Winter

Cozy

Posted on by Amy
We’re being home bodies this weekend.

I love the weekends when we are all home together.  We did get snow the other day, so we’re feeling extra warm and cozy, mostly just staying in and having fun.

Daddy is making fire and sharing milk-froth-topped tea, dancing and tickling, playing monster and reading books.

Speaking of reading books, I have two book clubs this week and just started reading the first (600+ page) book on Wednesday.  I managed to finish it tonight, and have one more book to get through by Thursday.  So I’m making this a quickie tonight.  Happy weekend!

Winter Finally?

Posted on by Amy
We have had the most wonderful weather so far this winter.  So far the temps have been mild.  In the past week most days have been at least in the 40s.  Today was around 50 degrees!  So far we have had very little snow.  Not even enough to cover the grass yet.  
Naturally with such beautiful weather, we pushed nap time back today and played outside after lunch.

Who would miss out on this for nap time?

We can sleep plenty tomorrow.  Notice I stressed above that the weather has been great so far?  Well, it’s supposed to get cold tonight and start to snow.  I think we’re predicted to get 3-5 inches tomorrow.  Honestly, around here in January, that’s not really that much.  But we probably won’t be doing this for a little while:

I’m sure the girls will also enjoy finally getting to play in some snow.  But they’ll be so bundled, the crazy carefree running and playing of today might be slightly less unencumbered.

This will probably especially be the case for Lass, whose little body will be back in “I-can’t-move-my-arms!”status with her snow pants and heavier coat.  The girls are quite interested in the snow though, so I’m sure they’ll enjoy it when it comes.  Somehow we still have a few small patches of the white stuff  that have survived the warm weather.  Of course the girls went right to them.

“It’s cold!”

We’ll still try to get out and have lots of fun in the snow when it comes.  I’m kind of looking forward to snow angels and snow men and Daddy pulling the girls around on their little sled.  Kind of.  I’m stocked up on hot chocolate and soup, and The Daddy has been building some fabulous fires in our fireplace on the weekends.  So bring on the snow.  It can be winter finally.  We’re ready.

Santa Came to Town

Posted on by Amy
We were at the Farm over the weekend for Christmas with my husband’s family.  The girls got to have tons of fun playing with their cousins.

The grown ups got to have lots of fun visiting.  This is a photo of me with my also-pregnant sister-in-law.  She is due about two weeks after me.  The woman brought O’Doul’s.  Gotta love a fake beer on Christmas Eve.

And then of course, the Christmas festivities began.  We opened gifts with the family, which is kind of crazy since my husband has five siblings.  There were 14 adults and 13 kids opening and slinging wrapping paper all over.

It was fabulous.

One of the biggest gift “hits” was this “Rody” for Miss from my husband’s parents.

Daddy blew it up and away she went.

It caused a bit of friction once Little Sister noticed it.

She was pretty upset at not being able to ride it right away.

But Big Sister is such a sweet girl, she let her sis have a turn,

hovering nearby the entire time, of course.

And, time’s up!

It’s a really cool toy.

Finally, Miss got distracted and Lass got to have a bit of time on it.  Oh, the holiday drama!

After family gifts, the kids all went downstairs to wait for Santa.  In my husband’s family, Santa arrives on Christmas Eve before the kids go to bed.  They have to wait patiently downstairs for him (while the moms put out stockings and all the Santa gifts upstairs).

When he arrives, he makes lots of noise stomping around and “Ho-Ho-Ho-ing.”  The kids scream and run up the stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before he gets into his sleigh and rides off.

We all got to see him as he ran out of the house and back to his sleigh waiting in the grass.  Unfortunately one of the older cousins may have seen him a little too much.  He said to his mom something like, “I wish we got to have the real Santa, not the one with dark hair and eyebrows.”  I guess the wig wasn’t quite straight on my brother-in-law!

When we went back inside, of course the girls had a blast with all their presents.

Miss got the two Care Bears she asked Santa for, and they haven’t left her side since.  Here she is reading one of her new books to Grumpy Bear.

In my last post I wrote about how Miss has been insistent about wearing her “ballerina costume” of leotard, tights, and ballet shoes.  The trip to the Farm was no different.  I told her she had to wear some nice clothes for Christmas dinner and family gifts, and we compromised by putting her nice clothes on over the ballerina costume (if you look at some of the pictures above you can see her little ballet shoes). After getting her Santa gifts, the “real” clothes were off and she was back in ballerina mode.

I finally got her out of the ballerina costume when we went on a treasure hunt on Christmas day.  I told her she needed to wear warm clothes and that her ballerina costume really needed to be washed while we were out.

The weather was chilly but beautiful, and as always the treasure hunt was memorable.

