The elf

Our little elf has been quite busy every day.  I have snapped lots of pics, just haven't gotten around to posting them.   Here are some places we have caught her lately.

She was found one morning playing with Peyton's race car track.  She sure liked the bright pink car.

Then she decided to take a ride on Celestia, the unicorn pegasus pony

She was caught fishing in the fish tank, she even found an elf sized fishing pole!

She brought us all new, personalized stockings!

She even found some that matched the tree skirt we got last year.

This morning she was going for a ride with barbie.

Lets see how this works

Playing with blogger on my new phone. Have so many pics to share...there mught be a lot of posting happening.
We started feeding Calvin solids, discovering quickly what he likes (applesauce) & hate (pumpkin), which is whats pictured.

The elf has landed

I decided the elf is a girl and her name is Holly.  Perhaps when Calvin is a little older her elf friend will arrive and his name will be Barry.  Holly and Barry. Funny.

So, she is a girl, she needed a skirt, which I made from some felt.  Then it had to be glitterized.  It was a must.  Now she sits on the shelf in the living room waiting to be found.

I have a big red bow on the book, I think it will be somewhere in her room or mine in the morning. We will read it first, then she will surely run to find her.  I should write a quick note…will do that in a minute.

In other news…I got out Peyton’s play mat thingy.  Calvin loves it.

 

I added more toys to it too and he was quite pleased, kicking and grabbing at everything.  Hes getting so big!

Pure genius

I have recently come across a few awesome, life changing tips that I thought I would share.

First, you know how dryers love to eat socks?  Anyone with kids knows that they really love tiny socks.  Put them in a zippered lingerie bag to wash them.  Amazing.  They all stay together, no one gets eaten.

Next, I like cupcakes but what a mess to make.  I came up with this, so proud of my brain.  Put everything in a ziplock bag, mix around, snip off the corner and squeeze into the cupcake thingies. done!  Bake, frost, eat, now done.

That is all for now.  I have one pissed off Calvin.  Goodness he is mad. 

Bring on the Christmas!

Most years I am not ready for Christmas.
I would have normally been annoyed with the fact that it is November 5th and the mall is all decorated and playing Christmas music.
But this year I can’t wait for it to get here!
I am not going overboard on gifts this year, not that I ever do, but gifts are going to be simple, it’s the celebrating that I am looking forward to.
I bought the elf and elf on the shelf book.  I thought of starting it last year but then decided it was too much work.  But this year I decided I didn’t care, that I would plan it all out ahead of time, even though I have less time with a new baby and working full time.  I love having traditions for holidays and this will be a fun one to do year after year.  Thanks to the internet theres tons of ideas.  So I printed out a calendar and wrote down on each day what the elf would be doing.  For once I am organized!   Now I need to get the things that I will need and I will be all set. 

I have decided that he will show up every now and then with little gifts: Christmas socks, pjs, a christmas movie, book.  And then other times with activities like making gingerbread men, snow globes.  If he is really awesome he will set up the Christmas tree one night.
I am so looking forward to this that I can’t wait to start!   But I will wait till after Thanksgiving.  cause its too soon.  Isn’t it?  It is.  Yes.  Maybe.

My new love/obsession/guilty pleasure/boredom fighter

My name is Lisa and I am a Pinterest.com addict.

I find myself thinking about it multiple times a day. I should look that up on pinterest. I should make that recipe I saw on pinterest for dinner. I think I will run to the store to get the things I need for that activity I saw on pinterest.
 
Yesterday it wasn't working and I didn't know what to do with myself. What did I do before pinterest? How did I think of things to do on my own? How did I function?
 
But seriously, the site is awesome. If you have never visited you should and then join, cause its just fun.
Its like a big compilation of all things wonderful, funny, yummy, fun...and then some. Pretty much an online bulletin board that you can organize into multiple categories. You can browse or search, then repin to one of your boards when you find something you like, add comments, tag people, share on facebook. Its a great way to compile ideas for anything you can think of: gifts, holidays, parties, activities, places to go, house things, food. And its fun to see what your friends find too.

Some of my favorite pins include:
Glow sticks bath~Who would have thought throwing a few glow sticks in the bathtub would be so entertaining.
Glow sticks in balloons~also quite fun.
Store sheets in their matching pillowcase~pure genius. Its just stupid easy, why had I never thought of that!

If you want to see more join for yourself and don't forget to add me as a friend!

