Merry Christmas from the Adams Family!

A quick peek

The quiet book is done!!!

This is the cover on the left and a marble maze on the right.

 Matching page

Drive a car and make you own ice cream cone pages.

 Counting and put the spots and spikes on the dinosaur.

Tic-Tac-Toe and weaving.

Tie the shoe (Drake still doesn't get how) and cake dot-to-dot.

Button on the flower and snap the apples on the tree.

And last, but lot least, the Mr Potato Head (dress up) page with 2 pocket on the left to store all the accessories.

I have to tie the book together with ribbons because it is so thick. I can't get my 1 inch binder rings to close easily and I am having a hard time finding 3 inch or larger ones locally.

Oh, and this is the giraffe I made for Konnor today. He is around 15 inches tall and was super easy to make.

Taking a break...

I have a longish list of things to make for the kids for Christmas and Chloe's birthday in a few weeks, so I will not be posting too much until after Christmas. But to get you though the break, here are a few things to enjoy.

Little Miss Independent

Chloe wanted some ice cream the other day and I told her I was not going to get any for her. What I should have said was, she couldn't have any, because she got some all by herself.

Our not-so-little boy

As evidenced by the 6 month post of Konnor last week, Konnor is not little anymore. Well, he really never was little by baby standards. He is in 9-12 month jammies and onesies. The 6-9 month pants and shirts fit him, for now. I am hoping that he is just going through a growth spurt and this will slow down soon. If he keeps it up, though, he will be the same size as Chloe in about a year.

What are we going to do with her?

 Chloe is getting a little to independent with some things. She has gotten her own ice cream and cereal in the last week. She also insists on washing her own hair which results in shampoo in the eyes. It wouldn't be a problem, but her hair is so tangled that we have to use a regular shampoo and conditioner for her.

I was trying to rest a while ago and when I decided that it wasn't going to happen and just got up, I walked into the kitchen to this mess:

She had eaten the bowl of fruity dino bites, but I guess couldn't make up her mind and also got out the fruit loops.

Imaginative Kids

We still have 12 or so 3 foot lengths of pvc pipe and 3 way connectors and Drake found them while I was cleaning and organizing the sewing room. He promptly took them all and made a fort with Chloe. I was nice and helped them get the blankets on.

Miss Mommy

When I am feeding Konnor and need to reach for something, I support the bottle with my chin. Chloe wanted to feed Konnor and this is what Lot walked in on a few minutes later.

Konnor 6 months

We cannot believe that it has been 6 months already! It seems like he has been a part of our family forever but at the same time, it seems like he should be younger. He was sleeping though the night, but has been going through a growth spurt and getting up every night, at least once, to eat. And he still eats a ton during the day. On Wednesday, he ate 2 bananas for breakfast! He is also eating 4-6 Tablespoons of rice/oatmeal/barley/mixed grain cereal at a time. He is a healthy, happy baby for sure!

Likes

• to laugh
• his toes
• to chew on his fingers
• jump
• rock back and forth
• eat, mostly the baby cereal and bananas
• his brother and siter
• to make noise
• to hear music, especially if it is from The Lorax
• to roll to his side
• his blankets, but most the minky one that Grandma made for him (it's so soft!)
• to grab things, this includes Chloe's hair and dinner plates
• to see everything
• to look at himself in the mirror
• splashing in the tub
• to be around people

Dislikes

• so far, just green beans
• my cold hands when I am changing him
• immunizations (but what kid actually likes those?)

Happy Halloween!

Enjoy our Halloween adventures in pictures! The boys' costumes were taken off really fast, so no pictures of them. Look for an update on those later today.

Not very happy is he? Drake thought it was disgusting to clean out the pumpkin guts.

 Chloe's Angry Birds pumpkin:

 Konnor's Mickey Mouse pumpkin:

I have seen quite a few pumpkins with holes drilled all over them so Lot was kind enough to do that for me. He says next year we are going to do a little bigger holes and all over the pumpkin.

 Drake's pumpkin, Green Lantern:

The front porch all decorated. And it is all down and put away as of 8:30 this morning.

Our milk carton skeleton!

Superman Princess/fairy/ballerina. Take your pick. I had Chloe put the tutu on because the costume is several sizes too big and it kept it up so she wasn't tripping on it all night.

 

The kids all a ton of fun going out Trick or Treating last night. Drake started out bad, but got into the spirit of it and was happy at the end. We ended up walking the whole time, so by the time we got home, the kids got in jammies, sorted their candy, ate 3 pieces and were out by 9. We really tired them out. Konnor did really well. He fell asleep about 15 minutes into it and slept for about 45 minutes and then he was awake the rest of the time just looking around and laughing at Drake.

Just in case I don't get a picture of the boys, Drake was an astronaut and Konnor was Spiderman (he fit into the Spiderman costume that Drake wore when he was 8 months old).

Eating machine

Konnor watches us every time we eat, so I decided it was time to start giving him some oatmeal cereal. And, surprisingly, he loves it. Drake and Chloe would not eat the stuff. Konnor eats around 4 Tablespoons each time and is still hungry.

Anyway, because he is eating so much and I am not going to change him every time he eats and makes a mess, I made him some bibs. He is not a messy eater, at least not yet. Oh, and some might be an understatement:

There are 27 bibs in this pile.

I was going to make 21, you know, 3 meals x 7 days= 21 bibs. Because I don't want to do wash very often. Well, I got carried away and did 27 and now I have no where to put them because there is so many. I crammed them in a drawer for now.

The serger is fixed (thanks Mom!!!), so it went really quick. Both sides of the bib are flannel that I already had, so they are soft and absorbent. Oh, and free, since I already have everything.

Konnor's Video's

Here is a much better representation of what Konnor does with his legs when he is laying down:

And here is a longish video of Drake making Konnor belly laugh.

Wanna watch something really funny?

Well, here ya go, Drake in all his glory singing (Had a Bad Day by the Chipmunks) while playing a game on the computer.

I looked out the window and what did I see?

NOT popcorn popping on the apricot tree that's for sure! More like at least 4 inches of snow. At least our first snow happened at the end of October instead of the beginning like last year.

The many uses of Lestoil

About a year ago, my Mom gave me a bottle of Lestoil to remove some sap from my jeans.

 

 I never did get around to removing the sap, but I have found several other uses for it. 

For instance, when a certain little girl gets into some RED fabric paint and her mom is all out of Pine-sol, Lestoil is actually better at removing the dried paint from carpet than Pine-sol is. It also works to remove spilled strawberry jam on a freshly shampooed rug. I know because I had to do that recently.

And the latest use I have found for it is this:

Removing the black residue on Chloe's car seat. She loves to get in herself, but when she does, she puts her feet on the front of the seat and it gets really dirty from the asphalt residue from parking lots and roads. 

I poured Lestoil on all the stains and let it sit for a few minutes before I tried to get it off. I just used an old toothbrush and rinsed it in water often. Not much, if any, elbow grease was involved.

See the results for yourself:

This stuff is to cleaning like duct tape is to fixing things. You can use it on just about anything.

More Konnor

Gives a new meaning to the phrase, "Open mouth, insert foot" doesn't it?

A Mirror and a Baby