Craft Time

 

A month ago I decided to turn a basically unused corner of my office into a craft area.  With a lot of help from Austin, it turned out spectacularly.  So now instead of hiding random materials in spare closets and hauling it all out when needed, I get the luxury of an eight and a half foot work surface and more storage than I can fill up… yet.  

I wish I had taken before pictures.  The only things we bought for this desk set-up was the cabinet on the right ($30 from the Habitat Store), some white wallpaper tiles for the pie safe, white paint and sealer for the desk, four 12x12 cork boards and fabric to cover them to make the fun red and white bulletin boards ($14).  That puts the transformation at less than $100, and most of the paint and sealer will be left over for future fun.  Most of the materials came from pieces of my father'-in-law’s office in Annapolis that he recently dismantled, though it took some ingenuity to reconfigure it in a way that would work here.

I also collected all the spare containers I could find in the house and took them all out back and spray painted them so they’d be in the same range of colors.  I also took a gold lamp and turned it bright and white.  The only thing left to do is let the paint on the counter fully cure (approximately two weeks) and then I’ll seal it with an acrylic polyurethane to make it durable enough to stand the test of projects. 

The big question is: why am I sitting on the couch blogging when I could be crafting?

Quote of the Day

Tucker: I smell something.

Me: What is it?

Tucker: I think it’s the cake in the fridge for later.

***************************************************************

Me: What did you dream about last night?

Tucker: I dreamed about the shadow in my brain.

Quote of the Day

Papa: What does okay mean?

Tucker: It’s what you say to get out of timeout.

Quote of the Day

Austin: I need more contact lenses.

Tucker: You need more Father Glenn-ses?

Molly rolling around

This video is of Molly rolling around yesterday on the couch, generally having a fabulous time.

Bible Study Concert

I find this video hilarious. Tucker had a concert last year where he was so animated he was the star of the show... no longer! The shy monster has gobbled him up and this time he stood in a corner looking at his friend. I think he mouthed the words once!

My Molly Monkey

I dropped Molly's last nursing session ten days ago, thinking it would be a pretty drawn-out and horrible experience since she was so attached to nursing in bed in the morning. Wrong. She has not been mad or frustrated at me at all, and seems to enjoy her new morning routine as much as the last. So now she watches the news with Austin while devouring one or two bananas. In fact, she is such a Daddy's girl that she probably likes this better because she gets to snuggle with Austin. The actual banana-eating session is pretty funny; she eats them in a trance-like state with her mouth leaning into the banana and eating it in one continuous-pressure mouthful, much like a snake with its prey.

I was getting groceries a week ago Friday and a woman couldn't believe I was buying three bunches of bananas. I told her they might get us through the weekend. Another friend mentioned that her family can't go through a bunch of bananas before they go bad. I live with a bunch of monkeys. Yesterday, Molly ate four bananas, and would've eaten more if we had let her. (We usually try to keep it to 2 or 3!)

In other news, Molly is still crazy. I found her yesterday standing without holding onto anything on top of one of Tucker's chairs. Since she isn't able to stand for more than a few seconds without holding onto anything, this is a precarious situation. As long as she doesn't get hurt, she loves falling. She used to love climbing up the stairs, but now climbs only enough that she can slide down them on her stomach.

Molly likes playing with Tucker's Halloween candy, but I was under the naive impression that she just liked the shiny wrappers and didn't actually really understand it was candy. Yesterday, Tucker was eating Starburst and I let Molly have a second package to hold while I read them books before naptime. Somehow Molly managed to get hold of one of the little pieces I had unwrapped for Tucker from his package and completely ate it in the space of time that I was reading Tucker a book. She was very smart about it--was facing away and apparently absorbed in another task--and by the time she turned around I could just see the red juices around the ring of her mouth. She was delighted and showed me that there was only a tiny sliver left in her mouth. What 12 month-old can chew Starburst? In fact, Molly finished her piece before Tucker did.

Molly is doing things Tucker didn't do at her age. She already takes markers and crayons and draws on paper. She loves puzzles--I keep a puzzle in her crib and hear her trying to put the pieces in during naptime (and she can do ones that are easy shapes like circles). And one of her favorite things is putting things away, organizing and sorting--I think she may have gotten my organizational tendencies. And she also already knows how to jump. I don't think Tucker left the ground like that till he was two!

On a side note, Molly was 20 lbs 4 oz and 30 inches at a year, which is pretty average, though a bit tall. I realized if I don't report that here, I will forget!

Quote of the Day

“My cheese is dead!!!!” –Tucker, screaming down the hall at 2 am

Lots of singing: processionals and light up shoes

Here are a couple recent videos of Tucker. The first is his rendition of a processional at church… he was carrying the Swiffer around the house as a cross while chanting until Austin made one of his own. The lyrics to this song he made up make sense, but sometimes he sings Jesus chants to the tune of Old Macdonald, and in fact, the other week I think the lyrics went something like “Old Macdonald tickled Jesus….”





The second video is Tucker enjoying some new light up shoes by dancing in circles to make them light up.

Happy Halloween!

We began our Halloween celebration on Friday at Tucker’s school.  Everyone dressed up as a character from a story and brought their book in for show-and-tell, then they paraded around into the other four year-old class. 

Tucker dressed up as Ben, our dog, this year.  He was quite adamant that he was NOT Spot the dog, but I managed to still send him with a Spot book because surprisingly, Ben is not the main character in any books that we own. 

I got his costume off ebay but it was too small so I had to use some fabric from the legs to extend the hood and then make the costume end with the body and not have legs.  It worked well enough.  Tucker was happy.

 

 

Molly enthusiastically helped celebrate at Tucker’s school.  She especially enjoyed her first strawberry cupcake. 

 

Tucker’s class (one little boy is missing)

  Tucker’s beloved Miss Karen and Miss Kim

Our actual Halloween day celebration was a bit chaotic.  Tucker fell asleep during rest time (a once a month occurrence) so we missed our afternoon festivities.  Which meant that Molly celebrated Halloween by screaming while I put her ladybug costume on and then wearing it for about 10 minutes on the porch before going to bed.  She was especially not impressed by the hood.  Wearing a hood is child abuse, in case you didn’t know.  But at least she posed for a few pictures.  She also had a ballerina outfit, but it is a little small and I couldn’t manage to get her in it.  I think if she worked on being more docile it might be possible, but not with her current commitment to cooperation and dressing up.

 

We ended up going trick-or-treating in a friend’s neighborhood at the last minute since we slept through our afternoon festivities.  Tucker’s never done actual trick-or-treating before and I think it was a little scary but very fun.  My friend Katy had told me that her neighborhood was known as THE Halloween neighborhood in our area, but I was not prepared for all the streets to be completely lined with the cars of people who had driven in just to trick-or-treat.  It was a complete zoo.  The houses in the neighborhood were decked out, though I celebrated by helping pass out candy while my mom accompanied the trick-or-treaters.

 

Ben and Ben

 

Enjoying the fruits of a long evening.