"There's a Monkey in my bed"

For Baby Coo Coo and Baby Uncle Chris.  I could have edited this a bit...but alas...I don't know how.  I am doing well to get a video on the blog at all.  Lylah loves her Goodnight Gorilla book so much and it is showing its age.  We may have to break down and buy another one.  I know it is one of Cleie's favorites too.  Lylah wanted to read for her cousin.  So she did, kind of.  She really read it well before the camera was turned on.  I am afraid she got silly and shy when the camera went on.  Still fun I hope.

Classroom Soloist

I happened to have my camera in the classroom the other day when I caught the video above.  I have no idea what she is singing but I love that she is really belting it out.  They were all doing some dress up and some dancing in our dance/ book area during center time.  We always dance together after snack to all kinds of fun songs.  But today they had no music at the time, so I guess Lylah was making up for the lack there of.  She is wearing her favorite thing, the boa, and ends the clip doing her favorite thing, the jump dance.  Hope you liked it.


PS  She is wearing a heart and cherries clip I made last week If you can see it.

Happy Birthday To You ---woo woo

I took this little video in time to post it for my Mom's birthday...but then I took the camera to school for sewing week pictures and did not ever get it put on the blog.  But it was cute and I thought Grammy might like it.  So here it is.


Happy Birthday to you---woo--woo!

I chopped the Goldie Locks

I did not tell the grandmas until after the deed was done...but I cut Lylah's hair.  It is ever so cute.  It is all one length and stacked in the back.  It curls so sweetly and is much less of a battle to fix in the morning.  I do miss the pig tails, but I love the look her hair has now.  It suits her very well.  Short and sassy.

We started with a tuft on top at 10 months and progressed....

15 months.  Enough for a side clip and just before I cut off her "rat tail"

 

23 months. She had enough for little bitty piggy tails.

 

26 months.  Looking fuller.

 

2 1/2 .  Longer piggy tails.

 

2 yrs 8 mo.  Long enough for french braids.

Last week.  Long and lovely, just after her bath.

 

A few days ago.  Cute as two buttons.

There you have it.  An evolution of hair.  She  looks big now.  I guess that fits because she can "do it by herself" whatever it is.  She is still little and cute.  She just looks too big now.  I love the do.  Daddy is getting used to it still.

Instead fo Organizing the Craft Room...

I made some stuff.
I made a bigger mess in the craft room.
I was a busy little bee, though.

I made a fun card for Grammy's 60th Birthday.  We ran our of colored ink in the printer and have not replaced it yet.  So I printed the picture in black and white and colored it with colored pencils.  I hand-stitched the accent papers and machine sewed the background paper.  My favorite part is the party hat and pom pom.  The hat has a little star shaped sequin and bead on a flower punch.

There is a glare on the picture here because of where I took the shot.  But you can still see what it is.  I was trying to take just one good shot of Lylah.  She would not hold still or cooperate so I got a series of out takes instead.  When taken together, the group of bad shots are pretty fun.  I sandwiched them between pieces of glass in a floating frame and used pieces of a vintage game and measuring tape to add interest and a title.  The last picture is what she calls her "monster face."

I also made 6 hair clips for Lylah.  I got really bad pictures of them so I will have to try again and post those on another day.

Lylah was a little busy too.  She made her first sef portrait.

It has eyes, nose, forehead, mouth, ears, and legs.   I was impressed.  She wrote it on my babtsitter memo pad--in case you are wondering what the writing in the back ground is.

Not bad for the week.  I did SOMETHING every day of the week this week.  Yeah!  That feels good.  Feels like what I should be doing.  Ahhhhhh

I don't care what you say...I love this song

Laugh if you will, but I cannot get enough of this song.  I think I even like it more in ASL.  It puts me to mind of a talent show my college friend, Beth, told me about.  Her friend did " Baby Got Back" in ASL.  Now that would have been one to have on video!!

