Sunday, March 29, 2009

Unplugged - Illegal???

Oh, I hope we don't go to Federal prison for this...

A few weeks ago we took the kids to the post office to apply for their passports. We live in Michigan and need to keep our options open for travel through Canada to New England. We knew that it would take about 6 weeks for them to come in the mail, but E has been asking every time we go to the mailbox, "Is my new passfort here yet?"

So when I heard this week's theme, I decided to make the kids some fake passport books...JUST TO PLAY WITH. I took out some junky scrapbooking paper and very cheap stickers and attempted to make two books in about 20 minutes...the results were underwhelming, but fit the bill.
When the kids woke up from their naps, I showed them their passforts, and they were thrilled! E was really surprised to see her own picture in there. I set them at the kitchen table with stamps and ink pads, and we stamped the books while talking about life. It was quite cool, actually. I gave E the cow stamp, because we saw a cow decoration on a neighbor's house yesterday. Baby m got some fish and cars, two of the words he actually says pretty clearly. I was surprised how he really got into the stamping! Most of his "hits" were on the table, but it was washable ink. We all put our fingerprints in too...
I think we'll take these out in a few days and stamp them some more, and maybe I'll write a few notes about the things we did this week....for an older child, this might be a simple scrapbook project, or even a mini-diary. Ours will probably will be shredded by the time we start next week's project.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Oots

My babies are entertaining, to say the least. I've decided that some people have children just to listen to their cute little voices saying cute little things. E and Baby m cracked me up about a dozen times today. Let's see if I can recall a few...

Watching a commercial on Nick Jr., E declared, "Mommy, I want dat!" A few moments later, a little quieter..."Mommy? What IS dat?" Go ad geniuses. You have toddlers asking for plastic junk and they don't even know what it is!

Upon seeing a squirrel climb a tree, E said, "I wish I could climb a tree like that." To which Baby m replied, "Oots!" Makes perfect sense to me.

While pretending to be a doctor, E took out a plastic cleaver from her kitchen set and said, "Your leg is sick. I'm going to cut it off." When I told her that would hurt, she said, "Don't say ouch."

When we got back from our walk tonight, E walked in the door and took off every last piece of her clothes...even her socks. Then she ran around in circles through the kitchen and living room for 5 minutes. I could just see little flashes of her bottom zipping around here and there, and I could hear a constant giggle. Baby m chased her around, pointing like, "see that?"

After lunch, E asked, "Can I have some melted chick balls?" (Malted milk balls.)

Baby m is not a conversationalist yet, but he's getting there. He says fish, cookie, ball, car, mama, mo mo (more), gook (book) and of course, oots. I can't wait to hear what he thinks of this amazing world.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Unplugged Project - Long

I'm afraid our project did not turn out as long as I'd thought it would. My niece and I made a marble chute out of paper towel tubes, and attached it to the fridge with magnets. The cool part is you can adjust it up and down and change the angles. The not so cool part is that an actual marble is too heavy for this set up. As soon as the marble hit the second chute the magnets gave way and the whole thing came crashing down. We ended up using a little ball of dried clay instead.
Again, I think I can be accused of picking a project that is more appropriate for a 10 year old than a 3 year old, but E certainly did love the end product! Her face lit up when the ball landed in the Pringles can with a "Clang!" I'm excited to add more chutes...maybe we can run the entire length of the fridge! (By the way, notice the little girlie magnet from Unplugged "Old" looking on!)

Friday, March 13, 2009

Funny Photo Friday


June 2007, we took a trip to California with E, who was just 15 months old. It was a fantastic vacation, and we spent 4 days in Yosemite. On the last day we took a short hike and E found a sandpit to play in. This is a talent of hers....she did seem to be having fun shmearing the dust on her face! I'm sure that other visitors were taken aback by her appearance, and then by her screaming as I tried to clean her with baby wipes back at the car.

Check here and here for other wonderful Friday Photos!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Unplugged - Happy! :)

Happy? Well, any of our unplugged projects could have that theme! Even when they go wrong, at least SOMEONE enjoys themselves! This week, I decided that we would try to do something to make others happy.

At some point in the last few weeks, I stumbled on The Toy Society blog, where people make little tchachkes and put them out in the world for others to find. Sounded perfect for us. After the kids went to bed one night, I turned a baby sock into a bunny, and labeled it as directed on the site. The next day, we left the bunny in a bag at a bus stop down the road...in hopes that someone would take her home and, well, be happy! Though I knew she wanted to keep it, E seemed to understand that we were doing this as a gift for someone else. Alas, two days later she was still hanging there, in the rain, sadly. So E and I rescued her, dried off the bag, and brought her to the grocery store. E gave her a kiss and whispered nice things in her ear, and we left her in a cart. When we passed by not two minutes later, she was gone! Who knows whether she ended up in the lost and found or whether someone brought her home, but that's out of our hands now. There's a note with her that directs the finder to the Toy Society blog, but the owner does say that some people never report their find. That's okay. It made us happy just to throw some love out into the world. Thanks for the inspirational theme!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Funny Photo Friday

Here is Baby m enjoying the beach last summer. It was a great trip to Seapointe Resort in Cape May, New Jersey, but it was tricky keeping the kids cool enough. Photography note: This angle on a chubby baby makes a funny picture! Couldn't you just bite him?

Check out Yelli's site and Carrie's site for other photos!

Wink Wink

Now that E uses the potty, we are forced to accept that she will be up during the night to do her business. We can no longer tuck her in "for the night" and expect her to stay there. The problem we've had during the last few weeks is that she leaves her bed immediately after we close the door, and follows us into the living room. Then she will look at us with kind of a sad, apologetic face and say, "I need to ask a question. I gotta go to da potty."

We are trying not to discourage her at this point, because there is the off chance that she may actually have to go. So we walk her down to the bathroom, sit her down, wipe, and back to bed. It seems that this freedom has opened up a new door for her, and she will often try to wander back 3 or 4 more times before settling down.

I had heard of a technique that uses sort of a bribe in reverse...and I'm actually trying it. I put 3 candy Kisses on the counter and told her that those were her treats for tomorrow (yes, we've graduated from M&M's to a larger, messier candy). Then I told her that if she got out of bed again (not including ACTUAL potty trips), I would put one of the Kisses back in the jar. "So I'll only get two?" Great...she understood. Last night, we only had to put one Kiss back, and there was no crying or flailing on the floor. I don't know if you can count candy deprivation as a "natural consequence" of getting out of bed too many times, but hey. We're desperate.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Unplugged - Bottle (sort of)

Okay, so this is one of those Unplugged Projects where the clean-up takes more time than the actual project. The upside was that the product was useful! We used a milk jug (or bottle?) to make a bird feeder. E used some gold and silver sharpies to color the outside of the jug, and that's where the first mess took place. She learned that the ink would pool up if you pressed hard and held the pen in place...so after we were done I had to scrape up little dried puddles off of the kitchen table. Then I cut a hole in the side (no mess) for the birdies to access their food. The last step was to lace the string through the top and decorate with beads. E wanted to sit on the couch for that part, and the end result was beads all over the place. As soon as she had two or three on the string, I would drop it or she would bump the jug...I mean bottle. :)

After I filled it with seed, I hung it outside her window. She was pretty excited to see it out there. I hope we get to see a bird on it before the local chipmunks chew it to smithereens.

 
Header Image from Bangbouh @ Flickr