Ruby D at Sixteen Months

At sixteen months you:
-have two more teeth. Your one in the middle on the top finally poked through (11/19) and you got one of the ones on the left side (11/17). It takes you a very long time for your teeth to get through the gum, and you don't sleep very well during the process.
-are into everything! You love to get under the bathroom cabinet and pull all the cups out, steal toothbrushes, open the kitchen drawers, try to climb the bookcase shelves, and drag the stool around with you to get to things that you shouldn't. Oh Ruby D!
-Speak in sentences all of the time and are forever adding new words to your vocabulary. Words you use a lot: sucker, Gracie, Mommy, I want a bite, I need that, kiss, hug, puppy, cracker, Oreo, poop.
-Are a very messy eater just like your sister was. Even if I put a bib on you if I don't take your shirt off you get everything on your collar. I have just started to give you a fork/spoon with some foods and you are doing a great job.
-Your favorite foods are: suckers, cheese, spinach artichoke dip, mashed potatoes, baked apples, crackers, and pineapples.
-You still breastfeed a few times a day (when you wake up, sometimes after nap, before bed, once a night). You are so funny about it before bed. As soon as we finish reading Gracie's stories you start screaming, "I want boob." You also want full access of both and randomly switch off. Silly baby. You are only this way at bedtime, at your other feedings you take around five minutes and sometimes eat on only one side.
-You take one nap a day from around 1-3.
-You only use your pacy for nap and going to sleep at night. You usually spit your pacy out after you fall asleep and don't use it for the majority of the night (but you do keep it in at naptime).
-Have the cutest little stick out pigtails on the side of your hair. If I put your hair in one piggy it is long enough to make a little knob.
-Kick your shoes off the minute you get in your car seat. You also make your legs stick straight when we put you in your seat and start giggling, because you think it's a game.
-Take your pants and socks off all the time. You also try to take off your diaper.
-Are very helpful at clean up time. You put things back in their place and bring me what I ask for.
-Want to "color" and paint with big sister. You also want her Gabbas, her "Minies" (your word for My Little Pony), and her stool. This can lead to a few fights. Usually both you and your sister are hugging and kissing and playing with each other though.
-Love peace time at church. You stick out your little hand and say "peace." So so adorable. Now if only I could keep you quiet during church!
-I love your dimple, but I tell you that it makes you naughty, because oh my goodness you have a naughty face little miss. Cutest thing ever, but you can tell that you are trouble.
-Want Minnie stuff for Christmas.
-Love to dance and shake.

Oh Ruby D D! What would we do without you? You make me laugh, you make me smile, you amaze me with your smartness, your spirit, your silliness. You have such a big heart in your tiny body. Even when you are being naughty you still have Mama wrapped around your finger. I am so thankful for you every single day.

 

 

 

 

Cheep Cheep

Gracie is incredibly smart but lacks focus. As in she can be talking to you and then get totally distracted in like a second. Sometimes this is good (because I can easily refocus her attention if she is misbehaving) but sometimes it drives me crazy. Surprisingly making bird feeders was an activity she really really got into. I was worried she would make a mess or loss interest, but she was so careful and excited. When we finished with our two feeders she wanted to make more! I do have plans on making feeders with cookie cutters/glycerin sometime this winter, but for now this was a much easier project. All you need is empty toilet paper rolls, peanut butter, and bird seed. When you are done you can just slip the feeder over a branch (you don't need to tie a string to hang it-it's that simple).

Rolling the feeder in bird seed (I did spread the peanut butter on-Gracie isn't quite ready to do that). Such concentration!

 

Gracie with her finished bird feeders!

 

Hanging her bird feeder all by herself.

"Where are the birdies?"

Our plans for later today are to make footprint reindeers to hang for Christmas. Gracie really loves projects and paint so she is thrilled. Hopefully we can keep the paint on our feet and the paper and no where else! Our finished product is supposed to look something like this, but we'll see (and I plan on doing just one of Gracie and Ruby D's feet so our reindeer will be different sizes).