The best I can do is almost get all the signs down for "Leah's Farm" from Signing Time. 



Here is a video of Lylah doing some of her signs the day after her 2 year old birthday. It also has a some silly singing, bed jumping, and a fake pass out after smelling her toes.  Enjoy.


She still likes to do signing drills.  I don't want her to loose her signs, but she is the one who usually remembers to throw in the sign for whatever we are talking about.  Her favorites are, "more", "peach", "apple", "baby", "brush teeth", and "frog", and, her most favorite, "SWING".  She knows more than I realize.  I stopped trying to count the signs she can use after 200.  She is just WAY into communicating!  That's a nice way to say 'chatter box'.  I imagine she will be the one getting notes home for talking too much in class.  Not like me.  Except if you count that time in 5th grade when I was supposed to go to the office for talking in class.  Instead I went to the library and hid ( ok, and maybe cried just a very little) until I thought it was safe to go back to class.  And then there was college...that was a different story indeed.

I remember a certain Christian Comic Book personality, Tom Skinner--Up form Harlem! of whom I did a fantastic impression that garnered a call from our Dorm Mother, Miss Bess. "Girl-sh!! Can we laugh into our pillow-sh ?!" Maybe I am a bit of a chatter box too...given the right audience.  I gotta give the people what they want.

Snow Cute

The snow is finally melting around here.  I was looking outside today and I had forgotten how wide our sidewalks really are.  Since Christmas we have had a snow shovel sized walkway only.  But now we can walk on the muddy sidewalks again.  A few days ago Lylah and our babysitter built a snowman and decorated him with all of the goodies Lylah picked up on their walk.  He has "pokey balls" for hair, which I think are from the sweetgum tree.  I love the way it looked!  Lylah was very proud of it.  She showed me as soon as I came home from work.  We had done a project at school spraying the snow with colored water and it was a big hit.  I brought the bottles home for Lylah to give it another go.
Here is a little video of Lylah spraying her snowman.



You may not be able to hear her say it, but when she sprays the snowman blue she says, "Now Blue, Mama, Now Blue Mouth...perfect."  Everything is perfect.  It's so funny. I hear myself saying things are perfect all the time.  Hmm doesn't Martha say "perfect" an awful lot too?  Maybe we are becoming one.  *snapping my fingers and coming back to reality* Where was I?  Oh yes...Lylah has also started to say "of course" instead of yes.  Do you want to get up?  "oh, of course."  How about carrot sticks and peanut butter?  "oh, of course"  Do you need to go potty? " of course"  She also has been saying she wants to " have a go," which in The Queen's English, means "have a turn".  I think she is secretly British.  Or maybe it's too much Kipper the Dog.  I also find myself speaking a little British after a crafting session and another viewing of P&P.   "Shelves in the closet.  Happy thought, indeed!"  I just can't craft without Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet and, my favorite, Mr Collins.  I can work under other conditions, mind you, I just don't want to.

 

Oh No!!!!  I was going to post a clip of Kipper here.  I tried to get one off YouTube where she has seen all the videos.   All the videos are GONE because of copyright laws.  I am afraid the smiling face you see here  will be a bit upset when she finds out.    Me too!  You should see her little smile as she enjoys the dogs and their fun.  I love Kipper!  Oh, the sadness!  ( I am over-using exclamation marks here to display my deep sadness over the loss of my dear friend, Kipper. I am usually opposed to the over-use, feeling that a period often conveys the proper feeling and emotion. But sometimes the frenzy of the moment calls for exclamation.)  Oh my, I should stop now.  I seem to be getting a little silly.  Who needs to hear my rambelings about punctuation or Mr Darcy or Martha Stewart.  I am simply too sleepy.  This is the post you get when I need to rest.  If you were here with me I would be a laughing mess.  Slap-Happy, if you will.  I'll try again tomorrow when I might be more sane!!! ( notice my use of the exclamation mark---laughing hard to myself)
Click here to see the only Kipper I could find.    It has all the favorites:  Kipper, Tiger, Pig, and Arnold.  Not Lylah's favorite episode, but still a good one.

