Where did my baby go? Who is this girl in this big bed? She sleeps with a doggie, much like the baby did, but suddenly she’s huge! She wears 4T clothes and ponytails, can reach from one end of the bathtub to the other, and insists on privacy in the bathroom (for her, none for me!). Happily she still naps, when I let her, but what happened to my baby? Where did she go?
Sleeping Eve.
I love Eve’s self portraits. She draws herself a lot lately. And writes her name everywhere. She doesn’t have arms in most of her pictures, but she always tells me about her smile and why it looks like it does. Sometimes it’s big, or small, or not a smile. I love it.
Eve - a self portrait
This is just a fun picture from this morning. Lex was giving Eve (in her booster seat) a hug goodbye before we left for school. I tried to take a picture and they both turned around. :)
Happy Birthday To You Mom
Eve Love
She made the card all by herself. She wanted to buy me one at the grocery store the other day and got mad at me because I wouldn’t let her :) So she decided to make me one instead. She knew exactly what she wanted it to say and I only had to help her a little bit with the spelling. Then she added a cake (with candles all around it) and ice cream on the front, and a picture of herself on the back. “This is when I was a baby,” she said, “so I only had one hair.” :) Happy (early) Birthday to me!
Today was a happy day in the pool and I was so bummed that I didn’t have the camera! We got to lessons and everything was as we expected, Lex and Eve together in the appropriate level. Even better, the regular teacher wasn’t there and the lesson coordinator (whom has taught Eve before and is SUPER friendly) was there instead. That made me happy because Eve was a tiny bit nervous about the new class and the big pool, so I think it was helpful to have someone she knew teaching, and someone who knows how she swims and what she’s capable of doing in the water.
They were both great. I was worried they would distract each other, but they didn’t. They both paid attention and once Lex even tried to help Eve. “Like this Eve, watch me,” he said when the teacher told them to assume a position she wasn’t familiar with. She watched him (and the teacher helped her too) and everyone was happy. Eve still needs to work on holding on to the wall at all times instead of swimming away whenever she wants to, but the teacher told me after the lesson that Eve did great and it was a pleasure having them both in the class. Yay!! I really enjoyed watching them. I felt like for the first time in awhile Eve was really being challenged in the water, and they both did so well and I felt all warm and fuzzy watching them. I think I had a huge smile on my face for the entire half hour. At one point the instructor asked Lex to back float to her, but Eve kicked off the wall at the same time, so they both floated over to the teacher together. I was wishing I had my camera then!! Oh well, there’s always next week.
Lex is getting much braver in the water too. He is wearing goggles now and today he even left them on the entire time without fidgeting with them. After lessons we went swimming together in the current pool (twists and winds like a river, with current), and Lex even put on a floaty. The pool has a bunch of awesome floaties that the kids wear and they can bob along in the current without going under. Eve loves wearing one, but this is the first time Lex would try it. He loved it too, of course. After Eve had swallowed about half the pool she wanted to go over to the splash park instead. Lex did not. He came with us for a few minutes, but then I offered to let him put the floaty back on and go in the current pool by himself. I expected a big NO to that offer, but instead he said OK! What?! He was thrilled to try it alone… until he actually got in the water. I watched him from afar and he hung out on the steps a bit, monkey crawled around the wall a bit, and about 5 minutes later came back and said he didn’t want to swim alone. I can’t really blame him and I was super proud that he was willing to put the floaty on and try it! They are growing up so fast!!
I’ll try to get pictures next week, but for now just envision happy smiling kids in the pool and a mommy, grinning from ear to ear!
Lex reads a lot of Encyclopedia Brown and Magic Tree House books and lately he has started making his own “cases.” For example, yesterday he announced “The Case of the Missing Puzzle Piece” and proceeded to tell Eve the clues. Eve happened to know where the piece was and wanted to jump right to the solution, but Lex made her listen to all the clues first. Then she announced “The Case of the Missing Puppy” and ran upstairs to “solve” the case by finding puppy right where she had left it. :) They seem to like these detective games so at dinner I asked if they wanted their own notebooks to write down the clues. They were psyched! Eve even abandoned her dinner to get right to work. Not exactly my goal, but oh well.
Eve at work
Puppy The Case - still working on proper word order, I guess.
This evening Lex grabbed his notebook for “The Case of the Wrong Puzzle Pieces” because he had built a big puzzle and decided some pieces were put together wrong. As he was writing “The Case… ” in his notebook, Eve fixed the puzzle. Haha! So his book says “The case” and then “Solved!” :)
After a few super busy weeks I promised the kids this would be a “no plans” weekend. It turned out to be a bit of a lie because Alan and I had a few plans, but nothing for the kids. The kids spent two days inside, painting and drawing and playing and doing whatever they wanted to do (for the most part!) Lex had a small meltdown when I had to leave for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and a much larger meltdown when Alan and I went out Saturday night. I paid the babysitter very well for that. She said he settled down eventually, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. Fortunately she babysits for us regularly and knows that he isn’t normally like that. And she promised she would come back again. Phew! Anyway, our weekend in photos.
They painted up a storm Friday night. We had drying pages on the table, in the bathroom, in the office, everywhere! It was great.
