Christmas in August...

Christmas is Elijah's favorite holiday. It's no secret around these parts. Yesterday he told us that Azalea (our dog) wants to go see Santa Clause. He also told us that he is going to ask Santa for the Angry Birds Space Toy. That is at the top of his Christmas list. But to top it all off, for the past few weeks he has been singing his own rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas":

This year we are definitely going to have to have that sing-along we tried to do last year. It apparently is also time to start thinking of the fall and winter fun lists again. Money is tight, so we'll have to do a cheap version. I'm sure Elijah will have lots of input. He was super excited when I mentioned we could write a letter to Santa, so we will have to do that in the near future.

Lots of stuff to plan, lots of stuff to do and lots of time to do it... but for Elijah's sake "Please Christmas, don't be late"...

Popcorn...

Back in November we had a get together at Penelope's parents' house. While we were there they decided to entertain the kids with some "magic". Popcorn magic.

At first no one was interested.

Once the kernels were poured in all of them were wondering what was going on.

Put the lid on...

And watch.

Once the kernels started popping all the kids were going crazy.

They really had a good time. Look at all that popcorn!

Mmmm. Good stuff.

You can see their reactions in this video.

Who would have known so much enjoyment could be had with something so simple...

Learning to Write... And a Video...

Well there is one thing that I can say I accomplished during my maternity leave, besides surviving going to the store alone with both kids... "I" taugh Elijah how to write. Actually my iPod taught him how to write.

I downloaded this app iWriteWords after seeing him use it on his Uncle Kevin's iPad. The $2.99 for the full version was well worth the money...

Because this is the result.

The whole thing was a process though. I went through many, many things that didn't work before trying the app. First we tried the old try and true handwriting sheets

That didn't work, cause it was boring, so then we got a Dora the Explorer "Let's Write Letters" book.

He liked it, but I didn't realize, as with the other thing, that he didn't get the concept of following the dashed lines. So we headed to one of our local "learning stores". (What I call a learning store is just a place that sells suppliments to teachers and anyone who wants to suppliment a child's education.) The store is a whole other post in and of itself. If I had unlimited funds, I would get in trouble there... but anyway... While we were there we found these letter stencils that show you the steps in writing each letter.

He did wonderfully with these, but couldn't write free-hand, so it frustrated him. I was about to give up and thought maybe he just wasn't ready to write yet. I figured I would give him more time, but the next Sunday we went over his Grandma's house to visit and that is when he started playing with the app.

After a week or two of playing with it, he started writing letters on the refrigerator with dry erase marker, then he started doing it on the blackboard in his room. Yesterday, Joe was watching the kids before I got home from work and taped the video below. When I got home,  he surprised me with it, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

http://youtu.be/Zq3e2PbLJ5o

Hope everyone has a great day! Until next time...

Egg Dying Videos

While we were doing the egg dying I took some video. There are 3 (actually there are 6 total on youtube if you wanted to watch the other more boring ones) because I'm spastic and don't like to have videos much longer than 1 minute.

So without further ado:




http://youtu.be/zLUmEYZ01DI



http://youtu.be/JjDGkIpAGUY



http://youtu.be/e6c7NFLYy_M

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into the fun we had dying eggs.

I Will Follow Him...

... wherever he may go. There isn't an ocean so deep. A mountain so high it can't keep... keep me away...

So after listening to that song and the song "Heatwave" about 900,000 times between listening in my car (while going over the moves in my head) and practicing in the studio, the dance show finally came... and went. It was bitter sweet because we spent hours of hard work to perfect moves and learn how to tap together to get to the show, but after is kind of a let down. I don't get to see my tap buddies for MONTHS when for months I would see them every week or so.

The only thing getting me through is knowing that it starts all over again in September. Yay! So without further ado - Here's the tap number I was in, for all who are interested:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyK2zW7JOJU

My wonderful husband taped it for me... and sat through the entire dress rehearsal. He's such a trooper. My MIL (Marie) and SILs (Katie and Mandy) all came to the show. For which I appreciate and hope they enjoyed themselves.

