A lesson in listening.

On Thursday we also did some colouring. I wrote out our names for K, and we named colours. K was having fun but also had to think really hard! I had written out our names in different colours and was asking him what colour the letter was and he'd name the letter instead. So the poor guy was confused when I said "No, silly, what colour is this?". Eventually he got it, but you could almost see the wheels turning as he was trying to figure it out!

Friday we had playgroup in the morning, which went really well. K started to get out of hand, running through the one room where all the babies (all around T's age) were laying on the floor playing. So I took him out of the room and sat him down and explained he can't run through the room like that. I don't think he understood me, but whatever the reason, he did calm down after that. Well, long enough to get packed up and go home!

We had an exciting potty day on Friday too. Not in a good way. In a messy way. Let's leave it at that.

Friday we read Alphabet City. It's a collection of paintings of the city, but there's shapes in the pictures that look like letters. I picked this one up from the library, cause K often does this, points out letters in ordinary things! He loves this book, and found most of the letters right away. Some I'll let slide, like Q was hard for me to see too(I honestly still don't see it, but it's the picture where Q should be so...).

This weekend I picked up more supplies for crafts and projects. We're going to finish our Valentines and get those shipped out this week. I also bought some Bleeding Art Tissue (got the idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog). And HA! to the crazy lady at Michael's who said they don't carry it, I found it! It lives with the regular tissue paper. I want to try to use it and make our own version of pages from Color Dance, showing how colours mix to make other colours. Update - apparently we had to stop for some colouring time and I tried it out, not working the way I wanted, but I'm hoping some watercolour paper might work better to do it on. We'll see. I also need some kid free time to try it out first, so I can get the kinks out.

K and I went out yesterday and bought some Thomas undies. With his wanting to wear his Cars underwear so bad the other day I hope that maybe wearing his absolute favourite character right now would help. The only size they had left was 3X though, so right now they're rather huge, but they haven't been washed yet. Some of his other undies are almost too small now after they got washed so I'm hoping these will shrink enough. And if not, that a stitch or two in the sides will help them stay up. So far all he wants to do is wear them over his Pull-ups and carry an armload of Thomas undies around!

Also, K was getting restless here so I quickly made a "sewing" project for him. I've been wanting to do it for a while, so I had the stuff, but I just punched holes in a square of craft foam and gave him a shoelace to "sew" into the holes. I don't think he's ready for this yet, I showed him how to do it, then gave it to him and he just ripped the laces out, making big rips in the foam! Maybe when I have more time to sit with him and do it we'll try again. Or I may need to glue two sheet together to make it stronger, one thin sheet might not be sturdy enough.

Enough about K, time for a T update! He's loving sweet potatoes and is eating up a storm! He also seems to be sleeping lots the last few days, so maybe a growth spurt is happening here! He is really enjoying bath time at the moment, especially since we've started putting him in the tub with K. The two of them are having a blast together! The giggles at bath time make it hard to want it to end (though bedtime right after is nice...quiet...)! Speak of the devil, I think he's up!

Valentines

Yesterday we worked some more on the valentine hearts we made a couple of weeks ago now. I got K to "write" on the backs so we can send them off to family soon, so they will arrive before Valentine's Day. He also put stickers on them. After much coercing, he didn't want to waste them on paper, they're much better on his arms! Now just to get him to write out his Thomas valentines and put stickers on those!

We worked on naming the colours some more, and he is definitely getting better at doing that, he gets the primary right most of the time and now the secondary colours are coming along nicely. He especially loves pointing out purple and green! His absolute favourite colours are blue-red though. It comes out just like that, "Blue-wed!" as one word! Too funny!

T had more carrots for lunch and dinner last night, and so far they seem to be agreeing with him. He's also enjoying them immensely, he can't get enough! Wonder what to try next? Green beans, squash or sweet potato?

K keeps wanting to play with T all the time. He kept trying to pick him up, showing me where to sit him so they could lay together on the couch, and showing him all the toys. He was combing T's hair this morning and trying to do helicopter tickles. I really hope this continues!