Shake Shake

I have pinned a ton of ideas (my user name is sharingiscaring) to use with the girls. I still haven't decided if I am homeschooling Gracie or not, but even if she does go to kindergarten it won't be for a few years (she will be one of the oldest kids in her class). We are pretty good on numbers, starting to work on basic addition and subtraction, know all the upper case letters and most of the lower case ones, and great with imagination. Most of the things I want to do with her are crafts, basic science experiments, and a few sight word activities. I have been trying to find a program to order for teaching reading, but so far I haven't found what I think is the right fit. Gracie can already recite stories, follow print from left to right, look at pictures for context clues, and recognize a few words so I think if we took reading at a slow pace she could definitely learn. Until I figure out what I'm doing with that I think we'll just do a lot of crafts, baking (like always), and work more on our writing (one thing Gracie really does have problems with-poor thing can't copy letters/numbers except for i, t, 1, and 7). I am really intrigued by the idea of sensory bins, but I thought I would start small and make some sensory bottles and see how much they got used, what kinds of things Gracie liked, and how they used them. There are tons of examples out there if you just Goggle "sensory bottles." So far they are a really big hit. I have made five (four with water, one with shredded paper):

You can use any kind of bottle, but pretty much all I had easily available was water bottles. Make sure to hot glue the lid on once you have filled the bottle.
 First bottle: water, silver fine glitter, beads, mickey mouse buttons, fabric flowers, and two pipe cleaners
Second bottle: water, a few squirts of dish soap, some squishy balls. I might remake this one, because the lid isn't completely tight, and it probably should be full to the brim.
Third bottle: Water, vegetable oil, two drops green food dye. Baby oil is probably prettier, but I didn't have any on hand.
Fourth bottle: Water, glitter, two drops red food dye. 

Gracie's favorite bottle is probably the one with beads (she calls them pinwheels). She likes to look for the Mickey button and watch the beads go up and down. Ruby loves shaking the bottle with "bubbles" in it. The last bottle I made was kind of different. I had an empty vegetable oil container that I just put shredded paper in it (Gracie loved to feed the paper in the shredder) and then dumped a variety of objects. It's kind of like an I Find book in a bottle. Gracie has to shake it, turn it, etc. to find the items. So far Gracie has spent the most time playing with this one. I put in plastic dinosaurs, a plastic lion (for some reason she looks for this the most), a ball, another Mickey Mouse button, some random other buttons, and a shake of star sprinkles.

I really found making this pretty quick, easy, and cheap. The hardest part is gluing the lid on. If you get too much glue or don't line the cap up just right there may be drips. I think it would be nice to have different size bottles, but I used what I had. We've also made bird feeders in the past few days so I will post about that soon.

Dear Santa

My Christmas List:

• a necklace from Allora Handmade (blush or cream)
• a cupcake pan and lots of fun cupcake paper liners
• slipper boots/slipper socks
• Charlie Bone or Percy Jackson books
• anything from my wish list at Forever 21
• more than four hours of sleep in a row

Reindeer Kisses, Lincoln Lessons

Andrea (my sister) and I went on a short vacation to Springfield, Illinois over the weekend. We went to a Reindeer Ranch and the Abraham Lincoln Museum. Gracie was very excited about staying at a hotel and swimming in the pool. Ruby D was excited about going to the Cozy Dog Drive In and eating her first coney dog. We had a very good time. I loved the Reindeer Ranch. We got graham crackers to feed the reindeer, and I was able to "kiss" one of them. I held the graham cracker in my mouth with part of it sticking out and the reindeer ate it. It was awesome! Andrea did not want to try; she told me she didn't know where that reindeer's mouth had been. She held Ruby D who liked looking at the reindeer but got very scared when they came too close. Gracie has no fear and loved feeding them out of her hand and petting their sides and faces. We also played on the playground that had reindeer swings (adorable) and a digging area. It was very windy so we got a little chilly, but it was a really cute place. The Abraham Lincoln Museum was very interesting but just a little depressing. Poor Lincoln Family. They were extremely unlucky. The room where they reenacted Lincoln's funeral was extremely creepy. Also creepy? The incredibly life like figurine of Mary Lincoln crying after her son died (after walking through a reenactment of his death bed scene). Gracie asked many many questions. What she learned and told us after leaving the Museum: a mean horse kicked Lincoln in the head, a bad man shot him, and his kid died. But why did the horse kick him Mommy? Why?? We need to tell that horse no no. And the bad man. Oh my. Andrea was not a fan of the Cozy Dog. It was featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives and Man vs. Food (I love you Adam) and is the first place a corn dog was ever made. Eh, it was okay. The cheese fries were good. The sugar cookie we got at Wal-mart for our evening snack was better. We also went to the free Science Museum. It was pretty interesting (especially for free). There were many many life like displays of animals and a play area for children. Gracie is very into fossils so she was pretty interested. It was a great little mini vacation that everyone had fun on. We are spending a few days at Auntie Anns now before we go home. I can work on finishing the table and baking sometime next week.

