A Day in Our Life

Today was unbelievably excellent.  We had so many adventures!!  First we went to Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies to make ornaments with.  Before we left though the boys had a great time laying together on the couch.  They were both smiling and content to hang out together...it was a wonderful moment and I was lucky enough to catch part of it in a picture!

Then we decided to head out to Wal-Mart and we had so many adventures there!  We started out by picking up a few items in the craft department and then L decided he wanted out of the shopping cart so he could explore on his own.  We went straight back to the Christmas section with the trees and ornaments.  L loves that part of the store.  He walks around and touches each tree.  Today he discovered the automatic door there that goes into the outdoor garden section.  We must have gone in and out of that door 1,000 times lol.  He would run through, then hold really still on the other side until they closed and then he would run full speed at them again.  It was a great adventure!

From there we went to the produce section which worked out perfectly because I needed to pick up some fruit that we were running low on and L loves putting the fruit we need in bags.  Then we moved on to the freezer section where we opened every single freezer and felt the bags or boxes inside.  haha L loved this!  At first I was worried that he would want to pull everything out of the freezers, but he totally just wanted to touch it.  After that he found a bag of marshmallows (his favorite food) and was ready to go home.  I still had some shopping left to do though so we compromised; he rode in the shopping cart and ate his marshmallows while I finished getting the supplies we needed to make our ornaments.  Then we came home and napped.

When L woke up from his nap we made ornaments!  It was so much fun.  I had glass bulbs and stained epsom salt, tinsel, shredded paper, and beads for L to use.  He had a great time dumping the epsom salt through the funnel and into the ornament bulbs.  We did it over and over again.

Shortly after the ornaments were finished L wanted to stain his own epsom salt so we pulled out the sensory bin and went to town!

During this activity baby J woke up so we brought him in the playroom with us to join in on the fun.  He really enjoyed dipping his feet in the salt and kicking around.  He was smiling so big!  Then we ended up putting J's feet in tinsel and he absolutely LOVED it.  He was kicking and smiling the whole time.  At one point L I needed to help L use the bathroom so I laid J down where his feet would still touch the tinsel and we came back to find that he had kicked it around so much that he had covered himself in it haha.  He was having a BLAST in the tinsel.  (Disclaimer: the stain on his belly is food coloring from my hands when I was staining epsom salt lol).

After all the fun L settled down and watched "Curious George" while I laid down and nursed J for a while.  J is getting to the fun age where he looks up and smiles in the middle of nursing, it absolutely melts my heart!  After that I cleaned up our mess in the playroom and started on dinner.  When my husband came home he took J while I finished dinner and I snapped this cute shot.

Today was pretty much perfect.  :)  I just topped it off by nursing J to sleep in the reading nook while admiring how beautiful he is with our tree lit in the background.  I have to be the luckiest woman alive.

Cloud Dough

The other day we made cloud dough.  It's a really neat dough that will mold like play dough but feels really soft (sort of like a cloud).  L had a great time mixing the oil and dough together to make it.

L really loved squishing this dough around and molding it in cups.

He had a great time with the cloud dough and wanted to get it back out today.  He also played with his blocks today and made a boat.  I was super impressed with his boat, he made it totally on his own and pushed it around like a boat.  I think he's pretty amazing.

Christmas Tree!

This year we decided to get a real Christmas Tree.  We went out on Black Friday and picked one out.  L got pretty excited when we brought it in the house and loved helping his dad set it up!

He also loved getting to explore all of the cool Christmas decorations.  Just like last year, his favorite item seems to be a snow globe that plays music that my mother in law bought for me one year.  We have to turn it on at least once a day and watch the snow swirl around while the music plays.  He loves it.

L had a great time putting ornaments on the tree (and taking them off lol).  My husband and I took turns hanging ornaments with him, we also played some Christmas music to help get us in the Christmas spirit.  Oh and J slept through all of this lol.

Birthday Party for L

Today we celebrated L's 2nd birthday and we had a blast.  We kept the party kind of small because L gets overwhelmed in a crowd, it was mainly just family and a couple of friends with young kids.  Our morning started out with cake decorating.  L was so excited to decorate his cake that he could hardly contain himself.  He carefully placed all of the sprinkles and had this green glitter gel that he squirted on it.  He had also picked out this edible black spray paint but it was really hard for him to figure out so he only used a little bit of it.

I'm pretty sure that his favorite part was the green glitter gel.  He seemed to really like watching it squirt out onto the cake and ooze out.  :) I have to admit, it looked pretty cool and it looked great on the cake!  It definitely added character.

I think the finished product turned out way amazing and L was so proud of himself!  He kept wanting to look at his cake throughout the day and you could just see how proud he was on his face.  I love that boy.

