Next week is Spring Break for the kids, so today Sam's Kindergarten class had their Green Day Party for St. Patrick's Day. The school is really trying to reduce the amount of sweets brought in for snacks, birthday treats, and classroom parties. Not an easy task with some holiday parties.
Food assignments were sent home a couple weeks ago and I was asked to bring spinach or bananas. Thursday night when I went shopping, the banana's were bright green ... so I picked up a bag of baby spinach and green grapes and kiwi so I'd have lots of options incase something went south in the kitchen.
Thankfully, our school hasn't gone the way of many who do not allow any homemade or home prepared food to be served in school. I decided I would give a quiche a try ... raw spinach just didn't seem like something 5 and 6 year olds would eat ... and I didn't think sauteed spinach would go over well either. So I consulted mom for a good crustless quiche recipe and gave it a whirl using a variation of my sisters favorite from the Moosewood cookbook. It was divine, and the entire pan got served up, and quite a few kids ate it - not mine, but I did see plenty of other kids eating it!
Alex is following in Sam's footsteps. Sam attended everyone of Emily's Kindergarten parties I helped with, and Alex is fitting right in just like his older brother did. He went right into the classroom, found Sam, Sam got him an extra seat and stuck to Sam like Velcro.
I'm looking for a cute, semi-casual, yet a bit dressy, brown shoe ... shoes I can wear with or without hose, and with a skirt or maybe with dress slacks. Not high heels, not open toed, but that in between spring/summer cute brown shoe. So while looking for a cute brown shoe ... a kitten heel or a sling back, or even a slide ... I found these ... here's a better picture.
So here's the dilemma. They look comfortable, and while comfort is a consideration, I'm looking for more than just comfort. They must be stylish. I really like the flower detail, but does it make up for the less than attractive, dare I say, Schoolmarm, Nun heel?
Today is Grandpa Bob's birthday and given that we spent the weekend in St. Louis, and it's a school night, we celebrated in. Rebecca called to ask Grandpa what he wanted as his birthday cake ... fruit pie, cream pie, cupcakes, layer cake, cheesecake, what ever he wanted. He requested cheesecake, and we took a cheesecake factory cheesecake sampler with three different flavors over after dinner to celebrate.
The kids made a card for him. On the back I traced each child hand and had them dictate to me all the things they love about Grandpa Bob. writing them within their hand prints. It was sweet and heart warming to hear them rattle off all their favorite things about Grandpa, what has left a lasting impression on their young hearts ... he plays with me, he makes us ice cream, he fixes things for us, he built the playhouse for us, etc.
I asked Emily, "How do you know Grandpa loves you?"
"Because he wouldn't do all those things for us, if he didn't." (in an innocent, duh mom tone)
What a great reminder that what is important to our children and grandchildren is our love and time, nothing more. To them it's so simple. I've gotta get a picture of the back of that card. It is a priceless treasure I need to preserve for them.
Alex and I got out of the house for a morning at the library ... we saw lots of our playgroup friends there, played with Duplos, picked up new Arthur and Franklin books for Alex, and a new book on CD for me. Then met Papa for lunch, went to the grocery store to take advantage of a baby food sale, stopped in at the craft store for 15" of orange jumbo ric rac so I could finish a baby blanket bundle ... and got home just before the big kids came home from school.
Earlier this month one of the bloggers I follow wrote about making ATC (Artist Trading Cards) with her children and swapping their creations with another friends children. What sponed from this little weekend activity, was an Artist Trading Card swap for kids ages 5-12, that 900 kids from all over the world signed up to participate. The kids were divided up in groups of six, paired with five other kids their age. Rules were emailed out, and a deadline was set (2/28). We got special heavy duty artist paper from the craft store, cut it down to the correct size - 2.5" x 3.5", collected all the necessary art supplies from around the house, did research on what artist trading cards look like, did lots of practicing and lots of creating!
The kids worked on them here and there for a full week, spending most of the past two Fridays, when they were home from school, working on their masterpieces. They had a really good time, came up with their own subject matter and titles and we even made small envelopes using some of Rebecca's scrapbook paper to hold their cards. I am so pleased with each child's creativity and their willingness to participate in this experience. They did a great job experimenting with different mediums and trying to do their very best work.
