Christmas Morning

Christmas was so much fun this year, both kids are at an age where opening presents is a fun thing.  Fiona was way into hearing about Santa and Jesus and all other Christmas things in between.  We found a church a few months ago that we have really been enjoying so we had planned to go to the 6pm Christmas Eve service but Fiona didn't nap (I think she may be about to drop her nap because she only took one in a full week.  She has now been sick for 3 days so she has slept a lot this weekend) she was so grouchy by 4pm that we were just afraid of how she would do during the service.  So we changed our plans and ate dinner early and went to bed early, after getting new Christmas eve Jammies.  In the morning everyone's moods had improved greatly.   I made cinnamon rolls the night before and popped them in the oven while we opened presents.  JR's mom, Bindy, came up around 8:10 so she got to see the kids opening most of their presents.  

James with his band in a box maracas: 

 Getting the hang of it, with some help: 

 She didn't need any convincing to start opening presents: 

 New board game (has anyone seen the new Candy Land board? Talk about overstimulation!)

 Santa brought puppets!

  Latches board/puzzle, one of the favorites of the day: 

 

 My favorite picture of the morning, Fiona's puppet tickling James, he can't stand it, ticklish boy!

 The aftermath:  

 Santa brought Just Dance Kids 2 for our Wii, JR was tired of getting his butt kicked so he changed into better dance clothes (I still beat him): 

 Playing with Grandma, can you tell?  I totally failed at taking pictures after the initial ones.  Once Bindy got here I was too busy talking and opening toy packages.  Mama B, you need to come back soon so I can get pictures. Sorry!

 Fiona's solar powered LED lit bamboo wood dollhouse, it's a hit with everyone: 

 The people must have been eating on the patio, with the Duplo Cars Car.  She set this up herself, I though it was super cute. 

 As you can see the furniture gets moved around a lot, as I'm typing this there are two kids in the crib on the roof with an alligator.  Good times!

Still here, still no motivation (well, some, because I've just created a post!!)

Harold with his purple crayon (which apparently only about 20% of the population know this story, who knew?!)

 Kitty cat

 Looking at these pictures make me realize how bad he needed a hair cut.  I cut his hair, didn't do too bad, hopefully I can perfect my skills before he's old enough for his friends to make fun of him. :) (Pics later)

 Looks fun, but she was trying to run away from me so I couldn't get her picture.  Hahaha, turned out to be a great picture!

 Warmer fall day...long gone. 

 Love this toy!

 "Mommy, I think you should get off of the trike."  "Oh, why can't I ride it?"  "I'm afraid you might break it."  

Sorry I've been absent, I saw that I still have blog hits so that motivated me to keep posting.  Thanks to anyone who is still here.  JR got a promotion and with that he accepted a different shift, 9am-6pm which in actuality means he gets home on average around 7:30pm every night.  Sucks, but hopefully he can switch back soon.  The end of the day my computer time is Facebook or Babycenter (very little thinking!), but I've been wasting too much time there, I need to make an effort to blog much more!

Spray, squirt, pour, and splash!

A few months ago I found the Play at Home Mom blog, it has changed our house in a huge way.  One of their main focuses is giving your kids freedom to be creative and to learn through play.  I've never been afraid of the kids getting messy, but this is totally letting go (as you saw in the previous post).  I saw this idea on their blog and I knew Fiona would love all the different pouring, spraying, squirting etc.  She also really loves mixing colors.

  The Play at Home Moms (PAHMs) set up an invitation and just let the kids at it without any instruction, this part is really hard!  So here is the invitation that I set up while the kids were napping.  Different bottles from around the house, each with water and different color food coloring.  This was also really fun for me as I was playing with my manual photography skills. 

This is what she started with, she actually looked at me for approval when she started to pour, I just nodded and after that she went with it. Oscar wanted to see what was going on but with one pour of water he was out.

 Pour:

 Squirt: 

 Shake:

 Drip:

 James wasn't into it yet, sticks were much more fun: 

Love the concentration! 

 She was frustrated with the dropper because she was trying to shake the water out, so I showed her how to squeeze it. 

 Airplane:

  

 After about 15 minutes she finally discovered the sprayer, a favorite after that. 

 James joined in. 

 Peek-a-Boo!

 Oh, I can spray James with this!

 F.J. the bartender

 I brought a nectarine out to share, but James wouldn't let go of it. Nomnomnom...

I have a lot more from our activities from the PAHM blog that I'll post (maybe a bunch in one post), but the ideas and projects I have used have all been so much fun.  I've also really loosened up with letting Fiona make choices and giving her more freedom and her behavior has improved so much, it's been great.