We gave L one of his birthday presents early and he loved it.  It was face painting crayons and he was really excited to decorate his face before the party.  He also gave J a few marks for the party.  It was great.  He seemed like he really enjoyed his party.  We had it at the library and he picked out a CD to play there.  We had balloons, markers and paper, homemade silly putty, and squishy gel bags.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  L was so incredibly excited to see his cousins.  He has been talking about his cousin R for a long time, since we've moved we don't get to see him as much anymore and I can tell that L misses him.  He ran up to R and hugged and kissed him for several minutes, it was so precious!  They are best buddies.

L agreed to wear his party hat from last year and it thrilled me haha.  I honestly didn't think he would want to but he said he did so I was happy.  When everyone started singing Happy Birthday to him though I think he got a tad bit startled and luckily I'm married to a wonderful man who makes a wonderful dad.  He walked up to him and comforted him through it a little bit and stayed with him until L was more focused on the candle and cake.  :)

L attempted to blow out his candle but he wasn't quite close enough and didn't blow quite hard enough.  He seemed to really like it when I did it though and wanted me to do it again....so of course I did.

Overall it was an excellent party and L had a wonderful time.

Helium

Never ever underestimate the fun that can be had with a helium balloon!  Baby J has always loved watching helium balloons (from the day he came home from the hospital).  So today I tied one around his legs and he laid in the floor for 2 hours.  2 hours!  He was so amazed with this activity and it was so adorable to watch.  Sometimes he would laugh and smile at the balloon and other times he would kick until he was completely out of breath.  He was completely focused on this balloon and making it move though!  J has a lot of focus!

He is also really focused on toys that his brother brings him to play with.  He is already trying to manipulate the toy and get it to move.  If we place the toy within reach, he will continually hit or kick it and if we place it slightly out of reach he focuses and works really hard to try to reach it.

L and I have also started doing sensory activities with J lately.  We start at his feet and work our way up his body touching him with the sensory material.  I also name the body parts as we touch them.  He loves to dig his toes in whatever we are using.  Yesterday we used play dough and then a cotton ball.  Today I used a feather.  He seems like a very alert baby for his age and is a lot of fun to be around.  He will almost always return a smile and it is very heartwarming.  :)

Water Play and Sparkles

The other day L set up his own play invitation, I love when that happens haha.  He took an empty jar, went to the bathroom with his stool and filled it with water.  Then he started to pour the water into some containers I had set out in the hall earlier to eventually put in his playroom to store sensory materials in.  Anyway, with a little help from me we had the containers set up in the bathroom with a towel underneath them to catch the mess.  He had a blast with this!

L has also recently discovered glitter and he is super happy about it.  He has used it with glue on paper, he has used it in the sensory bin with liquid watercolors and he has sprinkled a bunch on paper and practiced writing circles in it with his fingers.  Lol I think it's safe to say he's glitter obsessed at this point.  ;)

The other day I also added a little twist to our old baking soda and vinegar activity.  I spread baking soda on the bottom of the sensory bin and then filled different spray and squirt bottles with colored vinegar.  It turns out he only wanted to use the squirt bottles and when he was finished with those he wanted me to pour the vinegar from the other containers into the squirt bottles so that he could keep using them.  It turned out to be a pretty neat activity because every time he would squirt his bottle the baking soda would fizz up in that part of the bin.  It made a neat looking mixture of colors too.

Brothers

L is really starting to accept J as part of the family now and it's really really really sweet.  :)  He gets so excited when J wakes up in the mornings and from nap.  He is really eager to play with him and will bring him toys to look at.  He also loves to help burp him and he is constantly hugging and kissing J.  It's so fun to watch!

We all lay down for nap together and I snapped a picture of the two of them snuggled up sleeping together the other day.  I love them so much and it just melts my heart to watch them together.  :)

Oh and my husband and I were actually able to go on a date night recently!  We went bowling and had a blast!!

Halloween and Other Adventures

L was a pirate for Halloween.  He picked out his own costume and at first I thought it was kind of random that he picked a pirate costume but then I remembered that we had been reading books about pirates lately. Anyway, he made the cutest pirate ever.

We took him to a trunk or treat at a friends church and at first he didn't really get the concept but he caught on pretty quickly since candy was involved.  He was way excited to keep getting candy from people haha.  At first he didn't want to put any candy in his bag and he was trying to hold every piece he got!

On the actual Halloween night he didn't want to go trick or treating but he had a blast handing out candy to all the trick or treaters!

Meanwhile, I have figured out a way to breastfeed and give L his milk lol.

L has enjoyed reading a lot lately.  He really seems to love books and I'm thinking about making him his own reading nook in a corner of our living room.  Sometimes he wants my husband or I to read to him and sometimes he will look at the book on his own, if you hang out with him long enough while he's doing it he will sometimes tell you the story he made up.

It has been colder out lately so we've had to get creative with our indoor play.  About a week ago I turned some dining room chairs upside down in our living room.  L is fascinated with tunnels lately so I thought he would use them as a tunnel for his trains but he was way more interested in climbing them.  Every time he would get to the top he would say "fall fall."  He was scared of falling but he continued to challenge himself.