I'm Baaaack....kind of

"Oh," you think, "Jenny got her craft room organized and in tip top shape.  Because she surely would not be blogging if she didn't."  Seriously, it's me we are talking about here.  Did I get the craft room done?  NO.  Did I not blog-surf? NO--not as much though.  Did I do some crafting?  YES!!!!  I did make a few snow globes, a birthday card, 3 hair clips, and a bunch of stuff for school.

I also (think I may be 'manic' here) Took down the live tree, cleaned about 200 zillion needles from the floor, put away all the Christmas decor, swept, mopped, seriously cleaned the kitchen, seriously cleaned the bathroom, big time straightened the craft room, cooked ahead several meals and froze them, and managed to spend some good time with my family too.  Oh, and dusted.  Lylah saw me dusting and said, " Now Mommy, what ARE you doing?" I guess I do not dust as often as I should or the kid would know how to do it herself by now.... Just like I did when I was a kid.  My sister and I were totally convinced that we were only born for the purpose of house work.  Oh the cleaning!

if I was cleaning she was helping.  

So, although I did not get everything done I wanted to get done, I was still pretty productive.  Yippee!  I am just sure that the craft room will be done in the near future.  So I now lift the "blog ban" and I will post a bit.  Not much tonight, though, It's really late...or early.

 I will share a quick video.  It is very short.  It was taken last week when we went to PetCo.  She was really excited about the baby she found.  (The one she had to use the "clips" on in the previous video)  So she was all bundled up and looking so darn cute when we went to the store.  I happened to have my camera so I took  a little video of her.

 oh how she loves the little cart.  she turns the corners like a race car driver.

Nice to be back.  Lots to post in the very near future.

A Video and a Vow

I was finally able towork out how to get a video on the blog.  My sis tried to help me and I was still a dunce.  Crazy that it took this long.  I think I had a mental block.  So now I will post all the fun videos that I took in months past.  It may take a little time, however, because of my vow.  More on that later...  First the video.  It is Lylah making her first snow angel.  She flailes her legs and arms.  It was really cute.  I took it at the same time I took the one of her singing "Ring Around the Rosies".  It is really short but cute.


Now the vow.  You may not know it, but I have been spending WAY too much time on the internet.  I am sure I have an addictive personality.  Eating too much, would be my biggie I guess.  But now I will have to add to the list:  too much blog surfing.  I am gathering all kinds of great ideas for my "craft blog" and doing NO crafting. I put craft blog in quotes because there are no crafts to see on here, just a million- point list of things to do someday in my mind.  I had a pretty substantial list before all the surfing and now it is bigger.  So the vow:  I am vowing not to look around on the net this week AT ALL....starting now! (well after this post.)  I will post again when I have my attic craft room cleaned and organized.  I would take a before picture but it is too shameful.  I will post an "after" shot.  I must get it done this week. 
  I guess I was a bit lax with myself about being intentional in a couple of areas.  Back to being intentional right now.  Sign Off.  See you in a few days.  Wish me well.

2 Little Videos

She found a dolly that she thought was a replica of herself as a baby.  She has been a pretty good mommy for her ever since. ( the doll you can see is my old doll--a boy actually--and the doll she likes is under it.  I don't think you ever see it. )  She has also discovered that if she stands on a stool she can reach her light.  So this video is of her reading Olivia's Lost Toy to her baby, putting the baby to bed, and turning out the light.  At the end she says that she will come back in to check on the baby if she needs to. (And she will, of course, have to turn on that light again.)



