The Light Panel

L got so many things from our families that I'd be writing all day if I wrote about all of it, so I just picked the 2 gifts he plays the most with to write about.  :)

The first one is the light panel.  This thing really is so cool and the pictures don't do it justice.  He's painted on it, used play dough on it and put beads and other things on it to play with.

It makes play dough look extra vibrant and colorful and makes his paintings look really neat while they are lit up.

His second favorite toy from family seems to be a big cardboard train.  He loves trains.  :)

Baby J's favorite gift so far seems to be this cute little Montessori mobile.  He can stare at that thing forever and if someone walks by it or a breeze catches it, the little shapes spin and it looks really cool.

Christmas Morning

We had to delay Christmas morning a few days because one of L's presents didn't arrive in time.  It was still a ton of fun.  I was so excited last night as I wrapped up all of the presents and put them under the tree.  When I told L that I would be wrapping his gifts for him to open in the morning he told me that he wanted a present in the tunnel of the tree.  That's what he's been calling this huge gaping hole near the bottom of our tree haha.  Luckily I had a present that fit there perfectly!  I think he was the most excited about his books and a set of small cymbals.  He has never seen cymbals before and had no idea how to use them but when he opened them his face lit up and his eyes got huge and he said, "SEERCULS!!" which is his word for circles.  He absolutely loves circles lol, he draws and paints circles often and even makes orange circles he calls the sun and blue circles that he calls bubbles.  Pretty smart kid :).  Anyway he was mega excited about his circles lol.

He also got the DVD "Cars" but about 15 minutes into it he asked to turn it off and watch the "Fish movie" that's "Finding Nemo" which is his all time favorite movie ever.  ;)  So that's what we did.  We also got him a little punching bag, a bow and arrow, and some more books, candy and water beads in his stocking.  We got him a whole bag of marshmallows (his favorite food) and he was pretty excited about that.  His big gift was a Waldorf Rocker Board and that thing has gotten a lot of use today!  He wasn't that enthused about it at first (it's just a curved board..what kid would be?  lol) but after he figured out a few things to do with it, he loved it.  It's a very open ended toy that can be used as a balance board among about a million other things.  Just today so far it has been a baby cradle, a boat on the ocean, a tunnel for his cars, a tunnel for him, a slide, a mountain to climb, something to jump off of, a bridge for his cars, and a fort when we set it up long ways against his toy box and covered it in play silks.  It's been a lot of fun to play with him!

Baby J had a great Christmas too.  He got a few little hanging toys to play with, some play silks, and a couple books.  He loves the play silks and so does L, if I had known those would be such a hit I would have bought them for L sooner.  J tries to mostly eat the silks but L has a great time throwing them in the air and he and J watch them float down.  I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas!  This evening I put string lights shining on the inside of a cardboard train L got for Christmas...it was a huge hit!!

Oh and did I mention they were in matching Christmas pajamas?  They are almost impossible to photograph together though lol.

Bubba

L recently got a new best friend.

He has absolutely loved cats ever since he could walk and one of his first words was "catty.....mow."  So we decided to go to the shelter and get him a kitten.  L has named him Bubba.  Bubba is a really chill dude and purrs even when L is holding him like in the picture above lol.  They are pretty much best friends already.  They play a lot of games together and Bubba loves to snuggle with L.

L always makes sure that Bubba is under a blanket when he's laying down and he brings him toys to play with from time to time.  Earlier L was playing with play-do and he wanted to be sure that Bubba had plenty of play-do too.  Bubba seemed a little freaked out by the smell but I'm sure he appreciated the gesture lol.

Update

Baby J has really been coming to life lately and he's a ton of fun.  He is the happiest person I've ever met and he never hesitates to return a smile!

Since he started rolling over he's become really interested in toys.  Earlier today he squished a big chunk of play-do in his hand while he watched L play with more play-do.  He really likes to stare at this red ball we have, I think he's trying really hard to figure out what it is lol.

Merry Christmas!

Mud Skating

Today my husband was able to come home from school early and the weather was nice so we headed out to a local park.  There is normally a lake at this park but it had mostly dried up and left a ginormous mud pit.

We started out by throwing sticks and rocks into the mud pit.  L loved this.  After walking around and exploring for a bit, L headed straight into the thick of the mud pit.  He asked me to come so of course I did!  We had an absolute blast.  My husband was wearing J in the Ergo and was reluctant to come out at first, but he was easily talked into it :).  We eventually got smart enough to take off our shoes and socks....that made navigating the huge mud pit quite a bit easier lol.  I started to "ice skate" on the mud and it worked perfectly!  I used the same motions as ice skating and just glided through the mud.  L thought this was hilarious and kept wanting me to do it over and over.  We ended up being covered in mud and having a blast!  We definitely want to make this at least a yearly tradition because it will only get more fun as the boys get older.  :)  I snapped a few pictures with my phone before we left.

