Food Inventions & Innovations

Interesting combos!

I forgot to add Campbell's culinary innovations, but she just brought me a water, jelly & sunbutter 'juice' to taste, so it reminded me. A couple months ago, Campbell started making sandwiches. If I remember correctly, the first time she did it, she got up early on a weekend while Gabe & I were still in bed and she brought us breakfast in bed, which included sandwiches. Mine had 2 pieces of bread with a dab of jelly. Gabe got a stack of FOUR dry pieces of bread! The thought was so sweet, but let's just say it's really hard to choke down eat dry bread first thing in the morning. Luckily, Campbell wanted to eat a lot of it herself and then Blake woke up and joined in. Since then she likes to make herself sandwiches. It started out as plain sunbutter & jelly sandwiches (no peanut butter here with Blake's allergy). Lately, she's very impressed with her invention of the mayo, cheese & sunbutter sandwich. She's also asked me to slice up fruit to add, so a couple times it's been sun butter, mayo, cheese, kiwi and apple. And pictured above, the sunbutter, mayo & orange sandwich, which I had totally forgotten about....luckily I have pictures to jog my memory.

Inventions and Innovations

Campbell has been very creative lately, coming up with these things on her own. She usually will get a project going during quiet time (Blake's nap time). Looks like she got the creative gene that skipped me! Here are some of her creations:

A paperclip holder. She came up with the concept and design all by herself, I was pretty impressed! I wasn't paying attention to what she was working on, and she had cut the cardboard and was taping the parts together by the time she told me what she was doing. She just needed a bit of help figuring out how to tape the third side to make it form a box.

According to Campbell, this is a "Teach Kids How to Milk a Cow Toy". Still cracks me up just thinking about it. She saw this wooden toy at the nature center that was a replica of something kids used to play with back in the day. The toy was a teddy bear hanging down between 2 ropes. You pulled the ropes alternating to get the bear to climb the rope.  For her version, you need someone to hold the plastic container up and then the kid holds the paper 'handles' and  'milks' the ribbon. Again, not paying attention when she was crafting this. Totally on her own. She only needed help figuring out how to get the ribbon to slide back and forth.

3-D paper flowers.

Paper kite. We've been talking forever about getting a kite. Campbell took the matter into her own hands and made one herself. She even went into my sewing box and found a spool of thread with not much thread left and used it for the handle & string. It actually worked great until the thread broke.

Campbell made this 8 page magazine for Blake to read while he was sitting on the potty a couple months ago when he was potty training.

Campbell was pretending to be a horse, so she made these carrots & apples for me to 'feed' her. The yellow thing at the top of the picture is a dog treat for Blake who was pretending (as usual) to be a dog.

A match game.

Puppet show. She changed out the drawings several times for scene changes. She's holding the puppets, which are people drawn on cut out piece of paper towel.

Decorating for our St. Patrick's Day party. She cut out, punched holes & threaded the 'decorations' through ribbon and hung up across several doors and doorways. These are still up. Not sure if I'll ever be able to convince her to take them down.

The audience for a show Campbell put on.

She cut out tickets and poked hole (because that's what the conductor does on Dinosaur Train) for every single one of the 50+ audience members.

We're going through a lot of tape and paper around here, which is totally fine with me!

March Random

Blake told me today he was going to "rock a bye" his baby.


The other day Campbell and Blake were working really hard on this project of getting blankets arranged and stuffed dogs all set up in a "dog nest".

Random pictures from the month: 

The great stuffed animal pile up.Where is the world did all of these stuffed animals come from?

Campbell's birthday card to Papa Paul

Blake art! Sitting still and drawing don't interest him much.

 

 

At Last...

It's happened. I've been holding out hope that this day wouldn't come, but it has. I actually can't believe we made it this long, but today is the day.

Did I say before that Blake was napping amazing without his Paci? Well, turns out, that's not exactly panned out. I'd say most days he does nap, but some days, like today, he lays in there & yells/signs to himself. Every so often, yelling at the top of his lungs 'all done with mine nap!'

Blake had been confined for an hour and it didn't seem like he was going to give into sleep, so I told Campbell to run up and play with him for a couple minutes so I can finish up paying bills. After a few minutes, Campbell comes running down stairs shouting, 'Good news! Blake got out of his crib all by his self!' Right on cue, Blake comes trucking down the stairs. I tell Blake that I don't want him doing that because it's dangerous. Campbell pipes in, 'Don't worry, Mom, I was standing right there with my arms out like this.' (Sorry, Campbell, doesn't really make me feel much better!)

We'll see if he does it again, but since the move, the toddler bed has been waiting for him in the guest room next door, and it probably will be have to be brought in soon. The kid is nearly 3 for crying out loud.

Enjoying the Porch

It's been record breaking warm here (in the 70's and I even think we hit 80 one day, plus humidity - weird!). Every day, we've been taking several trips across the street to the park, which is awesome, not only because we've been meeting peeps from the 'hood, but also great for wearing the kids out.

One day, the kids and I had fun washing & scrubbing away the dirt on the patio and getting it ready for the season. 

Meal time change of scenery! The kids love it out there, watching the birds at the bird feeder and keeping an eye on the playground.