This video starts with her saying, "Is there something wrong with that little baby?  I'll go and look."  Low and behold there is something in the baby's nose that requires tweezers to extract!  I wonder if she has been through that one one (or 20) times before?!  Our latest was last Sunday.  I had to go to work for a bit and Lylah was taking a nap and looking at  a book. Glen ran to her room as she was frantic and crying.  She had chewed 2 paged of book and stuffed them up her nose AGAIN.  He had to get the tweezers and get the pages out.  Later on at bath time she blew her nose and another giant paper wad came out.  She is no longer allowed to look at books in bed.  She loves books and she does well turning pages and taking care of them...that is until she has the compulsion to eat them and put them up her nose.  You can see her try to fight it sometimes and then she must eat the paper or stick it up her nose anyway.  A daily battle.  Oh my!

She ends saying she needs to go and do some projects.  I love that.  Poor thing is wearing jeans over too small tights.  They kept making her bottom sag.  She is also wearing her favorite pink pom-pom boots from Grammy. I just saw agreat tutorial about what to do with those too small tights.  I will link it and show you my results soon.

Stealing Licks...Caught On Video

I love this video.  She gingerly licks the house and then says, "Thank you, Mama." Her little voice can melt a person.

As of late, she has been saying, "Thank you, My Mommy."  I hope she says that for a while.  I love it.

I take it back

 This is the view from the back yard...HELLO!

I seriously take back what I said in the last post.  Winter officially sucks!  I have been trapped inside my house for days (If you don't count the times I have ventured out to shovel snow for the poor postman's safety).  It was -22 today with the wind chill.  I mean...come on.

 I did get a paid snow day yesterday! Yippee!  It was wonderful to be home with Lylah all day.  She has been really into playing with her pretend food and kitchen gadgets.  We have been having picnics in the newly-cleaned closet.  There is plenty of open space now that I have taken some of her toys to the basement play area. She loves to play in the closet.  When we are at Glen's parent's house she gets t  sleep in a pack-n-play in a big closet too.  She is always saying how tired she is and how she really needs to take her nap there.  And she does.  Just good times being in a closet I guess. Last night she got the whole family in the closet with her, even Henry,for a pretend picnic that included "hot cocky milk", and candy, and peanut butter "can-vich-is".  She got everything ready and then took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly and said a prayer for our picnic. It was so cute.

"oh the weather outside is frightful..."

OK, here is a bit more snow.  Look at the precious star-like snow flakes!  I was awe of them for quite a while getting out of the car after church yesterday.  The whole yard sparkled like diamonds.  The snow is very wind-blown, dry and crunchy.  It is pretty even though it is no good for a snowman.  Our weather forecast says snow and bitter cold again for this week too.  It's not fun to walk on or drive on and the wind is horrid...but it's pretty.  Remember a few months ago when I loved the fall so much?  Well I have to admit that I love the winter too.  And, you guessed it, when spring comes around I will love that too.  I am alright with summer, but I seriously HATE to sweat.  I love gardens and produce and sitting on the porch, but geesh, the heat has got to tone down a bit.  I guess that's why I am not in Florida...can't stand the sweat.

Any who, I am cozied up (because for all my talk of a pretty winter...it's seriously, seriously cold) and I am planning some big time crafting for tonight.  I will post it tomorrow.  Getting excited to get to work!

And a Haaa-Peeee New Yeeeaaar!

I could be really reflective and tell you all my resolutions.  But I won't.  I will only say this:  I am going to make this year count on many, many levels.  I am totally one to make resolution.   I am, unfortunately, one to break resolutions almost as quickly.  Why?  Because, as we discussed before, I am a quitter. former quitter.  I do have  a serious list of resolutions in my head.  Many are spiritual and many are related to being a better wife and mother and teacher.  Many are practical, having to do with organization and time management.  But all of them will fall under the umbrella of LIVING INTENTIONALLY.  I am making a choice to be governed by the idea of making my days matter for Jesus and others and me.  I am choosing to love.  It sounds trite to say I am going to love for 2010.  But it is not.  It's big.  It's really big.  And it's got a lot to do with putting my selfish nature to rest. (Hard for me because I am SO selfish)  It is the #1 commandment.  Jesus thought it was big too.