Eve loves painting, especially big pictures with a big brush :)
Eve has been drawing people lately.
Lex helped me organize a drawer in the kitchen.
He was so proud of this project :) And super helpful! (the red mark on his mouth is chapped skin. I've been sneaking in at night and putting A&D on it, so it usually looks better in the morning, but worse again by evening. Hopefully it clears up soon!)
Yes, those are cardboard boxes. Cereal and cracker boxes, to be precise. I wanted to see how it worked and if I liked it before investing actual money into the project. The cardboard boxes may be temporary... or not, only time will tell.
Lex made himself a color-by-number yesterday. He's so funny.
Finally, here is Lex this afternoon. Nothing like some fun math problems on a Sunday afternoon. All self-driven. Alan and I were answering questions when he asked them, but he was motivated for math!
Grammy Lynn and Grampy Don gave us a huge box of books when the kids were young(er), books that were Alan and Amanda’s when they were kids. It’s interesting reading them now. Some are fun, some are classics and we have new copies of the exact same book, and others are just plain weird. Many use the word “gay” in it’s original meaning, which is noteworthy only because no books use that word for that meaning today. What made me think of this is last night I was reading Julius by Syd Hoff (author of Danny and the Dinosaur of which, at one point, we had four copies!). The book is all about a man and boy who go to the jungle to find a gorilla for their zoo. All the animals want to go to the zoo and are disappointed that only the gorilla is allowed to go. Another book we have has a similar theme, something about elephants and they all want to go to the zoo. I don’t think they write books like that anymore, do that? These days it seems like zoos are an evil necessity, not a glamorous place where the animals all want to live. The original Curious George is written such that George is living happily in the jungle, eating his bananas, and then the Man With The Yellow Hat “rescues” him from his normal life and brings him to a zoo. Like this is a good thing. Weird.
There are a few books that I have gotten rid of because I don’t like the general message, including “What Mommy Does” and “What Daddy Does.” I laughed though, because a few days after getting rid of those two books I read a blog where the lady was talking about how much she loves these books and how important it is to teach these things. Perhaps kids can just observe what mommies and daddies do these days, because a lot has changed since the writing of those books (even in our relatively traditional house)! It’s fun to see how the content of kids books has changed through the years.
We got the bookshelf painted and put into the kids room so last night we went through the books and sorted them and put them on the shelf. We have a lot of books! I’m going to cull out a few more when the kids aren’t around (just the broken, missing pages, falling apart ones) but they like to cling to every single page, whether it’s attached to a book or not, so I have to do my collection trimming when they aren’t around. Shhh….. ;)
Soon we’ll be getting out the holiday books too. Yay!
On a completely different note, Alan and I are going out tonight. I’m excited. We’ve got a babysitter for the first time in awhile and we’re going to dinner and to see Red. I hope it’s a good movie! The previews look funny.
Eve came down from nap today and told me that she was singing God songs to puppy. After nap she often likes to hang out in her room for a bit, on the days I don’t have to wake her up to rush out the door! She sat on the floor and asked if I wanted her to sing to me. Heck yeah! So she sang, “The Lord can hear the cries of the poor.” That’s the only line she knows so she sang it a few times before announcing, “That’s from Mema’s church!!” :) I love her singing voice. Maybe I need to get her to church more often.
After much delay we finally, FINALLY got around to painting the bookshelf. But “we” I mostly mean “me” because the kids have been dying to do it almost every day, but it took me awhile to gather the materials and motivation. I mostly wanted to do it while Lex was at school and Eve was napping, but it didn’t quite work out that way. In hindsight I’m glad it didn’t! We all had a really fun time and the kids did a super good job of listening and being careful. Hopefully it will dry tonight and we can do another coat (or two, I didn’t use primer) tomorrow. Maybe by next week it will actually have books on it :)
For those of you who think I do nothing but bake all day, here is a healthier recipe. I rejoined Weight Watchers this week so the baking has been put on hold for awhile (but with the holidays so near I don’t think it will be too long!) This recipe is adapted from a WW magazine. I’ve made it a few times and I think it is yummy. Alan mostly agrees, though I think he’d take something full-fat and loaded with chicken over this :)
Cheesy Cauliflower Casserole
1 c. shredded Swiss cheese (divided in half)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan
6 c. steamed cauliflower florets
3 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 1/2 c. fat-free half-and-half
3 Tbsp chopped parsley (I used the freeze dried variety)
Mix 1/2 cup of Swiss cheese with the Parmesan and set aside.
Put the steamed cauliflower into a 2qt baking dish.
Heat the half-and-half over a low heat, add flour, salt, cayenne, and garlic. Cook until it thickens, whisking frequently, about 4 minutes. Add the other 1/2 cup of Swiss cheese and parsley.
Pour over the cauliflower and top with mixed cheeses.
Broil 3-5 minutes, until golden brown on top.
3 POINTS per 1 cup serving. Variations: use low-fat Swiss cheese to reduce points to 2 per 1 cup serving. The original recipe also said to added 3 oz. Canadian bacon strips at the end with the cheese and parsley. I skipped that step, obviously. It will also increase the points value.
PS. Sorry no fancy photo! I didn’t think about posting the recipe until after the leftovers were tucked nicely (and messily!) away in the fridge.