Curious George

I recently found out that our Barnes & Noble has a storytime in the kids area on Wednesday mornings. So, last week we went for the first time and found out that this week there would be a special guest. This morning we rushed to get ready by 11:00 am ( have I mentioned I love staying home?) and head to B&N. We got there in time to hear some Curious George stories and meet the big "ooh-ahh" (as Hadley would say) himself. Hadley loved him from a distance but wasn't so sure about him up-close. Drake (for the first time in his life!!) was comfortable enough to go up and give him a high-five and even sat down and colored next to him for awhile. Then, it was such a beautiful day, we went and had a picnic at the park and burned off some energy in the sunshine.

Sometimes, I shouldn't ask...

Sometimes I think it would be better not to know what goes on while Gabe is home alone with the kids... Last night, I had an Uppercase Living show in town so was gone for a couple of hours. The kids were finishing up supper and heading to the bath when I left. They were tucked snugly in bed by the time I got home and Gabe was nonchalantly telling me about their evening and says "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the funniest thing..." and he went and brought me the camera. This is what he showed me:









Then, he proceeds to tell me the "funny" story. Gabe and Drake were in the living room playing a game and Gabe realized he hadn't heard Hadley in awhile, so he asked Drake to go check on her. Drake yelled to Gabe from the bathroom, "Dad, Hadley's getting her sleeves all wet!" So, Gabe gets to the bathroom just as Hadley has completely fallen into the tub and gets her jammies soaked! Now, the mom in me was trying not to freak out on him. First of all, why was there still water in the tub? What would have happened if he had not heard her playing in there and she fell in and cracked her head? Thankfully, all was well and after a good drying everyone felt better and hopefully, this was enough of a scare that he has learned his lesson.

Stolen Creativity

I'm pretty good at stealing others' creative ideas. Here are some pictures of one idea... I'm not a big "playing in the snow" kind of girl. I don't like being cold. Plus, we don't have any snow right now and it's too cold to play outside, so we brought some snow in. Not real snow, but shaving cream. The kids had blast and we ended the activity with baths so it didn't matter how messy they got, plus shaving cream wipes off of leather chairs and tables very easily. It was fun!

Some other stolen ideas I've used lately:
* Print off BINGO game for the grocery store from Parents.com and Drake sat happily in the cart searching for all the BINGO items while I shopped.
*We also made Cheerio necklaces before we went to the store and Drake and Hadley both had a snack while we were shopping, and it was fun to eat it off their necklace! (I bought fruit loops to use next time, so we can also work on patterning and colors, plus fruit loops are a treat!)
*A good energy burner is a big ball and the kids do a great job sharing, I will sit on the couch and have one of them sit-bounce on the ball while I hold onto them for support. They have to take turns and they will do this for a long time!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I enjoyed Hadley's thought of the the word "Valentine's", I guess the word just seemed a little overwhelming, so she stuck with merely agreeing.. "uh-huh". We celebrated the day of love with a few little things for the kids including foamy bath soap, which they LOVED, some new nail polish for Hadley and some chapstick for both of them. And we just had a lazy day at home, including naps for EVERYONE in the afternoon and jammies all day. I love my family!

Oodles of Noodles

Lately we have been working on conquering some sensory issues with Drake. As part of helping him deal with some of the things he has trouble with, we have to expose him to these things more and more so he can learn to cope. One of his trouble areas is things that are sticky, so this morning we played with cooked noodles. At first, he would only pick them up by pinching them with two fingers, but the longer he played, the more he got used to the texture and did very well. So, to make it a little educational as well, I made up some papers with shapes and his name and had him trace them with the noodles. It was fun and he ate a few in the process. Hadley mostly just ate them and tried to feed them to Drake.

Hannah!

We had a fun day today with getting to meet Hannah for the first time! Hannah belongs to Tim and Liz (Gabe's cousin and her husband). Hannah made a surprise entrance at the very end of the year, a month early and she is SO cute! Hannah, at one month still weighs less than Hadley at birth but she is growing like a weed from when she was born. Hannah and Liz made their way up for a visit this morning and to do some 2nd hand shopping. Drake got to go play at a friends house while we had a girls day eating out for lunch (Thanks to Hannah's Gwanny!) and hitting some good deals at the 2nd hand stores. Hadley called her "baby" all day until 5 minutes AFTER they left and then she has walked around all evening saying "Hannah, bye-bye". As soon as Gabe walked in from work her first words to him were, "Hannah go bye-bye". Hannah was such a good baby all day and just peacefully sat in her seat most of the day while Hadley was a pretty well behaved toddler as well. All in all, it was a fun girls day!