I am grateful for 2009.  I have experinced joys and sorrows but always have been held in Jesus' loving hands.  I am happy to embrace a new year and its possibilities.  It is always exciting to think of all the amazing things a new year can bring.  We are jazzed up in my house tonight.  There is a feeling of expectancy in the air as if something wonderful is just around the bend.  Come on new year!  I am excited to see what you have to show me. 

Did someone say snow?

Since my little family has been getting quite a bit of snow as of late, I thought it might be fun to share my new knowledge on the topic.
     Grandma and Grandpa Jones have TV, so when Lylah goes to visit she usually gets so see a show or two on Nick Jr.  One of the ones she has seen lately is Ni Hao Kai-Lan.  The best way for me to describe her is, "The Chinese Dora the Explorer."  But I find her more tolerable because she does not scream at you the whole time.  She does have freakishly gigantic eyes where her cheeks should be, but some how she is less offensive to me.  That was until she began teaching kids to use bad language.

Observe: 
See what I mean!!?
I laughed and laughed.  This is how you say snow in Chinese.  I love how she waits for you to repeat her.  Yeah!!  We covered the hill with sh%@.  Good thing it wasn't Dora asking the kids to scream it.  I saw this clip on a blog recently (I would give credit if  could remember where it was due).

I thought maybe I might be in  a silly mood and maybe it would not be funny again...but it was!!!
We are up to our eyes in Sh#@ here in the Midwest.  There was Sh#@ all over the car when we left our movie tonight.  It was fun for a while, but now I am ready to be able to walk to my car without fear of slipping on the permafrost.  Oh, Ha, Ha... I thought of another one.  Tired of shoveling the Sh%@ too.  Oh, I could go on, but you get the point.  Good times!

Christmas Wrap Up

I just wanted to share a few of my favorites from Christmas.  These are in no special order, just as they come to me.
 #1  I heard Lylah in the dining room by the tree.  She was ringing a bell that was on an ornament and screaming, "Put money in it!  Put money in it!"  She has seen the bell ringers and this was her ode to their work.  I have never heard them screaming or saying to put money in it.  But she got the point.  It was pretty cute.

#2  Last year Lylah got a nativity set that she could play with from my brother's family.  She loved to play with it.  She really loved carrying around the Baby Jesus.  She would tell him," Wait right here Baby Jesus.  I gotta go potty."  She also slept with both of the angels form the set.  One in each hand.  I looked at the way she had the nativity scene set up once and there were all the usual players and a fairey princess.  Who knew there was one there?

#3 We consiously chose not to make Santa a big deal or promote Santa in any way.  We looked at him in Christams decor and in some books at school.  He even made an appearance at our school's Christmas party.  But we said Santa was fun to pretend at Christmas time.  She was happy to think of him as a story and could tell you all about him, complete with a round of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and a cute finger-play called santa Pop .  We just could not see the logic behind us trying to get her to believe that Santa was real (when we know he's not) and trying to tell her Jesus IS real (because we know he is).  Neither can she see or truly grasp yet.  So the only way we could get her to begin to understand the real meaning of Christmas was to tell her it was Jesus' birthday.  I realize that Jesus  was not turning another year older this year, but Lylah was so excited to hear that it was Jesus' birthday that she had to have a cake for him.  I was almost all she could think of.  Her idea was to include hats, and balloons too.  I convinced her that all of the Christmas decoratoins were for the big Celebration.  That seemed to satisfy her.  On Christmas Eve Lylah and I made a cake for Jesus.  It was not pretty.  It was, in fact, ugly.  But I don't think Jesus minded.  I knew Lylah did not.    She ate with gusto.  Happy birthday Jesus.




I am sure there are more favorites...this being my favorite Christmas ever ,ever ever, EVER, ever. But I don't want to bore anyone with anymore tidbits.
Happy Christmas everyone.