TWENTY SIX

Our Valentine's Day themed sensory tub. The kids love to play with these and will spend a great deal of time mixing, sifting, pouring and creating. This one is white rice with red heart confetti, red porcupine balls, pink heart picks and their sticks, Valentine's erasers, wooden hearts, wooden bowl, wooden scoop, a red jewel and soap roses. Micah watched me make the majority of it and he kept peering into the tub and saying "Oooh! Pretty!" He is going to be thrilled when he gets to play with it tomorrow. Laural will love it too and the big fun will be keeping them from fighting over it.

TWENTY FIVE

We are in full Mario Madness here! We decided to go with a Super Mario Brothers theme for Micah's birthday party this year since he just adores watching daddy play it on the Wii or watching the Mario Brothers cartoons on netflix. I found a website with totally cute figures you can print out on your printer and then with some cutting and folding, end up with something like Mario here. Awesome. These will definitely be used for birthday decorations. There is also Luigi, Piranha Plant, Goomba, Toad, various blocks and other stuff too. Micah is going to flip for this one!

SEVENTEEN

Laural had a sleep walking episode in the wee hours of the morning. She came in to my room, a bit confused and carrying a pair of Micah's pajamas. She looked like she was trying to straighten them so she could put them on. I asked if she was cold. No response. I told her she had Micah's jammies and she just stared at me. I asked her what she was doing. She mumbled something like "I just..." and trailed off. Then she sat down in her chair at the end of my bed. I couldn't see her at this point. I waited a minute before going around the bed to see this. She was fast asleep. I picked her up and took her out to get her back to bed. Too cute.

SIXTEEN

Micah, my cute little man, sitting like a big boy in church today. He sat and looked through each of the books in the pew - the Bible, Hymn Book and Chorus Book. He's growing up so fast!

FIFTEEN

Micah has been getting better and better at drawing. Today, he was saying, over and over, "two eyes, a nose and a mouth!" As he said each thing, he would draw what he said. It was so cute. He would draw a face, erase it and start again. I'm glad I had my camera handy to catch one of his many faces.

FOURTEEN

My sleeping beauty. Laural usually wakes up a few times a week and makes her way into my bed. Fast asleep and looking sweet and peaceful, I snapped her pic.

THIRTEEN

While we were out, we stopped for gas and as Steve was out in the cold filling the tank, I noticed the lovely little snowflakes gathering on our windshield. I had left my camera at home so I tried to capture them using my cell phone camera. I wish I had brought my camera so I could have actually captured the detail of these little beauties. I suppose that this will have to do and I will have to remember to keep my camera on me everywhere I go.

TWELVE

While we were out perusing the clearance aisles at Walmart, we happened upon a pair of light-up reindeer antlers - complete with ears! Laural had to give them a try. Yes, we ended up buying them.

ELEVEN

Wow. As we were brushing Laural's hair, she set her glasses down and guess who saw them and thought it would be a great idea to try them on? What a different boy he looks like with glasses on!

NINE

Yes, I'm strange. I took a picture of meat. I was making cheddar brats and as I cooked them, I arranged them in a hexagon for a shape lesson for the kids. Yes, everything can be used for a teaching moment.

EIGHT

On our way to Grove City, there is a phone company relay station. Outside the shed, there is a chair, sad & lonely, facing into the woods. It amused me and I tried to get a pic of it as we drove past. Unfortunately, a phone pole jumped in front of us as I snapped the pic. Oh well.

SEVEN

Micah: 1, Mommy: 0. Micah doesn't like to go to sleep right away at bedtime, so he spends his time doing a variety of things. He jumps and bounces in his bed, throws everything out of his bed and strips himself down to his diaper. I decided to try to prevent his nightly strip down by putting a diaper pin under the zipper. I figured if he couldn't get the zipper down, the jammies would stay on. Well, my little man outfoxed me again. He got the zipper down under the pin and got his legs out but the pin did keep him from being able to get his arms out. When I checked in on him, this is what I saw. A half stripped, fast asleep little boy.

SIX

My son drew me a sun.

Micah is really starting to learn some control when it comes to drawing. He is actually taking some time and concentrating on what he is doing and trying to make pictures instead of general scribbles. He was so very proud of the picture he drew me. He just makes my heart swell sometimes.

Bonus pic! Fresh, hot tortillas!

I made homemade tortillas today using my new tortilla press and kept them hot in the tortilla keeper - both Christmas presents from my mother-in-law. So yummy! We had tortillas for lunch and dinner today!

FIVE

The Purple House

Between where I live and where I do some of my grocery shopping is a house we know as "The Purple House." I don't know who lives there or anything about the house except that every time we drive by it, we can't help but say to ourselves, "That is one purple house!" It was snowing and grey today when I snapped the picture as we were driving by (Steve was driving, in case there was any question) so you can't fully appreciate the brightness of the purple house. But let me assure you - it is one purple house! I think I'd really like to see a pink cadillac parked outside of it.

PS. I want to be clear that we like the purple house and are not making fun of it. I don't think I would ever paint my house purple but a big "woohoo!" to the people who did!

FOUR

Guess who just got a haircut?

This is the after picture of Micah's 2nd haircut. His 1st haircut was just about a year ago. He looks so sweet and like such a big boy with his new short do, but I already miss those sweet curly locks. After 3 people mistaking him for a girl yesterday, though, I decided it was time. I've been putting it off and yesterday wasn't the 1st time he was thought to be a girl while we were out and about.

THREE

Our 1st Muffin Tin Meal of the year and the 1st we've done one in over two months. Since I've been sick, I just didn't have the energy to think about and plan out anything fancy. I'm almost ashamed to say that we have relied heavily on take-out, pre-packaged and convenience foods for the past couple months. Now that my strength is slowly returning, we are returning to good home-cooked meals again.

TWO

Kitchen Dance Party!

My kids love to dance. Most of the time, the dancing is in the form of simply jumping up and down. We have regular kitchen dance parties in our house. Here, we have my two jumping beans getting down (and up) to a little Apollo 440.

ONE

Well, I managed to get almost a month with posting photos last year. I took pics every day until a couple weeks into February but I totally failed at posting them. So, this year, I am going to give it another go. Something tells me I should just give up and go for the Project 52 and just do one photo a week but I think I will try 365 once more. If I fail this year (I won't!), then next year, it's P52 for me. So here is Day 1.

Goofy little monkey with a chocolate donut face.

Photo taken with my cell phone (poor quality) in my very messy bedroom. I would be more embarrassed if the mess in my room wasn't caused by the fact that very little has been accomplished during the 2 months that I've been ill. Once I am completely recovered (a few more weeks), I will have no excuse.