All of Emily's are going to the US, Rebecca has one going to the United Kingdom, and Sam is sending two overseas ... one to Australia and one to Dubai!
ETA: Their swap mates ATCs started arriving this week. Rebecca has already emailed one of her swapmates and has a letter drafted to another. It looks like she's going to get a few pen pals from the experience.
Once all the cards are in, my plan is to create a collage frame of all six ATCs (one from each of their swapmates and one of their own) to hang in their room.
Lori made an amazing Banana Sour Cream Cake for our January Enrichment I've been wanting to make for the family. Last week Sam and the girls wanted something to do after school and I suggested they make this cake for our dessert. I printed out the recipe, told them where to find the ingredients and with little more instruction from me, let them make the cake.
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BANANA SOUR CREAM CAKE
1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1 cup fat free sour cream
1/4 cup oil (or applesauce)
1 pkg. (8 oz.) 1/3 fat cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 pkg. (16 oz.) powdered sugar (about 4 cups)
1 cup Walnut Pieces, finely chopped
HEAT oven to 350°F. Beat cake mix, eggs, bananas, sour cream and oil with mixer on low until moistened, scraping bottom of bowl often. Beat on medium 2 min. Pour into greased and floured 13x9-inch pan. BAKE 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake completely in pan on wire rack. BEAT cream cheese and butter with mixer on medium until blended. Gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition. REMOVE cake from pan. Carefully cut cake crosswise in half using serrated knife. Place 1 cake half, top-side down, on plate; spread top with frosting. Top with remaining cake half, top side up. Frost top and sides. Press nuts onto sides. Refrigerate leftovers.
Note: Lori says you can successfully substitute applesauce for the oil!
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Apparently, Rebecca was in charge of reading the directions and Sam and Emily were in charge of putting the ingredients in the mixer. Halfway through making the cake they realized they had put the cream cheese in the cake batter instead of waiting and using it for the frosting.
It was a great teaching moment ... I was able to talk to the girls about the importance of instructions and why you need to read through them a couple of times before you get started ... and I learned that I really need to give them more opportunities to make things in the kitchen with little interference from me - they can do it and they are old enough, even if the mess is out of control! Honestly, given the way the recipe is written on Kraft's website, it wouldn't surprise me if a number of adults haven't made this same mistake.
We baked up the cake anyway, frosted it (it's the cake pictured) and had it for dessert Wednesday night. It's not a mistake I recommend making. Thanks to the frosting, it was eatable. The cake hadn't baked correctly and we all decided a second attempt was necessary. Thursday afternoon I made it a second time so I could prove to GR (who had flatly refused to eat any of the girls cake) that it was an excellent cake and so I could take it to Julie's for Survivor. Everyone loved it! This is my new favorite cake that is not chocolate - where was this recipe when Anna couldn't tolerate any chocolate in my system?!
Last night I was desperate for something different to make for dinner. Soup is an underutilized meal option in this house, and I've been wanting to change that. So I went in search of a soup that used a some ingredients I needed to use up ... namely chicken and potatoes.
The recipe was relatively simple, used stuff I always have on hand, was yummy and everyone ate it - meeting all the necessary requirements to be added to the home cookbook for future dinners. I'm thinking it would freeze well for those who like to do that kind of thing. For reference, here's the original recipe.
CHUNKY CHICKEN-POTATO SOUP
3 medium potatoes or 6 small potatoes
1/3 cup dry diced onion (or medium onion)
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cans chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1-1/2 cups cooked, cubed chicken
1-1/2 cups milk
1 (16 oz.) can corn, drained
Peel and dice potatoes into 1/2 cubes, rinse under cold water and set aside.
Place dry diced onion in small glass dish, cover with water and microwave 45 seconds to reconstitute.
In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the onion, stir until heated, approx. 1 minute (if using fresh onion, cook stirring, until wilted, 1-2 minutes.). Stir in the flour and cook stirring constantly, until the flour and butter are completely blended, 1- 2 minutes.
Slowly pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly. When the mixture returns to a boil, add the potatoes and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the pan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.
While potatoes cook, dice the chicken. Increase the heat to medium when the soup returns to a boil, stir in chicken, milk and corn. Cook until chicken is heated through.
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The chicken was leftover from a crockpot chicken recipe I heard about on the radio. The flavor was very nice and I think it really complemented the soup.
