Kool-aid painting

This is Brayden's first art project.  Kool-aid painting!  So fun! He did pretty good.  He didn't even try to eat the paint brush until the end and that was OK because it was just kool-aid and water!  Addy and Brayden were stained red for about a day, but they had fun and that's all that matters to me!

She has been practing circles and A's

Halloween

A few days before Halloween, we carved our pumpkins.


Addy had fun scooping out the seeds



Notice her slimy matted hair? Yeah, that's petroleum jelly.  Just in case anyone else ever has this problem, you have to put olive oil on your hair first and then wash with dish soap.  I didn't look that up until after I washed her hair five times and it still hadn't come out.

On Halloween morning we had pumpkin pancakes

Yum!

Here is Addy in her candy corn costume before going to Daddy's work to do a little trick or treating.  Brayden didn't dress up until later. 

Addy got these silly glasses from Daddy's work

Brayden thought those glasses were pretty funny!

Here is my little bum.  Isn't he cute!

Getting ready to go trick or treating

Can you tell he's just a little tired?

Grandma came to a couple houses with us.

The candy basket at this house was a piranha... Addy didn't like that.

Addy got her hair cut on Halloween day.  She still had petroleum jelly in her hair when she got it cut, so after sleeping on it, this is what happened!

Addy and I made this little candy haunted house a couple of weeks before Halloween, so I had to take a picture of it.

Dinosaur museum

 Addy was really excited to go to the Dinosaur museum until we got there....  The big dinosaurs with sharp teeth scared her a little.  This meant that I couldn't take many pictures because I had to hold her the whole time.

We were able to convince Addy to sit by this Dino for a little picture. When she looked at the dinosaurs claws she said, "he needs to cut his fingernails!"  Brayden loved the dinosaurs!

Addy fell out of her bed in the middle of the night and we still don't know what she hit her eye on, but she had a nasty little "owie" for a couple weeks. She was painting in this picture and she just can't resist painting her face any time she has a chance.

One of Addy's new favorite activities is to sort buttons.

I found a recipe for bouncy balls on pinterest.  It only bounced about a half inch off the ground...

and if it sat on the counter for more than a minute, this is what happened. 

I just thought it was funny that Brayden was sleeping like this!

Brayden - 11 months

I thought it was time for a post to be dedicated just to Brayden.



Brayden loves to take baths.  He would stay in there all day if he could!

He has also recently learned to turn the pages in his books by himself and he loves books with texture or big bright pictures.

It's funny how little boys just know what to do with cars and trucks.  The first time I gave Addy a car to play with, she had no clue what to do with it. Oh, and Brayden said his first word! Can you guess what it is? Car!

Brayden loves to play peek-a-boo behind the curtains.  He even tries to say the word. It's more like "ee-a-oo".

He has discovered drawers...and he won't stay out of them!

Brayden loves to laugh and play with his daddy.

Projects

These are just a few projects I have been working on over the past few months.

It get's pretty cold in the morning, so I decided to make Addy a robe to keep her warm.  I just made my pattern using my own robe as reference.  I think it turned out pretty cute and it only cost me $5 dollars to make! 

I found a tutorial for this rug on pinterest.  It was really easy, but it took a long time to make.  Hopefully it will hold up for a while! It's just old 1 inch wide fabric strips tied to a rug underlay.

I found the turtorial for these awesome shelves on www.thehouseofsmiths.com.  It is the BEST blog!  I love her style! You can find all kinds of cool ideas and tutorials!

Alice the Fairy Book Activity

I don't have a picture of our Alice the Fairy book because it's missing at the moment.  It's one of Addy's favorite books.  It's about a little girl that wants to be a fairy.

She uses fairy dust (sugar) to turn oatmeal into cake.  Addy is sprinkeling fairy dust on her carrot cake oatmeal.

Addy wearing her fairy wings

At one point in the book, Alice's mother makes cookies for Alices dad, so Alice turnes them into hers.  I decided to have Addy make cookies for her daddy.

This is just a random picture of Brayden talking on his play phone.

Alice makes a crown for her daddy, but Addy made one for herself.  She was so proud when she was finnished!

What a cute little fairy!

Pumpkin Patch

This is the best picture we could get of these two!

Brayden is fascinated with the straw.

Taking a hay ride to get to the pumpkin patch.

The actual choosing of the pumpkin went really fast and I wasn't able to get a picture, so I attempted to take a picture of Addy with her pumpkin on the hay ride back.  She was a little distracted!

Oh Crap!

For the past week our little family has been dealing with the stomach flu.  Addy got it first, followed by Brayden and I and now Matt.   I got over it pretty quickly, but it's common for flu symptoms to linger with little babies, so Brayden was still sick on Tuesday and he was completely out of diapers.  Matt had just come down with the flu in the middle of the night and there was no way I was leaving Brayden with him.  I had some grocery shopping to do, and I didn't want to have to make another trip to the store later, so I decided to just hurry and get it done while I picked up the diapers.  Oh, how I wish I hadn't made that decision. 
I rushed through the store as quickly as I could and stopped at the bulk section to get some snacks.  This store is awesome by the way.  It's awesome for a couple of reasons. First of all, you can get just about anything you want in the bulk section. It has chocolate chips, flour, cereal, candy, yogurt covered pretzels...you name it, you can get it. Second, there are these shopping carts with three seats. Two next to each other in the front and then the regular seat you find on all shopping carts.  Brayden was fussing and slouching in the seat next to Addy and for some reason, Addy was pushing him and yelling at him, so I decided to move him to the regular cart seat.  We headed down the snack isle and he kind of whimpered and made this face that I knew would be followed by explosive diarrhea.  I raced down the isle as the horrible smell hit my nostrils.  I knew it was bad. I checked to see if it had gone up his back.  Not only did it go up his back, it dripped all over the seat and onto Addy's yogurt covered pretzels! Nooooo! All of the lines were ridiculously long of course. A young store employee walked past me and I'm sure I had a distressed look on my face, so she asked me if I needed something.  I showed her the problem.  She was completely grossed out and didn't know what to do.  Fortunately there was another cashier who opened up a lane for me so I could pay for my diapers and change my poor baby.  I got him cleaned up and we tossed out Addy's pretzels. The cashier said they would pressure wash the cart, but that still doesn't take care of the poop germs, so...sanitize your carts.  Who knows what could be on them!  Addy is still upset about her snack.  Whenever the store is mentioned, she furrows her brow and says "Brayden pooped on my snack!"

Week 19

Another Book-themed activity

I was so excited to find these 
"mice"(OK they're rats) at the dollar store!

"The mice thought it was mouse paint"

"They stirred and mixed, and mixed and stirred"



They made orange, green and purple

Then they washed themselves to a nice clean white again....

and Addy practiced mixing colors on paper with a paint brush.

We made a visit to the zoo later in the week.  It was so fun to watch the elephants eat!  This was Addy's favorite part.

This sweet boys main concern was getting snacks.

Trying out the eagles nest

We loved watching the seals.  Isn't her hair great....it looked normal when we left the house

It may be a little hard to tell, but that is the new Polar bear.