Be Mine ❤

Sooo . . . I know Valentine's day was awhile ago now, but I thought I'd post a little about what we did. I especially wanted to show Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Lee how much fun the kids (well, mostly Ava) had with the things from the cool Valentine package! :) 


While Sam was napping, we made Valentine candy from a really cool Wilton candy-making kit they sent. It was so easy and fun! Ava was a good little helper. I didn't really get any pictures of the process of making them, just before and after shots . . . we kind of had to do it fast so that we wouldn't have to reheat the chocolate too often. It was really fun though! 

So, basically, we just put the candies in these bags and then microwaved them for a bit and they were all good to go! Very simple. You can kind of see the molds in the picture next to Ava. We did a little bit of detail work with the paintbrush -- that was Ava's favorite part :), and then just filled in the rest of the mold with the melted candy! 

The set made quite a few candies! These are just a few of them. They turned out really cute! Ava made the ones that look kind of swirly. Didn't she do a great job? She loved it! Ava took a couple of them to the little girls that live next door to us. It was fun sharing her candies! We're excited, too, because now that they've met each other a little, I think we're going to have a playtime with them soon. Hooray for new friends!


Next, Ava put up the Valentine window stickers all by herself. It was pretty exciting!

 Hooray!!!

Sam liked his new shirts and everything, too! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa! Your Valentine's Day package really made our day special. :)

And, by the way, Adam and I got to have a little fun in our day, too! A lovely family from our church babysat for us while we went out on a double-date. We tried a nice restaurant downtown that we'd never been to before. It was sooo good! Then we just got to spend the evening relaxing a bit after the kids went to bed . . . and we probably watched a Downton Abbey or two. :) Oh, and Adam gave me some flowers that are actually still looking beautiful a week and a half later -- impressive! I heart Valentine's Day. :)

A little something extra: Here are the Valentines that the kids "made" for Daddy . . . cute, eh?  They're such creative little people! Ha! 

'Noculars

A little look at life today . . . 

Ava made some binoculars! (or, "'noculars" as she likes to say). We love doing little art projects around here, and what's better than some good ol' TP tube binoculars? She had such a fun time making them!

She actually started them last night -- after hot-gluing them together, she chose her paint palette - purple, pink and white. She did pretty well with painting for awhile . . . 

. . . but then got distracted by the idea of fingerpainting! We had to take a binocular break so she could create another little project. Cute! 

Eventually, she came back to it and glopped some more paint on . . . so I helped her spread it out a bit. The half-inch thick paint job wasn't really drying out. :) Anyway, we ended up with a nice, swirly pinkish-purplish color. Lovely! After she went to bed, I added a little glitter spray for a fun surprise.  

 

This morning she said, "Ooo . . . it sparkles, Mama!" :)

She chose some lavender ribbon to attach, and presto! Time for exploring!

She had lots of fun discovering things through her binoculars today. She told me all the different colors of houses she could see on our street, found trees, looked at snow (lots of it!), cars . . . all kinds of things! 

 Have you done any exploring today? :)

The Blog Monster

I meant to blog more . . . but I haven't.  


Anyhoo, lately there has been lots of talk of blogs in our house. Mostly about Adam's songwriting blog, which you can visit here if you'd like! I'm pretty unabashedly proud of my hubby's songwriting. It's awesome! :) The blog he has is sort of a stage for his current project of writing 24 songs. It's really been great for him as a musician -- allowing him to hone his skills as a songwriter, try out some different things stylistically, and just work on writing a greater volume of songs in a shorter amount of time. He's been working hard on it and has already released the first set of six songs on Noisetrade! 

It's been fun for me, too! I love hearing all of the different ideas he comes up with and seeing his growth as a writer. AND he lets me sing with him sometimes. :) Woo hoo! This is probably my favorite song he's done lately. Beautiful.


Anyway, with all this going on, Adam and I had been chatting quite a bit about what he'd do next on the blog, how to promote the blog, and other bloggy conversations. We didn't realize it at first, but apparently all this talk of "blogs" set Ava's little mind to work and made her a bit uneasy. 

Then one day, as Adam and I were once again talking about the blog, she came to me with wide and serious eyes and said, "That blog can't get you, Mommy!"


Ooohhhh . . . how very sad! (And adorable.) And sad. Poor little Ava had developed a fear of this unknown "blog". It all clicked with me then. For several days she had been making little comments about blogs. Once, in particular, she was looking around and said, "There's no blogs in here!" She hadn't seemed upset, though, so I just sort of laughed about it and we went on with our day. 


So, needless to say . . . we spent some time assuring her that blogs can't "get" anyone.  Poor Boo!!

6 Months!!!

Guess who's six months old today? 

You're right -- it's SAM!

Since he's so very grown up, we decided it was high time he started eating solids.

"Who, me? I get to eat real food?"

It's true! 

We're pretty fancy-schmancy around here, so Sam got to use his very elegant engraved baby spoon. Isn't it sweet? (Thank you, Terry & Sherrie :) Such a fun baby gift!)

He likes it!

Well, sort of . . . mostly he likes to smile, so the rice cereal just sort of dribbled out every time. We'll have to work on it a bit.

Ava was a good little cheerleader for him. (Yes, with a bit o' bed head.) You'll hear her in the video, "He likes it!! There you go, Sam!" :) Sweet sister. 

Avases

   Ava is at the fun stage where she's really starting to take hold of our lovely English language and get creative with it. Ah, toddlerhood . . . the only time it is acceptable and, dare I say, cute to use poor grammar. 


   Currently, she's experimenting with plurals:

More than one dog = Dogses

A herd of cows = Cowses

A night sky filled with stars = Starses

Storytime = Bookses

Toes = Toeses

   Seeing a trend? Funny thing is that she used to be more correct in her plural usage. Now, she's decided to try -ses at the end of everything for awhile. 'Cause it's fun! We get our kicks where we can.

   Or, maybe she's turning into Gollum. "Nasty, tricksy hobbitses . . . "

eek!

Swim!

Since it was ridiculously hot yesterday, we went to the pool! Ava loves to swim, and Sam got to try it for the first time. He was pretty chill about the whole deal, but seemed to enjoy kicking his little legs! 

Before we left, Ava decided to look adorable whilst playing with her water table.

Yep, adorable.

Then we walked to the pool! Sam was excited to take a refreshing dip.

And Ava was excited to try water wings for the first time! Well, in this picture, she was actually asking us to take them off, but once she got to try them in the water she thought they were pretty nifty.

She did really well once she figured out how to use the water wings to keep her head above water! She liked having a bit of independence -- just a bit -- she could kind of step off the pool steps and kick around a little. She would say, "I do it myself!" and was quite proud of herself. :)

Sam had fun kicking around, too! And doing backfloats. It was pretty exciting!

And here's a teensy video of our experience  . . . teensy because it is hard to video and hang onto squirmy little girls at the same time. Hooray for swimming!

Oh, Brother!

(Sorry for the rather blurry images -- taken on a phone)

 Sweet little kiddos sitting together on the chair. 
All's fun and games until . . . 

Sammy ataaaack!

But don't worry . . .

He just wanted to eat her arm.

Ava says, "Ew."