The kids

Here's my cute baby. He's been cracking up lately at all of us (I'll try to post video later). And tonight he added something that sounds like "doggy" to his other words: mama, dada and something that sounds like quack.



During a thunderstorm the other night we let PS and Buddy fall asleep in our bed so they wouldn't be so scared.



PS and Baby X.

Homeschooling

This year with the virtual school PS gets to meet in a virtual classroom with her education adviser and sometimes a small group of other students. This morning I talked to her education specialist and then told PS it was her turn to talk and get on the computer. She said to me, "I'm glad no one can see me on the computer, I'm in my pajamas." Here she is at the computer, in her PJS, with my phone's ear piece taped to her ear.

School Music Concert

Sorry for the horrible picture, this was the only one we got. That's PS in the light pink dress, front left. This was her classes music concert (2 first grade classes and 1 or 2 second grade classes... there are more kids I cut out of the picture).


They sang:
Puff the Magic Dragon
Chickery Chick
Baby Beluga
What a Wonderful World
Come Little Donkey

Dr. Seuss Week

*

It was Dr. Seuss week last week at Princess Sparkley's school. On Monday she had to wear something green. On Tuesday crazy socks. On Wednesday, wacky hair or clothes. On Thursday something with an animal on it, or an animal print. And on Friday, she had to wear red, black and white.

Since Princess Sparkley is homeschooled, but attends our neighborhood elementary school for the last part of the day, she sometimes misses out on fun activities that her class does in the morning. So at home we did some fun Seuss crafts from this website, and we had green eggs and ham for dinner on Monday night.


*So technically, it's not ham, and it's not green. To make up for that we had green milk and green, homemade, english muffins.

PS steals my camera

When I got my new camera, we decided we'd give my old camera to PS for Valentine's Day. Then I forgot and bought her a bunch of chapter books. So, shh, she'll probably get my camera in her Easter basket. She asked the other day if she could borrow my camera. This is what I found when I uploaded the pictures. A bunch are some sort of Webkinz club they created. The other pictures are of Buddy's nature center (we'd just gone on a field trip for music class to the nature center in town).

Picture Collage

Just some pictures from the past couple of weeks.
(Click to enlarge.)

Valentine's Day

I keep forgetting to post our Valentine's Day pictures. When we were kids, my mom would buy us Valentine's balloons and a card and she'd tie the balloons to the railings around the atrium in our house and at the base of the balloon would be the card and some other little gift. I've continued the tradition for my kids, minus the atrium. This year Buddy got a Bulldog Webkinz, ($8 from Borders with a coupon) which he's been asking for since PS got two Webkinz for Christmas and he got Lightning McQueen crocs (which he's also wanted) (on clearance at Target for $2.48). Yea for good deals. PS got a stack of chapter books which she's almost done with. Baby X got a race car. They all got some conversational hearts and a little snack bag of Mother's pink and white animal cookies. I got B season one of Arrested Development on dvd and he got me some new glasses for our kitchen (since I've slowly broken all the old ones, replaced them, and then broken those as well). And B took us all swimming at the indoor aquatic center. We made Rhodes Rolls into cinnamon knots shapepd like hearts (sort of).

The artwork was my project from music class. We read The Kissing Hand and made racoons out of hearts (PS and Buddy both did an excellent job gluing and following instructions). We also traced our hands and made a hand signing I LOVE YOU. The other artwork is PS's own Valentine creation. The close up of Baby X is him eating his first animal cookie. He got ahold of one before I'd broken it into littler pieces for him.

A Duck Says Quack

Reupholstery

One of our chair cushions sprung a leak, so we finally replaced the hideous fabric that once was.

BEFORE



AFTER




NOTE: Two chairs are 100% done. One chair cushion just needs to be reattached to the chair frame. Five chairs have had nothing done to them at all.

How Baby X "talks"

This is how Baby X "talks." It's a bit reminiscent of Buddy, who had delayed speech and just grunted for a long time. But Baby X also says a lot of voiced sounds, so hopefully he's not headed down the delayed speech path.






*video is from a week before Baby X turned one. I've just had trouble uploading videos.

Baby X this week

As you can see... Baby X's tongue still prefers to be out of his mouth.





