Snow and crafts...

Isabella is having a hard time accepting the fact that it is winter and it is going to be winter for a very long time. Every morning she wakes up and after stripping off her pajamas, puts on her princess dress or a tank top and skirt. I promise, I only keep our thermostat at 65 so it's not like our house is a sauna. These outfits would work quite nicely if we were at my grandparent's house where it is necessary for everyone to start taking off clothes--within reason of course. By Tuesday of last week we literally had one foot of snow on the ground and Isabella woke up and said, "is it summer yet?!"

Because my grandma came to visit last week, we spent most of Monday and Tuesday at my parent's house. Before leaving our house Isabella and I had several debates over why she needed to wear some warmer clothes. Some debates turned into tantrums where she sat crying in her room until she relented to putting pants on. The compromise: she was allowed to pack her tank top and skirt to take with her. And I'm not even kidding when I say that the minute we walked in the door she started taking off her clothes. Isabella and my grandma quickly became buddies--until Jesse walked in the door after work. Jesse is her ultimate favorite person (Josh coming in a close second).

I haven't had much time to blog or sift through pictures. Isaac had an especially crabby week and because he trumps everything else in life right now, well, that means no time to blog. Walter and I often have a hard time deciding who should get to clean the kitchen over having to hold/entertain Isaac. I know, pretty bad. Saturday night I went out with some friends...crazy right?!...after I got home (at midnight by the way!) Walter was expressing how hard it was to do anything with Isabella because Isaac was always in need of something. Obviously, I struggle with this daily. Isabella gets the shaft. She's told to wait just a minute...be quiet because Isaac is sleeping...leave Isaac alone because he is finally happy...find something quiet to do...take off your princess shoes so you don't wake up Isaac...STOP attacking Isaac he's playing nicely...don't take his pacifier, he's happy...I'm nursing Isaac, you need to wait...and the list goes on and on. I try to remind myself that the whole point of having a second baby was to make sure Isabella didn't think she was the center of the universe. I guess it's working but I don't like the way things are right now. I don't like that I have so little of myself to give her because Isaac sucks the life out of me.

Wow, that was depressing...moving on...

Thanks to the Beco, I was able to strap Isaac in and get some things done with Isabella this week. We finally finished the toilet paper roll ornaments that took us a week to complete and we also made gingerbread cookies. Now, I'm not really someone who enjoys making cookies. It's kind of like a never ending process but Isabella was dying to do it, so we did, and aside from some major frustration on my part, it went okay and they turned out really well. In the midst of this process, I had to take a step back and look at myself from Isabella's perspective--would I really want someone bossing me around the whole time telling me where to put the cookie cutter and to stop touching the dough, etc.? No. So the heck with it...we wasted a bunch of dough and the cookie-making took twice as long, but we did it and she was ridiculously excited.

Because I've trained my children to smile when they see the camera (just kidding), I often take a really frustrating moment with Isaac, sit him on the floor and pull out the camera because usually he'll start smiling. Sitting him out in the cold seemed to work too. Every chance she got, Isabella wanted to go out in the snow, so that meant bundling up Isaac and heading out. And then there was Friday night when after we got home from a date, Isabella really wanted to play in the snow and wouldn't take no for an answer. I went in to put Isaac to bed and Walter and Isabella headed outside. After a hot bath for me, they were still outside. Walter asked if I wanted to come out and I said "no, I just took a hot bath and got all warmed up." After they went about their business making paths through the woods I went outside and ambushed them with snowballs! Isabella kept saying, "mommy, you reprised me!" That means, "mommy you surprised me!" Ha ha! Lesson learned: It's far more important to have a snowball fight at 10:30 p.m. than it is to be inside watching your little girl, turned snow bunny, having a blast without you.

I recently rearranged an area in our kitchen so that Isabella would have access to her easel at all times. Almost all of her paintings or even drawings look about the same: one big blob of paint. When I asked her what her latest painting was, she said, "a wall". Duh. A few days ago I showed her how to trace a gingerbread cookie cutter, which she did quite well and then drew hair on it. When she showed it to me and said that it was a picture of her I said, "but where are your eyes?" "Oh, well, that's me with my bangs in my eyes because Gar needs to cut my hair." Then she drew another gingerbread person with very little hair and said, "this is me after Gar cuts my hair so I don't have bangs in my eyes!"

A Wall

In our house, dinosaurs and princesses go hand in hand...

My blue eyed man...

Don't ask why she's wearing a Halloween shirt or why she isn't wearing anything over her tights. When we're at home, she allowed to wear whatever she wants!

Check out those eyes...love them both...

If you come over to our house, watch your step, animals take trips across the living-room...

My ornament pictures are in reverse but it's too annoying in Blogger to switch them...

This turned out as an excellent project for practicing small motor skills. Can I just brag for a minute (well, actually this blog is full of bragging--sorry, go start a blog and you can brag about your kids all you want!) and say she did an amazing job and made the ornaments almost entirely on her own. I punched the holes and tied the ends of the pipe cleaners together.

When in doubt, scrunch up your face for full concentration. 

If your child is as paranoid about getting paint on their fingers as my dear Isabella is, the perfect solution, stick the toilet paper roll on a spice jar...

No, we don't paint in our living room, but because the painting part of this project was taking so long, I finished the last few rolls while Isabella was taking a nap. Otherwise, we might not have our ornaments done yet.

 Playing with grandma...

Admit it, you wish you had an outfit like this!

Walter likes this picture...

Isaac's most common facial expression, one of confusion...

Stella, playing in the snow...

Stella kept trying to pounce on Isabella and steal her mitten...

My look-alike...