Gymnastics

Well, today I missed an exciting day with K. I had blood tests and Dr's appointments that would not work with K's presence so I got Jon to take him to the Friday Gymnastics I've been wanting to do with him. I guess it's pretty much a free run of the Gymnastics club for an hour and a half. Apparently he had a great time, but now has "mat burn" on his forehead! He doesn't care, though I think I may leave finishing cutting his hair for a while longer, the bangs kinda cover the red mark on his head!





So T got to come with me to do a 2 hour long blood test. Fun. He did really well actually, and had the people at the lab in stitches with his giggles.

A bunch of the ladies were asking where K was though. How bad is it that they remember him as running around throwing things? Seriously, most of the time he was strapped in his stroller, and he only threw my water bottle. Once. Yes, it made a mess but I cleaned it up! And threw is a bit of a stretch, more like tossed it. Anyways, it appears my child is the kind that's hard to forget!

Dealing with Art

Some days I feel so smart that I just have to share. Actually, it was more of a "Duh! Why didn't I think of that before!?" moment!

Ever wonder what to do with all the art your kids make? I've been scanning in their art, and then we'll be putting it in a folder and when that's full, send some to family that's not close by. We'll probably save a few of the "best" pieces for ourselves as well. But, I thought it's a great way to keep the paper clutter down, as well as sharing the love with family and even friends.

Scanning stuff in is also great for keeping the extra papers and things without actually keeping them! I know K got a "certificate" from the Model Train Show here, showing he was an honorary conductor. While it was cute and would be nice to keep forever, we just don't have the space to keep everything, so scanning it in has been a great solution. Personally, it's been a great compromise between my nostalgic pack-rat mommy self and the practical "What do I do with it all?" self.

If you don't have family to give them to, a local senior's home or care home would be happy to have them, I'm sure!

Fingerpainting fun

Yesterday we did some finger painting. That was different. I mean, we'd tried the paints before but K didn't quite get the idea. Yesterday it took a little bit, I had to show him what we were doing, but then he seemed to have fun once he knew he was allowed to get dirty! He did finish rather quickly though and started asking to get out, so I gave him a paper towel to clean his hands with and he wiped the paint off his painting! So he kinda has a non painting painting on the fridge. I also helped T make some hand prints with the paint as well, so that was his first painting ever!

Pizza and Puffs

Saturday we had a recurring request for "Pee-pa" (pizza) all day from K. So, Jon got sent out with K to get some pizza making supplies. They bought some Pillsbury pizza dough, the mozzarella and some pepperoni. K and I assembled the pizza, he was right in there, didn't want to miss anything. I hadn't even gotten a chance to invite him to come help, he was right in there. Of course, the most important part was "testing" all the bits to make sure they were edible. The cheese, pepperoni and even the peppers we put on had to be tried. He kept pulling it off the pizza to eat it too! Finally, we got the pizza made and he was rather happy to eat!

That night was another milestone as well, we had arranged their room so both boys slept in one room! It made for a much better nights sleep for me the last two nights, I must say. So far so good, we woke up Sunday to K peeking into the crib and talking to T, and T was "playing" with the aquarium toy in there, turning it on and off with his feet. I think he may have been a bit bored in the bassinet honestly, he seems much happier with the crib and a few toys to wake up to! Today K woke up and came out of his room, and T is still sleeping!

We've introduced wheat cereal again the last couple of days and T seems to be doing fine. We have cut back on the amount, just sticking to about 3 servings of 2 tablespoons each, as well as trying to slow him down when he eats it! He just wants to eat it all and eat it - NOW! So, by giving him a few spoonfuls at a time and then waiting a bit, it seems to have made his tummy happier and then he's full at the end instead of screaming for seconds.

This past week I did make a bunch of pureed baby foods, some carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes. I'd like to wait another week or so with the wheat and then hopefully this weekend we can start T on some "real" food! I'd also like to make some chicken puree to add to some of his veggies once he's ready for that.

We went to the museum on Sunday, they had a Robert Munsch display there that I thought K would like. It was really neat with a bunch of hands on displays about writing and reading. K's favourite was a bunch of big foam letters with velcro on them that he could stick to a wall covered in felt. We lost him a couple of times, he ran away so fast, but he ran right back to that display! It had us parents enthralled too, there was so much to look and and try (which explains how we lost him I guess!)! There was also a display on diamonds that was fascinating, but kids were getting hungry. After stopping for a bite to eat, we continued on to the dinosaurs and bugs, then it was time to go. I did buy a few Munsch books in mini form, they are about two inches square, I thought they'd be great for keeping in the diaper bag, to read to K those times when you have to wait at appointments or the restaurant or something.







