Family Dance Party

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Amy

You may have guessed from some previous posts that we love music and dancing in our house. My hubby plays the guitar. We sing. We dance. Music is always on. Miss badgers her daddy to put her up on his knee at his computer and listen to “moosic” with her. Tonight after dinner, we had a rocking family dance party.

Miss danced with her Daddy.

She showed off some fun new moves (that’s chalk and probably a bit of dinner – homemade potstickers – on her pants, BTW)

Miss wanted to dance with her Mama. She asked to hold both of my hands while we were dancing, but since I was holding Lass, she just grabbed on to her sister’s foot.

Lass thought it was all pretty fun too.

We spun and bounced and laughed.

Miss showed off some moves to her sister.

And to wrap it all up, lots of big hugs and snuggles.

These are the moments I will always remember.

Christmas cookies!

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Amy

Yes, we listened to Johnny Mathis and sang (well, I did) the whole time.

Warm and Cold

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Amy

Warm – Miss and I finished our paper chain garland this morning. She was so excited to see it hung over our patio door.

Cold – Our weather got cold today. High in the mid 20s. Brrrr.

Warm – While Playing with Miss this morning around the Christmas tree, she gave me lots of hugs and repeatedly said, “I you so much” (I love you so much). I could have melted.

Cold – Our furnace died today. Rather, it was unconscious for a while. After a long cold morning and early afternoon of calling our home warranty company, waiting for them to find someone to come on a Sunday, finding out that they couldn’t find anyone, finding someone myself, and getting them out to revive our old furnace so that it can limp along a bit longer, we now have heat again. For now. I will be taking bids tomorrow for a new furnace. Today Miss was all bundled up in the house.

She had fun when I told her to keep her hood up to stay nice and cozy warm.

She kept putting her fingers in her ears saying, “Keep ears warm. Nice, cozy.” Loved it.

Warm – We have only one space heater. So when it was getting really cold in the house by mid afternoon, I put it in the family room, turned on the TV so Miss would stay parked in front of the heater with Lass and me, and put down our picnic blanket so we could have a “picnic snack” after Miss’s nap. I don’t let her eat or drink outside the kitchen in our house, so it was a rare treat to have a little picnic in the family room. “Nice, Cozy.”

Time to Get Crafty

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Amy

Now that Christmas is rapidly approaching and Miss is getting to the age of being able to do crafts, I have been in a majorly crafty kind of mood. Two days ago I went nuts in the craft section of Target, buying pipe cleaners and construction paper and sparkly pom-poms and regular pom-poms and glue and googly eyes and all sorts of other stuff. Yesterday was a dreary day, perfect for pulling out these newly acquired treasures and getting into some crafting. I decided that we would make gift bags for Christmas gifts. I have tons of paper bags that I have saved over the past year (I used other ones last year, but not decorated nicely), so I pulled them out and informed Miss that we would be making the bags pretty.

She was quite intrigued buy this idea. She was even more interested when I got out the craft stuff I planned for us to use. I told her we would be making a Christmas tree on the bag and she was so excited.

I was quite excited too. I has sparkly pipe cleaners to glue on for garland and sparkly pom-poms for ornaments. Miss had a “ball” picking out the ornaments she wanted to use. I put glue on them and she stuck them on. The only problem was that they wouldn’t stick. I couldn’t get the glue to hold the pipe cleaners or the pom-poms in place. I tried and tried, but to no avail. I haven’t crafted in so long, and really who knows the last time I used pipe cleaners and pom-poms for anything (Monday school crafting in LP??), so I had no idea they wouldn’t stick. Maybe they would have if I’d been able to hold them in place until they started to dry, and then allow them to sit motionless while the glue dried completely. As if that was going to happen with a toddler eager to stick on the next fluffy and sparkly ornament.

So, we switched to plan B. I cut paper to make garland and ornaments. Miss stuck them on. And then, to her delight, I got out the most important component of any holiday crafting project. What, you ask?? Why, glitter of course!! Miss went to town sprinkling it all over the tree, where it stuck in the spots I had squirted glue on the garland and ornaments.

Naturally, it stuck to more than just the tree.

Happily, we finished the project and got it cleaned up. Though it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would, we had fun, and Miss was very proud of her finished Christmas tree bag, which is currently holding a gift for her Daddy, ready to give on Christmas.

Next up – More bags with Santas, Snowmen, and maybe a reindeer, though I’m not sure if that falls within my artistic ability, a paper garland, more cookies and who knows what else??

Our Weekend

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Amy

We had a nice weekend here. My hubby was on call and had to work all weekend, but we had fun anyway. Yesterday the girls and I went to a local store and cafe where they have lots of toys in a big play area, so Miss had a blast playing with other kids and some different toys. I was a little bit amazed at how long it took me to get ready and get out of the house with two kids, but we made it, only a half hour later than my intended time. And we weren’t meeting anyone, so we weren’t really late, just later than I thought we would get going. We got home just in time for Miss to have a nap. Lass wasn’t tired, so we had some bonding time while Miss slept. We lounged around.

And had a little tummy time.

And we snuggled.

Then Miss woke up just in time to watch the Michigan game. It was a pretty good football weekend. Michigan State and Michigan both won, and the Michigan game was exciting to watch. I didn’t watch the game, but Iowa beat Iowa State, which made my husband happy but my brother unhappy. My hubby went to Iowa for his undergraduate and medical degrees, and my brother went to Iowa State and played football there, so that game never really has a happy ending for me.

Naturally, since yesterday was 9/11 I spent some time thinking about that day nine years ago, the people who lost their lives and all that has happened since then. My brother participated in a cool 9/11 Stairclimb memorial event with other firefighters. Since my brother and my dad are both professional firefighters (dad retired), the part about the 9/11 tragedy that always seemed the worst to me was how many firefighters and other emergency personnel lost their lives running into the towers to save people. So the stairclimb memorial was a pretty cool tribute I thought.

Yesterday was also the one-year anniversary of this blog. I have gone back and read all the posts from the past year in the past week or so. Mostly I’ve done this while nursing Lass in the middle of the night. It’s been fun to see the things I’ve written about and the photos I’ve posted. I started this blog kind of on a whim, but I’m so glad I did. It has been very enjoyable for me to keep up with it and to look back at how much has changed in the last year.

Today was a beautiful day so we just hung around at home. Miss played some music this morning.

And she showed off her sparkly pants

and bedazzled shirt, which she loved to look at all day.

We played outside this afternoon. The weather was perfect and Miss had a great time in the yard as always. Lass hung out in my BabyEtte wrap again. Bubbles were blown, sticks were collected (and crab apples, and acorns. . .), and there was lots of happy running.