I hate that the best smiles are always with food all over, or perhaps in the mouth.



PS placed Baby X in a regular chair at the table this morning and gave him a pile of Cheerios and a book. Then she sat by him to make sure he didn't fall. They both thought it was pretty cool.

Baby X Loves Being Chased

Baby X's new thing is that he loves being chased. We discovered it because he started trying to run away from us when he had something he wasn't supposed to have and we tried to get it from him.

Dancing Baby X

I've gotten videos from my new digital camera to upload onto our blog, but I've been trying to upload a video of Baby X "talking" for a couple of weeks now and I can't get it to work. But then this one of him dancing worked... so, maybe I'll try again. Here's Baby X dancing. Grandma and Grandpa M sent a musical card to him that sang "Celebrate Good Times" when you opened it. The older kids loved this and insisted on having a "Celebrate Good Times" party, but wanted the whole song, not just the few lines the cared would keep repeating. So we listened to it on cd (B had it) and we danced. Then we noticed that Baby X was "dancing" as well. What a cutie! And when he stares at the screen... it's just blue. Our dvd player is playing a cd but the screen is blank, yet he's still enthralled by it. :)

Superbowl

B was born in Pittsburgh, PA and spent the first few years of his life there. His parents were both born and raise there, so when it comes to a Steeler's Superbowl, things were exciting around here. We don't watch TV (other than churchy videos for the kids) on Sunday, not even sports. But we did watch a the end of the Superbowl this year. Yea Steelers!

When the score got close at the end, I insisted that B go gather up all of his Steeler stuff (which only consisted of a sweatshirt and a beanie) and he dressed the kids in them.

Trailer Trash Truffles

I usually only share recipes on my other blog... but I've already shared this recipe there and I finally actually made them (as opposed to just eating ones that other people had made) and took a picture.

Trailer Trash Truffles aka Oreo Truffles (or as my kids call them, Oreo balls)

Here's how easy this is...

Ingredients:
1 box Oreos
8 oz. cream cheese softened
chocolate for dipping
white chocolate for decorating (optional)

Directions:
Crush Oreos into fine crumbs. Mix with cream cheese (I used a mixer, some use their hands). Roll into about a one inch ball. Freeze for 15 minutes. Melt chocolate, dip to cover and lay on wax paper. Decorate with melted white chocolate if your heart so desires.

AND, you can mix this up with mint Oreos, etc.

Three New Haircuts

B finally cut his hair (and shaved off the mustache!!!!) a week ago. Hooray!



My hair had gotten pretty long (I forgot a before shot) and had gotten to the point where I was just wearing it up every day... which means goodbye long hair.



Baby X got his first real haircut with the clippers and all (before we've just trimmed him with scissors). He looks like a completely different kid to me. I'm not sure if I like it yet or not.

Here are some before, during and after shots. He was super cute afterward... B turned on the clippers to clean them and he came over and had B pick him up and then leaned his head toward B and held really still.

Dogs play Frisbee

Buddy has been pretty obsessed with dogs for the last bit. Not real ones, although he says he wants a dog the kind of dog he wants is one that stays a puppy forever. He's got a collection of stuffed animal dogs that travel around with us frequently and he enjoys playing like he's a dog. B overheard this conversation the other day between Buddy and Princess Sparkley:

Buddy: People don't play frisbee. Dogs play frisbee.

Which prompted B to explain how two people can play frisbee, not just a person and a dog. He's a funny kid.

Baby X: week by week

click picture to enlarge

Here's the final project. Baby X with his alligator each week in a onesie and each month in just a diaper. Week 3 and Month 1 are near the dates they should be and are the same picture, no alligator, in the hospital when he had his heart procedure.

Birthday Monster*

Here's Baby X on his actual birthday. He threw up first thing in the morning and then again in the late afternoon and evening. But in between he had an okay day. It's currently late morning the day after his birthday and he hasn't thrown up since last night. This isn't a huge guarantee though since he's gone an entire day between throwing up. He drank lots of water last night and today and even had some crackers in addition to his little bottles I've been trying to get him to drink every few hours.

*If you didn't notice, the book he's peeking through/chewing on is Birthday Monsters by Sandra Boynton.

