Christmas 2011 ~ Recap and Highlights

(I also posted this at We Shall Sew, in case you go there, too)

Well, it's Tuesday now, the 27th, and we finally ate Christmas dinner tonight. :)  There is no real reason for the delay, except that I kept sleeping through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window.  How was I supposed to prepare a turkey and get it in the oven smack dab in the middle of my nap time?

And I sure needed my nap on Christmas day.

Dave and I were up until after 3am Christmas morning, and we were tuckered out! It was totally worth it, though.

TOTALLY!!

As referenced in my last post, we made a puppet theater for the girls. Other than the curtains and the re-build upstairs, it was done in plenty of time. But the curtains took me a while since I took my sweet time. And the re-build took a while since Dave had to hand screw everything in so as not to wake the girls up with the drill.

See, we went from having only a little tree, and no presents, in the loft area when the girls went to bed Saturday night, to having a large puppet theater and a mass of Christmas gifts in the loft area when they woke up.

That kind of transformation takes time, people. It takes time.

Every morning, Mookie has this tradition, if you will, of stumbling into our bedroom around 7:30 for a bit of a snuggle and to play games or read while we all wake up. So we weren't really worried that she would see anything out of the ordinary before we were ready for her to see it.  And Sprout has this tradition, if you will, of sleeping till about 8:30, so we were all set in that regard.  Once Sprout woke up, we all went downstairs for some breakfast...and to build the hype a bit. Since Mookie hadn't seen any presents under the tree, she didn't really expect anything out of the ordinary, but we kept talking about this BIG surprise, and how excited we were, and how excited she would be, and how much fun we were going to have, etc.

So about 9:30, I went upstairs first to set up the video camera and to hide in the puppet theater to take pictures, and then Dave brought the girls up.

Here's the before (you can see the puppet theater on the left):

Mookie was so startled by the transformation! You can see the surprise, and fear?, in her face.

She was actually so scared that she got down on the floor and started to crawl! Poor girl!

But when she figured out that it was a puppet theater and that it was all good, she jumped up and RAN for the "puppet feetar" as she calls it. :)

I love that photo! I love that face!! :)

"Look, Mama! I can do my very own puppet shows!"

Then she came around back, grabbed the few puppets we had (many more showed up soon!), and commensed to wowwing us with her mad puppetry skillz.

There were quite a few puppet shows that day...and every day since. :)

Not one to be left out, Sprout was trying to get in on the puppet show action. (LOVE the hair!)

Here's the whole family before we opened any of the presents. The loft was a WRECK by the time we were all done. Still is...

Dave gave me a pair of Christmas socks (among other things...like an Accuquilt Go! Cutter) (Score!!) and Sprout desperately wanted to wear them. How can you say no to that cute face?

Here she is with them on. These are certainly easier for her to wear than my regular slippers!

This is such a goofy shot of my goofy girl. I love it.

We got Sprout a little kitchen tools set, and both girls really loved it. Occupied them for quite a while, actually.

I found these little fairy wings at Target on clearance, and thought Sprout might like them. Well. Little did I know! She immediately said "Ningabow! Ningabow!!" (For Tinkerbell), and held out her arms. I said "Do you want to put these on? And she said "Yup" And I said "Okay." And she said "K."  I just adore this age!!

Her Tinkerbell wings stay on pretty much every moment she knows they're there. We sneak them off every now and then, but when she sees them, she wants them on again.



I love that she's wearing fairy wings and trying to build something with her Mega Blocks. Every fairy is an engineer, my love. :)

Here's Dave with his fairy baby.

Poor girl. She was just poopin' out, there! We'd only been going for about an hour and a half at this point...

She found her second wind, though, and got to playing again.

So, that's it! We took our sweet time, and very leisurely opened all of our presents. It took us about 3 hours, really, but there weren't THAT many presents. We just took. our. time. We read stories. We had puppet shows. We snacked on candy. We played with new toys. We stayed in our jammies all day.

And then we used our new sandwich press to make fancy triangle sandwiches, and then had a nice, well-deserved nap.

Which explains why I slept right through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window, and we didn't eat our Christmas Turkey until 2 days later. It was good, though. :)

Thoughts to Remember

Tonight I was trying to explain to Mookie why we don't put salt on our honey seared chicken. I said there are little cells on her tongue that like it when things taste good. I said "We all have taste buds on our tongue that tell our brains when something tastes good or bad."

She paused a minute, then said "Mommy, we don't put bugs in our mouths, right?"

Confused, I said, "Well, no. Not usually. Why?"

Equally confused, she said, "Well, how do the taste bugs get in our mouths then?"

