Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny certainly made the rounds this year. Mason saw him at my work Easter egg hunt (turned Easter party because there was freaking snow on the ground -- in April). But he dropped baskets off and hid eggs at our house on Saturday, stopped in for the work party, then went to both grandparents houses for another egg hiding and more baskets. All in all, I think the holiday was a success. Claire was busy being sickly and slept through most of it, but I think she enjoyed what she was awake for.

We tried to hide eggs in somewhat obvious places. Who wants to find one a few months later?

Mason enjoying his Easter basket spoils. Mom..er, the Easter Bunny, needs to find a more consolidated hiding spot because when I got everything out, I realized that I spoiled the kids way beyond my intentions. Mason's basket included a new outfit (a Tyrannosaurus Rex polo shirt and shorts), a book (The Little Red Caboose), a kid-sized aluminum water bottle (finally found one that I didn't have to take out a loan on. He's obsessed with the one I bought myself a couple of months ago and I'm so sick of cleaning up water puddles!), a sandwich cutter that will cut a sandwich into dinosaur shapes, a toy lawn mower, and a "grabber". I'm sure there will be another post on the grabber toy, because it may or may not disappear on the community cleanup day that's coming to our neighborhood this spring.

Basically the only picture I have of grumpy little Claire. The day before we celebrated Easter, we had a puking incident in the car that allowed mom to become proficient at dismantling our carseat. If you ever need help with this kind of task, just call me. The thing looks brand new. Anyway, she was still spiking a fever of about 101 degrees and not in the best mood on Saturday. She got as much enjoyment as possible out of her basket, including these cute little sunglasses. The EB spoiled her with a swimsuit, sun hat, book, a little beach toy set, and a Melissa and Doug picnic basket.

This is an overhead shot of their Easter baskets. Didn't take up the whole table each like I thought, but still proof that I went overboard.

We colored eggs on Friday night. Mason really loves that activity, but there was something messed up with the pink dye this year. Oh well, I guess we have to have at least one issue with dying each year. Last year he mixed two color tablets together. I wasn't going to give him the chance this year, but we found a way around that.

We also had a really yummy dinner and spent some quality family time together. Hey, we have to do that at least two or three times a year, right?

And then it had been ten (months)...

I'm not really sure what has happened to the last ten months. It's just like anytime a child is small: you feel so mired down in day to day details that while you're busy living life, your life passes. Claire turned ten months old on St. Patricks Day, and it hit me how close her birthday is; she's already getting so big!

She has turned into this happy, sunshiney little chatterbox who is constantly on the go. It doesn't seem possible that we were still waiting to meet her at this time last year. My day would not be complete without seeing her smile and little jump from the crib first thing in the morning, all the way through to saying goodnight to her "ladybugs". Even with the grumpiness that has ensued with volume teething (she's getting FOUR at once, the sad little stinker), she's still such a sweet addition to our little family.

Engaging in one of her favorite pasttimes -- pulling every single DVD Mason owns out of the cabinet while he looks on shrieking "No, Claire!"

Likes: her brother, toes, being read to, taking a bath, clapping her hands together, being tossed, snuggling with her Piglet blankie, peek-a-boo and pattycake, her toy bongos, any stuffed animal, crawling around, being outside --especially on the grass, the ladybug wall hangings in her room, eating almost anything, singing along to almost any kind of music, tongues sticking out (hers or anyone else's), giving big sloppy kisses

Dislikes: being ignored, eating dirt,the dogs, being tired, teething, being rocked to sleep, the shower

Not the best picture of her, but you can see those top teeth poking through. You can feel one on the bottom that is through and the other middle bottom tooth is a forthcoming lump. We love, love, LOVE homeopathic teething tablets. I highly recommend them, especially if your baby is like Claire and won't tolerate any of the frozen/cold teething rings.

Well, well, well...

We had well-child checks for the kids yesterday. We combined Mason's four year appointment with Claire's nine month appointment. No one had to have shots, so everyone was pretty happy. Dr. Johnson said both kids are in tip-top shape, and we have no reason to disagree with him!

Mason
Height: 41.9 " (80th percentile)
Weight: 45 lbs. (90th percentile)

According to Dr. Johnson, his BMI lists him as overweight, but he doesn't think that is entirely fair since Mason has always been a stocky, active kid. He didn't even tell us exactly what it was, just pointed it out on the graph. His blood pressure was perfect, but I was over with Claire getting her weighed so I didn't catch those stats, either. Good mommy strikes again.

Claire
Length: 29 inches (90th percentile)
Weight: 15 lbs, 13 oz (5th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (25th percentile)

Where Claire has always been thin, and she's following the same growth curve, we aren't too worried at this point. Apparently she just puts all of her energy (and the vast, vast amounts of adult food) into growing long rather than chunky. I sure wish I was blessed with the metabolism I apparently passed on to her, but what can you do?

Nine Divine Months (already)

This little one is such an exuberant little ham that it's hard to choose a picture to post. It worked out okay, considering she also loves to be in my lap so much that it was hard to take very many.


