"While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about." Angela Schwindt

Sunday, February 20, 2011

What We Did This Weekend....

We had a pretty good weekend. We started out our Saturday by just lounging around the house. Well...Jadon anyway. While I did some cleaning around the house Jadon was busy coloring. Coloring is one of his favorite activities right now.


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He was also busy reading. I guess Jadon wanted to see what the book looked like upside down.


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The rest of our Saturday was a little crazy.  Grandma Cindy went with Jadon and I to run a bunch of errands that I needed to get done. 

I don't feel like today was very productive.  We had another slow, lazy morning.  Just playing and talking to Daddy.  Then finally this afternoon I decided to trying making pj pants.  I have never made pants before so this was a first.  I used THIS tutorial and pattern created by Dana from the blog MADE for her Celebrate The Boys Series.  They were very easy to make but I wish the waist was a little bit higher so I am going to try something different tomorrow when I make another pair. 

Jadon was loving the Sesame Street fabric.  I had to try them on him before I sewed the elastic in the waist and I could not get him to take them off after that.  I had to wrestle them off of him.  When they were finally done I put them on him to get a pic.  It took me about 20 pictures before I finally got a somewhat decent one.  Apparently putting on these pants made him want to run! 




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Monday, February 14, 2011

Day 1 Done!

After a good nights sleep...even without our Daddy here. 


Jadon awoke in a pretty good mood.  He has had some issues with sharing lately but today Jadon and John played together with these stacking cups for a very long time.  Working together!  It was so cute.  I guess they were feeling the love on this Valentine's Day.
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Then the night ended with homemade mac n' cheese (courtesy of The Pioneer Woman) and peas.  One of Jadon's favorite meals as you can tell from this happy face and almost empty plate.

After dinner Jadon enjoyed one of the suckers that Daddy gave him for Valentine's day.  Where is the picture?  None of them would turn out.  The child was enjoying his sucker so much he could not sit still.  I tried several times to snap a picture and they all turned out blurry.  

We tried to video chat with Matt tonight.  I was unsuccessful. Something was wrong on my end and he could not make out my voice very well.  We did get it to work on Shelby's laptop though so we all took turns saying hi.  Then Shelby and I closed the evening by watching The Proposal.  Great movie!  

Happy Valentine's Day!


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He Remembered!

Matt is in Brazil now.  Last I heard from him this morning he was not to his hotel quite yet.  Hopefully he is by now though!

I got a text this morning saying to check the cabinet above the basement stairs.  There we found this:


This is what Matt always does on Valentine's Day.  He gets us all chocolates.  Well...last year Jadon was too little for chocolates so he got him a stuffed monkey.  This year Jadon got heart shaped suckers because his Daddy knew that he would LOVE those!  We started giving Jadon suckers during our Walmart marathon grocery shopping trips to keep him happy.  He loves suckers and now expects them in any store we go to.  We have created a monster!

Valentine's Day was the day that Matt and I had our very first date 17 years ago now!!  Wow!  What a fun ride it has been!  Going to miss him for the next two weeks!

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Friday, February 11, 2011

TGIF

This week has seemed really long to me!  Lots of things I needed to get done!  I am feeling good though.  Most of what I wanted to get done was completed.  I can really tell that cabin fever is starting to set in.   I am having to keep the boys focused a lot more than I usually do.  They are having a hard time deciding what they want to do.  It seems like all they wanted to do this week was run in circles around the house and that just does not work for me.

Today went a lot smoother than the rest of the week.  I was surprised at how much time the boys spent coloring today.  I just had to snap some pictures.  Jadon really enjoys coloring now.

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One of the biggest things I needed to finish was a car seat cover for my nephew Mason.  I have had it almost finished since early January just had not taken the time to finish those last few steps.  I thought I had better finish it quick or there would be no need for it!  I am pretty happy with how it turned out!  I used this tutorial HERE from the blog Make It Do!  It was so easy to follow!



I am hoping to get some pajama pants done for Jadon this weekend.  I bought the fabric last weekend.  After surgery Jadon will not be able to where his footy sleeper jammies anymore (boo) so I have bought some super large t-shirts and I am going to make him some flannel pj pants.  Hopefully he is warm enough! 

Oh....I almost forgot!  Today I happened to spot two new teeth just breaking through the surface on the bottom front of Jadon's mouth.  The gums around both teeth were puffy.  Poor little man!  I felt so bad for him!  He had woken up in the night last night crying and I gave him ibuprofen.   Within about 20 minutes he was asleep in my arms in the recliner ( and so was I).  Now it all makes sense!  The grumpiness, the middle of the night crying.  Sweet boy!!
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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Looks Can Be Deceiving

Isn't this cute??!!!  Just moments before I took this pic Jadon was actually laying on his stomach right next to Riley.  I think he wanted to check out the mirror too.  This was the best few minutes of our day.  Jadon was full of craziness the rest of the day.