Lass was a bit like the little brother in “A Christmas Story.”  she was so bundled up she could barely move.

Miss found some shells and some acorns for her “treasures.”

She got to check out lots of interesting things, like this deer rub.

She got to examine some mushrooms growing on these trees

And look at these little berries.

Lass fell asleep during our walk in the woods.

Overall, the trip to the farm was a great time for all.  And when we came home, the girls found that Santa had been to our house too while we were gone.  He left some gymnastics mats, a balance beam, and a baby doll high chair (which so far has only been used to feed pizza to Care Bears).

Oh yeah, Santa left bubble wrap too.

I am still trying to get things back in order here after so much holiday traveling. Yesterday I folded six loads of laundry and I still have more to do!  The toys aren’t all put away, but they’ve at least all made it into the house now.  The spare room in the basement still has wrapping paper strewn all over the floor.  But the traveling was absolutely worth it, and we had a magical Christmas.  I hope you did too.

Fun in the Snow

Posted on by Amy
Today it wasn’t windy and it finally warmed up enough that Miss could go outside and play in the snow with her Daddy. Based on her other experiences with playing in the snow, I was expecting her to want to come back in pretty quickly, but she had a blast!

She got a little taste of the snow.

She had a bit of a hard time moving around in it as it was over her knees.

But she did not want to come in, so Daddy got dressed more warmly and gave her a ride.

And then they just rolled around in it for a while.


One last ride before coming in.

Miss was not happy about having to come in. But she soon forgot to be upset and got good and warmed up by, what else? Dancing!! Lass had a lot of fun dancing too.

Then we made some cookies for the big game tomorrow. Miss didn’t eat dinner well enough to get to have one tonight, but she’ll get one tomorrow. Go Packers!

A Little Cabin Fever

Posted on by Amy
Other than to go take Miss to gymnastics yesterday afternoon, we haven’t left the house since Monday. You might say we’ve got a bit of cabin fever, but not in a bad way. Being cooped up in the house has forced us to keep busy with crafts and projects. And it also prompts me to bring out my camera. When we are stuck in the house all day, I take photos. A lot. Taking pictures makes me happy.
Yesterday we brought out the finger paints again. Miss had been pointing to her paintings on the fridge from the last time we painted, proudly saying, “I made that.” I wanted to let her try painting with a paintbrush, but I couldn’t find the brushes so we just used hands again. Boy, did she ever.



I love the painting on the right. Not only does it have the first handprints I have of hers since she was born, but it looks like a Valentine’s Day painting with the big red heart. I helped her do the handprints, but I didn’t help her to make the heart-like shape. I actually didn’t even recognize it as a heart-like shape until my husband mentioned it when he came home from work. Love.
She was quite proud of her messiness this time.
And she enjoyed showing off for her sister.


I think she may have been trying to decide if she could get away with painting Lass.
She stuck with the paper.

Well, sort of.


After getting cleaned up we got ready to go to gymnastics. I let her pick out her shirt, and what did she pick but my fave Wonder Woman T shirt. She pointed to the picture of Wonder Woman and said, “Mama.” Weeellll, okay! Then she caught on when I told her who it really was and she kept saying, “Wun Nuh Man!”
In the photos below she is putting the hearts from the other day’s post into her shirt. This is seemingly much more fun to do over and over than to put them on the window. Every time I go to change her diaper one or two of these things falls out of her onesie.

I just love this pic of her talking to our old dog Chica, whose health seems to be declining of late. She’s a good old dog.
Lass is really moving herself around with her rolling, though she’s not terribly precise in where she gets herself to.

Help!!
Miss went grocery shopping in her refrigerator.
She loves her shopping cart. This is a rare photo of her pushing it herself though. Usually she orders, “Mama push!” “Mama do it!” “Mama run.” The girl loves to be moving and loves for me or her daddy to push her shopping cart or baby stroller and chase her while doing it.
Just cute.

Sisters.
I love seeing how the girls interact more and more as Lass gets bigger.
This one looks like they’re already sharing a little secret.

Bad timing on my part, but this was one of many kisses from big sister today.
And one final note, at dinner tonight Miss said, “Razzle Dazzle!!” It took me a few times to catch on to what she was saying, and each time I asked her to repeat it she got this sheepish little grin on her face, which erupted into a huge radiant smile and laugh when I finally got it and said, “Did you just say ‘Razzle Dazzle’?” Then of course we had to say it several times each and laugh every time. She is just a funny, fun little girl.
P.S. “Razzle Dazzle” is the favorite saying of my hubby and I from the show Yo Gabba Gabba. It’s a Muno signature exclamation, in case you’re wondering.

