Wisdom of Children

Ever since Lucy's birthday she has been saying things like this: "I'm too grown up for that." "I'm grown up now to have a big girl cup. I won't even put my hands in it" "I'm 4 now. I can do that." or "I'm not a little kid anymore." In the tub she said she was too old to play with our tub toys. But then after a day of being "grown up" she said she didn't want to be grown, because "Mommies don't get to play with Barbies." So she's decided it's okay to still be a kid.
(10-19-10)

This morning I woke up to hear Lydia in her room saying "Oh my gooness" to her self over and over again. I never did figure out what she was talking about.
(10-20-10)

The girls favorite treat from halloween are tootsie rolls, except they call them "Mint-see rolls" (Lydia) and "Tit-see rolls" (Lucy)
(11-2-10)

Lucy keeps asking me "Is today tomorrow?" She's really confused about how the tomorrow thing works.
(11-6-10)

Lucy was asking what day it was because she really wanted to go to church. I told her it was Friday and then Saturday and Sunday. Lydia heard and said "It's Sunday!" Lucy said "No! It's Fraturday!"
(11-12-10)

Lucy was talking to my dad about not having any hair. He said he has a little hair...Then Lucy said, "I have an uncle that has NO hair. His head is shiny. It's like golden!"
(12-27-10)

Lately Lydia says she has to go "poo poo" about three times before it actually comes out. SO, Lucy made up a song that goes "What do you do when you have to poo." Such little ladies I have...
(1-7-11)

Lydia was playing dress-ups the other day and I told her it was lunch time and to go take off her dress and put it away. She put her hand on her hip and said, "the princess doesn't want to." Such attitude!
(2-4-11)

Today Lydia was looking for me. She yelled "Mom! Mom! Anya! Anya! Come out come out where ev you are!"
(2-8-11)

Ughhh....

Got er dun! We just finished our first and LAST painting job. We painted our entire basement from start to finish in 2 days. (our poor children watched movie after movie for 2 days straight! Thank heavens for our tv, though! It was a GREAT babysitter. I hope I don't have to do that to them again!) It was A LOT of work but I think we did a pretty good job for novices. I learned a really good trick for getting perfect paint lines against the ceiling and baseboards. First you tape everything (we used Frog Tape, awesome!) then you get a PAINTABLE caulking and smear a very thin layer half over the tape and half on the wall. Then paint away! It was an extra step, but it worked perfect! No bleed through! Our paint edge looks better than the professionals did in our upstairs. (ok, maybe I'm a little biased...but still, I'm pretty proud.) SO...anywho...after the paint dried, we got our blinds hung up downstairs and had all this bubble wrap left over. I saved it and let the girls go wild on it.

Click here.

(the part you didn't see is when I put the camera away and jumped around on the bubble wrap like I was 4 years old. I had to show the girls how it's REALLY done. He he he! It was fun!)

They like their veggies!

I love my kids. They really are the best. Some days, I struggle with them, but then I have to remind myself that they are only little kids and they are learning EVERYTHING from me. (which is scary in and of its self!) So I just have to take a deep breath and sing the song "It won't be like this for long..." to myself and try to enjoy the moments be they getting along moments, or peed pants moments.

But, onto the point of my little post here. I'm pretty lucky with what my kids will eat. Lucy is a little picky, but not too bad, and then there's Lydia. She will eat almost anything. But both of them eat veggies pretty dang good. I was lazy splurged and bought a veggie tray and just let the girls go at it. It was a moment of pride, I must say. (Don't mind the messy hair. It was just after naps ok. I'm not one to fix hair if we aren't going anywhere. I think they look cute no matter what.)

(notice Lydia's dip face. she's all about the dip!)

I can slice up a cucumber and they will eat the whole thing! It's awesome. Now, I just need to join them and eat more veggies. That's my almost new year resolution.

Our Christmas!

This was our best Christmas EVER! We are in a new house...our kids actually know what's going on and are excited about it...they slept in Christmas morning...breakfast turned out just right! (meaning I didn't burn the cinnamon rolls)...I have an awesome husband!...and awesome family on both sides! 