1 whole chicken (4-5lbs)
1 lemon, pierced
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup orange juice
Clean chicken cavity, pierce lemon and insert in cavity and place in bottom of crockpot. Mix honey and orange juice and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours. Remove skin and bones and serve.
Today the girls have a spirit day activity at school that Rebecca informed me of on Saturday. I told her that if we needed supplies we had to purchase them Saturday night ... they couldn't be purchased Sunday or Monday morning. I also explained to both girls they would need to be 100% ready to walk out the door -- breakfast eaten, teeth brushed, shoes on, backpacks packed, jackets found, etc. -- at 7:00am, giving me 15 minutes to work on each girls hair. To make hair their length crazy with only rubber bands -- sorry I nixed the desire to use hair "spray paint" and decided that doing an egg white/Elmers glue concoctions to get spikes, was impractical given the amount of time we'd have in the morning to pull it off -- I was going to need every bit of those 15 minutes to do anything with their hair.
The results ...
Emily let me do what I wanted, and I love the results. It's fun and quirky, without being too distracting. I use to do this to the girls hair when they were younger on a smaller scale - one twist bun on each side of their head. Emily now has too much hair to do it with, and I'm not sure Rebecca's is long enough.
Rebecca handed me four bows and rubber bands and I was given creative licensing from there. Isn't it fantastic! Her's definitely has the crazy hair day look going for her! I divided the hair in to quarters, braided each section, looped it, and secured it with the hair bow clip.
I just hope both styles survive a day on the playground!
ETA: It turns out that today WAS NOT crazy hair day! The girls weren't the only ones who thought that today was the day stuco had designated as crazy hair day. The girls just took down their hair and stuffed all the rubber bands and bows in their backpacks.
[Remember Sam's Silly Hair Day at preschool? We offered lots of suggestions, but he was very content to sit this one out!]
This post may really only make sense to my parents and sibblings, well and GR of course, since he took the pictures. So please allow me to indulge a bit in remembering.
The images are scans of damaged 35 mm film taken, I think, during the fall of 1996, it could possibly be the fall of 1997. The film was scanned back when I was working, so 7 years or so ago. I'm sure scanners today could do a better job of "restoring" the images if I knew where the film was...
They are pictures of me and my little brother Sam (for whom my Sam is named) ... GR and I were visiting my parents for the weekend. Sam had gotten the 68' Chevelle running and took me for a drive on my parents street. He drove me around the two cul-de-sacs and then turned the wheel over to me and I drove the beast home. It's the only time I driven the Chevelle, and I'm glad I got to experience it with Sam.
Now, I wish I could remember more about the experience. If it were not for the pictures, I'm not sure I would remember it at all. What I love about these pictures is the barely noticeable expressions on Sam's face ... the proud confidence of taking his big sister on a drive in a car he'd worked really hard on cleaning up and getting moving ... then the reversal of rolls, as for a few minutes, he became my big brother, opening the big heavy pea green doors of Chevelle and telling me to switch places with him. Giving me the encouragement and the confidence to drive us home, as if he were the 21 year old and I was the 16 year old on my first drive around the block.
Tonight marks 11 years since Cam and Sam's accident ... the accident Heavenly Father used to instantly call Sam home. While the rawness of this weekend in 1998 has healed, pictures like these, or those my Dad recently reclaimed from their scouting days, or talking about Sam around the dinner table this past Christmas, remind me how much I miss him, and how hard I want to work to be with him again.
[** I uploaded the pictures so you can click on them and see them in their larger format ... given the poor quality of the film and the motion blur it might better help you tell when Sam is driving and when I am driving. I'd forogtten the massive perportion difference between his frame and mine ... and yet I could still lift him off his feet when needed! **]
Remember this shining face? If you're old school university ward - and a handful of you are - you already know Kim. If you're not, many, many, many moons ago we were in town friends ... but marriage, school, babies, and a bunch of moves have made us long distance, via the internet - okay we can be honest here - via our blogs friends. [Mom, Kim's the one who taught Rebecca most of her American Sign Language words as a toddler.]
