Feelin' Crafty

It's been snowing here. It's fun to play in the snow, or throw ice chunks at the house, as Benjamin likes to do, but when the excitement of that wanes, it's good to have a plan B. A friend of mine has a link on her blog to a wonderful craft website - www.notimeforflashcards.com - and since I've been on there, I've been channeling my inner pre-schooler and just can't get enough of glue and finger paint. Benjamin and I have been having a blast making little crafts together. I love the one-on-one time it gives me with him. He gets so excited when I tell him we're going to do a craft. He runs downstairs, carries his table and chairs over to the tile floor (much easier clean-up), puts on his painting shirt, and bounces around in his seat, grinning from ear to ear, and shouting "Paint! Paint!" while I gather the materials. Today we made a thankfulness wreath. We outlined his hand several times on various colors of construction paper, and then used sponges of various shapes to paint them. He loved dipping the sponges in the paint and putting it all over his papers. He has a thing about getting his hands dirty, though. So, once he had to turn the sponge over and use the other side for a differnt color, thereby getting the first color on his palm, he was ready to call it quits. I had to dirty my hands and cheer about it to show him that it was okay and that "getting messy is part of the fun!" Then he pressed forward and systematically used each sponge and each color before he declared "Done!" While he played legos, I wrote "thank you" in various languages on the hands and cut them out. Then I cut out the center out of a paper plate, put glue all around the edge and called him back to let him press the hands onto the glue. He insisted on also adding some feathers for that extra little creative flair. I figured it took the place of the ribbon that the website suggested and looks very cute. Here's the result:


Here are a few of our other creations. Some are from the website and some are not. I think I love doing these because I have zero artistic ability and yet a perfectionist's personality. Not a happy combo. I was constantly frustrated with my artwork in school because I would try SO hard and it always turned out looking like a kindergardner did it. But with these crafts - that's exactly the look I'm going for! I can be artsy and creative without any grandiose expectations for the result. It's been great.





Besides crafts, I've been looking at books more with Bella. She has started to show a slight interest in the pictures rather than just the flavor of the pages.



And not to be outdone by his sister's computer skills, Benjamin has learned how to open Skype and call people, open Picassa and "edit" pictures, and open Netflix and view movies. Nothing like coming back from the bathroom to find your 2 year old engrossed in the latest Michael Moore documentary. How he managed that, I will never know. Another time I thought he was looking at some pictures of himself, but as I took a closer look there was a dialogue box on the screen that said, "Thank you for your subscription! You should receive your first newsletter in the next 4-6 weeks!" I can't wait to see what comes! He also text-messages people after Kelly showed him one time how to text me while I was at the store. It's so crazy how fast kids pick this stuff up! I do something one time and he's got it. Whenever I'm on the computer now, he'll come up to me, point to an icon he wants and say, "mouse here! click!" Time for the internet filter, I guess. Really didn't think I'd need it so soon.

Oooh! Look at That!

Isabella is out to discover and recently she came across the most popular item in our home - the laptop. She promptly resized all the icons, renamed TurboTax to dwarqqqqq, and opened instant messenger - a girl's gotta stay connected! :) It was really cute to see how excited she was about it. Maybe she's been watching her brother on it for so long and she was thrilled it was finally her turn.



Her other new discovery is that there's another baby that lives in the bathroom and that baby looks just like her! Despite the red circle she got on her forehead from numerous collisions with this baby, she seemed very pleased to have made a new friend.


Benjamin's new discovery is that pinecones and hands can be made to look a lot like turkeys or "gobba-gobbas" as he calls them. We made a turkey at the library and he's been playing with it ever since. At home we outlined our hands (me, Bella, and Benjamin) and turned them into turkeys. We turned our outline turkey picture into a placemat that he can use during his Thanksgiving dinner. It is really cute, if I do say so myself. I'm excited for Thanksgiving. It'll be the first time in my life that we're hosting the big event and I think it will be wonderful. Especially because Kelly will be the one cooking the turkey! :) Gotta love a man who cooks.


Last thing - cute Benjamin moments: We were putting honey on our bread and Kelly asked Benjamin, "Where does honey come from?" "Bees!" he answered. "That's right, bees make honey. What do bees eat in order to make the honey?" "Monkeys!" he replied matter-of-factly.

We took Bella to her 6 month check-up (80% in length and head, 50% in weight) and when we got home, Kelly asked Benjamin what the doctor said. He thought about it and said,"No monkeys bed." As in Mama called the doctor and doctor said, 'No more monkeys jumping on the bed!' His love for that song knows no bounds.

Elections and the Good Stuff

I try not to make this blog about me, but I just have to say, I've been in a bit of a funk since Tuesday. I researched the issues and the candidates for months, watched all of the debates, read everyone's website - not just Obama/McCain, but senators, judges, etc. and carefully selected my favorite candidate and proposal stance in each race. Alas, in the end, every single thing/person (except one judge) I voted for lost. That's depressing. Yay for democracy, but when that happens you wonder why you bothered. So congrats to those of you who voted for Obama, etc., but when you and I are hanging out, I'd rather you wait a few months before bringing it up. I'm just going to get depressed again. Okay, that's out of the way. On to the good stuff and the real reason most people check this blog.



Isabella turns 6 months tomorrow and we're still trying to get her to eat from a spoon. I've tried rice and oatmeal, squash, broccoli, bananas, and applesauce - all with only very limited success. Here's a video to show you how it goes. She makes such hilarious facial expressions that I just had to get it on film. Of course, that's when she decided to finally swallow. It doesn't happen often. We'll just have to keep working at it, I guess. Benjamin took about 4 weeks of daily effort before he finally started eating well.


Benjamin has started taking a real active interest in Bella's development. It's been really fun to see. He'll hold a toy out to her and when she takes it, he'll cheer, "Yay Bella! Take! See mama? Bella take!" He's also decided that he's going to teach her how to crawl. I came into the kitchen yesterday and found them doing this:


Of course, I'm not really sure what he was trying to teach her with this:


In general I'm just happy to see him spending more time playing with her than beating on her.


He's actually gotten better at playing with kids in general. We've been doing a lot with his buddies Max and Maya and he still has a major problem with the concept of sharing, but again, the violence has been reduced and it's done my ulcer good. :)


Cookies and Dora the Explorer - what more could you want?

Oh the Sugar Rush!

We had a blast trick-or-treating last night. Benjamin had a great time knocking on doors and seeing people's dogs. Whenever we knew the people he tried to go inside. We had to explain that on this night we only say hello but we don't stay. The greatest part of the whole thing was he never demanded to eat any of his candy, so guess who got it all? :) Kelly and I stayed up playing board games together and eating all of Benjamin's loot. The only downside is that he was the one that picked out the candy and he's apparently a fan of yellow wrappers - ie. Butterfingers and Peanut M&Ms - blech. I kept trying to steer his hand towards the 3 Musketeers and the Mounds, but I didn't want to seem too pushy. In the end we still got enough delectable treats to induce a sugar coma. I remember laughing a lot last night, but the details are fuzzy. Ah - halloween. How I love you.