Movie Tuesday

It's been a while since I've had one of these, but here it is... Elijah being a ham for the camera.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZjFAZJZrM

My Surprise...

Now, this is the surprise I was hoping to share with you.

"What is it?" You ask. Just press play on the video below to find out....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czs7GIOMVy0

That's it. I got it done at Shear Genius in Perry Hall Maryland. They cut and styled my hair for free because I'm donating it. The hair is going to the Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program to make wigs to give to cancer patients. I was originally doing Locks of Love, but in researching where I could get my hair cut for it, I found out they sell their wigs at a discounted rate, based on the person's income and they sell the unusable hair. I don't agree with that, so I found another organization to donate to.

That's about it, for now. Hope everyone had a great Easter! Until next time...

Movie Wednesday...

Lots has been going on, between getting ready for Christmas, our furnace dying, working full time and being sick, I haven't had a chance to post anything or do anything really.

As of today we only have one more present to buy and we're done. We just need to wrap and we're done with that. Christmas cards and Christmas letters are in the works also, once that is done we will be ready for Christmas to come.

One thing, extra, we did this year was put up a Christmas tree. We haven't put one up in quite a few years because first Azalea was only with us for about a month the first year, then I was 8 and a half month pregnant the next year, third year Elijah was crawling around and I just wasn't prepared to deal with him not listening and getting into it. So here is year #4 and we were prepared to deal with whatever delemas came with having the tree up.

We had the tree up for a few days without anything on it, however even though Elijah had never had a Christmas tree in his house, he knew what was suppose to be done:

Here's a closer look... He put some of his toys on there for decoration.

Next came the lights. He loves those... he especially loves to count them.

Then came ornaments and the star

And we're done!



Elijah needed to examine the lights one more time to make sure they were working correctly.


And now it's time for the movie. Of course it's Christmas Tree related. Here is Elijah helping us put ornaments on the tree... literally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKoc4MU0Y0

Merry Christmas if I don't post again before then!

Movie Friday

We just bought this magnetic, white board for the living room. I thought Elijah would like to play with his number magnets on there and letter magnets (when we get them) or maybe he would like to draw with crayon on it. I didn't really care, it was his board, he could do whatever on it.

All week I've been writing either the alphabet or numbers 1-20 around the outside, because he likes to point to whatever and saying what it is. Then like Wednesday I wrote his full name on the board, but it got messed up, so last night I rewrote his first name really big.

Elijah ran up to the board and started doing this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feiHzUvkxJk

I guess that's what a year and a half of watching sesame street will do to ya. Although I'm sure Super Why and Wheel of Fortune helped a little too.

Stay tuned on Monday for another movie. :-)

Movie Monday

Elijah just started saying "Yeah" and "No" in response to questions. So while we were on a car trip we decided to start asking him some random questions. Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJB2ur_NHn4

Words...

As 95% of you have heard me talk about for the last month now, Elijah is delayed a little in talking and the pediatrician was concerned enough to say he should get tested. Now, if you know me well, you would have thought I took this all in stride and was like, "Tested?!? H*** no, she is crazy." But apparently I am either becoming a full fledged mom or going through a mid-life crisis. Because I have been researching and talking to everyone that has ever been a mother, debating on whether I should get him tested or not. And well, consensus was "No. He is a boy, he will talk when he is ready".

So that we did, however it didn't stop me from researching the crap out of the subject. I found these two books, both by Thomas Sowell, Late Talking Children and
Einstein Syndrome - Bright Children Who Talk Late, which I haven't read yet, but I plan on getting them or looking at them very soon.

When the whole thing originally started I said I would give him until he was 2 and if he still wasn't talking I would get him tested. Then a couple weeks ago Elijah started to say more things... or atleast trying to. As of yesterday he started saying his own version of "I don't know" (I dodo).