It took me a sec to clue in that she thought taste buds were "taste bugs" that live on our tongues and tell us if food tastes good or not!

While God Was Blessing America, He Certainly Blessed Me...

Mookie started pre-school about a month ago. I know! When did she get so BIG?!  But, I love the program, and the teachers and the students and the families...it's the perfect place for Mookie. We're so blessed that she is there.

A couple of weeks ago, she came home and she was kinda/sorta saying "God Bless America" but not really more than that, so I asked if they sang that at school, and she said "Yes, after we say the Pledge Of Legions." (haha!)  So I looked up the words, and we started to sing it at home some, too.

Well, tonight I finally got her to sing it while I recorded her. I admit that I told her the wrong lyric at one point, but that's okay. This is still

THE BEST THING

EVER!!

I know I'm her mom, and I'm supposed to feel that way, but I had tears in my eyes when she was finished.  Don't worry, I'm not going to call American Idol or anything, but I just love this kid.

Enjoy!

Potty Training {Days Beyond}

So, I gave up potty training Mookie. I just couldn't take the feelings of failure and abuse and torture and bribery anymore.

I still asked if she wanted to go, and would sit her on the potty, but I didn't set a timer, and I didn't stress about it. We even pulled out a few hidden diapers for nap and bed times.

I can't remember now, but somewhere in that week, she started to really pee on the potty. A couple of times she told me she needed a diaper, so we high-tailed it to the potty and she peed in it. (Hallelujah!) She didn't have any accidents during the awake times, and grew really proud of herself.  Part of it could be that I figured out her "currency". Her bribe. The thing that makes her little heart skip a beat.

Play-doh.

Sadly, I hate the stuff. Friends should not buy friends' kids play-doh! Ugh.  Mookie? Loves the stuff. Wants to take it to bed with her at night. Wakes up asking to "play" Play-doh. Wants to take it to the restaurant when we go out to eat.

Somewhere along the potty-training line, she learned that she would get a new pot of Play-doh every time she peed in the potty, or woke up dry, or some such milestone. Knowing that, she was considerably more motivated to pee or hold it, or do the "potty dance." :)

In the big picture, the 47 pots of Play-doh aren't very expensive, and she spends SO MUCH TIME playing. And she really loves it.  She's forever dreaming up something new to make with it, or showing off her latest creation, or "making dinner" with it...the possibilities are endless with that kid.

We don't have many tools for the Play-doh, though. That would be too much, I think. I have a one-color limit (can not STAND when the colors get mixed. Bah!!), and most of the tools allow you (or encourage you) to mix colors. Not happenin', folks.  We do have a few things, though, and I've augmented her tools with a few cookie cutters, some plastic knives, and a small rolling pin. She's happy as a clam, and doesn't ask for more than one color, thankfully.

Anyway, back to the potty training. So, we had about a week of normal, around-the-house pottying, and then we went away on vacation. She was a STAR!! She peed on a big potty at the Dallas airport, at the Newark airport, in Central Park in New York City, Penn Station in NYC, at the Crayola Factory in New Jersey...

...riddle me this, though, folks...the Crayola Factory didn't have toddler-sized potties. Why? They must have a million toddlers and small children coming through in a year, why not have toddler-sized potties?? Good thing for me, she was comfortable using the big ones if I held her.

Now, a few weeks after I started this journey, she's peeing on the potty all the time during the day (I try to take her about every 60-90 minutes just to be safe, and she lets me know if she needs to go in between). She wears a pull-up at nap and bed time or if we're out of the house, and "big girl pants" during the time we're at home.  She still isn't pooping in the potty, but thankfully she has only pooped in the pull-ups. I'm kinda ooked out by the idea of poop in her big girl pants. :o)  I know it will happen, but I'm glad it hasn't happened yet!

She's still got a pile of "prizes" that she could have gotten (and still can), but she seems perfectly content with the Play-doh she already has, and isn't interested in those books/puzzles/games/candy/bubbles/movies on the counter.  However...there is a big Play-doh kit that will sit there until we are fully potty trained. And she knows it.  She's motivated, and I think that was the key to success.

So, that's our story right now. Peeing on the potty isn't a big deal. Pooping is our next hurdle. :)

Potty Training {Day 2}

(I am keeping track of Mookie's potty training here because I know if I don't, I'll be clueless when it comes time to train Sprout. Which I will do MUCH earlier.)

Mookie spent the day yesterday asleep or whining or just generally not being herself. So, we are trying this again! It's critical to do this now because Dave has a few days off and he can take care of Sprout.