After that, we went to the mall to do some errands and just get out of the house for a bit. K got to ride the train (for free! They're not even asking if he's over two, they just stamp his hand. I'm not complaining!), while T and I went searching for cereal for him cause we left it at home. On our way out, there was a really neat ad display. It was like a big screen covered in pictures of M&M's, and as you touched it, the M&M's bounced out of the way! It was really neat to watch the kids play with it. Eventually it turned into Cadbury chocolate that oozed down from the top, and you smooshed it out of the way, and then it was a sheet of ice that melted as you touched it and then the water underneath rippled wherever you touched (some fruit drink ad). I'd never seen anything like it!

Day Ten - setting up the crib

This isn't exactly a project for today, but it's very important anyways. We've had the crib for T set up in K's room for ages, but T's still been sleeping in the bassinet in our room. So enough's enough, we need T to sleep in the boys' room now, especially since he's just getting too darn big for the bassinet.

So we put the mattress lower (and turned it around, darling husband had the front at the back when we moved it), set it up and I worked on getting clothes organized. Since T was in our room, he was using a couple of our drawers for his clothes, much easier than running back and forth all the time. But it means putting the clothes back in the boys' room. And organizing them. So we've been working on that all morning, the boys are down for naps, and then hopefully tonight, both of them will be sleeping in their room! Yay!

Lately, K has picked up on the fact that I call his Dad "Jono" (a family nickname I started using as well). It's pretty funny cause when he can't get his Dad's attention by saying "Dad! Dad? Daddeee!!", he now goes "Jono!"!! Sounds like "Ja-o", but pretty funny nonetheless. So it was funny today to hear him, when his Dad picked him up to go to his room for naptime and he's going "Jono! Jono!?"! He also asks a lot lately "Daddy at work?", which is just cute to hear.

I love making T giggle and laugh. His laughs are so brief it prompts me to do it over and over just to hear it again! One of his favourites is when I "eat" him. No, really, I pretend to nibble at his tummy, sides or the sides of his neck and it makes him howl! It's so much fun!

One that's good to play with both the kiddos is helicopter tickles. I don't know if that's a real game I picked up somewhere, but since I can't remember, I'm taking the credit! It's best when they're both with me, usually on the couch and I twirl my hand, starting way up in the air and coming down, pointer finger out. I make "helicopter" noises and then quickly dive in and tickle one of them with my hand. They think it's great cause they never know who is going to get tickled next! It gets the best squeals out of them too! And since it's best with both of them there, it's something we can play together, paying attention to both of them at the same time.

Day Nine - Dinosaur sandwiches

So. Glitter.



Not bad really. Although I didn't get the kind that has the sprinkle option, so I wouldn't let K control the glitter. He helped me pick out which colour hearts to use and which colour glitter to put on them. He also helped "fix" the designs I was doing with the glue by putting his fingers in it and smooshing it around. Sometimes with glitter too. I'm sure there will be some glitter in his diaper in the next day or so as I did catch him with his fingers in his mouth as well. I tried to get him to put glue on the hearts too, but he just wanted to play ninja swords with the paintbrushes we were using. We may try q-tips next time, but I think we've done that cause I remember he kept trying to put them in his ears (with glue on them).

The hearts look pretty cool too! It is really hard to let K "help" when I have an idea of how it should look when done and his help doesn't mix with my vision. But I have to remind myself that it's about letting him have fun, learn how to play with the glue or paint, etc, and not about making it perfect. I will post pictures once we get the camera working with the computer. I may go to a photo lab and see if I can get them all on CD or something and do it that way. Right now it's just not working. (Edited to Add - so I finally got some brains and scanned them in since the scanner is working. Duh! I've added pics of the rest here)

Today we went to playgroup this morning. It worked out pretty good too! We all slept in and then I decided we were going to go anyways, so I raced to get us all ready, then bundled us up, put T in the sled and we walked to the church for playgroup. K loves playgroup and went right for the trains, which was great cause he brought four of his own with him today! T loved all the other kids there and had a blast playing with the excersaucer as well. It's a lot like ours, but with different toys on the top, so that was a nice change for him I'm sure.

