Friends and a drawing

Jeanne refused to nap today, so we played with beads and pipe cleaners, then she wanted to draw with markers.  I set her up and left her be.  After 15 minutes,  I wandered over to see how her drawing was going.  She usually doesn't sit and draw too long, ends up drawing all over her body (thank you washable markers!), but today, for the first time, she was drawing a picture.  Her first, she told me, was of her musical balloons (yesterday I filled 6 balloons with different items to make noise, rice, bells, beads, etc)

Then she drew this:

This is her story:
(on the left) is the mother, she is very tall (she has eyes and a mouth, legs, feet, then all belly).  In her belly is all her food she ate, she likes food.  (the center character) is the daughter (she has eyes, a mouth, hair, arms, and lots of legs and arms), she ate lots of  things with holes and salt, she loves salt and she's so happy!  (the dots around them) are birds in the air and on the ground.

Also today, we watched a couple of friends while the Mom ran to a meeting.  I brought out two bins with colored rice, measuring cups, a funnel, and some safari animals.

Still engaged after 20 minutes      o_O

Lovely girl loved the animals the most, she had me name them all at least 6 times.  If any of them lost their way, she would gather them in a pile and ask me to name them again.  

Lovely girl corralling the animals in a bucket while Loki chills in his car.

They all played, used the sidewalk chalk and the sensory bin for over an hour.  Success!

I am trying to teach myself french braiding.  Someone recommended I cross the hair under, that it would keep the stray hair better.  I am still trying!

Absent

Yes, yes I know I haven't been updating a lot.  Kids, they keep changing, so do their schedules.  Currently, they are both still napping, but at different times, thus I am always feeding someone, and further thus, the sink is always full of dishes.  The same goes for the toys I pick up.  You get the picture.  Anyway, I feel like I' ve been a bit lazy with my activities with the kids lately since they on different wavelengths during the day.  Today however, an early trip to a bounce house left them both thoroughly exhausted and are both asleep.  I was able to set up two activities for them when they wake, musical balloons and the trains laid out.  Loki loves anything having to do with trains.

 I am also experimenting with using a smaller crock pot.  We took hiatus from the crock pot dinner as they were mostly meat filled, thus high cholesterol filled, not to mention pretty fatty.  If you haven't heard or remember, Hubbers has lost close to 25 pounds (I only lost 5, but I'm still happy with that!) and put on a bit of muscle since we've completely changed our diet (again).  Now that we are both working out regularly, and see food differently (again) I will go back to making dinners, but with a low to no meat factor and a low fat factor (less than 4 or 5 grams of fat per serving, we had previously been doing 3, which was *hard*, but effective, especially when combined with a vegan to mostly vegan diet).  So, I am experimenting with a small crock pot (2 quart) in hopes to travel with it and make lunch or dinner for the kids and I.  Food is expensive everywhere, but when your traveling and do not have access to a stove, every meal gets harder and more expensive.

Here's to a productive experiment!

Since I had snacks, water and an activity out, the 'after nap' blahs were averted.

A first date.

Jeanne asked asked a boy to sit and read with her today at Barnes and noble. Her first date, Alex. He is 9. Going for the older ones already. He was very kind to her. As Daddy said 'So it begins'.

A visit and the Farmers market

Laurie:

Sweet Aunt Laurie came South to visit, which was a really nice treat.  The trouble is, we were all having such a good time enjoying her company or parents time away, we never took pictures.  Sorry. We did have a wonderful time at the pool a couple of times and really enjoyed the Art Museum.  I know where I will be going for some beautiful morning walks come Fall, it's a bit hot and humid here by 9-10am.



Farmers Market:
We also are going into downtown Raleigh each Wednesday to go to the farmers market, and come home with bags full, heavy of fresh LOCAL produce.  Today we brought home the following:

That's 4+ pounds of potatoes, patty pan squash (which, if you have never had before, is amazing. It's much more sweet than a zucchini or summer squash and can be cooked the same way.  I used less than 1/2 table spoon for 2 patty pan and sautéed it for a few minutes, just until it began to be translucent.  AMAZING!), a small bag of peaches (ripening on my counter),  a large bag of super ripe peaches (which I boiled, peeled, cut, and packaged for freezing), 2 large containers of blueberries, 6 organic corn from our CSA, 2 containers of super sweet cherry tomatoes, 2 cucumbers and some fresh peppers. 