9:00 - came upstairs to The Training Area. Prayed. Went over the rules and expectations. Practiced.

9:40 - really got started. Started the (10 min) timer and started playing with Play-Doh. (Mookie is downright addicted to the stuff.). 10 minutes dry, 5 on the potty with no success. Drinking juice.

9:55 - second 10 minute bell rang with no misses. No success in the (5 min) potty. Setting the timer for 15 minutes and playing more Play-Doh.

10:25 - 15 minutes, no misses. 5 on the potty, no success. I even have the water trickling in the bathtub.

10:45 - same as before. 15/5. This time she pulled her underwear down and sat on the potty by herself. I gave her a small chocolate bar. We need to drink more water!

10:50 - role-reversal time... Mookie wanted to be the teacher. I have now had more "success" than she has. :-)

11:05 - set timer for 20 minutes, Mookie is doing well "trapped" in the playroom with me. We have read books, played with fabric, and done some workbook pages. 5 more minutes with no success. I'm also painting her fingers and toes while she's seated.

11:30 - (the timing is not exact, but it's close). I'm getting bored. I expected her to pee at least once in 3 hours! The timer is at 20, and I told her that when she pees in the potty, I'll give her a new, big, pot of Play-Doh. We'll see if that helps.

12:00 - this time, just for fun, we practiced wiping. We didn't need it. (sigh). Setting the timer for another 20. Maybe I should shorten the time. I don't know. (Still no new Play-Doh.)

12:31 - melt down. She wants to go downstairs. I'm not letting her. Today is about tinkling on the potty. Another 5+ on the potty with no luck. I'm praising her for practicing sitting on the potty.

1:00 - same ol' same old. I've even upped the bribes. It's lunch, then nap time.

2:00 - going down for her nap dry since before 9:00 this morning. Didn't eat much lunch.

3:45 - Mookie woke up crying and then got sick multiple times. Poor kid.

We're done. I'm done. I'm not sure if we'll try again tomorrow, but I'm thinking not. Since she's not exhibiting any signs of WHY she is sick, I can't really tell until she pukes. and I don't want to push her any more.

Potty Training {Day 1}

= Fail.

I was ALL kinds of prepared. I read the books, I prayed, I separated the bribes toys into small, medium, large. I prayed some more. I hid the few size 4 diapers that are left in the house. I prayed yet some more. I prepped the bathroom and the playroom. Dave was lined up to be Parent #1 to Sprout all day so I could devote my time to Mookie all day.

What I didn't expect was that cry at 2:45 in the morning. That "Mommy! I getted sick in my bed!" cry. I scooped her lump of a self up, and we crawled into the guest bed, where we slept off and on until about 10:00 in the morning.

Poor Mookie-licious is sick. Just not herself. She doesn't have a fever, doesn't exhibit regular signs of sickness, but she's just not herself. She only threw up one more time during the day, but it doesn't make any sense. Poor kid.

We'll try again tomorrow.

(I am keeping track of Mookie's potty training here because I know if I don't, I'll be clueless when it comes time to train Sprout. Which I will do MUCH earlier.)

Modern Day Quilting

My hexie quilt for Japan is featured today over at Modern Day Quilts!!!

Heather does a really great job of finding fun, inspirational, innovative, modern quilts and posts them every day. I am super jazzed that she thinks my hexie quilt is fit for her feature! If you don't already follow her, you should. Every day brings new, and ever more beautiful, quilts.

(Her post just links to my sewing blog, but go there and show her some love, too.) :o)

Frozen Easter #1

I suspect this will be a recurring theme as long as we live in this fickle-weathered state. It's the same at Halloween, though. Snows. Every year. On Halloween and on Easter. No matter when Easter is. Snows.

At least it's predictable!

Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took on Saturday before we left the house for the Easter Egg Hunt, and immediately afterwards.  I'm so glad I didn't get the girls fancy Easter dresses! I wouldn't have dressed them in them because it was too cold, and then they wouldn't have ever worn them! The outfits I got them, though, are pretty cute and totally practical.




I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

We Let The Wine Do The Painting

Last month, my best friend, Angela, told me about a new (to me) place in Denver called Canvas and Cocktails. They provide all the art supplies, a "goal" painting, and an instructor to guide you through creating your goal painting. Well, and there's a bar in the back in case anyone needs additional assistance with their painting. As Angela and I were trying to figure out when we could go, I had to discuss the dates with Dave. This is pretty much how our conversation went:

Me: "So Ang wants to go to this place in Denver called Canvas and Cocktails. There's a teacher who teaches you how to paint a certain picture and everyone in the room paints the same one. We're trying to figure out when we can go. What are your plans for May 1st?"

