Christmas fun at home

The other day I found a recipe for candy cane paint.  I absolutely loved the idea.  Today we made it and it was so fun and easy.  

Candy Cane Paint:
Shaving Cream
Red Food coloring
Peppermint Extract

I just sprayed shaving cream in my square Pyrex pan, added the peppermint, squeezed the food coloring in the 4 corners then swirled it together.  We made paper candy canes to turn into a garland  and then played with it on the table.  It made our house smell so good!

I found the idea on pinterest but the link was to this super fun blog: Growing a Jeweled Rose. I have looked at it before and loved it but didn't do much with it.  I plan on using a lot of her ideas for the coming winter months. I will need to stock up on Shaving cream. Next up Hot Chocolate fluff!

We made these fun sugar cone trees with frosting and M and M's.

 

And had festive pancakes more then once.  On this day I asked Jared if he wanted to have a picnic by the tree, which he thought was a great idea.

 

 

 

We have had fun doing all kinds of Christmas art projects and learning activities.  Jared is getting really good at writing his name.  He is starting to show interest in writing more letters and numbers as well which is exciting for me.  We have been taking it kind of slow so its great to see him asking how to write things and then doing it.  I love seeing him learn. We do a little learning time each weekday and it is more fun with holidays!  I love how creative people are out there.  I am so grateful for all their fun ideas and that I have a kid who will work with me.

 

Pictures!

I am so happy I can put pictures up now. Here is the rest of November in pictures.

 

 

 

We spent some time rolling down hills and swinging

 

 

Learning to ride Jared's truck

 Playing with cars

 

 

Working on puzzles

 

Having Deep conversations... or staring contests

 

Being adorable.

I don't know why Blogger decided to let me put pictures up but I am really glad. Hopefully it will continue!

 

 

 

10 months!

Lydia reached 10 months on my birthday but I have been unmotivated to do that blog post because I can't add pictures to show just how cute she is!  If I were a better writer it wouldn't be such a big deal but I just don't have that skill set.

 Lydia is sweet and easy going (most of the time).  She is not her happiest from about 5:15- 6:00 (see below) but after she eats dinner and has her bath she is pretty happy. She loves to eat!  I am always surprised at how much she eats.  Lately she has discovered she can make her hands do things.  She will wave when asked and sometimes on her own.  Clapping is her newest trick and she always looks so pleased with herself and somewhat surprised when she does it. We have been working on some sign language a little bit but she is not too interested yet.

This is her around 5:30...

 

She loves to pull herself up on anything stable enough to hold her:  furniture, her chair, toys, Jared's push and pull truck, her crib railings, you get the point.  She loves to pull herself up on the little chairs at the little table in our kitchen which always makes me nervous because they have tipped over on her.  She handles it really well and just rolls over then  tries to find something else to pull herself up on. I am so glad she hasn't gotten seriously hurt and that she doesn't freak out over these things.

Her favorite sounds so far are: Da Da Da and Ah-Bu. I love her cute little laugh. She loves playing peek-a-boo around furniture more then with hands.  She will crawl to one side of the counter or a chair and peek over and when we say peek-a-boo to her she giggles and quickly moves back.  She loves it when we crawl after her and when we "eat" her stomach.

She is a little Sweetheart and makes all of so happy.

Happy Birthday April!

30! 

Mark did a great job making my 30th birthday really nice.  I love ice cream cakes and he MADE me a delicious one and I made sure he put 30 candles in it. (imagine picture of me here with my cake: see Thanksgiving post if that line confuses you) We went out to see the Nutcracker with my Mom the night of my birthday and a few days before we went out to lunch together.  30 doesn't seem too old to me.  As I like to say to people who say they are old "people live to be 90, you have a long way to go." The only thing I am sad about is that I now have to say I am in my 30's not my 20's and that is not really that sad. I feel like I have been really fortunate and have had some awesome life experiences in the last 30 years.  My 20s were awesome, a great decade and I am sure my 30's will be full of good things too. 

Some of my favorite moments from my 20"s include:
 Graduating College
 Marrying Mark (I am pretty sure I was still 19 when we met)
 Going through the Temple
 Traveling! (more then I ever thought I would, can't wait to do some more)
 Living overseas
 Jared
 Lydia

This is a very broad list but really I have an amazing life.  When we talked about the things we were grateful for on Thanksgiving that was my big thing.  My life.  I am so grateful for the life I am living.  It is really close to what I thought it would be only so much better then I imagined. All the good and all the annoying. I am so very blessed to have all I need and opportunities to plan and prepare for more good or tough things. (But I would prefer good things, just to clarify).

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

We had a delicious Thanksgiving. All the usual foods (minus sweet potatoes and green bean casserole because we are not huge fans of them here at our house) which all turned out great. We have so many blessings and so very much to be thankful for. This year we did a thankful tree with Jared. I have wanted to do one since he was born but figured 3 was a good age to start. I had him tell me one thing he was thankful for each morning and wrote it on a leaf. We read them all today while we ate dinner.

Jared's is thankful for:

 

CARS, Food, Sunglasses, Pumpkins, Leaves, Phones, Muffins, Mommy and Daddy, Lights, Pancakes, Trees, Tennis balls and racquet's, Ice Cream, Water, Cups, Basketball Hoop, Trains, Lydia, Pillows, Toilet Paper, Chairs, Houses, Blankets.

 

Our Turkey counting activity

 

 

Lydia thought the turkey was pretty great.

 

My mom came out for Thanksgiving and we had a lot of fun while she was here. We had amazing weather and enjoyed going to the park, the zoo, Black Friday shopping and seeing the Nutcracker. I had never really gone Black Friday shopping and it was better then I thought it would be and a lot longer! We went to Toys R Us, Kohl's, and Old Navy. I would probably not go to Toys R US again (Not enough things on sale to make it worth the wait) but Kohl's was amazing, so efficient. I was impressed and would totally go there next year.  Old Navy was super slow but the deals were good so its a toss up. But really we were by really nice people in line and it was a lot better then I thought it would be. We went out around 8:30 Thursday and didn't get back until 4:25 Friday morning.  We did find some great sales and now I am done not only Christmas shopping but wrapping all our presents too.  They are going to be pretty dusty by the time Christmas gets here.  So far Jared and Lydia are doing great not touching them or the tree. I think they will be fine.

I am so glad that my Mom could come out and play with us.  Jared is at a really fun age for visitors. We set up an air mattress (because we got rid of our spare bed to set up Lydia's room) and Jared loves it.  Every afternoon he would say to Marmee (or whoever is visiting and using that room) "You're tired, we should go lay on your bed." He loved laying on the mattress and reading books. I am so glad that my Mom and Mark's mom could come out to visit this fall and make lots of memories with Jared. 

Often when we go to the zoo we ask Jared if he wants to feed the giraffes and he says no.  But this time he really wanted to and said he would be really brave so we went to feed them and he was really brave, he loved it. I love this picture!

 

Here are the kids with the blankets Marmee made them.  Jared's is double sided with Lightning McQueen and Thomas. He loves it.

Pictrues added December 16