Slightly Crazy and Extremely Cold

We actually had a high of 30 degrees today, not too bad for Lansing. However, at the time we decided we wanted to go sledding it was only 20 with the windchill factor making it 10 degrees. Yep, that is cold. But, we've had quite a bit of snow this week and Ellie had a lot of energy, so we made the trek to the park anyway.






Ellie was a little unsure of going alone, so I went along for the ride. As you can see I'm not that great at steering.

She also wasn't so crazy about the face plant into the snow. I wouldn't be either.
We only lasted a few times down, but that was all we planned on doing. We're hoping for a warmer day to go try again.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ellie loved helping to decorate the tree. I've been surprised that she and Wes haven't tried to mess with it. I strategically placed it in a corner where I could block it off a bit. Ellie does go over to the tree and says "tree...eyes" meaning I've told her she can look with her eyes, not with her hands. I keep waiting for her to test that limit. It is probably a bit confusing that while decorating I let her touch it all she wanted.

And here are a couple of our latest projects. If you click on the title of the project it will take you to the site with instructions.

Advent Calendar

Painting on the glue

We made the shape of a Christmas Tree.

Ellie loved putting a piece of candy into each of the sections. She colored the tree and then helped glue the ornaments on. She liked that so much I had to cut out more pieces of paper for her to glue onto something else.

And there it is. We get to poke a hole each day to get the candy out and count our way to Christmas!

Santa Claus

I don't think Brielle actually know her colors, but she likes to say and sign the names of the colors. Red is her favorite, so she was excited that I gave her a red marker to color Santa.

She did much better at gluing the cotton balls than the ghosts that we made for Halloween.

Yep, she is pretty proud of her work.

Don't mind the mess

There are times when I'm working in the kitchen doing something that Brielle can't help with. Sometimes when I just need to get something done I resort to entertaining her in whatever way I can. Her latest favorite is playing with dry beans. This is slightly less messy than playing with colored rice, but I still haven't figured out a good way to keep her fun contained.

To her credit, she does TRY to sweep up after herself.

Does anyone have ideas on how to keep it less messy, and/or other things to keep toddlers distracted for those hot oven, boiling water, dough all over hands moments?

First Haircut

The time came. I was nervous about losing the cute curls in the back, but she just kept looking like a little orphan and I couldn't take it anymore. So at 18 1/2 months, Brielle finally gets a haircut.
I don't let Brielle watch a lot of T.V. But, I admit when we do her hair in the morning that is when she is allowed to watch. Mostly she loves to watch herself; home videos are the best. She also loves the "My Baby Can Talk" sign language videos.
Anyway, so I plopped her in her seat in front of a video and had no problem with her holding still for the haircut. I did try to keep the scissors hidden from her so she didn't really know what I was doing. I don't want her getting any early ideas about cutting her own hair!

Before




After




And this is how it looked after we did it for church. The back still curls a bit, so I'm happy.

Turkey Craft Day

Today we learned about turkeys. I started by showing Ellie some YouTube videos of turkeys gobbling so she knew what we were talking about.

Spice Turkeys

Ellie wasn't too sure about putting her hand in the glue. I told her to give the plate five and that worked. She LOVED shaking the spices on the plate. You are supposed to use "Thanksgiving" spices like cinnamon and sage. Instead I let her use the random ones that came in the spice rack when we were married that I've never opened.


Cereal Box Turkeys

This was a lot of prep work, and not quite as toddler friendly. I did it more for me than for her though, just because I thought they were so cute. She did a good job helping to glue it together.

And she was very interested in the googly eyes, and kept pulling them back off.


Turkey Fan

I colored and cut everything out first, since Brielle still doesn't care about coloring all that much yet. She doesn't press hard enough so can't see what she has done.

She loved helping glue it together.

Her favorite thing though was the fan tail. She kept slipping it through the roll and pulling it out, over and over again.

Random

This post is going to cover a few different events, but I didn't want to take the time to post 3 separate events...so here is a glance at our week.

Dairy Barn

I've been wanting to take Ellie to the MSU Farms for a long time. I thought she'd like getting a closer look at the animals. With her Grandma Finlay being in town this past weekend we finally took the opportunity. We stopped at the Dairy Farm and I don't know if it is always like this, or if something was wrong but it was stinky. I'm not talking about cow manure stinky, that I can handle just fine...this was a sulfur smell so bad that we had to come home, shower and put our clothes in the wash before we could do anything else. Even the car smelled. It makes me gag just thinking about it.

Bleach Painting

I needed a quick activity to entertain an ornery toddler. This is one that must be supervised closely, but was really easy and fast to set up.

Just take a piece of construction paper. Get some bleach and paint with it.

I made the mistake of putting the bleach in a paper cup at first. I immediately changed my mind when I brought it to the table and Ellie said "drink". I put it in a small plastic container instead and sat right with her the whole time. After awhile I took away the bleach and let her keep painting with water while I cleaned up.

Bronner's Christmas Store

We drove out the Frankenmuth and went into Bronners (the worlds largest Christmas Store). We've been there before, but it was fun with Ellie being older this time she was mesmerised by all there is to see.

After almost two hours of looking around in the store though, she was happy to run around as we went over to the Silent Night Chapel. I wish I had the energy of a toddler.

I'm going to have a brother!

I don't really know what it means. Dad and Mommy keep telling me there is a baby in Mommy's belly, but I don't see it there.
We went to the doctor to look at the baby at make sure it was healthy. Daddy made sure I held still on his lap while Mommy got to lay on a cool bed. Then they gave me a turn to lay on it too.
Here are the pictures from the movie we watched. They show my new baby brother!