Snow Day

Posted on by Amy
I’m not sure if we’re going to be hit by this big snowstorm heading in this general direction. We might be just far enough north that we don’t get much snow from it. We got a couple of inches last night, but the weather forecast looks like we’ll have mostly flurries for the next few days. Nevertheless, it’s very cold and we have plenty of snow.

So, I declared today to be a snow day at our house. We won’t be going anywhere and are all settled in to stay nice and warm and have lots of fun. Right now it’s nap time for both girls, which is always fun. This morning we had plenty of good times too. What better way to spend a cozy winter day inside than by baking with my favorite almost-two-year-old?

We had some very ripe bananas, or as Miss calls then, “beenahs” that were past the point of eating by themselves. Naturally, they needed to be transformed into Beenah Bread! Miss did a great job mashing the bananas
and maybe eating a little bit too, while Lass supervised.
She helped me measure in the rest of the ingredients and take the batter-filled loaf pan to the oven. I forgot to grease the pan, so the finished product didn’t come out of the pan very nicely. In fact, the bottom of the loaf stayed firmly stuck in the pan while the top half flopped out. I am seriously not cut out for this baking thing! I managed to get the bottom portion out in one piece and stick it onto the top piece so it at least looks like a nice loaf. From a distance. Until you cut it. It tastes good!
Then we moved on to some Valentine’s Day decorating. I’ve not really been much of a Valentine’s Day celebrater (is that a word?) in the past decade or so. I typically think of the holiday as not much more than a way for greeting card, jewelry, candy, and flower companies to make money. Though I usually get my hubby a card and sometimes we go out to dinner or I cook a special dinner at home, we don’t do much else for the day. But now that Miss is at such a fun age, I can’t let this cheesy holiday go by without plenty of fitting activities.
Today, Valentine’s window stickies. Miss loved these by the way. The last thing she asked for when I was putting her down for her nap was, “Play more hearts??” She kept peeling them off and sticking them back on, and has assigned a particular heart to each member of our family (the swirly one in the photo below is Daddy’s).

I don’t know what our next Valentine’s project will be. I did buy more cookie dough, so we’ll be baking and decorating Valentine’s Day cookies in the near future. And probably doing some other crafts. Maybe we’ll make some cards to send. Who knows? It definitely brings more meaning to this holiday though when I can make it into a fun time for my girl. I feel great about celebrating an overly-commercialized holiday when we do it with homemade gifts and treats and make it into just another reason to give extra love and hugs around our home.
If you are getting hit by the coming blizzard, I hope you’ll stay safe and warm!

Christmas – Take 2

Posted on by Amy
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the Farm with my in-laws. It was a very fun time. Miss got dressed up for Christmas Eve.

She had a blast playing with all of her cousins (Lass missed out on this photo as she had gone to bed).


And of course, she loved opening her presents.

She loved her new Yo Gabba Gabba backpack.

She took a break to read one of her new books.
She stayed focused on her task in spite of all the commotion around her with 25 other people also opening gifts.
Then it was time for Santa. We took the stockings down from the mantle and spread them around the living room upstairs while the kids were playing downstairs. Here are Miss’s and Lass’s.
Then Santa stomped around, yelled, “Ho Ho Ho!” and all the kids ran up the stairs and out onto the snowy deck to catch a glimpse of him running away down the driveway. One of my brothers-in-law also had a flashlight with a red light that he made look like Rudolph taking off. Miss went out with her Daddy to see, but she was cold and I don’t think she actually saw anything since she didn’t really get what she was looking for. But she did enjoy digging into her pretty stocking (all the members of my husband’s family have gorgeous stockings made by his aunt, the kids’ are all personalized).
Then my husband found an item that was not put there by me. Could it have been Santa?

He misplaced this ancient and much-loved sweatshirt a year and a half ago and has been pining for it since. He has asked everyone he could think of if he might have left it at their house. And now he has it back. We have no idea who brought it back to him (well, we have a good idea, but no one’s ‘fessing up) and it doesn’t really matter anyway. He’s just happy to have it back. He’s thrilled. In fact, I think I heard him say something like, “This is one of the best Christmas presents ever.”
Miss really loved her new placemat with animals on it.
She loved counting the different animals.

On Christmas day it was time for playing in the snow.
She and her daddy went out with all the kids to sled on the big hill. She requested to make a snowman.
She had really enjoyed being out the previous day, but on this day it was much colder and windier. She didn’t stay out long at all and didn’t get a chance to make her snowman.
We’re going to have a warm-up later this week, so maybe we’ll get out to make a snowman then. This morning, Miss finally got the kitchen that Santa left for her and Lass. She loves it. As I type this, she is checking on her “pizza” in the oven. Time to go eat!

Warm and Cold

Posted on 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.”