She's needing a little help from her friends, and her friends, friends, so I hope you'll oblige. Have you heard of BlogHer? It's a conference of women bloggers (who mainly use their blogs as a business venture) and this summer marks it's 5th year. Kim is a finalist in a contest to send her to this summers conference in Chicago, expenses paid! The only way she'll make it there is if she gets the most votes on this poll which ends on the 23rd of February. So if you wouldn't mind checking out her blog, and giving her a shout out on the poll (she's the second one listed), I'd appreciate it and I know this awesome mama would too!
At the beginning of the year I was released from teaching primary and given a new calling at church ... I am now the ward communication specialist. As part of my calling I prepare the Sunday bulletin and maintain the ward website.
While archaic and at times extremely frustrating, the ward website (housed within www.lds.org) does have a couple cool functions. One of those functions is the ability to send an email broadcast to all registered members with a valid email address listed.
Since external member email lists are a no-no, we are now sending our weekly ward email via the ward website and today - today - is the very first time all year that:
1. The email sent the very first time without failing - more than once I've had to submit the weekly announcement recap email three times before it would actually send.
2. I finally figured out how to keep all my - " and ' from turning into ? and other weird characters.
3. [and this is the big one] I didn't call the technical support line to talk with Rachel or Lizzie for help with a problem!
Since the first of the year, I've been a sub in primary twice, helped teach a lesson to the young women, taught relief society on this conference talk, and finally today, spoke in church.
I really hope this means I'm done for a little while.
Me preparing to speak or teach is not a pretty experience. While I love the studying part of preparing to speak or teach, collecting my thoughts, and organizing them into something with an introduction, main points and conclusion, with personal experiences, analogies, scriptures, and original material mixed with quotes from prophets ... is in GR's words, painful to watch. The entire house comes to a screeching halt while mom is glued to the computer pouring over conference talks and Ensign articles, trying to decide what exactly she's suppose to share with a room full of people who are so much more qualified to speak on any topic than she is.
I must have followed the Spirit correctly on Sunday and shared what I was suppose to, because in all my years of speaking in church, I can't remember ever having more than two or three people tell me they appreciated my talk, and this time I did.
My topic was the topic for Primary on Sunday as well, "The priesthood blesses my family." We talk a lot about the blessings of the priesthood in the church, but not so much on how it directly blesses the family, so I found preparing for this talk very interesting as it pertains to our family.
I'll share two points from my talk ...
First ... "... the most important exercise of the priesthood takes place in the family. [We have been taught that] each husband and father in the Church should strive to be worthy to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. With his wife as an equal partner, he presides in righteousness and love, serving as the family's spiritual leader. He leads the family in regular prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. He works with his wife to teach the children and help them prepare to receive the ordinances of salvation (see D&C 68:25–28). He gives priesthood blessings for direction, healing, and comfort.(True to the Faith)" ...
"Elder Merrill J. Bateman, in a conference talk a few years ago stated, “It is expected that worthy holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood will use the power delegated to them to bless others, starting with their own families. One of the great inheritances of the Restoration is that a father ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood has the right to bless his wife and children when prompted and when a blessing is desired by them.”
Second ... "One of the lessons I will take from preparing this talk is that my husband and I need to do a better job of providing opportunities for our children to receive priesthood blessing from their father. To see, beyond the influence of having a righteous loving priesthood holder lead our family in family prayer and family home evening and scripture study. Over the years, they have watched him, after hanging up the phone, stop what he is doing, put on a white shirt and tie, double check his consecrated oil, and quietly walk out the door to assist in giving a blessing many times, but have rarely witnessed it in our own home."
We had lots of valentine activities during the week all gearing up to a quiet Valentine's Day spent with the ones we love.
The kids easily made over 100 Valentine's. The three older kids needed very little help from Mom this year - I just provided all the supplies, lots of heart cut outs, glue sticks, special valentine pencils and tape. Thanks to my stock pile of scrapbook paper, various heart punches, and my circut (GR's Valentine gift to me last year - purchased just for projects like this) my involvement this year in this part of the process was less hands on than it's been in the past. It's always fun to see how each child chooses to use the exact same supplies, they all turned out a little differently and were all charming.
For Alex's playgroup valentines, I used the "My Funny Valentine" clipart again for the 3rd year in a row - this has honestly been the best $5 I've spent on clipart. Alex and Anna had a great time at the Valentine party at playgroup. We got to visit with friends, pass our valentines, eat sugar cookies, play with playdough and decorate a Valentine bag. Having a bag of Valentine's for Alex was so helpful Friday after school when all the big kids came home with thier bags and buckets of valentines. Alex was able to join in the fun of dumping out his Valentines and reading through them just like the big kids. And he had just enough little treats included with his cards that it kept him happy and out of the big kids candy too!