Also, this is a few days late. We have had some nasty little bug making the rounds at our house, so it took a few extra days for her to be back to her sweet and camera-grabbing self. Also, her hair is starting to come in curly so if I don't put a headband or something in it, it goes all over the place. Plus I'm using headbands to try getting her ready for when I want to do all kinds of cute hairdos on her.







Likes: grabbing, making funny noises and having mom repeat them back, tongues (specifically when they're being stuck out), being pulled up to standing, crawling, getting into things she shouldn't get into, her monkey book, ladybugs, stuffed animals, any manner of food, pulling her socks off, putting her toes into her mouth, playing patty-cake and peekaboo, any manner of being flipped or turned or tossed, playing with door stops, sneezing, sucking her thumb

Dislikes: sitting still, being left alone or put down, her carseat, loud noises, pacifiers, the changing spots in public restrooms

Mad Magnet Making Skills

So a friend of mine came over and braved craft night with Mason and I. She also has a daughter who is just a couple months younger than Mason, so they mostly played while moms crafted. Really, we picked the craft with their abilities and interests in mind. Don't tell Alan, but Mason loves to stamp and he's actually pretty good at it.

Gotta love the face-pulling adorable little maniac in the background!

This was a pretty dirt cheap way to make some cute little refrigerator magnets. We've got to have something to hold up the paper mountain Mason is coloring at school. So we combined my Valentines scrapbooking supplies with that need and started out on these. Props to my mother-in-law who allowed me to borrow her circle cutter. It made this project much, much easier. Plus, she introduced me to this crafting idea a few years ago.

What you'll need:

-flat-bottomed half marbles (Roberts is the only place I've found them, this is the closest I can find on their website. They are about 2" in diameter and over with a lot of the mosaic marbles. These are the same marbles a lot of people use in floral arrangements/decorating, etc.)
-sturdy cardstock
-stamps, stamp pads, etc. to embellish as desired. Use only flat things for this: stickers, glitter, etc. Stay away from bows, brads, buttons and the like.
-scissors and/or a circle paper punch that will cut circles approximately the same size as your marbles
- a glue stick
-medium sized magnets
-hot glue gun


1. Stamp desired images on your paper. We used Valentines themed sorts of things. With the "crystal clear" marbles, the pinks seemed to work the best for some reason, but really the sky is the limit with this part. We've done them with names, words, patterned paper, small stamped images... whatever suits your purposes. I happen to have a lot of scrapbooking supplies on hand, so this didn't cost anything. Just make sure whatever you do will fit in the circle you're going to cut. I also recommend staying on the outside borders of the page, or cutting it down so it will fit in the circle punch.

2. Line up and cut your image out.

Sorry, the light reflected off the marbles and made the stamp a lot harder to see than in real life

3. Coat the image side of the circle with a glue stick. Make sure the marble is free of fingerprints on the flat side. Press hard and let the glue dry. Really, it's dry by the time I walk across the room to the hot glue gun that I didn't show the four year old we had. That step alone made my life much easier.


4. Hot glue magnets to the back of your marble/paper combo. It was easier for me to put the glue on the back of the marble thing than on the magnet. I'm not the best with a hot glue gun, so I was trying to make as little direct contact with the hot glue as possible. Use a somewhat liberal amount so the heavy little magnet will hold.

5. Attach to fridge. Clean up. You're done.

One bag of the marbles, two packs of magnets, and we made 16 magnets. Because all we needed to buy were the marbles and the magnets, this craft cost about $5. The kids were busy stamping for an hour; the craft itself probably only took about 15 minutes. They helped and were interested in everything right up to the hot gluing. We put newspaper down on the table where the kids were stamping and cutting, so clean up was as fast as bundling up the newspaper and tossing the whole lot in the recycle bin.

Maiden Voyage(s)

We took a much-needed family walk today. It was so nice to get out of the house. For all the delightful things about winter (hot chocolate, snuggling up with a movie or book on a snowy day, shoveling until the shovel breaks, your four year old completely mocking the snowman you built), we all get a little cagey by the time it's winding down. So out came the sun and out came the family! Claire loves, loves, loves being outside and was cooing up a storm the whole time. I think it's safe to say we all commiserated.

Claire (and dad) made her first trip ever down a slide. I wasn't fast enough to catch the first one. This is the second one. I think she enjoyed herself, though. She was looking around in amazement. She kind of does this wide-eyed glance sometimes and you know if she could verbalize it, she would be saying "Holy crap! What was that?!"

Mason took his scooter out for its first real spin. This is one of the major drawbacks of having your birthday and Christmas back-to-back and in the winter. His "big" presents from mom and dad or Santa are often outdoorsy things that he has to bottle up the excitement to use until warm weather hits. He's been dying to take this bad boy around the block for some time. He only had one fall, and he brushed it off after a bit of coddling. He also insisted that his scooter could not go through puddles and carried it over them.

We also had the bonus of seeing some neighbors along the way. It's kind of entertaining how everyone's kids grow up in the winter when we are all hibernating. Everyone on our block is bigger, with more hair, etc. The little kids are desperately wanting to keep up with the big kids. I think Mason has reached the ranks of the "big kids" and that is hard for me to accept on so many levels.