Gardening day

Wade had so much fun with our dinosaur day, that I decided to do another themed day. Gardening day! I didn't get many pictures of us doing the actual activities, but got a few of the end results.

We planted some annuals in pots (that Wade picked out, so they are a little mis-matched and really go against my perfectionist nature...), made a rotisserie chicken container into a small greenhouse and planted some seeds. Had a garden-style lunch complete with butterfly sandwich, flower-shaped fruit, and grape caterpillars. We also made butterfly pretzel treats using white chocolate and sprinkles and had dirt pudding for dessert. I tried to get him to do a flower craft with watercolors, coffee filters and pipe cleaners, but he's not much of an artsy guy, so we painted a few and called it quits. We also watched a Bob the Builder that had to do with planning and planting a garden. We were going to plant seeds for Mark in the big garden out back, but ran out of time. We got a lot done in a short period of time and it was a lot of fun!

Red petunias, white impatients and orange marigolds.
Plus a few strawberries thrown in for good measure.



Mini greenhouse



Showing me his headless grape caterpillar



Garden lunch
 





Butterfly treats



Dirt dessert

 

11 months. Wait, what?!

Yikes! One more month until she's a year, what happened?!

Here's what she's up to:

Pushing EVERYTHING around. Since the floors are mostly concrete and tile, pretty much everything is a walk-behind toy. Chairs, stools, etc.

 

Boycotting baby food. She pretty much will only eat what she can pick up herself. And Greek yogurt. She still loves strawberries, eggs and cheese, but also loves shredded meat (pork, chicken and beef), green beans and peas. She will not have anything to do with grapes, bananas or applesauce.

 

She loves to point at everything. I'm not sure if she wants to know what it all is, or touch everything or is just pointing for the sake of pointing.

 

Likes to turn the light switches off. I remember when Wade did this and I would spend FOREVER holding him up next to light switches to turn them on and off. On and off. On and off. We're here again.

Says "uh oh." It sounds like "oo oo," but she does it whenever she drops something so I'm assuming that's what she's going for.

 

If you ask her to find your nose or mouth she will point to it (or stick her finger in it), but can't quite find her own yet. She can, however, find her belly when you ask her :)

 

 

Uuma has successfully taught her to climb stairs. I put her down near a playscape and watched as she climbed right up onto it. Sigh. No more letting her just stand there and pound the stairs. But I guess that's a useful thing to know ;)

Adventures with Lily

This girl is such a ham! She is really becoming quite a character. Silly with a definite stubborn streak (gets that from her Daddy) describes her best. 

 

 Trying out some new moves (both legs straight)...

 

 We went to Safari Champ to let the big boys run wild and the babies play in the little kids area. Baby Ford let out a yell that apparently scared the daylights out of Lily. He wasn't really sure what all the fuss was about :)

Who can resist these faces?

Army guys, oobleck, celery and blocks

Wade was quiet for a really long time one night. Usually that means trouble. This time it meant all his army guys lined up on his top bunk. Now that's some patience!

 

I've been waiting for the day that Wade would appreciate the ooey gooeyness of oobleck. That time has come! We had to make it twice this week because he loved it so much... 

 Then we put celery into colored water to see what would happen..

 

...then cut it apart a few days later to see the insides.

 

Wade was never really a "block guy." Until recently. He's on this block obsession. He plays with wooden blocks, large Duplo blocks (I never bought him Legos since he wasn't into building things) and Lincoln Logs. He gets them out at home, at Uumas house and at the YMCA. Here he is, super proud of the tower he built that was nearly as tall as he is.

Walking... sort of

Dinosaur Day!

I had read a blog about a woman who did a dinosaur-themed day with her daughter and thought it sounded like a fun idea. So, behold- DINOSAUR DAY! Wade was super excited and kept asking me when it was going to happen. It took a little planning and prep work, but it was worth it. Most of the things we did were super simple, I just needed to have the supplies and a few things made in advance.

