kid fun

yea, so those last two of DPP? They aren't going anywhere, so I'm going to recover from my guilt-fest. Post them already, and move on to New Years posts and all that.

December 24

I thought that after the cardboard box "presents" under the tree picture, I ought to prove that the children were, indeed, well-endowed on Christmas morning. Much thanks to the paternal unit for doing pretty much all the wrapping. (Though I had to rewrap a couple that Marlowe "practiced" opening while we were waiting for Grammy and Poppy to arrive on Cmas morning)

December 25--The Big Day!

So this may be a totally uninspiring photo. Out of all possible pictures that could be had on Christmas, I had to choose one that had to be edited to smithereens because it was so hard to make out. But it captures one of my favorite moments of the day. After all that wonderful time with my wonderful family, of course. I had gotten Ellis a couple of art books, like with projects in them, not the kind with color plates and you leave on your coffee table. One of them was Good Earth Art by MaryAnn Kohl (love her!!!), with art projects focused on the world around us, either taking in nature, or clever ways for reusing materials. In the pile of Christmas Awesomeness, these books took a back seat. I figured they were more of a do-with-mom thing anyway, which was fine. As evening drew on, though, I looked over to the dining room table to see Ellis studying this book intently and then setting about on a project to make this little house from one of the many boxes then littering the premises. He's more of a Line the Cars up Rows Over and Over kind of kid, and not really a Making Projects kind of kid, so this had an extra measure of beam and joy from me. Definitely a highlight of my day.

We made chocolate covered pretzels. As you can imagine, Marlowe loved it. I melt some chocolate in the crock pot (which I actually stuck in the microwave--the crock part), because it was nice and big for lots of hands to be dipping in. I gave the kids bamboo skewers I had leftover from the summer. M had a blast fishing pretzels out of the chocolate with his skewer. E had fun until he got too many chocolate smudges on his hands, and I kept making him wash his hands after he licked his fingers. We made these as gifts, so I was super vigilant on the mouth plus chocolate thing, if you know what I mean.

what will it be tomorrow? William Shakespeare??

Bubble bath Santa

Got these fun lighty toys for the Wreath o' Fun. The kids are having so much fun with them. Might snag a couple for the Fourth of July, too.

Tom and Jerry

Salad spinner art. Big hit with the 2yo.

Last night we went to get the Christmas Tree. It's a bit early for us, and impulsive. But we went ahead and did it. Got a huge Douglas Fir from a fire dept tree sale. It's gorgeous and full. Ellis wanted a BIG one, and we got a big one. His grin shines brightly in the dim light of streetlights illuminating the early darkened December evening.

And today, I got our Wreath o' Fun fully established (which has got to be a first), and we put the tree up and let the kids toss some ornaments. I splurged and got LED lights for the tree. Freaking out over the 30% raise in rates from the electric company.

December Photo Project

I know I've already shared on Facebook the magnum opus that is the Halloween costumes that I made, but I need to plunk it down here for blog posterity.

when it came time to deciding on costumes, I wasn't sure how I was going to top the utter cuteness of last year's Man with the Yellow Hat and Curious George. Then one day Ellis decided that he wanted to dress up as the Cat in the Hat, so that was the decider, I would make a costume for him for Halloween. The obvious accompaniment to a Cat in the Hat costume is Thing 1/Thing 2. So Marlowe was going to be that. To be honest, though. I wasn't feeling it. Too obvious, too uninspired. So then, I thought, well, what about The Goldfish in the Cat in the Hat? Could I do a Goldfish costume?

Thus began the great quest to figure how to make a convincing fish. I scoured the internet for some design inspiration and came across this simple octopus costume idea on Martha Stewart. So that was my springboard.

The fish costume is in two parts: the body suit and the hood/cape thingy.
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The bodysuit was pretty straightforward. I used his jammies as a guideline. And velcro up the back. I incorporated fins onto the sleeve. The hood/cape has a lining so that i could stuff it a little and make casings in the fins for some pipe cleaner. The gave the fins some stiffness and bending capabilities for a fun Suess-y flip. I made a couple of pockets on the neckline of the bodysuit to thread the ties of the hood cape through to make it more comfy and secure for wearing.

The whole thing is made out of nice, comfy soft fleece.

The Cat in the Hat costume was much simpler. Again using fleece, i made a black body suit with velcro up the back for ease. Using his jammies as a template. then the white belly and sewed on red, felt bow. I made a casing and put some elastic at the neckline so that it would fit snugly, but comfortably. The tail is from a set of stripey tights from Target, stuffed with polyfil and a pipe cleaners. I added some strips of wide elastic at the foot, so that the leg would cover his shoes. Got some white gloves at Target, and made some whiskers from pipe cleaner. The Hat was donated by a friend who just had happened to find one at the thrift store. This made my job a LOT easier. I was not looking forward to that millinary foray.

It's been busy around here.

Last week, I finally got the GRE off my plate. Phew!

We got haircuts.

Enjoying crepes. M calls them Pancakes.

Enjoying Fall.

And making Apple Pie! (while Mommy takes a shower)