Going to Grandpa's

The other day Noah started taking a ton of toys and creating a monstrous pile in the play area.  He kept throwing more and more toys on his pile saying "I take this to Grandpa's house."  He decided to pack up his toys and go to Grandpa's house!  You may have seen this photo on Facebook but I thought I would post it here in case you missed it on Facebook.

Laundry Bag Fun

We needed somewhere to put all the blocks that we got for Christmas and they were definitely NOT going to fit back in the zippered bags they came in.  Mary Kay suggested a large mesh bag and I remembered that I still had my laundry bag from college.  These blocks just barely fit in the laundry bag!  N2 though decided that laundry bags are quite fun.  They would get in and they fit all the way up to their necks.  They both can fit in too! The other day Noah put all his cars in the bag, got in himself and then walked around the house.

Conducting

One of N2's favorite things to do is play marching band.  They get out their instruments and march around the house.  Sometimes they play the drum, the guitar, the recorder or the whistle.  We have other instruments but those are the favorites.  Brian and I get to join in as well.  Yesterday before Brian got home, they were playing marching band but both Natalie and Noah wanted to be the drum major and "duct the band."  They gave me a tamborine and told me to play while they conducted.  I also tried to take pictures but I was told I had to play as well (that was a challenge!)  Noah grabbed the stool from our little piano to stand on because he knows every marching band conductor needs a podium.  Duh!  Natalie wanted a stool but we don't have another little one (just popped in my head that we could have used the bathroom stool) and threw a fit when I tried to get her to stand on one of the little chairs.  Noah kindly moved to the chair so Natalie could have the stool and both of them stood on their podiums while conducting and yelling "duct the band...dah dah dah dah..." or some version of that while I played my lonely tambourine.

Brian commented that Noah's form in the 2nd and 3rd pictures are not bad.  He said the hands aren't great.  Brian also said that there is probably a very similar picture of him to the 3rd picture.  I imagine Brian was not yelling "duct the band" though :)  Funny thing I just noticed is that they could be in time with each other in the top 2 photos!

I tried to get a video of this because it was just so cute and funny but as I got my other camera, Noah told me that marching band was going home and he got down and started to play with something else.

Why I Should Put Things Away

I have to admit, I have the tendency of just stacking things on the stairs with the intention of putting them away but sometimes it takes weeks before I put them away.  I recently cleaned out our winter bins and took out the hats that were too small, one being an adorable monkey hat and the other being a pink bunny hat.  The monkey hat is supposed to go to Charlie and the bunny hat was going to be lent to Abigail but her head will probably be too big for it next winter!  So the bunny hat is still sitting on the stairs, not put away.  N2 found the hats the other day and squeezed them onto their heads and ran around the house.  They were quite cute.  Then this evening after Natalie had been put down to bed, she got up (which has become a very common occurrence-we now have the lock on the outside and I hadn't locked her door tonight since she is sick), came downstairs without us really realizing and then sat at the bottom of the stairs.  When I finally heard her and went over, she was wearing the hat and mittens and daddy's boots that were sitting there.  I guess I shouldn't leave theings on the stairs because they also get played with during time outs!

My Kitchen

I had posted on Facebook that Brian surprised me by painting the kitchen one day when I was out visiting my mom.  I came home and discovered that my off white kitchen was now green!  I was so excited!  We had picked out colors a while ago and I forgot that we had bought the paint.  I had originally wanted my kitchen a brick red or burnt orange but we decided that did NOT look good with the cabinets.  We did use orange for the inside of our push out window.  Here's how my kitchen looks.

Job Possibility for Noah

N2 received some awesome building blocks for Christmas (if I do say so myself since I bought them!). They are fairly dense foam but yet light enough and soft enough that they don't hurt when knocked over.  We have been having a great time with these blocks and they have been strewn out all over my living room since they were opened.  There are a lot of them and they are big so it's hard to figure out where to store them.  We had thought to put them in Natalie's room but N2 love playing with the blocks so much that we don't want to store them upstairs.  I'll share some other block pictures later but now I want to show you Noah's accomplishment.

Noah has been quite the builder!  One afternoon, he managed to use all the blocks (over 60 of them) to build a tower with a wall.  He also has made the tower quite symmetrical at the beginning.  I was quite impressed!  Here are some pictures.  He wouldn't pose with his end product (except to stand right in front of the tower!)  So I had to settle with him looking uninterested on the couch.

Christmas Joy

I know it's been a long time and that doesn't mean that I'm going to be posting regularly but I thought I would just share a couple pictures of Natalie on Christmas with her present from Santa.  When she saw the wrapped box from Santa she said "My monkey's in there!"  She had no doubt that she would be getting a monkey.  So glad mom and I managed to make one even if it took me several restarts!  The directions that I got from Hobby Lobby were NOT very clear.