We feel so lucky to be where we are and I have a hard time not crying when I think about it all.

Anyway...

(My memory card is little and ran out, hence, the cutting out at the end...)

Oh! Did you see that I have proof of Mike wearing a ruffly pink apron! Ha!

This is what Santa brought.

Lucy wanted a "kid magnifying glass" for a long time. It's all she ever said when people asked her want she wanted Santa to bring. Lydia always just said "treats" when asked. She LOVED the doll house, though. In fact, she wouldn't leave it to come eat my yummy breakfast! We all ate at about 7:45. She didn't decide she was hungry till 9:30! I guess that means Santa did a good job in her book!

These are what Mom Santa made:

The girls LOVED their tents. Lydia calls them Temples.

I saw tents like these online at Pottery Barn, for mucho dinero of course, and I thought, "I could TOTALLY make those!" No sooner, I saw other ladies in the blog world making tents just like em, so I gathered up my free donated fabric (thanks, Mike's mom) and sewing supplies (thanks Mom), pulled out my engineering genes (thanks, Dad) and concocted a plan. I'm just impressed they turned out! I HAVE SKILLS! (I only spent $2.30 each for the hoola hoops inside!)

I also made slip covers for this little table and chairs to match. All out of some left over fabric I scavenged!

(By the way, this whole organized-mannered-happy tea time lasted about 2 min.)

These petti coats/tutus are the cut off bottoms from really nasty lacy baby dresses I got at the DI. They make for cute skirts, though!

And finally...

The doll house!

I got this doll house in March or April from savers for $5.99! It was pretty ugly with a pale blue all over paint job and coming apart at the joints, but I could see it had potential. It got a major over haul and I think it turned our pretty good!

So...this was our thrift store/ homemade Christmas, and our best one yet!

Merry Christmas!

This is my next project:

This is an antique flat top steamer trunk. I found it at the DI for 20 bucks! These things are a hot item and I was SO excited to find one at the DI! I got there right at 10:00 when the doors open one day. (people seriously line up at the door waiting for the DI to open!) As I was examining it in the store about 5 other people came and stood behind me, or continued to circle around seeing if I was going to take it. Well. I bought it. (Mike doesn't know I bought it yet...He'll just wonder why there is a smelly old piece of garbage in our basement. But he probably won't notice it for a while...)

Someone attempted to "restore it" by spray painting the clasps gold, but did a REALLY crappy job. I'm going to attempt to restore it. This will mean lots of steel wool, elbow grease, and man hours, but I'm so excited for this project! I want to put it in our basement family room to hold blankets, when ever we get furniture down there...So, if you care...I'll post finished pictures. It might be a while till it gets done considering it's not fun to work in a freezing cold garage.

Our first snow woman in our own yard!

Isn't she beautiful?

Reuben, This one's for you!

Happy Birthday!
I know it was yesterday, but here is my gift to you...

A virtual slice of 4 layer dessert.
We had it in honor of you.
Go ahead...lick your computer screen...I know you want to.

Happy Birthday!
We love you and miss you!

Quality Sister Time. Nuf said.

Dutch Christmas

We had Dutch Christmas last weekend. Every year my grandma teaches us a new dutch word or phrase that we have to tell her as a password before we can go down stairs to open presents.

This year is was: (NOT spelled right in dutch, I'm sure) "I'm ya leva lassie" which means "I'm your lovely little girl" or something close to that... (The boy cousins had to say: "I'm yur stouta youngin" or "I'm your tuff little boy")

This is the girls giving the password.

They both got cute little outfits and little gifts...

...but I think the best part is the chicken noodle soup with cheese and bread sticks! YUMMY!!!!!

SNOW!

Ever since last winter, all through the summer, Lucy kept bringing up snow angels. She's been wanting SO bad to make a snow angel. Well, she finally got to!

It's hard to see, but she has a huge grin on her face!

Lydia just wanted to help shovel. And eat the snow. Her face was bright red and chapped from shoving show in her mouth for an hour!