K, of course, did not want to leave. Cue Toddler Tantrum #1 of the day. In front of others as well. We joked that it's something to look forward to, but really it's just embarrassing as all heck. And of course we were the last ones there, struggling to get the two ready (while one is fighting it) and get out so she could lock up and go home.

But, we managed and walked through the schoolyard. And of course because we didn't put his snowpants on, K had to sit in the snow a few times. And eat it. At least it was white snow!

By the time we got home, T was fast asleep and I actually managed to get him out of the sled and his snowsuit, and into bed without waking him up! He's still sleeping! Must've really tuckered him out. It wasn't that cold out, so lunch did not require anything hot like soup, so I decided quick was what we needed. PB&J sandwiches sounded about right. And hey! We have a dinosaur sandwich cutter! Yay fun! So K had dinosaur sandwiches (which also cuts the crust off, he never eats it anyways), and I just had plain sandwiches.

It's just about snack time here and then I think naptime for K, which will probably cue Toddler Tantrum #2. Hopefully T will stay sleeping for a while longer and maybe I'll get a head start on some tidying and cleaning. Maybe.

Goals this weekend include:
Getting crafting stuff organized
Posting a recipe list and meal plan for next week
Fixing camera to computer issues
And then posting pictures

Day Eight - haven't decided

Well, we made the banana bread yesterday and all K stuck around for was to "squish" the bananas. It's a favourite game of his, we pretend to squish him all the time. We'll half sit on him on the couch, or with shopping carts and make squishing noises while he squeals "Again! Squish!". So I got him to help out yesterday by telling him to "Moosh moosh, squish" the bananas. He grabbed the potato masher and was going "Squish, squish" while pretty much just playing with the mushed up bananas.

But, the banana bread is done and it made the house smell lovely and it tastes awesome, especially with the chocolate chips in it.

Yesterdays adventure out and about proved exciting. We got picked up by Baby Beastie and her mom (on her school bus! We were waiting for the regular bus and they passed us, so stopped and picked us up) and had some lunch, then walked around WalMart doing some shopping. We found some glitter, finger paint paper (cause the paper roll from Ikea is too absorbent, doesn't allow for lots of playtime with the paints), and I found a cute bath poof with a stuffy seal head on it. K wanted that one cause it was blue.

A little funny, I was writing out the shopping list on Tuesday for what to get yesterday. During the day I had had to toss a couple of T's bottle nipples cause they had been chewed on so bad they had cracked. So my list started like this...

Nipples
Glitter
Heart stickers

Made Jon and me laugh anyways.

So Beastie and her mom had to go and they left us at WalMart. We finished up there, had a snack (while K climbed on the half wall by our table, laughing and smiling at everyone in the restaurant) and continued on our journey.

Which brought us to Michael's craft store. K was actually really good this whole time. I had to strap him into the stroller so I could concentrate on just getting what we needed done, and so he'd been sitting in it for ages. But, I remember now one reason we haven't been going out lots, it's that lots of slushy snow, no plowing of sidewalks and a stroller with two kids in it don't go well together. The only upside is I got lots of exercise pushing that thing around! And of course businesses don't think of leaving walkways for people using transit, so there's no paths from the sidewalks to the business, just from the parking lot into the store.

While pushing our way along a footpath from the sidewalk along the store to the front of the store, I was getting worried I might break a wheel or two off the stroller! We finally made it in and found the place in clearance mode. Lucky! So, we tracked down some heart stickers (finally), and I found stuff to work on next week's project too.

After Michael's, we were done what we needed to do for the day so we headed off to find our bus home. When we got to the transit center nearby, K wanted so badly to go on the LRT (light rail transit) trains. So we changed course and went to ride on the trains. K had a blast going "Trains! Track! Trains Fast!" the whole time! The best part was when we got off at our stop and he goes "Thank you Thomas! See you later Thomas!"! That's actually the direct translation, it actually came out more like "Ake-U Toe-Mas! Slee-lu la-er Toe-Mas!"!

Well, T is down after being up this morning for a bit, and K is playing with his tracks, having just finished breakfast. I don't know what we're going to make today yet, but I do know dinner is pork tenderloin since it's defrosting in the fridge. With what, I have no idea. Oh, maybe baked potatoes! K can help me poke and wrap them. It's not much, but gotta start somewhere.

