Christmas

Christmas Break 2012 was lovely.  The past two years, school has kept me busy right up until Christmas Eve. (As in, we barely managed to put the tree up.  Or didn't.)  But this year...ah, this year!  I finished finals the first week of December.  We decorated the tree.  I made the kids each an advent calendar.  We baked gingerbread cookies.  We hand-stamped our own wrapping paper.  Craig aptly observed that I clearly have some creative needs that aren't being met by doing legal research.  (Hard to believe, I know!)  

 

Our wrapping paper.  We cut the star stamps from a potato.

 My little elf making chocolate-covered pretzels.  Isn't she adorable in her little apron?  My mom got both the kids chef hats for Christmas and they love to wear them and help us out in the kitchen.

Downtown at the Christmas Parade.  The Doodlebug just sort of sat there until Miss Winter Parade or whoever came by in her dress and tiara, waving.  Then he jumped up and waved at her and yelled, "Merry Christmas!!!!  Merry Christmas!!!"  For some inexplicable reason, he also stood up and started applauding like mad for the motorcycles.

***

Two days after Christmas.  We are finishing our breakfast.  Snow is still on the ground.  

"Atticus, go get dressed," I say.  

He speeds off and strides back in like this less than two minutes later, leans up against the counter like he's Mr. Joe Cool, casually crosses his legs, and looks at us like, "What's up? I'm ready to go play in the snow."

Two more pictures of smiling faces:

Bowling!

Last weekend, we decided to take the kids and go bowling.  

Let me pause for a moment to remind you that for the past four and a half years, our lives have revolved around feedings, diaper changes, naptimes, bedtimes, snack times, sippy cups, potty trainings, etc.  Deciding at the last minute to take the kids and go bowling, without planning or preparing or packing bags might not seem like a big deal, but I feel like we have arrived on the other side of some monumental divide between people with babies and normal people.  

Anyway, we went bowling and it was a blast.  The Doodlebug was insanely funny.  He started trying to imitate Craig and I by ruuuuunning up to line when he threw his ball.  After watching us bowl a few frames, he started standing there and lining up first the way we do, then running and throwing.  It was funny because he stood there like he knew what he was doing, and then ran up there like a crazy man.

 

And every.single.time he let go of the ball, he would get so excited and jump UP and down like Rumpelstiltskin the entire time the ball was rolling.  Every frame.  Hilarious.

What's amazing is that he bowled an 83.  Now, admittedly, we were using bumpers, but he picked up a lot of pins without them.  You can see from the scorecard that he was actually beating me during the sixth frame.  

 The Ladybug would throw her ball, then clench her fists and mutter "I hope it does, I hope it does!" until her ball made it to the end.  She had fun but the ball was so heavy I think it wore her out a little, and she checked out about halfway through.  She loved dancing on the slick floor in her bowling shoes, though.  It was glow-in-the-dark bowling, so I didn't really get any good pictures (too dark), but the kids thought it was an awesome dance party.   Anyway, totally fun.  

Happy Halloween!

Franny announced back in July or August that she wanted an alligator costume for Halloween.  I wasn't sure how we were going to pull that off, but when Atticus decided that sounded like a good idea to him as well, we decided to make it work.

They ended up going as Mr. and Mrs. Green, the characters from this wonderful little series by Keith Baker.  They are adorable and smart stories about this little alligator couple who are always so excited about life and so nice and supportive of each other.  Mr. Green always wears a necktie and Mrs. Green always wears a pearl necklace and watch.

This was the first year we went trick-or-treating with friends, and it was soooo much fun.  The kids getting to be the perfect age to enjoy trick-or-treating.  We did have to restrain Franny, who was totally working the "scoring tons of candy" strategies (i.e. taking an extra handful while the neighbor was talking to the other kids). 

I made these costumes, and I do not sew at all or own a sewing machine, so they weren't anything fancy but they were fun.  I wanted to post them because when I googled "homemade alligator costume" I couldn't really find anything close to what I was looking for (which was sort of surprising, considering it's the Internet and all). 

The main part of the costume is exactly how you would make a ghost costume from a sheet: just a hole for their heads.  I used some thick fabric that was on sale and didn't seem like it would need hemmed.  The tail is stuffed with newspaper and has two straps, so it ties on like a belt.  Then I cut a slit in the back of the costume to pull the tail through. 

For the heads, I cut a piece of a cereal box and duct-taped it to a baseball cap (fancy, huh?), then covered it with the fabric.  I used a needle and thread to tack it to the inside of the hat (glue probably would have worked too).  The teeth and the eyes are felt.  I put straps on the hats that tied under the kids' chins so they would stay on.

I realized once we were trick-or-treating that these costumes break every Halloween costume rule in the book.  They were walking choking hazards, long enough that the kids might have tripped, probably obstructed their vision, and were dark at night (not covered in that reflective tape they used to pass out to us in elementary school).  Alas, we all made it home in one piece.

Bug Collection

Presenting the Doodlebug Ladybug Fall 2012 BUG COLLECTION!

I was reading a while back on this great blog post about how the average American kid can identify thousands of corporate logos, but can name less than 10 plant or animal species indigenous to their area.  That inspired these parents to learn about native species by doing a leaf collection with their kids. 