While I got sister to lay down for her morning nap and everything set up, we started off by watching a Dinosaur Train cartoon. Then, we started the fun stuff:

The first thing we did was a dinosaur egg hunt in the back yard. I made "dino eggs" out of a flour, salt, coffee ground & water mixture and put a little baby dinosaur inside. Then I hid them around the back yard with a new dino toy (that I have had for awhile, since Christmas actually). He had fun hunting for them and cracking them open. Then we gave them a nice soapy bath while we moved onto our dinosaur craft.

 

 

Wade's not that into crafts. But he does like to paint. So we made stegosaurus' out of paper plates and clothes pins. He got bored pretty quickly and only wanted his dino to have 2 spikes. I talked him into 4 (to hold the head and tail on), but that was about it. He wanted his to be a rainbow stegosaurus and painted it all sorts of colors.

 

Next we made our dinosaur treat. Pterydon nests! We melted chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter and then poured it over chow mein noodles. We topped them off with jelly beans and let them cool off in the fridge while we ate lunch. Lunch was dino-themed as well. I made dinosaur shaped tortilla chips (which were a fail- he didn't like them because they sort of tasted herb-y, since I made them from herb-flavored wraps), a P B & J cut into dinosaur shapes using a sandwich cutter with a side of dinosaur trees (broccoli).

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day, we took a bath with a couple frozen dinosaur eggs! I put colored water and more baby dinosaurs inside of balloons and froze them. They slowly thawed in the bath and changed the water fun colors while "hatching" more dinosaurs.

All in all, I'd say DINOSAUR DAY was a success! I've already started planning my next day- GARDENING DAY. I figure I'd kill two birds with one stone, get some landscaping done and have a fun day with Wade :)

My own DIY

Mark can rewire stuff. And build showers. Here's what I can do:

 

 

 

 A little girl bow holder! It may not be a shower, but I still think it's pretty cool :)



Little girl hair

is really hard to do! All I had to do with Wade is make sure that it was combed. And cut. Most of the time. With Lily, I have to actually do something with it. And it's at this weird in-between phase where it's kind of too long for headbands, but sort of too short for ponytails... Anyway, here's what I've been able to come up with so far :)

Pigtails. Tentatively. I didn't want to pull her hair, so there's not much in there.



Got a little braver the next time. Looks like actual pigtails!

Crazy little top pony tail. Kind of makes her look like Cindy Lou Who.

Side ponytail. This one is by far my favorite because it's super easy. And I only have to torture her with one rubber band :)

Then there's this one... You can't exactly see her hair, but I thought it was funny :)

 

DIY

Mark took a week off to finish (begin, then finish actually) a few home improvements that we've needed to do lately. Our huge (& very ugly) box light in the kitchen burned out, so we needed to replace that. Sounds simple enough, right? Except they didn't paint under the light, so Mark needed to repair the damage from taking the box down and then paint the entire kitchen ceiling. And do some wiring stuff. Then we had to decide on a light, then we had to hang it. It seemed small at first (I wish I had a before picture, that thing was HUGE), but it's growing on me and I like it now. Slowly but surely this kitchen is getting updated :)

Then we realized that water had been leaking behind the tiles in our shower. So, Mark had to tear down our existing shower, get all the gross stuff out, put up new drywall and water resistant stuff, tile, grout, seal, etc. Like my technical terms? We still don't have the glass enclosure back up, but I'm really digging the new shower. It doesn't go at all with the brown walls (and not even so much with the hardwood), so next it looks like we'll be painting. Yay.

 

 

 

Good thing Mark is so handy. All I have to do is help pick out stuff. And stay out of the way ;)

A few more...

We've recently started bathing them together. They both LOVE it. I guess it's like having a new bath toy. That moves a lot. And yells. 

Wade has just started drawing actual things. But never when I ask him to. This is a random monster he drew on the patio with sidewalk chalk.

Today we made another "bal-can-o." Pooh Bear watched.

Then we made pinecone/peanut butter/birdseed things.

Admiring his handywork