12 months aka 1 year

Birthday Boy

So, technically Baby X's first birthday is tomorrow, January 26th, but we celebrated it with a little family party tonight.

Baby X had carrot cake cupcakes that, just like his big brother on his own first birthday, he didn't want anything to do with.

His big present was a pretend piggy bank that he enjoyed at a friend's house last week so we got him his own. The picture of two pigs having a tea party on the bottom row was PS's idea... it's Buddy's real piggy bank and the new toy one Baby X got.

*note: The flu hit our house this weekend, Buddy Friday night and Baby X Saturday night so he wasn't quite himself for his little birthday celebration. Poor kid.

Baby X at almost a year

Notice his tongue in most of these pictures.

1 week. 52 weeks.

*Once I take his 12 month alligator picture tomorrow,
I'll collage all these in order and you can see how he's grown week to week.

52 Weeks!

My baby boy is 52 weeks old (somehow that I don't want to think too hard about, this is not on his birthday. His one year birthday is Monday, this picture was taken Saturday).

At the very beginning of this video, Baby X licks B's hair and pulls his head away in disgust. Then I kept filming hoping to get it again... better. It was so funny. Just the way his head was, and how long B's hair is, he kept licking it and grossing himself out. So hilarious.

Up the Stairs

Baby X has been doing the stairs for awhile but has gotten a lot better at them lately. AND... he even does pretty well going down. We still have to be right with him in case his legs get caught or he gets distracted. He also started crawling off our bed and our couch feet first a couple of weeks ago. There's still usually a big fall at the end, or we have to help him, but he's trying.

Baby X walking

Officially, Baby X took his first tentative steps in early December at 10 1/2 months. The first time he put more than 1 or 2 steps together was Dec. 10. And he kept that up for a few weeks. On December 28th we realized that walking has truly become his way of getting around. This video is from Saturday, January 17th... a little over a week before his first birthday.



*video with sound courtesy of my new digital camera

Buddy builds a puzzle

We have lots of kid puzzles, but the way my kids play, it's a pain to get them out because I know that at some point, most of the pieces will end up on the floor or lost. Buddy got B 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas that B did the other night (yes, he does them very quickly) and he left up up for the kids to see the finished product the next day. Buddy kept taking a corner apart and rebuilding it, so we opened up this dinosaur puzzle he got from his cousin C for Christmas. He has a great time building it with his daddy (even though the dinosaur was a little scary). Every time he got a piece in the right spot he'd get a huge grin and cheer for himself.

51 weeks

Cute Kids

You can see his eyes aren't as crystal clear blue as the older kids.
They are still blue, but a gray-blue, or a hazel blue.

PS loves being a big sister. She'd hold him and
carry him around all day if he (or I) let her.

Snowman

After several days (that felt like weeks) of temperatures in the teens and single digits, it warmed up a bit today (just barely) and snowed last night so we woke up to white everywhere. It wasn't a ton of snow, but enough to play in.

P.S. I'm loving the pictures from my new camera.

New camera

I've been wanting this camera:

Nikon D40

But it retails for just under $500, and I don't even think that's including the lens. I was saving up for it, but something more important to spend the money on kept coming along. So when my parents sent some money for me for Christmas this year I decided to add a bit to it and buy myself a better camera, if not my dream camera. Meet my new camera:

Nikon Coolpix S210 (in plum)
What you can't tell from this picture is how incredibly thin it is. .71 inches.
Oh, and it films with sound. (Loud clapping from all of this blog's readers.)

On our last trip to St. Louis we stopped at Circuit City in Columbia, MO (they've shut down all the Kansas City locations and supposedly have good sales at all other locations). I saw this camera and liked it a lot. My old camera was also a Nikon Coolpix. Circuit City didn't have any in stock. Nor did any of their locations in the St. Louis area. Or online. So I started shopping ads and found it on sale at Best Buy this weekend. I placed an online order and picked it up today.

Here are the few sample shots from my exciting day at home unpacking and doing laundry:

Do they look better?

Fun pictures of Baby X in January

Trying to escape during week 49's alligator picture.

Cutie.

What a face!

50 weeks

49 weeks