GR and the kids helped me cut out sugar cookies for a cookie decorating playdate we had after school Wednesday. One of our playmates has a sensitivity to red dye #40. I wanted him to have the option of decorating cookies with something other than white frosting and white sprinkles, so I went on a hunt for a natural red food dye and decorations. I called my local natural food store - they no longer carry a natural red food dye, and most of what I saw commercially online wouldn't get here in time and was a little expensive for an occasional batch of frosting. The discontinued dye came from beets, and the dye free/vegan blogs I found, used raspberries to tint frosting pink. So after consulting these resources, and making a phone call to Sandy Gluck of Everyday Food, I decided to give both raspberries and beets a try. I ended up using ~1-1/2 tablespoons of raspberry puree (made by pushing frozen raspberries through a sieve) and a teaspoon or so of beet juice from a can of beets. The result was beautiful and scrumptious. I've run into red dye issues before, and I'm so glad I now have an alternative that I can easily use in the future.
There is nothing quite like the thrill of getting a piece of real mail delivered to you, expectedly or unexpectedly. Maybe that's why it's always been important to me that our kids send valentines to the special people in our lives. We don't always get them sent to the same people each year, and we've been known to send digital valentines, but I'm hopeful that it's teaching them an important lesson about letting the special people in our lives know how important they are to us.
We hope your Valentine's Day was special and that you were surrounded by reminders of how much you are loved and appreciated! We celebrated with lunch out with Grandma and Grandpa - Rebecca requested Mexican so we abliged, GR bought new appliances we had scouted out the night before on our "date", and had heart shaped pancakes for dinner, complete with red sprinkles, whipped cream and strawberries.
(Alex and Anna at the playgroup party Thursday.)
Earlier this month GR and I received a gift from one of our ward members! GR had asked her to make him a hat using the brightest yarn she had and after finishing his, she decided to swap out the red for hot pink and make one for me. I think these will make great additions to our emergency car kits ... my winter coats are dark brown or black and I figure this could double as safety feature!
January was Alex and my turn to plan playgroup. January weather in Kansas over the last 10 years or so has proven to be much like a yo-yo, fridged one day, summer like the next. Thankfully the yo-yo swung in our favor all month long, since we picked these activities on the 1st of January and for the life of me all I could find was a 10 day forecast.
Our first playgroup activity for week one was a trip to a local museum. Alex and I had the entire museum to ourselves and discovered little treasures we'd never seen before - and didn't feel the least bit bad about breezing through the entire four level museum in 30 minutes flat. Sometimes we are fast, and sometimes we are slow.
Week two we scheduled an open play day in the church cultural hall, hoping everyone would be looking for an opportunity to get out and run. The weather performed beautifully - all weather forecasts were hoping for a HIGH of ~10 that day. Kids played and played and played for two hours! before mama's and kids finally headed home for lunch and naps. Our little band of boys (I had picked up 2 extra cute boys for the morning) stayed a little later and enjoyed the big empty cultural hall all to ourselves.
Week three brought warmer temperatures (high 40s) and a hike around the neighborhood lake and playing on the playground. For this activity, Alex and I held up the rear of the group the entire time, never actually making it to the playground. He wanted to look and see and explore every possible inch of the nature trail. We listened to birds sing and watched them fly, we found frozen Osage oranges starting to thaw, and fuzzy green moss, and hoof tracks in the mud, and lots of sticks.
[Please note Alex's hat. GR made it for him to replace his rainbow hat which he's worn for the last two years, which of course is now way too small.]
Week four was our Kansas Day celebration. We planned a couple of simple crafts - a tissue paper sunflower (glue squares of yellow and brown tissue paper to a blue sheet of construction paper) and a Kansas facts coloring page - and had balloons kids could bounce and kick and throw around the cultural hall. Then we shared a simple but bountiful potluck lunch/snack before cleaning up and heading home.
I must say all the 2009 playgroups have been very well attended (including this weeks trip to Baker Bob's - by far the most popular!) ... other than our museum trip (which I understand not everyone heard about in time to come) we've had the same 20-30 kids at each one!
