Hunter's First Party

That is what's called a "double title". See, because this was Hunter's 1st birthday but these pictures are from his first party. See how clever I am??

Our family from Georgia unfortunately could not make it to Hunter's birthday party, so they mailed his present and we opened it while we Skyped with them. Success! The only problem was that the presents were so good the kids kind of forgot about the fact that we were Skyping with our family...

Patiently waiting for Skype to come up... poor child doesn't realize these are Hunter's presents!

"Daddy, let me help you!"

First thing that happens: Brianna finds that she does have a present! A very cool magic-color book!

"Hunter, allow me to help you."

Bri attempts to take pictures for us:

#17 - Make Cookie Cutter Ornaments

Finally, I get to cross something else off my 101 in 1001 list!

Yesterday Brianna and I (and kind of Hunter) made cookie cutter ornaments. What an easy craft, and they turned out so cute!

I stopped by a local thrift store this morning and bought some Christmas cookie cutters - a sleigh, an angel, a teddy bear (I guess that's not really Christmas...) and a gingerbread man. They were 25 cents each. I had scrapbooking paper that Leila left here after she designed Brianna's nursery. (Thank you Leila!) And I already had the beads and ribbon I used. CHEAP!

First, you're going to want to trace the ornament onto a piece of patterned paper or you can photocopy pictures onto card stock. I did it on a cutting board because for my first ornament, I cut it out using an X-Acto knife. I highly recommend just using sewing scissors - the knife worked well but I had to go back around and fix the jagged edges.



Trace the ornament onto the paper:


Cut it out:



Dab craft glue (I used tacky glue) along the cookie cutter's edge. Press the paper in place and let dry. Thread a ribbon through a needle; poke between paper and cookie cutter, and wrap ribbon around top of cutter. Slip a bead over ribbon's ends; knot.



As you can see, I tweaked it a little bit. The beads I had wouldn't fit through the ribbon I had (and liked), so instead, I just used two beads and knotted the ribbon at the top.

Voila! Easy Christmas ornaments, and these would make a cute gift too!

Pictures Again

These are all from September. I can't believe I still have pictures from September sitting on my camera, but yes, I see I haven't even blogged about Hunter's birthday parties yet. I'll get there eventually. Definitely by December. Until then...

Brianna is learning to take pictures. She's actually not too bad. Here we are playing with the camera.






Let Brianna show you the steps of changing a diaper. Our cousin Emma actually knit(ted?) this blanket for Bri when she was a baby! Now Bri can use it for her baby dolls!

1. Lay Baby down.

2. Lift Baby's legs.

3. Quickly slide diaper under Baby.

4. And you're on your way to a clean Baby! (She actually does help change Hunter's diapers, don't ask me why she wants to do that.)

This is what exhaustion looks like:

Or perhaps this:

September is also when Bri learned how to draw smiley faces!

On the Move

A couple of weeks ago, Hunter kind of started walking. I never noted it on my blog, but that's okay because I looked back to 2010 and I never noted on here when Brianna started walking either. I know she was around 15 months old but I guess it wasn't that big a deal to make an entire post out of. So, Hunter took a few steps, and he walked back and forth between me and Stephen some, but nothing like walking across the entire room or anything. But one day Brianna noticed me walking with Hunter, holding one of his hands. Behold, a new form of entertainment was born. Now, pretty regularly, she will got to Hunter and say, "Hunter, wanna walk with me?" These pictures and video were taken the first day they did this together. They thought it was hilarious. It kept them occupied for so. long.

From the kitchen...

Into the bedroom...

Out of the bedroom...

Back into the bedroom...

Not sure if you can tell here, but every time he would fall he would reach right back up for her!

Into the closet... (it's puzzle mania in here!)

Oh! Good catch!

A short video of it:

Musical Girl

I've been meaning to write a post about how musical Brianna is. Now, I assume most kids around 2 years old may show an interest in music because I know at even younger than the age of one they are able to clap and show interest in rhythm and sway and things like that. So I'm not saying she's more musical than other kids her age, all I'm saying is that I love how quickly she is able to learn songs because it creates some really fun games for us! (I can distinctly remember my niece Claire singing one of the songs from "Happy Feet" when she was like 16-18 months old or something like that, so it just goes to show that they can learn them very early!)