It's been awesome to enjoy meals out in the fresh air, that is, when that awful manure smell isn't blowing our way.  I still don't understand how we didn't know there was a dairy farm  basically next door considering how often we looked at this house before we bought it. Pretty certain the real estate agent made sure there wasn't a westerly wind blowing before our showings. Neighbors keep saying we'll get used to it. Not to be rude, but really!?!?! Do I want to get used to smelling cow poo?!?!? Not cool.

Bye Bye Paci

We've been talking to Blake for a while now about giving up his beloved Paci. He's supposed to keep it in his crib and use it only for sleep, but sometimes he will sneak and grab it if he's upset. Campbell has tried multiple times to convince him to give it to the Paci Fairy because of all the great presents he'd get in return. He usually would end up upset and crying just thinking about it. Gabe thinks his front teeth are getting pushed out so has wanted to get rid of it for a while. I've wanted to let him keep it, it's one of the last 'baby' things that my baby has. Plus, he calm himself with it, sleeps awesome with it, not to mention, it looks so dang funny hanging out of his mouth. But most importantly, I don't want to mess with his amazing sleep ability!

This morning, Campbell got to attend a 'bring a friend to dance class' with E, so before we left, I flippantly said to Blake, "We should give your Paci to baby M." "OK", Blake said matter of factually. Not sure that he understood what that meant, so I explained that he would never have it again and he was still totally fine with it. Especially after I said he could go to Target and pick out a special toy in exchange.

As soon as he saw M, he ran up and handed his beloved Paci right over. I didn't even have time to pull out my camera and capture the moment. I was so surprised that Blake didn't even seem to care. He was more interested in seeing Campbell do her dance (Campbell had a blast of course, how couldn't a little girl dressed in all pink with a big tutu have fun?) & take multiple, multiple pictures of M.

On our way back home, we had to stop at Target to pick out a toy as I promised, even though it was already past lunch and naptime. Blake was so funny running through the aisles exclaiming in this funny, low excited voice he does, "Look at this!" to every single toy he saw. He finally settled on the most boyish of all boy toys, a Monster Truck - flashing lights, revving engine and rocking music.

Nap time was smooth, but I attributed it to Blake being exhausted and way past normal nap time. The only thing Blake said was, "I will say, where's red Paci? Where's red Paci?" I asked him what he'd answer and he just said, "At E's house." That was it.

Bedtime was smooth, but I was still nervous he's wake up in the middle of the night & realize what he'd done. No problem, he slept all night.

I guess he was ready. It was smooth as smooth could be. Yeah!

One last suck in the car before the hand off. I was pretty certain at this point he was going to not go through with it, but thought I better take a picture just in case.

M checking out his new Paci.

In the plethora of pictures Blake took of M/the floor/the ceiling, he got this great action shot of the 'baby' he's handing down his treasured Paci to. 

Big Boy and his big Monster Truck!

As soon as we get home, Monster Truck gets introduction to Blake's other favorites.

First sleep without Paci!

Blake and Campbell work for a long time while I'm making dinner on this garage for Monster Truck and all its friends.

Maple Syruping

The kids and I went to the Lowry Nature Center for a class on maple syrup. We learned about trees, tromped through the woods, tapped a maple tree for sap, and tasted maple syrup and maple sugar (yum!). Afterward, we played and had a picnic at the park. We love having this place so close!

Cool Tricks!

At first glance, how weird is the kids show 'Yo Gabba Gabba!'? If you can stand to watch it, it's actually kind of cute & they teach good lessons, for example, in the super catchy song, 'Don't Bite Your Friends'. The kids think the show is great and in one episode they have a 'Cool Tricks' segment where they show a kid balancing a spoon on his nose. Fast forward a few days later.....I'm preparing lunch & not really paying attention to what the kids are doing since all is calm and quiet. Blake comes up with this....

What a goofball!

Princesses On Ice

Campbell donned in her favorite princess dress & we headed to the Target Center with B & BJ for Disney on Ice. The boys were left at home to man the fort. It was entertaining walking into the stadium along with a ba-zillion other moms and daughters all dressed in their finest princess attire.

I showed this picture to Campbell when I told her where we were going and she let out a scream so loud that it almost broke the windows. To say she was excited would be a severe understatement.

So exciting!

 My camera on my phone took horrible pictures of the show, so thankfully I found these awesome pictures from www.typicalsuburbanfamily.com.

First the story of the Princess and the Frog. Campbell was a bit scared of this one, scary music, spooky characters and voodoo stuff. I wasn't a big fan either.

Next the classic, Cinderella. Super cute.

At intermission, Campbell couldn't live without a $12 slushy in a Rapunzel cup. Disney sure does know what the 3-6 year old girl wants - and the prices were completely ridiculous, of course!

The grand finale, the moment we'd been waiting for....Tangled! This was Campbell's first ever movie, which she just watched not too long ago.

The part where they were swinging through the air on Rapunzel's hair was our favorite part. 

At intermission, Campbell couldn't live without a $12 slushy in a Rapunzel cup. Disney sure does know how to market - and the prices were completely ridiculous, of course!