Him: "Is it like that guy on PBS that says things like 'this is a happy tree.' or is it different?"

Me: "Ummm, I don't know about happy trees, but there is a teacher."

Him: "Hmmm...that sounds pretty cool. We should do that sometime for a date night."

Me, cocking my head to the side: "What?"

Him: "Yeah, you know I love art. It won't look half as good as yours, but I think it might be fun!"

Me, cocking my head to the other side: "What??"

Him: "Well, I know I haven't had a paint brush in my hand since approximately 1981, but I would really like to do it. We should go together on a date!"

Me, cocking my head back to the other side: "Who ARE you?"

Him: "No, really. It'll be fun. What's the website. I want to see what painting I might want to paint."

Me, cocking my head back again: "No, really. Who ARE you??"

After the shock wore off, we were sitting at our respective computers looking at the different paintings they offer and trying to decide when we could go. He really liked the "guitar trio" painting. 3 guitars, primary colors, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  I tried and tried to convince him to pick another painting, but he was pretty adamant about the guitar trio.  I was not too keen on having two (somewhat) identical paintings in the house, but figured I could at least paint over it if I hated it, right?! :o)

When I called to make the reservation, the girl was all excited, and informed me that the phones had been going crazy since they had just announced that Guitar Trio was going to be the first ever "Guys' Night" where the men would paint for free!  To which I said "Sweet! Sign me up! I'll happily paint a trio of guitars if it's free!" :o)

When we got there Saturday night, the room was pretty crowded, and only got more crowded. Too crowded, but it was fun, so that's okay.  After we paid, they took us to a couple of open stools, gave us our brushes and a piece of cardboard and showed us where to get the aprons and the paints. Then Dave went to the bar and bought himself a nice, chilled bottle of "painter's aid," if ya know what I mean. :o) Brittany, the owner, then introduced herself and proceeded to give us our basic painting instructions. It was really a great way to begin painting, I think. I've dabbled in painting for decades quite a while, now, so it wasn't new to me, but for Dave, who admits he hasn't painted in nearly 30 years, this was really great. She would say "take a scoop of yellow, and two scoops of white and mix them together." She went over brush sizes, paint combinations, light hand vs heavy hand. Good stuff. And she took us through the painting step by step. Again, cool for me, GREAT for Dave and the 34 other men in the room that haven't painted since elementary school! :o)

And as we went, she played some really rockin' tunes in the background. I don't recall any AC/DC, but there was plenty of man-friendly music that she played. I suspect the playlist is different on a night when most of the painters are women. :o)

Dave followed her instructions to the letter, but I chose a different set of colors to use. I chose to go ahead and paint the guitars, though, because Mookie LOVES guitars and she LOVES to play her guitar and she LOVES to play guitar with her papa. So I picked some girly colors for her. Brittany talked us through each and every layer, every highlight, every shadow, every nuance. The way we created the painting step-by-step really made us all feel very successful, I think.

One highlight of the evening was when Brittany called Roger up to the front and made up some excuse to get him up there. As he was up there, he said something sweet about his girlfriend, Kimberly, and asked her to join him up at the front. As she walked up there, he got down on one knee and proposed to her. Right there in Canvas and Cocktails. So sweet. I'm thinking she didn't really care how her painting came out after that. :o)

It took about 3 hours to get through our paintings and everything (there were a few breaks, too), but I'm sure it would have taken me longer to paint a trio of guitars at home. They took pictures, which is good, because I forgot my camera. If you look HERE, it's a picture of Dave and me on their Facebook site. You can't see our paintings, though.

I did take a few pictures with my phone, though. Here's a picture of Dave and me with our new creations. You can see the instructor's painting in the background.  Dave is actually pretty proud of himself -- as he should be! He did great!  (But there wasn't much "creative license" with him...we pretty much had to have anatomically correct guitars.)



And here are the paintings in the light of day. Still not too shabby, eh?



When I told Mookie that I made the painting for her, she said "Really? For me?" and began to clap like crazy. And every 15 minutes throughout the rest of the day she would say, "That's Papa's, this is mine." I love that she's so excited about a painting I made for her.  Since Dave is officially hooked on painting, and I had fun going along and enabling his inner artiste to emerge, I think we'll be doing a LOT more painting in the future. We've already got a plan for painting this Friday night. We're not going to C&C, though, we'll just paint at home. But if they turn out good, I'll be showing them to you next Sunday.

And, no. Angela and I haven't yet worked out the dates when we'll get to go and paint flowers and listen to girly music and chat chat chat the night away.

