Naptime

I've been wanting to take pictures of the kids sleeping all week, but I was finally inspired to do it today when I read this post. 

Since Cole was born coordinating naps has been a struggle. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that. I LOVE it when their naps coincide, but I try not to force them to nap at the same time. When he was little, he never napped for very long so that was hit and miss, and then for a little while they napped at the same time, then for a month or two they were just missing each other for every nap! (that was rough and nice at the same time).

Cole now takes a morning and afternoon nap (most days) and Lucy just takes her one nap in the after noon. So, usually that afternoon nap is at the same time. This has been really nice lately. It gives me some time to get things done around the house, (or do nothing and spend the whole time on the computer), or work on my (many)projects that I have yet to finish

 (that I started last year!).

I love the quiet that these afternoon naps bring. The other day I was standing in their door way watching them nap - they look so peaceful - and when I looked at Lucy she looked EXACTLY like she did when she was two weeks old sleeping on our bed..

this is the picture that came to mind. 

I took this picture just a few minutes ago...

My how they grow...

Lucy has a few items that have to be with her when she sleeps (these items she also carries from her bed to our room at night when she wanders in...sometimes it's pretty comical to see her with her big bundle in arms), those items are: her blankie (that her great grandma Dixon made for her), a sippy cup of water, her purple baby (present from Oma on her 1st birthday), and 'baby jesus' another purple baby she got for her second birthday. This baby was dubbed 'baby jesus' after Christmas. He is also the baby she is resting her face on in these pictures...purple baby's head is on the other side. 

 She lays her blankie on her pillow so it's under her when she sleeps, then she places her two babies on either side and usually puts her arms around each of them, and makes sure the blanket is over their bodies but not their heads :). 

 Here is little man...oh boy I love this kid. 

He just grows up more and more everyday. 

One of my FAVORITE things about naps with Cole: When he starts to get tired we go into their room, turn off the lights and sing some songs. When he starts to relax and his eyes droop, I try to lay him down so that he can learn to put himself to sleep. He'll rub his face in his sheets and then turn his head to the side and peek through his hand or over his blanket and smile while he looks up at me, with a look that says, "haha, you thought I was sleeping? Psych!" Then I'll pick him up again, bounce for a minute, lay him back down and he'll go to sleep almost right away.   

TANGENT - This is the blanket I made for him for Christmas. It was fun, but I'm not patient enough for a project to last for several weeks. But I am happy that I actually finished it! and he seems to like it enough. 

Those are our sleeping kids!

Dinner time

So we've been struggling the last little while with Lucy eating her dinner. She is usually a really good eater (especially when she likes what we're eating), but then sometimes she will just not eat anything...I know toddlers don't have to eat a whole lot to survive and they will eat more some days and less others. But I want her to get into the habit of eating at mealtimes. We try to have two snacks a day with three main meals - sometimes there are more snacks, it just depends on the day. So this last week Devin and I decided that we wouldn't do snacks after three o'clock, that way Lucy was hungry enough to eat dinner. Some days have been easier than others to say no to snacks after three, especially when she's crying for food (don't worry, I don't starve her! :D ). But when dinner rolls around and we're not having screaming and crying fits, and everyone is eating, I don't feel so bad anymore.

 Jambalaya

 a.k.a. best meal ever! (recipe below)

Cole LOVES it,

 especially the sausage

 If the above face doesn't convince you that this meal is good, then you should go and try it out for yourself. 

(Okay, so she was eating a zuccini in this picture, but she ate everything on her plate - and then asked for more)

Here is the recipe (this is how I make my mother-in-laws version of it)

Jambalaya

1 kielbasa sausage

1 red bell pepper

1 1/2 cups of rice

1/2 onion

2 cloves of garlic

3 cups of chicken broth

optional: 1/2 tsp of red pepper (i'm not a fan of spicy so I just put in a tiny bit)

Mince garlic and onion. Chop up pepper. Throw it all in a pan with some oil, while you slice the sausage. Put the sausage in the pan and brown it. Then add the rice and broth and simmer for 20 mins, til rice is done and water is all absorbed. 

SUPER simple and tastes amazing! You can always add a veggie as a side and there is your meal! A way to make it faster is to cook the rice separately while you are cutting up everything and by the time the meat is brown the rice is usually finished too! 

I did it!!

So for the last two or three months I have been making my own laundry soap! It's SUPER cheap, and I cannot believe how clean my clothes are. Seriously, I've compared this to store bought stuff and it really gets things out. For the last little while I've just been using it in powder form. Borax, washing soda, and fels-naptha soap. You can find the recipe right here.    But, it's SUPER annoying to grate the soap and it takes way to long-- this lady grated it a lot bigger than I did, I found it works better if it's grated really small using the zest grater thingy-- anyways, I ended up just grating a little for each load...which isn't really cost effective, because I had no idea how much I was really putting into each load. 

SO, finally last weekend I buckled down and made some of the liquid soap (here is the recipe for that kind). 

 It got really foamy on top and took overnight to settle down. 

 The finished product on my shelf! I like it in this form. It's a lot easier to work with. But it's really really thick....I think next batch I will try a little more water and see if I can thin it out a little more....right now it's plop-ing out of the jug :) 

And because what fun is a blog post with no little kid pictures??? 

NO FUN AT ALL :)

Here are some pictures from playing bubbles yesterday!

 We were trying to catch them on our feet!

Pretty sure Cole just likes watching them fall down.

Here he is trying to catch one!

Oh yeah, don't mind the red eye...I'm really lazy with photo editing and don't like going through and fixing that! So, pardon the evil eyes on the kids and just enjoy the pics! 

Homemade finger paint

We made some homemade finger paint! This stuff was interesting, in that it wasn't like normal paint at all. It was kind of jelly and not liquid. We had fun with it though!  

The first time we played with it I had bad timing and little man needed to eat and go down for a nap. Luckily Oma(grandma) was there to play with Lucy while I did that. 

Rainbow, circles

Keeping it fairly clean...

Then the following day I pulled it out again and let Cole get in on the fun. 

 Lucy got a lot more messy with it this time!

 Cole wasn't as big of a fan and I thought he would be. 

 He was content with his straw and patting the one little pile I gave him

 We got it in toes and everything!

 We had fun! The stuff was smelling kind of funny one the third day so we threw it out. I think we'll experiment with this a little more and see if we can get it less goupy and more liquidy!

'Gingerbread' Nativities

Forgot I had this in my Drafts!! So here are the Gingerbread Nativites a little closer up and you get to see who made which one! 

This was so much fun thank you everyone for doing this!