And it's glitter day! Wish us luck!

Day Six - no cooking planned

Okay, so I didn't get myself organized enough to come up with a game plan for today and I'm out of muffin mix! But, I do plan to do banana bread tomorrow, and we worked on a craft project today.

I mentioned yesterday that we did some finger painting. The masterpiece dried overnight on the fridge and today after lunch I folded it up and cut out six hearts. Then we worked on gluing the hearts onto construction paper and I'm going to cut them out again, so they have a nice border.

I have to mention here that I do feel very smart today.

Then I came up with the brilliant plan of gluing glitter on them! Now, we don't have any glitter so obviously we can't do it today, and probably not tomorrow. But, this is a great way I figure of doing a nice project a bit at a time, cause let's face it - K only has so much "sit still" time in him. I also thought it might be nice to print out some pictures of the boys, cut those into hearts and glue them on the Valentines! I think we'll use the glitter to go around the pictures. If I can find the kind that comes in a shaker, or I think I even have some old (clean) spice jars that would work, I can do the glue and K can shake the glitter on them.

So, the plan is to spend tomorrow going out and looking for glitter and probably a craft bin to store all our new paints and supplies in. And just getting out of the house.

But, back to the gluing. Which is making me wonder how well the glitter-ing will go, honestly. I had put down a plastic mat at K's spot at the table, then put a dollop of white glue on it. He then put his paintbrush in it and tried to play swords with my paintbrush as I tried to show him we were putting glue on the backs of our finger paint hearts. Then he put his fingers in it. Have I mentioned he's a nail biter? So yeah, fingers tried to go in the mouth, with me grabbing them away. Then I thought maybe the glue stick would be better for him. So, he put the stick everywhere but the paper, finally smooshing it onto the plastic mat and wasting half of it. Sigh. So I took the glue stick away and he got the job of telling me which colour paper he wanted to use next and showing me where to put the glue. I hope things will only go smoother in our future crafting experiments.

T has been such a piggy. He has eaten a ton of cereal today! I mean, I made a small bowl of it, but accidentally poured too much in. Figuring it wasn't that much after all, I mixed it up and it almost filled the bowl! Since it was too late to do anything but feed it to him, I just started feeding him. We got about halfway through and no sign of stopping, so I just let him eat. He finished the whole thing! The little Oinker!

Day Five - more muffins

So we did have chicken fingers for dinner last night, but the kids didn't help with them at all. In fact their dad made dinner last night, so that was great!

I forgot to mention that Saturday Kenton and I went out, just the two of us, to go get a few things that we needed, as well as look for a birthday present for a party we went to yesterday. It was nice to have some just me and Kenton time, and he behaved really well in the stores. We quickly found a great gift, which he helped carry around the store since it had a handle. But, he was very upset when we got home and he found out it wasn't for him! Oh, well. He did find some Thomas stuff that I couldn't find a good reason to say no to in the last store we visited. It was cheap, it made him happy, he had been a good boy and since it was a pack of valentines, I knew it would make others happy too!

Yesterday we went to a first birthday party for a special little "Beastie" girl. I apologize that K kept trying to open the presents. And stealing B's toys from her, and eating everything, and running around, and terrorizing the birds... maybe we need more practice at this birthday party attending thing. Who's next!?

Today is going good so far. I got up early so I could get my shower and breakfast in before the kids get up. I hate waking up early, but I have to remind myself that I'm less stressed during the day when I do, since I get some of this stuff out of the way right away, and am not trying to fit it in with both kids awake.

After T got up and ate a ton, played, and then ate some more, he fell back asleep so K and I made another batch of muffin mix muffins. Carrot (bran, I think) this time. Today he was much more in the mood to help out, and we counted the cups into the tins, 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 4... 6... wait... try again... And I showed him how they go into the oven, and made sure he was there when they came out. He was very good about staying away from the "Hot" oven, and was excited about his muffins. Then I made us lunch, plain old macaroni and tomatoes today, but I hope to have something more exciting planned for tomorrow.

