Jason-isms

1. He loves peanut butter and ketchup more than ... life itself?

Christmas morning

2. He's still eats a lot, but has become pickier (boo): doesn't like the texture of most meat (with the exception of chicken nuggets and hot dogs), won't eat lettuce-y things or skinny/stringy things like matchstick carrots for example (with the exception of string cheese).

3. He now requests "DEE-ssert" "tandy" and "tweats" regularly.

And Opa loved to give him whatever he wanted.

4. He can sing the entire ABC song (only omits "L" I think). But ever since he learned the ending, he skips T-X. So it goes like this towards the end: "Q R S, Y Z.  Now I ABC's. Net time wo seen me." :) So cute. And if I try to insert T U V, he just starts over!

5. He repeats so much of what I say now.

6. He loves when people tell him Happy Birthday (since he just turned 2).

7. He surprised me by singing the Happy Birthday song the day after.

8. He somehow knows what fire is (maybe from birthday candles??) and calls the blanket w/ red swirls on it "fire". :)

9. He can say 1-10, but not usually in order. It usually goes "2, 3, 9", but it's getting a little better. And today he surprised me by saying 14.

10. The morning after Grandma & Grandpa left, when he kept saying "Oma! Opa! Oma! Opa!..." and I told him they were gone, he said in a sad voice, "I LOVE Oma Opa." And the next day when he wanted them again, he commanded me to, "Find Oma Opa." Aww!

11. His favorite toy right now is the car that he can sit in while I push and the plastic drill that works like a real drill. I didn't even know I should include "Mechanic / Carpenter" on the list of what he might be when he grows up. :)

Drill in action

Below: I had to drill through slippery plastic with no pilot holes to put that blasted car together! And see that yellow thing under the basketball hoop? Couldn't get it on b/c of the slippery plastic and crazy angle that they wanted me to drill the screws in. What kills me - they suggest a screw driver for all of it! Seriously?!? That would take some crazy muscle and precision to do w/o a drill. And with the few large holes that were already there, Jason used to stick other toys in. One toy drill bit and his pencil are forever trapped inside the car since I didn't realize they were in there until after. All things considered, I'm pretty proud of my handywork. :)

12. He's really good with the cats. Other than liking to see them run when he screams as high-pitched as he can. lol. Or chasing them just for fun. The other day when Kitten regurgitated some cat food, he said, "Kitty mouth poop". Lol - pretty acurate actually...

13. The garbage truck in action scares him and makes him cry! :( So sad!

Pre-Christmas

I was right *sigh* :(.

It can't be done.
I had to disassemble it and hide it in my room until my parents came. So for about 2 weeks, it didn't feel like Christmas. I was pretty bummed.

But we still did a few Christmas-y things.

Like visit Santa

And play with cousins

(extras)

He got a black eye on one of the pews at church!

Scarv-ing

I told my Primary class that I'd make them all scarves and they got to tell me what color they'd like. Well, actually, I made the mistake one day of telling one of the girls that I made the scarf I was wearing. So she asked me to make her one, too. But I couldn't just make one for her because I didn't want the other kids in the class to feel bad if they found out. So I've been busy making scarves in the evening after Jason goes to bed. And here they are: (I have one left to make for JJ, but I'll just post a picture later.)

Each one is slightly different, mostly along the edges.

I love the pattern on the ball of left-over yarn. Kind of fish scale like.
For Megan:

Size N needle w/ regular craft-type yarn.

For Autumn:

size N w/ thicker yarn

For Anne:

For William:

Size J needle

For Neil:

N w/ thicker yarn. "Watch" shape

For Katelyn:

For Kelly:

Jason-Proofing

Is there such a thing? I'm not sure it can be done.

One of his favorite past-times - throwing things over the baby gate and down the stairs.

Why we don't check out books from the library:

Luckily this one was ours.

I started with the ornaments about half-way up, but kept having to move them up higher and higher!

Tree Music, Sand Music...

This is so so awesome. And frankly, astounding.

NPR interviewed Italian-born, Diego Stucco, who makes music from trees, sand, dry cleaners, and who knows what else. That description alone may not have piqued your interest, but if you listen to it, you'll be floored. Here's the link to listen to it at NPR's site (from minute 12:30 to 18).

The interview is interesting and there's a funny story behind his music background, but if you'd rather watch how he does it, here's a youtube link, where you'll also be able to listen to / watch his other instruments, like sand, etc.

Let me know what you think!

Paint-Swirled Ornaments

For our recent Activity Day, we had the girls make ornaments (an idea from Sherry at Young House Love found here to be exact). They each made one for themselves and one to deliver w/ a candy cane and some caroling to the nearby KOA trailer homes. They really had fun making them and they turned out awesome!
To keep:

Some of the girls took theirs home to dry.

Blue and purple were a popular combo, if you couldn't tell. I really like the middle one above that's blue w/ silver glitter.

To give:

Two pink w/ gold glitter, one pink w/ silver glitter, lots of blue & purple (although I convinced one girl to add a light purple too), LOVE the berry and gold glitter one, a christmasy one, and a yellow one.

Mine?
This:

to keep

and this:

to give

I really love the one I made to give. It originally had more negative space, but as the paint continued to spread, it ended up having a lot less. Bummer. Oh well, I still think it turned out pretty cool.
Can you see the cool swirl effect inside?! Awesome!! Most of them had LOTS of extra paint sitting in the bottom, which I've had to let drip out so they'll dry faster. But I wish I had had a blank canvas for them to drip onto because the drippings w/ all the color swirls looked SO COOL! It would've made a stellar abstract painting.