Part of Brianna's bedtime routine has always been to sing to her. This was created by her and the songs really haven't changed in a year and a half. When she was about 21 months old, we put her in Kindermusik, which is like a Mommy and Me music class. Here at 31 months (whaaaa!?!?) she is still loving it. We did a curriculum last year that featured different songs so she is learning totally new songs this year, which is great considering we have the CDs from last year's classes so we can still hear them anytime we want. So some of her favorite songs are songs the average person probably wouldn't know. But now she has added in some of her favorite songs to her bedtime routine: Amazing Grace, You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, I'm a Little Teapot, I'm in the Lord's Army, Zaccheus, Ring Around the Roses, and usually something from preschool. For some reason she never requests some of her favorites, like Muffin Man, Hokey Pokey or Get On Board. Usually I have to tell her we're going to stop singing because the singing part of the bedtime routine can take 20 minutes, especially if I'm feeling especially kind.

All this to say, she picks up songs really quickly, learning the words and the melody, and I totally love it. She sits with me in choir practice a lot, and although she spends a lot of her time coloring, she does a lot of dancing as well, and also when we finish a song she will say, "Again!?"

She doesn't understand that on Sunday nights at church there is choir practice and on Wednesday nights there isn't. (Obviously I don't expect her to understand this...) So basically every time we walk into church she says, "We're going to choir?" or "I wanna do choir". Last night at church when she walked in saying that, Stephen and I looked at each other and said, "Well, go on up and sing with a microphone!" We always get there early because youth group starts 30 minutes before regular church, so while there were people milling about it wasn't an overwhelming number. She took a microphone up to the front with her but when she realized people where watching her she hid under the pulpit and refused to sing - "Mommy do it!" After just a couple of minutes, though, she realized no one could see her in her hiding spot and she started belting it out. I had to hold the microphone up to her mouth for her rendition of Amazing Grace but by the time she got to You Are My Sunshine she was holding the mic like an expert and really singing out!

Someone asked if she would do it on a Sunday and I said, probably if she could hide under the pulpit again! Haha!

More Pictures

Brianna really wanted to wear one of my shirts the other day, although it was certainly more like a dress on her! Here she is getting her very first My Little Pony, courtesy of Gail!

t's not very often that Bri gets to pick out her own clothes - all the kids clothes are in a downstairs closet even though both their bedrooms are upstairs. Having the clothes in a downstairs closet makes it easier on ME to just throw out some random clothes in the morning. But every so often she does get the opportunity to rummage through the closet. Thus, the sweatshirt/dress/leggings outfit is born:

Believe it or not, he's not asleep. Hunter is such a chill kid - he just lounges on the couch like this!

Jenn and I after the Scarecrow Run (5K) last month! We both placed 2nd in our age groups! My time was 28:46 if I remember the seconds correctly, which knocks off almost two whole minutes from my time in March. Now I only need to knock off six more minutes before I can compete with my other sister Jennifer!

This is what tends to happen when stickers are given out after Kindermusik:

Brianna is obviously my daughter. Here she is enjoying sushi with me while Stephen was deployed. (Hers was just Nori seaweed and rice!)

One day I updated my status on Facebook - at Kindermusik the kids are encouraged to "wash" the walls with dry sponges and sing a song called "Wishy Washy". Imagine my surprise one day when Brianna carried that over to our own house. Although instead of a dry sponge she was using lotion and her hands!

My response: give her Windex and a rag.

Making Cookies

I walked into the bedroom the other day where Brianna was playing. She had gotten cupcake liners from one of the kitchen drawers and hand sanitizer from the diaper bag. She set out all the cupcake liners in a row and was squeezing small amounts of the sanitizer into each liner. When I walked in she proclaimed that she was making cookies and when I began to protest she said fervently, "But they're COOKING!" So, what could I do? I only let her make a dozen.

More Pictures To Explain Life

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to host a giveaway on my frugal blog for Betty Crocker. I got a new pan and cookie mix to product test, review, and then give away another set! It was not rigged, but my mom actually won the giveaway!

Meanwhile, Brianna and I had a ball making the cookies to product test and review!

The mailing paper was perfect for Brianna to color on!

She loves making cookies! (Loves eating them more!)