I mopped up after our lunch, and K even helped wipe the "Mess" off the table. Then I decided we'd do some finger painting with the new paints I got him on Saturday since we were already at the table and his shirt had to come off anyways, there was tomato juice all over him! So we went through the colours, and he told me which ones he wanted and where on the paper to put them. It was pretty funny, cause he'd never finger painted before and didn't really like getting his hands dirty, so only used his fingertips! But, we did manage a nice painting (okay, I helped) which is now drying on the fridge. My plan is to let it dry, then we'll cut out hearts and make valentine cards with them for friends and family. Some days I feel so smart! No pictures though, the camera card is full and we still haven't figured out the problem so we can start uploading them onto the computer again.

Well, I think we've had a decent break from lunchtime, so it's muffin time then (at least I hope) naptime for K.

Day One - Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

To try to give some focus (and fun!) to our days, I'm going to try to make one thing to eat with the boys everyday. Well, really with K right now, as T's still too little, but he's great for supervising! So yesterday is was muffins from a muffin mix, since it was there and easy to do.

The camera is still not uploading, I even tried doing it through the PS3 and it doesn't recognize the camera either. I do have pictures, but I will have to add them later. I wanted to get this out before I get too far behind and forget. (ETA - we have pictures now!)



I felt rather smart and got everything set up ahead of time, a bowl, the water and an egg white and a couple of spoons. Then I was re-taught cooking lesson number one - read the instructions! Turns out you're supposed to mix the egg white and water together and then add the mix to the water. Okay, fine. Actually it worked out rather well. K had poured the mix into a bowl, and I had him help stir the egg white and water together. So then I started pouring the mix into the water while he stirred. He actually got rather bored of this quickly and left me to finish, with a howling T in his Jolly Jumper in the background.





I finished mixing the mix up and was ready to pour it into the muffin tin. After calling repeatedly for K to come and help put the muffin cups in the tin, I just went to him and we counted out 6 muffin cups into the tin.



I took the muffin tin back and started pouring the mixture from the glass into the tins (while holding T on my hip, fun). Finally I had to put T down, since I needed both hands, so I laid him on a blanket on the floor beside me so I could finish. Then I just threw them in the oven. K's helping part was now to eat them, but he didn't like them very much, so I got to eat his too!


Today I plan to do chicken fingers and fries. We have a great recipe we haven't used in a while, though I want to adapt it to a Shake and Bake style so Kenton can help.

And, looks like last night T developed a cough too. His Dad and I were up till about 5am trying to help him out to get some sleep (for all of us). I hope there are many naps in store for us today...

Kenton and Tiernan's "Fast" days

I'm starting this blog as a way of keeping track of and sharing with others the kids' days, cute and funny and maybe sometimes frustrating moments. The time goes by so fast, I'd like to have a way of coming back to remember those moments!

Let's see, today started out and Kenton and Jon were supposed to go swimming but since we all slept in too late, that didn't happen. Kenton didn't seem to notice as he was all too happy to play in the tub later anyways. So he spent the morning playing with his toys nicely while Tiernan practiced his rolling over on his playmat.

Tiernan's started rice cereal recently since he has been so hungry even after having just eaten. He's been doing pretty good with it, swallowing most of what goes in his mouth and seems to have no troubles with it.

Kenton then spent the afternoon chasing Morris around and has now picked up a new saying "Kitty a- bite!", which probably comes from me repeating endlessly "Kenton, Morris doesn't want to play, he will bite you!". Unfortunately Morris doesn't seem to have the brains or maybe just the will to move to a safer location where Kenton can't get to him so he has taken a few swipes at Kenton. Most of the time this results in Kenton getting scared, coming to me and crying for a bit and then going back to chasing the cat. He's gotten scratched a few times, and one close call but nothing serious... yet. I sure hope one of them smartens up soon. I think if it was warm enough for Morris to be outside at all it wouldn't be so bad, but they've both got cabin fever and are driving each other nuts.

Then while Jon was outside shovelling snow, I got Kenton dressed to go out and sent him out the backyard with Jon to get outside for a bit. About five minutes later they came in cause he wouldn't keep his mittens on and it was too cold for him to be without. Then everyone decided it was better inside and came in for some hot chocolate, cookies and video games!

Later we started to decorate a store bought gingerbread Santa Sleigh kit, but got interrupted by Tiernan waking up. Kenton's help in the decorating consisted of making sure the candies were safe to eat!