That cute little boy was like a Tazmanian Devil in disguise yesterday.  I had to get him off the little tables multiple times, he found great joy in taking the baskets of table toys and throwing the pieces all over the floor,  he was hitting his friends, throwing things, destroying his friends block towers with no warning and laughing devilishly while doing it.  He was constantly wanting whatever his friends had.  It did not seem to matter if he had been happily playing with something else right up until that moment.  He wanted THAT toy!!!  Ugh!  It really was a trying day.  At one point (and I am totally not kidding here) I looked over during lunch time to find him getting ready to chew on one of our dining room chair spindles.  Why???!!!! 

This is what you get with toddlers.  One day they can be as sweet as pie and the next.....well....the exact opposite I guess.  You never know what you are releasing from the crib in the morning.  Are you sending out an angel or releasing sheer terror out into the living room.  By the end of the day I was done.  I put him in time out for the umpteenth time (drives my husband nuts when I make up numbers) and I texted my husband this....."Just put Jadon in time out and told him he was not getting up until you got home.  Hope you are close.  He has not been a very good boy today".  

Well that was yesterday.  Today is a new day.  The boy is not yet up for the day.  I am praying that today we get to see the sweet boy.  I am hoping he expended all of the devilish energy he had in him for a least a few days!  Fingers crossed!  Raising a toddler is always an adventure that is for sure!  Would not trade it for anything though!



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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

In Living Color

One of the items to explore during our table time this week is a set of color paddles. Everyone thinks it is really fun to look through them and see everything (mostly me) in a different color.

Mason and Owen were here today.  Here is Mason chillin' in the Bumbo seat.
Owen really enjoyed the Toy Story book for our Leapfrog Tag Reader Jr..  We love this "toy".  If you put the little guy to the words it reads the story. You can also touch it to different places on each page and it will names things or say funny things. This is another of my finds on the Farm and Fleet after Christmas toy clearance.  I am so glad I grabbed it!  We have several books for it now because all the boys love it so much. 

Excuse the horrible picture....this is my new web cam! I am all ready for Matt to go to Brazil again! This time I will be able to hear and SEE him!  I am so excited!





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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Jadon's 2 year pics

My how time flies......it was almost a year ago that these pictures were taken.  

Then
Now....wow!  Look at the difference!  He is growing up so fast!! 
We got his 2 yr. pics taken a little early.  Matt leaves for Brazil next weekend and does not return until the Friday before Jadon's b-day.  Jadon's party is on Saturday (his birthday) then on Monday we load up and leave for Philadelphia.  Jadon will have his shoulder and tendon transfer surgery this trip.  Since I did not want Matt to miss out on the picture taking experience we went ahead and got them done.  He was a little bit grumpy but you can't tell from the pics.  I think they turned out great!












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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Saturday Morning Fun

Jadon has been loving his "brick" building blocks that I picked up on clearance at Farm and Fleet after Christmas.  We had them out for awhile right after Christmas but then I put them downstairs to go into rotation at a later date.  This week when I rotated toys I found a home for them.  I think they will be staying out for a little while.  Two mornings in a row now he has spent a large amount of time stacking them, knocking them down, and then lining them up.  Yesterday morning he worked hard on building a wall with them which he promptly knocked down after completion.  That is the best part according to Jadon!!



This morning Daddy was home and got in on the fun!!  Jadon had been using the yellow bricks to stack.  At one point he had a stack that was almost taller than him!  Daddy decided to see if they could build an arc that Jadon could go under! 
As you can see by the look on Jadon's face in the picture below, Jadon was thrilled to have a building partner this morning!!
It took a little time and engineering but they finally figured out how to stack the blocks just right.  Jadon squealed with delight as he ran under and loved it even more when the structure can tumbling down right behind him.

I just love Saturday mornings! 



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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Snowed In

Wow! What a week it has been! We got somewhere around 13 inches of snow over the course of 24 hours.  It was crazy!  Here are some pics of Matt venturing out for the first time after all the snow fell.  He thought he might go out and see if his newspaper was there but quickly realized he would not be able to even open the gate until he did some shoveling.  In case you were wondering the paper was not there.  Our paper delivery and our mail were cancelled! 

And what did we do while we were cooped up in the house for three days?

Jadon and the dogs passed some time this morning watching the plow we called clear our lane.  It was very interesting to all three of them.


We read some books.  He loves Goodnight Gorilla.  Silly Gorilla!


Jadon also looked at his lift flap books.  He loves his lift flap books right now.

We played with some pop beads.  Great therapy since it takes the use of both hands!


He really enjoys this build your own train block set that I got from Discovery Toys back when the older two kids were little like Jadon.

He also spends a lot of time lately lining up things.  Here he is lining up all his chunky trucks and cars.  I love watching him do this.  Don't ask me why. 

He spent so much time lining all these up and when he was done he squealed with delight as he ran his shopping cart into the line to destroy it.
And of course he spent some time in his own little personal cave building with the duplo legos.

In case you were wondering Jadon is still trying out all the baby equipment.  Here is is in the baby swing.  I was pretty worried he was going to break it but I had to get a picture before I got him  out! 

He even managed to squeeze himself into Baby Riley's carrier!  He is so crazy!

What did Shelby and Jake do with their unexpected days off?  A whole lot of nothing and I think they enjoyed every minute of it.  Hey!  Isn't that what snow days are all about!  Now if it would just warm up a little bit so we can go outside and play in all the snow!  That would be wonderful!



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