January 15, 2010: Climb, climb, climb! That’s all this boy ever seems to do! He climbed onto the purple chair and over to this end table in the blink of an eye. See how he’s looking up there? He’s trying to figure out how to shimmy up the blinds and stand on the ceiling.
January 16, 2010: Wyatt and I were playing around on the chair in front of the living room window and the light was so lovely, I was begging him to let me take his picture. He was adamantly opposed to the idea, but I managed to sneak this photo of him. I was totally right about the light, wasn’t I?
January 17, 2010: OMG! Do you see this?? This is where Wyatt carved his name into our kitchen table. I was thrilled to find this, I can assure you.
January 18, 2010: Rain planet! We had pouring, torrential rain for 8 days straight which caused the boys to be stuck inside. They claimed the chair in front of the living room window as their playground and they spent a great deal of time on it drawing pictures in the condensation and antagonizing each other. If you look closely, you can see that there is a cardboard box and a few of the couch cushions on the chair. This was Zach’s attempt to keep them from jumping on the chair. It worked for about 9 minutes.
January 19, 2010: Augie needs a haircut in the worst way.
January 20, 2010: The coffee sleeve I made for Zach.
January 21, 2010: Zach tries to get Augie’s jammies on after his bath. He’s got the pants next to him on the bed and he’s waiting for a chance to swoop in and put them on him.
January 8, 2010: Dropping Wyatt off at Kindergarten. Normally we walk over with Augie in the stroller, but this day the sky was dark with looming rain clouds and I didn’t want to be caught outside when the heavens opened up.
January 9, 2010: We had dinner at our friends Tjames and Robyn’s house. Of course, I didn’t manage to get any pictures of anyone besides our family, which always seems to be the case. We were joined by another family (Evan and Maj and their kids) and we had a lovely time catching up, eating a yummy pot roast dinner and playing Rock Band.
January 10, 2010: Augie was cheerful after his nap today and didn’t want to get out of his crib. Instead we played peek-a-boo for awhile and he periodically chewed on Blue Monkey.
January 11, 2010: Yuck! Sorry — I probably should have warned you that I was going to show you my foot. I was in a hurry to get out the door to Weight Watchers on Sunday and I kicked the fireplace grate really, really hard as I was walking by it. I thought I broke my toe at first, but it was just badly bruised. Like that last little bit of blue nail polish on my big toe there? That’s from August!
January 12, 2010: Zach was working late every night this week on a big deadline and Wyatt ended up putting himself to sleep on the couch while I was getting Augie down. Poor little buddy.
January 13, 2010: Augie had his one year check-up at the doctor, which is kind of funny since he’s over 16 months old. Just so you know, Kaiser’s automated appointment scheduling program doesn’t work very well. He is in great health, perfect in every way. 26 pounds, 32.5 inches tall.
January 14, 2010: Our washing machine broke this week, so the laundry started piling up in the two days we had to wait for the repairman to come out to take a look at it. It wasn’t draining properly and I tried to fix it myself, but I ended up flooding our back hallway. On the plus side, the floor back there hasn’t been as clean in a long while!
Monday’s snack was quick and dirty: tortilla chips and pineapple salsa (in the pink box). I also included a red heart candy because I love him.
Tuesday:
Tuesday’s lunch/snack was: a half mini baguette, strawberry jam (in the little blue box), a hand full of grapes, blueberries, some Pirate’s Booty, a little red heart candy (in the yellow box), a square of cornbread and cubes of pork tenderloin. You’ll be happy to know he was able to eat the Pirate’s Booty with no interference from the teachers at the club house.
Wednesday:
For Wednesday’s lunch I sent baked tofu cut into giraffe shapes, grapes, blueberries, a square of cornbread and ranch dressing and sugar snap peas.
I have to crow a little about the peas and the ranch dressing. This is one of my favorite snacks and I have offered some to Wyatt every time I ate it for years. I’m guessing that I started asking him if he wanted some when he was 2 years old. Usually he just flat out refused to try it. Very rarely he’d try it and tell me he didn’t like it. But I kept asking just in case he changed his mind. The other day he was willing to try it, which in itself was a big deal. But then…
He ate it all!
And then he asked for more!
I don’t have the crazy expectation that he’ll eat it every time I give it to him just yet, but it’s a start! Keep the faith, people!
For snack, I made a blueberry muffin and banana monster. Raaaaahr!
Thursday:
One of Wyatt’s friends at school has a Laptop Lunchbox, so he’s been requesting that I use it to pack his lunch and snacks more frequently. Now that he’s eating more, it makes a lot of sense to use it and it’s pretty easy too, so I’m happy to oblige (when it’s not in the dishwasher, that is.). Thursday’s box had whole wheat pita wedges, toasted, spread with a smidge of butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, leftover pasta with red sauce from dinner the night before, blueberries, baked tofu cut with cookie cutters and colored with a food marker and a chunk of banana.
Friday:
Friday’s snack was a bun with a bunny drawn on it (BUNny! Get it? Ha ha! I amuse myself.) and some clementine wedges.
A new year, a new 365 photo project! Last year’s was a smashing success so I’m going to try it again this year. I’m planning to do a post in the next few weeks with some thoughts on last year’s project and to show what I’m doing with the photos. Stay tuned for that!
January 1, 2010: Augie chills in his booster seat after breakfast at Grandma and Grandpa’s.
January 2, 2010: On our way home. This is our carry-on luggage. Ugh. Long gone are the days when I could zip onto a plane with my purse and a bag that would fit under the seat in front of me. Pictured here you can see:
The diaper bag
Zach’s back pack
Augie’s car seat
The Ergo carrier (easiest way to get Augie on and off the plane)
My carry on bag (this is big because it holds my laptop, a book, a change of clothes for me, and books, toys, etc. to keep Augie occupied.)
