Remembering

 One day Mark came home and I noticed he and Jared were (unintentionally) twins. 

 

Which reminded me of this picture:

Also taken in February weirdly enough (2010)

 

You can see that Mark's style hasn't changed too much or Mark himself.  Obviously there is very little the same about Jared except maybe his coloring which I am pretty sure he will have most of his life the sun will not be his friend.

 

Lydia has had a busy week learning all kinds of new things.  The biggest:  Walking! We have yet to get a video of it but we have lots of 4-6 seconds videos of her standing on her own then going back to crawling.  Yesterday she took about 6 steps but has yet to repeat it. I am not dreading her walking per say but know it is going to make Sunday's a little more challenging. Oh well. She also learned how to come down the stairs this week.  She was upstairs one night with Mark and then I turned around and she was downstairs. When he came down I asked if he had brought her real quick then gone back up and he said he had not.  So good job Lydia! We were very excited about that one because it means we will no longer have to "rescue her" or listen to her squawking at the top of them. She also mastered the well known (as in every house with kids 3 and under have them) stacking rings and the stacking cups!  Who knew this week would be so busy for her. She did reach 13 months last Saturday so apparently that is a big development time for her.  I love seeing her learn these things and thinking back to when Jared was figuring them out.  Seriously time goes so quick!

Jared goes to the Dentist

 

 

*Hats off to Mark for taking these pictures without me even asking him too.  After they left I totally thought "I wish I sent the camera with Mark."

Jared had his first trip to the dentist yesterday.  I think most people probably take their kids when they are younger but we just kept not scheduling it.  Mark thinks taking kids to the Dentist when they are really young is sort of silly since they are all baby teeth and are most likely all going to fall out . I am sure any dental people reading this are possibly dying right now.  I planned on taking him when he turned 3 but time just skipped by.  Thankfully he went yesterday and was perfect.  And so were his teeth.  A little tartar build up but no cavities. We watched a video on YouTube about what would happen when he got there which I think helped so he could see what to expect. Mark said he sat right down and did what he was asked.  He loved wearing the glasses and picking his prize. When he got home he was so very excited to show me his new toothbrush, a Lightning McQueen one no less. CARS has really been making come back in our house for which I am thrilled. I love listening to him have his CARS interact with each other and hear what he has them do. He told me the other day when he gets new underwear again he is going to choose CARS underwear instead of Thomas ones. Sounds good little buddy.

I am so happy that he wasn't fazed by the Dentist and it was a positive experience.  He's such a nice little boy.

Snow for real

Ever since we have lived here I have been shocked at how little snow actually falls here. Storms come and either stay in Denver or just die in the mountains.  Mark has family in Utah and whenever they get a storm they always ask if we got snow too since logically it would come to us after them.  But more often then not we don't.  Yesterday was the exception and we got a real snowstorm. Not so much to set any records but it was the most snow I recall seeing here in the 3.5 years we have lived here.  I don't really mind the lack of snow here. Growing up in California we would would occasionally go to the mountains to play in the snow but I don't recall ever thinking if was that great. Just wet and cold.  After this morning I think Jared feels the same way.
Since Mark had today off and the little boy I watched stayed home with his dad (he works at Peterson AF base and the base was closed so yeah most snow I have seen here) I took Jared out into the snow.  He was really excited but it quickly wore off when he realized how cold it was. In Jared's defense we don't have proper snow clothes for him. (we just so rarely get snow like this) We have warm winter coats and hats but not boots or snow pants. I am pretty sure if we did have those things he would have liked it more, well maybe.  The people who plowed our parking area made a huge mountain of snow and Jared couldn't wait to climb it.  He ran over and tried to climb it then promptly fell over. He said it was "a really tricky mountain." He did try a few more times with no success.  He walked over to me and sort of just looked at the snow everywhere.  I had him sit down in a pile of snow so I could take his picture and he could play in it and he lost it.  He started sobbing uncontrollably. It was so sad.  So our snow play lasted about 4 minutes. I didn't really mind. I much prefer being inside and watching the snow fall. That I love and wish happened more often.

Pinterest Projects

I am not super creative or clever or crafty but I am pretty good at using the Internet. I have a board on Pinterest entitled "I can Make that" and here are two things I found and we made! It's hard for me to spend money on house decorations (unless it's for a holiday) because I feel like we don't need them (although many people would argue you don't need holiday decorations but I DO) and I would really want to redo everything which would be way too much money. But I am happy with what we did and we didn't have to spend much at all.

Kids Art Display: Idea found HERE

 

I do lots of art projects with Jared and will soon start doing them with Lydia so my fridge was not going to have sufficient space to hang them up. A friend of mine is cutting out "MASTERPIECES" in vinyl and we will stick it above it. I LOVE it and it was incredibly easy. The wall has just been blank since we moved here in June 2010. Now our kitchen is a lot more fun.

Bedroom Wall Art

The walls in our bedroom have been completely bare since we moved in. I didn't really care because really we are not in our room very much but Mark has wanted to put something up.  We had to get some new bedding (it was completely worn out and ripping) so while we were at it we found some wall art to go with it. Awhile back I found this headboard made from a door and fell in love with it.

 

 

We looked for doors on craigslist with no real luck and went to Home Depot to look for a cheap door but the man helping us was convinced it would not work. I was frustrated because I finally decided to do something and then couldn't.  Instead we bought some shutters, spray painted them and came up with this:

We got the letters and & sign on sale at Hobby Lobby for 5 dollars each.



This is what you see when you sit on our bed.  So yeah, completely bare walls before.  I am quite happy with how it turned out and how easy it was but do still wish we could have done the door headboard. We rearranged our furniture and now our room feels so grown up.

Be mine Be mine Sweet Valentine!

I had so much fun with Jared for Valentines.  (Mark too, we are going on a hot date Saturday, out to dinner then to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic to listen to them perform the score from Casablanca while scenes from the movie show on a big screen, awesome right?) We added some Valentine themed activities to our learning time, had a Valentine themed bath, (ideas courtesy of Growing a Jeweled Rose seriously go check out that blog) festive meals and special Valentine deliveries each day in his very own mailbox. I will have to find another one for Lydia for next year.  If you haven't picked up on it yet I LOVE holidays. I love looking up projects and learning activities, meals and games.  They make regular things so much more fun.  There are so many things you can do with conversation hearts!

Jared's Valentines: 

Apple Juice: Youre' the Apple of my Eye

Crayons: You color the world with happiness

Teddy Bear Grahams:  I love your bear hugs

Chocolate: I love you more then chocolate

Valentines Bath

We made a lava lamp, love potion eruptions, chocolate treasures, and red shaving cream paint.  All the ideas were found HERE. There are so many fun things you can do with baking soda and vinegar!  Jared had a blast. 

Learning time fun: We stacked conversation hearts, graphed conversation hearts and made patterns with them.  We, well, Jared I think they are gross ate quite a few as well.  We matched uppercase and lower case letters like this: played a Valentine memory game and went on heart hunts.

Festive meals: What's a holiday without some fun meals?

Beef Stroganoff, his favorite

Valentines Floats: Strawberry soda with Vanilla Ice Cream

Brownie, cheesecake pudding, cool whip, strawberries, drizzled on top with melted white chocolate and chocolate chips

Decorations:

Heart Attacks! (the good kind)

 And cute kids!

I can't wait for Saint Patrick's day! And now maybe I can start blogging regularly again I have just had so much fun planning.