 I managed to husk the corn, prepare the peaches for freezing, a container of blueberries for freezing and did all the dishes while the kids napped.  By 3:45 I was feeling tired again, and since I have just over 7 hours left to my day, I made (another) coffee.


Now they are watching Sesame Street and napping on blueberries and pirate booty, waiting to go pick up Daddy.


Some random pictures:

My beautiful big girl.

Problem: Kids want to make a mess and you don't want to clean it up.

Solution: Give them washable markers, and let them draw all over the glass window.

Extra Credit: Have them do it on the outside so they can be LOUD too.

We also played with water beads.  Loki just loves to throw them, Jeanne loves to squish them.

Daddy time!

Big Sis 'changing her behavior' and being nice to her little brother.

This is how Jeanne sleeps every night.  tucked under Cthulhu.

Jeanne in the center of the Eye in the Triangle at the Museum of Art

Jeanne listens intently to her first Hellboy Comic

Loki 15 months old

Well, it's 4:00 in the morning, and since I'm up I figured I would write an entry.  Loki is now 15 months old and has changed so much in just the last 3 months. His ability to communicate, understand and respond to spoken and sign language has increased immensely.  He is also a much happier *toddler*.  Although, as my fist sentence states, we are still having some difficulty in the sleep department.  We did have quite a good stretch of him sleeping all through the night, but he has been waking at 4:40, every morning.  This morning, however, is earlier.  I'm frankly just sick of it.


Words Loki can speak at 15 months:
Mama, Dada, No, Elmo, au revoir, yo gabba gabba

Words Loki can understand at 15 months:
dog, cat, thirsty, hungry, diaper, walk, woobie, 'brush your teeth', 'bath time', play, 'climb your chair'

Words Loki can sign:
fish, potty, thirsty, nurse, ball, please, all done, bird, dog, cat, goodbye

Words Loki can speak in French!:
Au revoir, la poisson (fish)

At his 15th month visit Loki:
weighed: 20 pounds 8 ounces, which puts him in the 5th percentile
length: 30", 25th percentile

Jeanne also went for a well visit:
weighs 30 pounds
height: 37.75" 50th percentile

June 2012, Jeanne turns 3 years old

Well, that went by quickly.  I was looking at shoes for Jeanne yesterday, only to realize I was looking in the baby shoe section.  Yeah, that won't work anymore.  Here are a few photos from her birthday bash.

FAMILY PARTY:

Water blocks from Uncle L and Aunt C

Another magic wand.  Really, can you have too many?

Freeing the plush birds with gusto!

Yes! Fruit to cut!  Sweet!

Chilling out with my balloon.

The destruction!

FRIEND PARTY:

Best Buddies

How many kids can fit in this chair?  Lets find out.

Yeah for work friends taking time off to come play!

Looks like little man is ready to go FASTER!

We love to walk through the woods:

BUTTERFLIES!

Day 2 of caterpillars 

Day 4

Day 7.  It was so neat to watch them

We released all 5 butterflies on Jeanne's birthday weekend.  It was so awesome.  We both loved watching the caterpillars eat and grow, grow, GROW!

PLANTING:

I just placed the potted plants in the dirt while waiting for them to wake from their nap.  Loki was so excited to see them.  He didn't 'get' planting them, so Jeanne did all of that.

Loki did love watering the plants though.  Who doesn't love to splash water?

A really amazing blog

No, not mine, a real one.  Well, if your interested in kids too.


This especially is amazing, and I wish, wish, wish to do this with Jeanne very soon!

Push lights = solar system!

I can see this being done in a variety of ways.  Spell their name, flowers, great for kids afraid of the dark, favorite characters in a book, place them just high enough they have to jump to turn them on.

Very cool idea!