby foods, too. One of her favorites is Spaghettios. Yes. She calls them Gobi-Os or Gobi Circles. She can't say spaghetti. If I have her repeat it, she will say spa-gobi.
This is what happens if I ask her to say "Cheese." She gets this huge goofy grin on her face and squints her eyes shut.

Notice what she is doing? She is feeding her bear bowl. The bowl is shaped like a bear, with the belly being the bowl part. I've since only been feeding her semi-solid food like her thicker oatmeal in this bowl, or it drips all over the table. She loves this bowl! Holly got it for her, and I do believe that Holly only paid about .75 cents for it!

Craft time!

We go to story time at the library where the kids make a craft each week. This was the craft for the day before Thanksgiving. She has been having so much fun with it. She will put it in her toy microwave and heat up the food for her dolls. She also added stickers to it.

Stickers are great! Before she could really peel them off the sheets well, I would take off the "extra" sticker paper so she could take off easier. Now she can take them off just fine. If I need to buy myself some time without her underfoot, I just hand her a sheet of stickers and tell her to go share them with her big Barbie or a specific toy. She then sticks them all over.

She added these stickers to her Thanksgiving meal. I can't wait until she has a little brother to stick stickers on. We'll just have to teach her not to stick them on his little face! What fun that will be!

PS...the crafts they do at the library are always precut. They mostly consist of gluing with a glue stick and assembling, which of course I help her. She is getting really good at it though!

Thanksgiving Food!

So we had my parents down on this past Saturday to have Thanksgiving with them. I made a ham vs. a turkey and there were definitely not enough people to make both. I also made green bean casserole for the first time ever. Wow...that was an easy recipe! But again...I don't really like stuff in cream-based sauces because they are too rich so it's not something I'll make regularly.

Then I made a family favorite called "cheesy potatoes" per Josh's request. I don't like them either because they have sour cream in them. Ha. I am picky. :) So I made those for the first time as well, and they turned out well too.

I made cranberry sauce from scratch per the back of the Ocean Spray bag, and that turned out great. I love cranberry sauce. I could eat that stuff plain like a bowl of ice cream. I love stuff like that that is bitter. Crazy, I know. The canned cranberry sauce has HFCS in it, too, boo.

Lets see...I also made the yeast rolls that you let rise for like 5 hours. I had Claire help me put the frozen dough balls in the pan. I put 2 in each so they were doubly big. Yum. Claire decided to lick one of the dough balls. She loved it immediately and gnawed on it until it turned into a soft lump of gooey dough, at which point she started eating the raw dough. Another favorite of mine. ;)

She also ate raw carrots and celery for the first time! She did chew them up and spit them back out for the most part, but I guess that's all part of trying new things!

I made a 10 pound ham. I swear there are at least still 5 lbs in the fridge. I should probably put it in the freezer tomorrow because I'm already sick of ham. I'm going to make some split pea soup with it. I love split pea soup. It's probably my favorite kind.

I also made 2 desserts. Lemon pudding bars and Apple-Raspberry Cobbler. Both are completely gone. :)

Lets see...Stuffing was done by Stovetop, complete with the MSG in all it's glory. I'm sure that's why all the other brands suck...they don't have MSG.

My brother Richie sent down some corn chowder from his garden corn from this summer. It was super tasty with carrot chunks and potatoes. Claire loved it, but she loves cooked carrots more than me. Carrots are sooo sweet.

Speaking of sweet, Claire's appetite has really picked up lately, and boy does she love fruit. I can't keep bananas, grapes, oranges, or clementines in the house. I think we've already been through 2 boxes of the clementines this citrus season. I'm not used to having another fruit eater in the house! She also loves apples and can easily eat 2 in a day.

She also loves cream of wheat, oatmeal, and hard-boiled eggs. I've been trying to feed her an egg for a bed-time snack instead of something like an apple since the protein will keep her full longer.

I also had a shrimp ring for an appetizer with cocktail sauce. I love horseradish cocktail sauce...the hotter the better...I love the sauce they have at St. Elmo's!

Well that's about it for the food. Want some leftovers?