Guess Who's Rolling Over!!

Baby J rolled over this evening for the first time.  He was a little scared the first time it happened, but he quickly got the hang of it and seemed to really enjoy being on his belly.  He kept trying to get his knees underneath him and kept reaching for a toy.  He was so determined and got so frustrated when it didn't work out for him!

I think he really enjoyed getting to see the world from a whole new angle, and I sure was excited to see him roll over!  He's been working on this for a month or more!

Spontaneous Adventure

We randomly went on an adventure today an it was so fun!  We went out for lunch and on the way home both sleepy boys fell asleep so I decided to drive around a while and let them rest.  We ended up at a park that I have wanted to check out for several months but we've been putting it off because it's kind of out of the way.  As I was driving around the park L woke up and started excitedly saying, "Park!  Park!"  So we got out to explore a bit and ended up staying a while.  J was happy to ride on my chest in the Ergo so it worked out perfectly.  The first thing L did was check out the mud puddles.  It was great, he was ecstatic to have some mud to jump in.

After enjoying the puddles by himself he stood in one for a minute and then pointed to it and said, "Mommy."  Want to know what I did?  I fought that little voice inside of me that was telling me all of the reasons not to jump in the puddle and I jumped right in with him.  It's amazing how kids can take something as simple as mud and make it magical.  We splashed and laughed until both of us were covered in cold, muddy water.  :)

After we were sufficiently soaked, L decided we should go for a walk.  I followed him around for a while and the he found a bug.  He was delighted to find a bug too lol, he bent down and watched it for a couple of minutes, his focus always amazes me!

After that we played with the water pump in the background of that picture a little bit, unfortunately no water would come out.  Then L discovered something that he's never seen in his short life.  These things are rare now and he was absolutely fascinated with it haha.

A pay phone!  He must have played with that thing for 20 minutes or more lol.  Shortly after he finished exploring the pay phone my husband showed up and joined us in our fun.  He and L found a long stick that they used to reach high up on this tree we were standing by.  It doesn't sound like much, but they had a blast.

  Then, L began to gather bark off of the tree since it was peeling off and he said that he wanted to take it home so I found a bag in the car for him to put it all in.  I'm really interested to see what he will do with it tomorrow, he's so creative so I bet it will be something unexpected.

Before we left the park we explored a tunnel which was quite a bit of fun.  L likes tunnels now and makes them for his cars out of one of the Waldorf toys we have.  We experimented with echoes and walked back and forth through the tunnel several times.  It was a great adventure for the whole family!

Dad's Home!

Usually my husband has to study at least one of the weekend days, but he was able to take the whole weekend off this time and we have really really enjoyed having so much time with him!  He and L have been busy building train tracks all weekend.  L absolutely loves playing "choo-choo's" with his dad.  :)

Our friends let us borrow their Bumbo seat for baby J yesterday.  J has really been acting like he wanted to see what was going on around him so we thought we'd give the Bumbo seat a shot and he seemed to really really love it.  Although today he had more fun laying in the floor and playing.

Today L wanted some kitchen sink time and I always love when he asks for this now.  He now keeps all the water in the sink so there's no mess and he becomes so engrossed in his experimentation that it buys me quite a bit of time to get things done or play with baby J.  He learns a lot from his sink play through trial and error and it can actually be pretty cool to watch him do.

Christmas Fun!

We recently had a pretty tough day.  Nobody seemed to be in a good mood so I broke out our big roll of paper and some finger paints.  Making a huge mess and painting always seems to be a little therapeutic and it calms the kids down pretty quickly.  We had a great time and L even drew a circle and said, "sirrcul."  I was impressed; I'm always impressed with that kid though.

I even took J's clothes off of him and let him paint a while.  He was way into this activity.  He would move his feet and legs around in the paint and then just stare at his feet and the painting for long periods of time.  He seemed fascinated.

We all had a great time with this activity and I even ended up in Wal-mart later with fingerpaint all over my clothes haha.  We also made salt dough Christmas ornaments recently.  This was a great activity and lots of fun for L.  At one point he was shaking his hands and salt dough got everywhere, it was pretty funny for us.

We finally got around to painting the ornaments this morning.  I set out the red, green, and white paints and L was all over the red paint.  He never even touched the green paint and he only dipped his brush in the white paint once and he was fascinated that he made pink by combining red and white together.  Mostly he was just excited about the red though lol.  

Yesterday 2 of L's cousins came down and we made rice krispy treat snowmen.  None of the boys were really that into this activity so my sister in law mainly made them.  The boys had fun eating all of the goodies though haha.