And Now For Some Comic Relief

I actually captured some cuteness the last few days. I've been SO ridiculously remiss.

The first is a video of Mookie dancing at the end of Shrek 4 (whatever it was called). SO cute.



And the second is, well, you'll see.



Sprout has been saying it for a week, or so, but at first, she didn't associate it with an action. Now I know she does.

And, in other news, Sprout is almost ready to sign "cat." She's trying really hard, and she lifts her hands up when the cat comes in the room, but she can't quite get the rest of the action down.  I didn't catch that on video, but I'll try.

I hope you enjoyed those. :o) Have a great day!

10 on the 10th

Sprout is 10 months old. Can't believe it.

She has such a great personality. She's not interested in crawling or walking, yet, but that's okay. :o)  She is clapping, and (almost) waving...she kinda flaps both arms at the same time whenever we come into the room. :o)  I will get video. I promise!

She says "mama", but not always only at me. I know she knows I'm the mama, and that's good enough.

There's a million other things, and not enough time, so I hope to either add more pictures later, or create another post later.

For The Chronicles

(poor, neglected blog)

Here's a video for anyone still checking in!


I took it one night while I was getting ready to make dinner. Sprout didn't want to sit in her high chair, so I thought I'd try an old tried-and-true method of entertaining the baby...pots and pans!

These aren't really a pot or a pan, but the end result was the same. Loud baby = happy baby.

And here's a picture I took of Mookie this morning. I doctored it up with Flickr's Picnik CinemaScope tool, and I pretty much love it. :o)

It Was NOTHING Like Today...

You know those scenes in movies where it looks like someone is standing on a ladder dumping huge scraps of paper to make it look like it's "snowing"? That's what it looks like outside my window today. Big, puffy, heavy, wet, white snowflakes are flitting about.

And it's cold. Not 70 below zero like it was last week, though. :o)

10 short days ago, it was balmy and rather tropical here, so I took the girls to the park for a picnic. It was Sprout's first, and she did FAHbulously. She sat on the blanket and played and watched people and ate her Gerber puffs like a champ. Mookie wanted to play rather than eat (which is nothing new.), so I made her sit and eat half of her lunch before she could go play. :o) I love the park. I miss having a park at the end of the street where we could go every. single. day if we wanted  to.

I took quite a few pictures of the picnic, but I'm only going to show you 2, but I think you'll see that we had fun.

Wook at doze smoochy cheeks.

Mookie was bouncing.

It's important to remember that the sun does shine around here, and there are days when we can venture to the park. Now that it's February, it'll probably be a few weeks till we can do it again, but at least I have pictures to remind me that those days will come again.

I hope you have a great week!

So Good It's Worth Sharing Again

This morning Mookie wanted to watch old YouTube videos of herself, and we came across this
CLASSIC!

I know you've seen it before, but it's SO worth seeing it again. And again. Brings tears to my eyes all over again. :o)

Enjoy!



Cracks me up. Every. Time.

Precious Moments

When we were house hunting, I really thought I wanted a finished basement. But now I know why God had a different plan.

I would have missed precious moments like these...

It's snowing outside, but that doesn't stop Mookie from riding her bicycle. In her jammies. With her fancy skirt on. And her helmet on backwards. :-)

As much as I miss living in LA, if we still lived there, I would have missed this. :-)

Bright Eyes

A friend pointed me to this feature on Flickr's Picnik photo editing site. It's called CinemaScope and I LOVE it!
I'm sure there are ways I can brighten Mookie's eyes a bit more, but I am pretty excited about this effect! :o)
Don't expect to see me upload tons of photos just to CinemaScope them, but I just thought this was a pretty cool way to waste some time. (like I need more ways to waste time, right?

Such A Bright Spot In My Day

Sprout is sitting up SO well these days! She's getting more and more independent and enjoys playing by herself (which allows ME to enjoy a few things, too!)

She's not crawling, or even trying, yet, but that will come. For now, I absolutely LOVE the fact that I can Put. Her. Down. (for the love of pete!) and get a little work done. :-)

We love our little Sproutling.

She Can Fly!

One grandma got her the Tinkerbell movie called "The Great Fairy Rescue," and we watched it more than a few times after she got it. :o)

Then we came home and opened our other gifts, and Grandpa Bill and Grandma Jen sent her the Tinkerbell costume! I'm pretty sure Mookie set a gift-wrap ripping record getting that thing out of the package and onto her body!

And then, for the next 5 hours, she "flew" around the house and exclaiming "OH! My wings are wet!"

I hope she always believes that she can fly, and never gets discouraged when her wings get a bit wet by the storms of life.