A lunch box (so the kids especially don’t starve)
Wyatt’s back pack, jammed with books, art supplies, a blanket, a neck pillow and a change of clothes
the stroller (which we thankfully get to gate check)
We have to get all this, plus two kids on and off the plane twice in one day!
And I’m not even going to tell you about the horrible, horrible diaper situation we lived through on the last flight. This tied with another airplane diaper story for the worst diaper in the history of our family. Let’s just say that the cleaning crew had to be alerted and directed to our seats when we landed and leave it at that. Horrible!
January 3, 2010: First trip to Trader Joe’s after being gone for a week. That cart was full to the top!
January 4, 2010: Loading the dishwasher.
January 5, 2010: This is a particularly bad batch of dishes, waiting to go into the dishwasher. I try not to let them pile up this much, but it happens some times.
January 6, 2010: Poor old Daddy is trying to check his work email here, but Augie insisted on some cuddle time with with him.
January 7, 2010: Wyatt takes one of many breaks while putting his jammies on after his bath to do some dancing.
We’ve been having a lot of rainy weather around here and the kids have been stuck inside for over a week now. The other day, the five-year-old and I stumbled upon an easy activity that kept him busy for over an hour. OVER AN HOUR, PEOPLE! If you’re the parent of a five-year-old, you know how awesome that is.
We ended up making these things that I am calling: Tie Dye Window Decorations.
I’m pretty good at naming things, don’t you think? Also, I know it’s starting to look like we’re a bunch of hippies, but we really aren’t. It’s just that tie dye crafts are easy and fun and they give you pretty results with a fun surprise factor at the end.
All right, so here’s what you need to make these totally easy Tie Dye Window Decorations:
A cheap-o kids water color set
Paper towels
I bet you have those in your house right now! Sweet.
Start off by filling each of the water color thingies up to the top with water.
I found an easy way to do this is to fill up a big glass of water and then transfer the water to the paints by doing that thing where you put your finger over the end of the straw to trap the water inside and then let it go over the paints to get it out. Wyatt liked this part almost as much as the actual dyeing. You can also just fill them up at the sink, but you’ll be running back and forth a lot more often if you do it that way.
Stir the paints up to get more of the color in the water.
Now, take a big paper towel and cut it into quarters. You’ll want your pieces of paper towel to be about 6 inches square. If they’re bigger, they’re harder for little hands to handle and the paint doesn’t saturate as easily.
Fold your square of paper towel in half.
Then fold it in half again.
And then fold it in half on the diagonal, kind of like how you’d fold paper to cut a paper snowflake:
You can just leave your towel as is, or if you want it to be more of a circle, cut the end off the towel like so:
Instead of folding the towel on the diagonal, you can also fold it in half again so it’s a rectangle shape which will make the end design different, but equally attractive.
OK, so now that the paper towel is all folded, you get to start the fun part — the dyeing! Dip different parts of the paper towel bundle into the paints and let it absorb the color. The corners are the easiest.
You can fold it in half again to get the colors into the middle sections. You can also dab paint on with the paint brush.
Keep dipping and dabbing until the paper towel bundle has as much paint on it as you’d like.
Then unfold to see your beautiful creation in all its glory!
Lay towels flat to dry (we used a cookie cooling rack) and then hang them in a sunny window to catch the light!
December 24, 2009: Christmas Eve! Most of the extended family who were in town came over to my parents’ house for appetizers and conversation. We bought the boys matching jammies and had them put them on. Then Wyatt picked out a few of the prettiest cookies and filled a shot glass with milk for Santa and we wrestled the kids into bed.
December 25, 2009: I hardly took any pictures on Christmas day because I was spending the time enjoying myself, my kids and my family. These photos were of Augie investigating what Santa put in his stocking and of Wyatt opening one of his very favorite gifts from his grandparents. Merry Christmas!
December 26, 2009: We all gathered around the dining room table to work on our various “projects” while Augie took his nap. My mom and I goofed around on our laptops and shared a snack. Zach played with his iPhone. And my Dad and Wyatt worked on assembling Wyatt’s big Power Miner set that he got from Santa.
December 27, 2009: This was a really big day for us! Everyone on my Dad’s side of the family — four generations — gathered at my Grandma’s house for the day. (My Uncle Bill and cousin Emily’s family were the only ones who couldn’t make it.) We took about a million photos of everyone and this is the whole gang all together. The last time we got even close to this many of us together was over 10 years ago and none of the great-grandkids had been born yet.
December 28, 2009: One of the ways I know it’s Christmas is that I’m drinking a warm beverage out of one of my mom’s Christmas tree mugs. My brother and I bought her pieces of this set for Christmas every year over a 4 or 5 year period so she has a pretty good selection. She doesn’t bring all of it out every year, but these mugs always make an appearance.
December 29, 2009: My mom took Wyatt and his cousin to the park to go sledding and as they were leaving she called me so I could start making them hot chocolate. I always try to make hot chocolate from scratch because it’s sooooo much better than the instant kind. And see — they’re using the Christmas mugs!
December 30, 2009: My mom, Augie and I cut out for our annual post-Christmas shopping trip. We took a break after lunch in the family room at the mall and August rocked out playing with the toddler toys.
December 31, 2009: My parents had a New Year’s Eve party that involved drunken sledding down their driveway at 2 a.m. but I didn’t get any pictures of that (and technically it happened in 2010). So my photo of the day is of Wyatt drawing pictures in the ice and steam on their living room windows. Happy New Year!
Comments
photo · project365