Crazy busy

The chaos of everyday life has cause me to drop off the blogging scene altogether. So much has been happening, it may take a while to get it all in or maybe there will be several posts... Calvin is 10 weeks old, hard to believe. And I still haven't printed pictures other than the announcements. He will get his own post soon.
Peyton started preschool last month, can't believe that didn't get on here. Such a slacker. She loves it. Its a parent co-op, so once a month one of us goes in to volunteer as the parent helper. So far I have gone in twice. I don't know how people can do that everyday, its exhausting. I am glad that we chose this one and we are able to go in and participate, cause that stubborn child doesn't tell us much about what they do. Its great for her to be out socializing so much, learning to share...its easy to spot the only children when it comes to sharing. She was protesting writing her name on her own until finally yesterday at home she did without having to be told the letters.

She did it again after that and got the t in there. I wish I knew a way to get her interested in learning how to read. Anyone have suggestions?
We took Calvin on his first road trip a few weeks ago. We went up north, visited Jeff's grandparents and my sister. Failed to get pictures of that. What is wrong with me?? Then over to the coast to the aquarium. Other than a few meltdowns by everyone and difficulty finding a hotel, who knew the coast would be so popular on such a rainy weekend, it was a good a trip. Tomorrow we will head south for his first trip to the races. Starting young, as Jeff likes to say.
Peyton and I have been doing all sorts of fun projects. Thanks to pinterest.com I have lots of ideas to keep her busy. Like glow sticks in the bath, so simple and fun, would have never thought of that. Or glow sticks in a balloon. Found some ways to display all of her art projects, the pink board was bought~such luck finding that at TJ Maxx, love it!
 

Halloween is coming up, so we bought a couple little pumpkins to try out another thing I saw. They need red eyes, will have to do that, but aren’t they funny??

And I finally remembered I had a silicone brownie tray thing, so we used it yesterday to make some colorful, square crayons.

And speaking of pumpkins, we successfully grew 4 in our garden.
 

Another month old.

Last week Calvin passed the 2 month mark and yesterday 10 weeks. The many faces of Calvin:

It amazes me how much he changes from one week to the next. He started smiling several weeks ago and then cooing. Now he will smile in response to us smiling at him, at his mobile on his swing (had a good long conversation with them), and smiles at his sister a lot. If we say "oooh" he will repeat it back to us. I love the interaction.

He just adores Peyton. Sometimes when I am holding him he will start reaching and stretching to look behind me, then realize he is watching Peyton. He will sit in his seat in the kitchen and watch her spin on her sit and spin while I make dinner, for some reason thats very interesting. This is probably terrible but he loves to sit in her baby stroller and be pushed around the house, he cries when she stops.

And of course the 2 month stats: just under 24 inches tall and 10lb 8oz, a whole pound less than Peyton was at 2 months. He is so small, but I know he is healthy and eating enough, just hasn't hit a significant growth spurt. The doctor was quite impressed with his tummy time skills, lifting his chest up to look around, which apparently is a 4 month thing. Got his first shots, which made his mad, but he didn't have any other reactions to those. Will take him in for a weight check in a couple weeks, hopefully he gains some more weight.

Butterfly!

Saturday a brand new butterfly, Rainbow Princess Beauty Mermaid Fairy Unicorn (guess who named her) came to be and is now (hopefully still) flying around making someone smile.

I was checking out the little chrysalis Friday night and noticed how clear it was becoming and the wings were very visible.

 

So we took the jar upstairs with us that night, since I am up several times during the night I could check its progress.  Then saturday morning it was very black but still no butterfly.  Then finally around noon Jeff saw it starting to come out.

It was pretty amazing to watch it emerge, its wings all small and wrinkled.  then they slowly start to get bigger.  It was a very long process, longer than I thought it would be.  Eventually we moved her outside.  Peyton was able to hold her and as she started to try flying around we took her over to the butterfly bush.  She flew away just before we got to it and landed up on top, was exactly where she wanted to be.  That was a very fun thing to experience, hopefully we will be able to do it again.  Big thanks to Gram for thinking of it and helping Peyton find the little guy…I mean girl.

One month

Before I had kids when people would say “they grow up so fast…” it was really hard to understand.  But OMG they do.  I cannot believe that I now have a four year old that will start preschool in 2 days and a one month old.  I am really looking forward to Calvin getting bigger, learning things, interacting with us and all the  fun things that kids do, but it can wait.  Now I just want to snuggle with him, watch him sleep, just enjoy the littleness.  He is our last, so I want to soak it all in before it disappears and its just flying by.  What doesn’t help is that I am going back to work tomorrow, I feel like I am going to miss so much of all that wonderful baby time.  I am going to have to learn how to make better use of my time, evenings and weekends are going to have to be used to their fullest.  Will have to continue to update on how that whole things goes, working that is.