The Doodlebug/Ladybug, however, aren't so much into leaves.  But do you want to guess what they are into?  BUGS!  My kids are endlessly fascinated with creepy-crawlers. 

We kept running into bugs on the farm all summer, and it turns out there are some really nasty looking bugs that won't hurt you at all.  For instance, there are bugs that are disguised to look like bumblebees so they can steal all the bee's food and nobody will bother them.  Apparently this kind of chicanery is rampant in the insect world.  Seems like a handy thing to know, right? 

The Doodle making his first catch:

 We've been pinning the insects to a piece of cardboard so we can look at them carefully and look them up to read about them. 

We realize this makes us supremely dorky parents, but the kids love it.  They run up to other kids on our walk and announce "We're looking for INSECTS!"  It's very much the cool thing.  :)

SeptemberFest

Last weekend we went to SeptemberFest at the Governor's Mansion.  I posted about this last year.  We had so much fun.  Here's Franny going down a giant inflatable slide.  Now, this girl isn't afraid of anything, and she has been on inflatables and giant slides on numerous occasions.  So when someone asked if she would be okay on this 25' slide, I was like, "Are you kidding me?  She's got this."  Well, wouldn't you know it, she got to the top and was scared to come down.  I had to go up and get her.  

Here she is going down another one.  After the first, she was good to go!

There were some FFA kids with a little petting zoo.  They had lambs, chicks, a turtle, a pony, and the sweetest little piglets.

The Ladybug milking a cow.

The kids both got to ride horses.  They've ridden ponies and donkeys before, but I think this was their first time up on a full-sized horse.  You can't see Atticus' face that well in this picture, but he was absolutely positively beaming the entire time.  He was thrilled to be riding that horse.  

This is such a cool event to take kids to.  There was so much to do, and there were short lines for some things, like the horses and the inflatables, but I don't think we waited more than five minutes for anything (except maybe hot dogs).

 

My mom's friend at the State Department of Agriculture showing us their gardens.  Instead of flower gardens out front, they have these cool gardens with vegetables and Oklahoma commodity crops like cotton, canola, and soy.

Anyway, so fun!  People with kids should definitely check it out next year!

Summer Catch Up

Hi, there!  We're back.  Back to town, back to school, back to wireless internet access at home.  Here's a quick catch-up post from this summer.  

First, we had an absolutely wonderful time back in Stillwater.  We spent hours and hours out at the farm working on the little house.  The kids pretty much had the run of the place while Craig and I were working, so they were as barefoot and dirty as any kid would want to be in the summer.  

When we got tired of chasing the kids, we found a great way to hold them in one place.  :)

 Here's the Doodlebug pretending to be Little Boy Blue (under the haystack, fast asleep).

Franny-girl was a kitten for about half of the summer.  Oh, and she finally decided she likes letting me braid her hair.  :)  I've been absolutely itching to braid it for almost a year, but she would never sit still.  I'm loving it!

 

The last week we were there, our (most wonderful) nanny had to go back to school, so I stayed home in the mornings with the kids and we went exploring.  So much fun.   

When I told the Doodle that I was going to stay home with them in the mornings, he got so excited and said, "You mean like a babysitter?!!"  ::facepalm::

What else?  Atticus is in preschool four days a week in the afternoons, and is doing great.  He had to get four shots at his doctor appointment and shed not a single tear.  Lady Frances is finally out of diapers at night, and is doing so well.  Her brother still comes and wakes up daddy when he has to use the bathroom at night.  Ladybug gets up and goes by herself, and if she can't get her underwear back on, she just goes back to bed without it.  We moved both kids out of their toddler beds this summer and into twin beds, so the kids think they are pretty big time now.       

Stay tuned  because I have lots more things to post and actually time to do it.  And an internet connection (!)

Mid-Summer Check-In

I've been doing an internship this summer, so we've been in a little apartment without internet.  Thus, no picture-posting for the past six weeks or so.  A tiny bit of catching up:

We went to a car show over Father's Day weekend.  The Doodlebug and I went around and found all the characters from the movie "Cars."  We found Lightening McQueen, Sally, Doc Hudson, and the Dyno-King.  And to top it off, we found...Mater! 

("Mater" actually belongs to Papa, so Atticus got to sit inside it and play around.)

Here is Franny-bug out on the farm feeding the sheep.  We have video of her petting the sheep, giving it kisses, and then looking at the camera and saying in a perfectly sweet little voice, "We are going to eat these sheep!"

 The Doodlebug helping Daddy work on the cabin/cottage/tiny house.  I can't believe he just turned FOUR!!  Such a big helper! 

 Here are the kids last night at the Fourth of July celebrations waiting in line for the bounce house with their cousin Neely.  The lines were really short so they got to do plenty of  bouncing.  

This was the first year they got to stay up and watch the fireworks.  Neely invited us over to watch them from her yard.  Franny was a little fazed by the loud noises, but she loved watching the fireworks.  The Doodle would have preferred to watch them from inside the house.   

I wasn't scared of the loud noises, but I was scared about keeping the kids up two full hours past their usual bedtime.  You could tell they were getting tired, but they did great.  As soon as the fireworks ended, Franny's first words were "Can I go to sleep now?"