Santa's Helper

Santa's Helper is excited to mail our Christmas cards!

Pictures with Santa

We took Gideon to see Santa over the weekend and the pictures turned out pretty cute!  The city where we live hosts Santa at the homestead museum (a little house that is a reproduction of what life was like at the time of the city's founding) every year; this was our first year to participate but I think we will make it a tradition.  Gideon discovered toy catalogs in the mail not to long ago and picked out a robot weeks ago that he wanted from Santa.  It was so cute to see him get shy with Santa but he did remember to ask for his robot!  

It is easy to forget how much Gideon has grown but then I see this and I don't know if I should laugh or cry; he is so cute but he isnt that sweet little baby anymore either

After our picture and some Christmas crafts we went outside and took a few more pictures with Mac's phone.  It was rainy and cold but Gideon looked so dapper and the surroundings were so interesting we just had to capture a few moments

He is like a miniature Mac Edwards don't you think?

My little snuggle bug

Halloween

We are having work done on the house right now, in fact Halloween night was spent in a hotel. The night before Halloween the hotel hosted trick-or-treating and my niece came to visit and play with us. She was supposed to wear a flower costume but refused to put it on, luckily we had enough super hero costume pieces in our suitcase for TWO batmans that night.

Gideon thinks the hotel is his new house and took Liyah on a tour of the place.

Showing off his new bed

Batmans

trick or treating

After trick or treating we headed to the arcade because I am totally addicted to arcades now.

I won all the tickets and got an awesome ball from teh claw game

On Halloween night we still managed to go trick-or-treating with some friends who loaned us their neighborhood for the night.  This year we all dressed up as zombies from the video game Plants vs Zombies (A favorite of Gideon's, he was very excited about his costume)

here is the zombie doll I made for him from the game:

and here we all are in our costumes at the hotel

Zombie family

But what is even scarier than zombies is this:

After Halloween we bought a bunch of costumes on clearance and Gideon has loved dressing up pretty much everyday

I have been struggling with the house being torn up for the renovations, we usually spend a lot of time at home doing crafts and playing but for the last three weeks we have been having to find places to go all day everyday, but I did manage to sneak in a Thanksgiving craft last week.  Gideon helped put together the turkeys and told me what to write as things he loves.  I was relieved that he said people's names instead of blueberries and Toy Story 2.

Gideon Was Here

My good friend over at The House of Boys...& a Girl  is hosting a link up this week (and every week moving forward) called "My Kids Were Here".  Basically she posted pictures that prove how her children exist in her home, and therefore her life.  It is a deceptively simple idea that I found very impactful as I viewed these little frozen-in-time moments that are both intimate and universal.  It inspired me so much that I grabbed my camera and went on a hunt for those little signs that this is Gideon's house (and life) too.  Here is what I came up with:

Classic Gideon play.  The dinosaurs actually live in the house, Boba Fett is just visiting.  They must be pretty good friends to be this comfortable with each other.

This is the mantle in my bedroom.  Gideon is obsessed with Legos and loves switching around the parts on his "guys".  A couple of mornings ago he informed us that this is a zombie knight.  *Also funny is that these Legos are up high where he definitely can't reach them meaning he probably played too rough with them and they were taken away, which is how we roll around here.

I used to take baths...

The husbandit is an artist and I have been known to make a craft or two so we turned out spare bedroom into an art room long before Gideon was born.  Now Gideon likes to get artistic in there too.

I'll admit, this quick activity made me look at my mess as masterpiece as I chuckled at Gideon's quirky personality expressed through toys.

How does your house reflect your children?  Head over to The House of Boys...& a Girl  and link up with us!

Homemade Lava Lamp

We've been doing a lot of activities outside of the house lately and today I wanted to find something to do inside.  Luckily pinterest exists and while perusing the Parent Inspiration Board I share with some mommy friends I rediscovered a blog post from Twodaloo about making a lava lamp at home with simple materials (side note: how great is that blog?!? so many ideas).  So, I gathered my materials and we got down to business.

Materials: 2 large glass vases, generic alka seltzer, food coloring, cell phone with flashlight app, glass casserole dish, vegetable oil (could be any oil), water, plastic dinosaurs, rubber duck.

First I poured water in the big vase and put it on top of my make shift light box (cell phone with flashlight app on under a glass casserole dish).

okay mom, I'm ready to go

I poured vegetable oil slowly on top of the water.  this part was fun to watch, the bubbles of oil caught the light and were very pretty.  Then we added many, many drops of food coloring.

hmmm

oooooh

 The food coloring travels slowly through the oil before dispersing in the water

Ooooo

 Next we tossed in some dinosaurs.  It was pretty cool to watch because they got coated in the oil and made little oily streaks and tunnels in the water.

In they go

Next we decided to try the long rectangular vase.  This time we added more oil and blue food coloring.  The color took forever to make it's way through the oil.

For. Ev. Er.