Gracie falling asleep in the car on the way there. Holding Bun Bun, My Little Ponies in her lap, and her sister's Minnie (Ruby tends to throw things when she gets upset) in her other arm.

 

Auntie Ann pushing Gracie on the swing. She thought the reindeer were scary.

Ruby D and I digging for treasure.

Gracie feeding a reindeer graham crackers.

Me kissing the reindeer (I think his name was Scooter).

And where am I supposed to sleep girls?

Auntie Ann and Gracie visiting with the Lincoln Family.

Digging for dinosaur bones at the Science Museum.

Family Photo Fail

So we got our pictures taken for the church directory tonight. They did not go well, but I wasn't surprised at all. Andrew scheduled our appointment for 8:20, because he didn't know how late he would get home on Fridays. Gracie and Ruby are usually getting out of the bath or reading stories at that time. Gracie actually was very excited and took great pictures (she is the photogenic one in the family). Ruby was hysterical the entire time I was straightening my hair and never really recovered. She would smile if I was looking at her, but she didn't want to look towards the camera or do anything except cuddle into me. I basically knew going in we were just going to get the free 8x10 (Merry Christmas Mom), but for some reason Andrew was disappointed. Whatever. If he wants to dress up in a few weeks when we go to Portrait Innovations and get Gracie's four year pictures/Christmas pictures of both girls I suppose I could do that. Maybe I would even be able to get a professional to straighten my hair. The girls outfits are adorable. Gracie has a grey sweater dress with a purple flower and Ruby has a purple sweater dress. They both had glitter tights and fancy black shoes. Wanda came over the other day and picked up the Raggedy Ann fabric I've had forever (it was Mary Ann's moms) to turn into pillowcase dresses for the girls. Yeah! That is what I plan on having their pictures taken in. I wonder if I could find red and white stripped tights. That would be cute. I love dressing little girls.

Blitther Blatther

Today the girls and I made peppermint bark and chocolate gooey butter cookies (a Paula Deen recipe-Gracie heartily approved). I ran out of white chocolate so I wasn't able to make a layered peppermint bark, but I think that just the dark chocolate tastes amazing. I smashed the candy canes with a hammer. I find smashing things very satisfying. I much prefer using a hammer to using a rolling pin (for candy canes, graham crackers, nuts, etc.). I also finished picking out what pictures I want to go in my window so after I get them printed out that should be a project I can finish up next week (but I'm not hanging it-that can be Andrew's job). Andrea decided last minute to go on vacation this weekend so I'm not sure if I will get the table done until next week either. Our family pictures are Friday night after Andrew gets home so he should have time to take me to the store for stripper before I leave town. Tomorrow morning my mom is taking me to get my nails done. Thank goodness. My nails are horrible. They split and have vertical lines up and down most of them (characteristic sign of Darier disease). I much prefer having acrylic nails, but it's hard to keep up with going every two weeks with the girls and Andrew's schedule. I think I'm going with a dark glittery purple tomorrow. If not that then a nude shade (I wore Dulce de Leche every two weeks for almost a year when I used to religiously get my nails done-the days before children).
(not my nails; I wish they were!)

No WIWW this week, because I have no full length mirror to take my own picture in, and I have worn a black shirt with a sweater over it literally every day. Family pictures on Friday though!