In the meantime Mr. Calvin is growing so fast, amazing us everyday with the new things that he can do.

In one month he went from this

To this

He’s become so alert and loves to watch what is going on around him.  I love that whenever Peyton talks to him he turns and watches her, looks like he is listening so contently, its so sweet.

Butterfly project stage 2

or I guess its really stage 3 but we missed the egg stage.

Yesterday morning Miss caterpillar was hanging around

and as the day progressed, she got greener

and greener and then she was this

Like I said before I have never done this before so its pretty fascinating.  Though I have to say it did not look like that poor caterpillar was having a good time as the chrysalis formed, it was wiggling around and looked rather painful.  I couldn’t imagine it would be very comfortable to have a crust form around you.

Now we are waiting for the next stage, Peyton not so patiently.  Hard to explain 10 days to a 4 year old.

The butterfly project

Yesterday while Peyton was at Gram’s house they read “A Very Hungry Caterpillar.”  Then they went out and were able to find a monarch caterpillar!  So now begins the butterfly project.  I must confess that I have never done this, so I think its pretty exciting too.  Now googling for more info.  Will be updating every step of the way.

Didn’t I know this would happen?

I started this blog with the intention of post a few times a week and its been how long already? I will just blame it on the chaos of life with a newborn.

Update time, I will start with the newbie. By the way, in case there  are mass errors in typing its cause I am using one hand, my left, not easy.  So, he is doing great.  3 weeks old already, hard to believe.  He is steadily gaining weight and working on a cute double chin.  Becoming more aware of everything everyday.  this morning Peyton climbed into bed with us and was talking to him, he would turn towards her every time she said something, it was so cute.  Now we just have to work on getting him to sleep before 1 in the morning.

Peyton starts preschool in 2 weeks.  she is very excited about it.  It will be really good for her I think.  I went back to work last thursday, just 3 hours a day or whatever I can work.  Gives me a chance to get out of the house and keep up with work without having to jump back in full time.  It was easier to go back this way than full time after 12 weeks off with Peyton.  The kids stay home with jeff while I have gone to work, been going in afternoons so its easy for him to be home.  So far things are working out good.

Will be posting pictures soon, maybe tomorrow…maybe.

1 Week Old!

Its hard to believe that a whole week has gone by, before we know it we will be celebrating Calvin’s first birthday. 

We are doing our best to adjust to being a family of 4.  Some things are going well and others not so much.  We’ve been getting out of the house quite a bit, which is good for my and Peyton’s sanity.  Today we went my office to show him off.  Tomorrow I am planning to take the 2 kids to the growers market in the morning and possibly to visit some old coworkers if we feel up to it, I know that will be a long visit, so many people to see.  One thing I have noticed with the 2nd from the 1st is that it took us forever to get out of the house when Peyton was a baby.  It might take a little while now but not nearly as long as it did with her. 

Peyton has for the most part been a great big sister.  She always wants to hold and cuddle her brother.  We are trying to work on her being less pushy about it and also less overwhelming with it.  But those moments are quite special.

Even the dog likes to get in on cuddle time.

I bought quite a few new things to use with Calvin that I wish I had with Peyton.  One of the most used lately is the carrycot that I bought to use in the walking stroller.  I have not used it in the stroller yet since I haven’t quite felt up to walking.  But it works great as a bassinet around the house, a save place for him to nap during the day.  Here he is snoozing away.

I was also busy crocheting baby things while pregnant, several hats and a blanket.  One thing I loved was this little cocoon that I made, with a matching hat.  I have seen them used for photo shoots so I thought that would be a lot of fun.  But I have found that it works great for nighttime, keeps him warm and he can wiggle around in it like he does a lot.  Here he is modeling it.

I remembered yesterday that I should start taking pics for comparison pics, so here is the first in the series, 6 days old.  We also did Peyton’s in the swing, so it will be fun to compare them to each other as well as to their own.

And I have to include this goofy picture, Calvin is full of silly faces just wish I could catch more on camera

With Calvin getting plenty of my attention lately I have felt sorry for Peyton, having to entertain herself more than usual.  I am going to attempt to give her a fun new activity to do every day, though in reality it will probably be every other day.  Today we painted, though not new we have just not done it in long time.  I am trying to put together a list as I come across ideas, the one at the top is to make ice cream, that should be yummy.