FINALLY!

 I poured some water over the top to see what would happen and it made neat looking waves

very prehistoric looking

 But the best part was tossing in some alka seltzer.

This is what happens when you toss in 4 alka seltzer at once

he loved it

 Back to the yellow vase, in go the alka seltzer

we tossed in the rubber duck so we could watch him dance

 And that was 30 colorful minutes of our day.

New morning routine

Gideon doesn't know how to open his bedroom door and that makes me happy and terrified at the same time.  It is a screen door, which has been great because it allows airflow and we can easily hear him not ot mention it is also pretty cute with the welcome mat outside his door,

(look how tiny my baby looks in this old pic!)

but screen doors aren't made for inside so some modifications had to be made resulting in it being impossible for a toddler (and some adults) to open.  At night we go through our routine (teeth brushing, pajamas, storytime, night night) and then Mac and I shut the door behind us. This has been a lifesaver because he knows he can't open the door so he stays in bed and actually goes to sleep (if the door is left open he happily comes out to talk and play and drive us crazy).  However, I still have this fear that a fire or some other emergency will happen and he won't be able to get out or I won't be able to get in and then I get nauseous and have to go lie down.  So, once he falls asleep I go upstairs, remove the books and Legos from his bed, and leave the door open behind me.

You may be asking yourself what in the world this could possibly have to do with our morning routine, well every morning Gideon wakes up and yells "mama!  MAMA!" until Mac wakes up and goes into his room to change his diaper, snuggle, chat, etc.  Side note: I find it hilarious that he yells mama because he only gets me one morning a week (Saturday is daddy's day to sleep in).  Once he is all fresh and happy daddy brings him into our room to jump on me and yell in my face to wake up (although some mornings he insists that mama is night night so everyone has to whisper while he refuses to get in bed with me.  What a good kid!).  Every once in awhile he wakes up at 4am yelling for mama and we stay in bed and see if he will go back to sleep, luckily this works 9.99 times out of 10.

And then it happened.  Mac was in bed (asleep, it was 11pm) and I was downstairs turning off lights and getting ready to go to bed myself when I heard a thump and Mac run across the floor above me. I figured something must have happened in Gideon's room so I ran up the stairs only to find Gideon laying in bed next to a startled looking Mac. Long story short, we think he fell out of bed and ran into our room. Mac said he was asleep and woke up when he heard footsteps and looked down to see Gideon climbing into our bed, launching himself face down onto my pillow, and saying "I go night night." The kid has never slept in our bed but it was so adorable I almost let him stay.  Fortunately he was totally fine and went right back to sleep in his bed so I guess it was for the best.

The next two mornings he woke up, yelled for a minute and then got out of his bed, walked across the hall, and climbed in bed with us (which was vaguely uncomfortable on the first morning because his diaper had leaked) then yelled "mommydaddy wake up!"  This morning he didn't even yell, he just climbed in bed with his two very much asleep parents.   I let him under the covers with me and we snuggled until daddy's alarm went off and then he did an extremely accurate impression of daddys alarm for 5 minutes.  Seriously.  He was saying "boop boop boop" over and over again at exactly the same pitch as Mac's phone.  We were at our wits end, pretending to press his "snooze" button, tickling him, threatening time out, and eventually begging him to stop.  In the end I guess he just got tired of it because he went and started repeatedly sitting on Mac as hard as he could

Welcome to our new morning routine.

Impromptu Splash Pad

I don't know where the time went this morning, one moment it was 8:30 and then suddenly it was 10:15.  I knew we were going to be late for library storytime so I grabbed the swim bag as we walked out the door so we could hit the splash pad on the way home.  I'm glad I did because we made it just in time to sing one song and then line up for stickers.  Gideon seemed pretty confused and my mommy guilt was running high, so we headed down the road to the glorious heat and water of the splash pad.  We actually haven't been there much this summer; GG's pool is so much cooler and less crowded (you know, with just GG, me, and Gideon) however it is also 30 mins away while the splash pad is less than 10, so we should probably go more.  That is if this triple digit heat ever breaks (I think its been over a week now).  But I digress.

Gideon had a great time running:

sliding:

He wanted to go down on his belly like the older kids

and making new friends who were happy to pour water on his belly:

He had so much fun he never wanted to leave.  As in ever.  Never, ever, ever.  And that is why I had to carry him kicking and screaming across a million degree parking lot and then wrestle him into his carseat.  This was a first for us, his best tantrums are normally saved for inside our house where I have apparently been guilty of many offenses.  With no practice he was surprisingly good at planking his body so that it was nearly impossible to strap him into the seat.  Where did he learn that?  Are there toddler meetings that I don't know about where they share tactics with one another?  It was bad enough that I attempted a picture for daddy...and he stole my phone.

About halfway home he threw the phone at me.  It grazed my hair and landed in my lap.  I like to think it was a warning shot, the kid has amazing aim.