A great opportunity for cake AND birthday candles! Thank you Kansas!
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The more and more I learn about the CPSIA and how it will potentially impact my life and my little business the more and more I pray the government will not turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the concerns being voiced with how it is currently laid out. If you're not sure what I'm talking about ... read this. It's what hundreds of bloggers posted yesterday, hopefully you saw it on someone's blog.
For information about the CPSIA and how to make your voice heard, I found this CPSIA Action Kit made up by Etsy extremely helpful. I'm extremely frustrated with Dennis Moore at the momment. I've sent him three seperate emails and I've heard NOTHING back from him.
I seriously need to move pictures off the mini Nikon so I can share what we've been doing around here lately ... but in the mean time more about our Winter Break ...
My brother's future father-in-law gave him a fantastic vintage popcorn popper for Christmas and he allowed my kids to experience it our last night in St. Louis. The three of them had seen one at a small diner on one of their road trips and Joe commented how cool it was. 6 months later, it was his Christmas gift, and we were thrilled to spend the evening with Joe and Katy helping them test it out for the first time.
It is a truly amazing little machine that pops a perfect batch of popcorn everytime! It's a bit like a mouse trip I guess, in that it operates on the tripping of levers. To start the machine, the operator lowers a lever which puts everything in to action ... the heating of the heating element, the shaking of the popcorn tin, and then once the popcorn has finished popping - popping up to just the right height so every kernel is popped, the height of the popped popcorn trips the lever, stopping the shaking of the tin, and turning off the heating element. Amazing and fun to watch!
I think we polished off no less than 6 little trays of popcorn before we all agreed it was time to walk away - but it was so hard. Hot fresh, perfectly salted popcorn - ummmmm good.
Remember my special Election Day Dinner? I thought it would be fun to do something similar for the Inauguration. I'd heard that the Inauguration luncheon was going to be duck w/sweet potatoes. I had pork chops - I know it's not a substitute for duck, but I had them and they *needed* to be cooked. Instead of going with the tried and true family favorite recipe, I opted to try an experiment. An experiment that sounded quick and yummy and different and special. The unanimous consensus from everyone - not so much.
It was on Monday's Martha! that I heard about the inauguration menu - duck breast with cherry chutney and sweet potatoes - and they shared the recipes. I personally love sweet potatoes, but my family - not so much. Although everyone tried these molasses whipped sweet potatoes, I'm the only one who finished her serving and a lot got put into the trash - grrr, I hate that! They were a bit too sweet, if that's possible. I've decided I didn't have enough sweet potatoes. The recipe called for large sweet potatoes, and my grocery store had the dinky-est sized sweet potatoes I've ever seen.
At least the broccoli was properly cooked and everyone enjoyed the apple crisp I made for dessert!
All the grandma's and the grandpa's are out of town, so my typical picture sharing method ... the amazing Ceiva photo frames we got them for Mother's day last year... isn't helping them stay up on what's going on with the grandkids. So here's a little of what they have been up to in the last couple of days ...
While I'm nursing the baby, Alex seeing Mom's threats will be idle ones, builds a tower with the spices, dumps 2 partial bags of chocolate chips on the stove along with a bag of red pepper flakes. He quickly learned red pepper flakes aren't too tasty ... "Mouth Ouchy, Mom! Kiss it!" ... I gave him milk instead.
Climbing on the counter is his new favorite thing to do. He can manage to do everything fromt his position. Thursday night, he helped me make corn muffins for dinner.
One of my favorite toys for babies is a spool of ribbon. Give baby ribbon, they shake and play with it until it's all unwound, you wind it back up, and repeat. Here Anna's playing with all my burp cloth bundle ribbons.
Alex seems to be transitioning out of nap time. We're doing one or two naps a week, not a daily nap. If we do daily naps, he's laying in his bed talking or singing for nearly two hours, making it nearly impossible for Sam to get a good nights sleep. Consequently, Alex occasionally will fall asleep in the evening ... here, he fell asleep after eatting dinner while everyone was watching playoff games.
** By the way, if any of you are interested in getting someone you love a digital photo frame you can upload pictures to via the internet, we highly recommend Ceiva. If you decide to go this route, email me before you purchase. I'll send you an email via Ceiva (friend referral offer) that will save you $50 and I get two months free. **
