A future baby wearer in the making…
Month: December 2011
G’s New Playmates
Gracen’s never really had a thing for stuffed animals, but today she discovered a collection of them tucked away in her bedroom and she’s had them with her ever since.
Bear even had to have lunch with us. He needed to have his own chair at the table and be hand fed by little G herself.
Making Ornaments: A Yearly Tradition
This morning we took advantage of Bradley’s later shift and made some ornaments for our teeny tiny tree.
The pipe cleaner decorations were a little bit tricky for G to make, so we adapted the activity and gave her some pasta to thread onto her pipe cleaners. Although she could do it, eating the dry noodles was apparently more appealing.
Gracen’s Borax crystal ornaments made for her by Papa.
The messy glittery glass ornaments were more up G’s alley and she loved getting to pick out her own glitter colour. I have a feeling if we make this one yearly, we’ll have to start buying bigger glass bulbs.
Our reindeer family ornament. The little Rudolph on the righthand side was made using Grae’s thumbprint.
We also made a few different salt dough ornaments. The Christmas bulbs on these little trees were made using our thumb imprints.
I’m looking forward to keeping up this tradition in years to come… Before you know it, we’ll have a giant tree filled with all kinds of eclectic handmade ornaments. :)
States Stock Up
We’ve recently starting doing big grocery shopping trips in Bellingham… There’s a ton of selection, the prices are insane, and Trader Joe’s is right up our alley. Today we headed down, lists in hand, to stock up for the Christmas holidays. Woo-weeee! It was a big one! Luckily we had this Cadillac of a cart. Grae was riding in style.
Relaxing
Moments like this are so rare for our little busy body that they must be documented…
Growing Up
I’m not quite sure what happened here, but today we went to Play Gym up at Sunset after missing it last week, and suddenly my little lady can do all kinds of things she couldn’t do last time we were there…
Today she was getting in and out of the little cars without any help…
Positioning herself in front of the slide and sending herself down all by herself…
And got down off of the trampoline on her own… How did this happen so quickly?
And yes, I am completely aware of the fact that my one year old looks like she dressed herself… In fact, she sort of did. Every morning when we get ready for the day, I pick out part of her outfit and she picks out the remaining items. I had already picked the striped leggings and teal cardigan this morning, but the problem was that there weren’t many viable t-shirt options. As much as I hoped she’d pick the plain white tee, she opted for the canary yellow one instead. And don’t even get me started on the purple dotted shoes. She’s in loooove with these shoes right now. Most days she wears them around the house too and cries when I tell her that they have to come off for nap time, so there was no convincing her that other shoes might better suit this outfit. :)
Santa Visits Family Time
Today was our last Family Place session of the year, and lucky for most kids, Santa stopped in for a surprise visit. Grae, on the other hand, was not nearly as excited as the other munchkins. This was her third encounter with the jolly old man this year, and she was less than impressed. And by less than impressed, I mean that she shook her head at him and even tried to give back the present he had just given to her.
She was much happier once Santa had left the room and snack time and our gym visit were next. Hopefully this was our last Santa encounter of 2011…
We Did It!
Well, this project has been a long time in the making (we started just after Halloween), but we finally finished making this year’s Christmas cards. Miss G was a trooper, but I’m not going to lie… I may have been a little ambitious when I decided that Grae would stamp each of the cards with 10 or more of her sweet little fingerprints.
Either way, they’re done! We’ll head out this afternoon so that Grae can deposit each of the 30 envelopes in the mailbox one at a time. :)
Play Dough Play Time
Today Gracen and I used my old trusty recipe and whipped up a batch of play dough. Despite getting flour EVERYWHERE, she was a fantastic kitchen helper. She even picked her own colour – this marvellous shade of puke green. Although it might not have been my first colour choice, she loooooved the finished product and happily poked (okay, more like stabbed) at her play dough pancakes for a good long while before wanting to move on to something else.
Crazy Cowlick
Check out this super awesome cowlick Grae woke up with this afternoon… Hahahahaha! Doesn’t get much better than this.
Book Obsessed
Have I mentioned lately how obsessed with books this little one is? If at any point during the day things get quiet around here, I almost always find Grae snuggled in a little corner with a pillow and a pile of books. Today she discovered my Mr. Man and Little Miss book collection and from that point on, she carried at least one of them with her at all times. This Mama couldn’t be more thrilled that she has a little bookworm in the making. :)
A Successful First Day
Well, today was G’s first day in big girl panties… And she did great! Other than one little piddle before making it all the way to the potty, she told us when she needed to go and used the toilet like it was something she’s always done.
Not to mention that she may be the only person on the planet that is able to baggy-bummed panties look this cute. :)
Big Girl Panties
Grae’s been able to keep her diaper clean and dry for 8 to 12 hours for a couple of months now, but it was only this week that we realized she hadn’t wet or dirtied a single diaper for several days in a row. We’re not sure how this will all turn out, but today we went on a hunt for tiny little panties… Why wear diapers if you don’t need them, right?
Let me tell you, it’s not easy finding underwear to fit a 14 month old! The smallest size we ended up finding was a 2T/3T, but with a super hot wash and dry, they should *almost* fit. Baggy bum or not, I think this little lady is pretty proud of her new panties. Wish us luck!
Lunch with Santa
Sunset, the community centre closest to our house, always hosts fun events to celebrate the holidays. We had registered for their very popular ‘Lunch with Santa’ event long ago, and today was finally the day that it took place.
There was plenty to see and do, and right away Gracen set out to visit each of the inflatable characters.
Since we arrived before the event actually started, it was calm enough for G to actually bounce inside the castle for once.
Soon after, things got WILD inside the bouncy castle (as they always do), so we resorted to our usual bouncing on the outside edge technique. Not to worry, Grae doesn’t mind one bit as long as she’s jumping around like a monkey.
After a sufficient amount of bouncing, it was off to the arts and crafts area to decorate a paper gingerbread boy. Grae loves crafts, and I think she would have cleared out the entire stock of pom poms and goggly eyes had I let her.
There was much too much excitement around to actually sit down and eat properly, but we gave it our best shot anyways. Santa arrived ringing his bell part way through the meal and we all went over to visit with him for a quick minute.
Although Santa wasn’t a hit with Grae, the band certainly was. She was completely and totally enamoured with these high school kids who played several carols for all to enjoy.
This was as still as she sat the entire time… What can I say? This little doodle loves music. :)
Family Photo 2011
I’ve been meaning to figure out a way to get a family photo for our Christmas cards for a long while now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Since they need to be put in the mail asap, we decided to just get it over with and use my camera’s self-timer today. We were dressed and heading out the door to a Christmas event anyways, so we pinned up a backdrop, propped my camera up on a stack of books, and decided to give it a go. About 2 seconds before this shot was taken, Gracen was a squirmy ‘not having it’ mess, so I knew that this could easily be a painful/unsuccessful process. Much to our surprise, as soon as the camera started flashing, she placed herself perfectly in her Papa’s lap, looked straight at the camera, and donned this irresistible little smile. I had set the camera to take 10 consecutive photos, and shockingly, the whole lot turned out to be fairly decent. Yay! As my ridiculously adorable little nephew would say, “Easy peesey lemon squeezey”. :)