But 2 Saturdays ago I got a video of this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZHxURSo2C0

Now if only he could say useful words like "hungry", "thirsty" or "more"... But I guess I'll take what I can get. Although we did have a "conversation" this morning about what he wanted to be for Halloween, but I think I'll save that for another blog entry.

Until then, ttyl.

Video Blog

This is a video I made to show you all what goodies I picked up the past couple of weeks. Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYPQj-U01WM

Here's a story... of a boy named Elijah...

Elijah has turned into a full fledged toddler with his mood swings and his tantrums if he doesn't get his way. He has mastered the word "No" and is working on other words. One other thing he is trying to master is climbing. He was a little slow on the uptake, thank goodness... But once he started doing it, there was no stopping him. His favorite thing to climb on is the couch.

We have this long couch in front of our picture window facing the backyard. Elijah likes to climb up there and look out the window. So one Saturday, we get him out of his crib, change him and all that, then we put him down in the living room to play a little bit. As usually, Elijah decided he wanted to get up on the couch and walk around etc. I'm usually standing right next to the couch because he makes me nervous.

Since he started doing this, he hadn't fallen off, yet... he knows how to get down properly, so I walked over to the dining room table (which is in the same room, but on the other side of the room) to get something. I turned around and saw him sitting on the arm of the sofa, so I ran towards him, but it was too late, I got to the other end of the sofa just in time to see him falling backwards, trying to grab onto anything he could. He looked at me with the "Oh S***" look on his face and tried with all his might to grab onto the arm of the sofa, but gravity was pulling a little too hard and he ended up falling on the floor. He didn't cry, he just acted stunned that such a thing could happen to -him-.

When I told my co-worker, Michael, this story his response was, well, I guess he learned his lesson and won't be doing that again. But apparently, Elijah didn't get that memo, because the very next day he was doing this:



There was a story and a video of the week, all in one. I plan on having another video this week with some goodies I bought at ACMoore. I'm also planning on posting about our adventure at the State Fair, so stay tuned.

Video of the Week

This is Elijah playing with his Sesame Street software program. He was having fun until Big Bird showed up... Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNrtD28ToNk

Video of the week... Happens to be on a Monday

Movie Monday is back... atleast for this week.

This time the video needs a back story or you won't get it. We've been reading to Elijah since, basically day 1. We would read before he would "go to bed for the night". Once we established a bedtime routine (when he was sleeping through the night), we would read 3-4 books to him, then it was sleepy time.

When he got older we put the books on the bookshelf or lying around, so if he wanted to look at them and "read", he could. One of his favorite books to flip through is Farm Friends. I tried to find a picture of it, but couldn't. (If I wasn't afraid that this wouldn't get posted until next month, I would go home and take a picture of it) It's a fun little book that rhymes and says what each animal says, for instance, "How does the cow say 'how do you do?' Moo moo moo". "How does the duck say 'ya'll come back?' Quack quack quack.

So last night we asked him to "read" Farm Friends to us and this is what we heard:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKymrLcKs0

Please excuse my annoying laughing and the camera shaking. I couldn't help myself... It was sooo cute. I loved how he did "da da da" for the question, then "gee gee" or whatever for the answer. :-)

So until next time... I'm out.

Movie of the month (haha) and a layout

I have been slacking... which is horrible, especially when in my last post I said I wanted to get better at updating. After that post a new lady started in Petty Cash and I have been so stressed out that I have to go out somewhere during lunch, plus it gives my nose a break since she smokes, so half the time I can hardly breathe and I sneeze all the time. Then today my nose started bleeding because it's so irritated all week. Thank God I will be out of there on the 27th, then hopefully I'll be able to start posting again during lunch, on a regular basis.

Ok, enough complaining out of me, onto the movie of the week:




Elijah was helping his Grandma vaccum her kitchen.


I also finally got a layout done today. Apparently the only way for me to get a layout done the same day that I start it is if all the following happens

1. I start with a sketch
2. Elijah sleep for 2-2.5 hours
3. Joe is not around
4. I am at my parents house doing laundry (cause my washer died)
5. I can't log onto the Internet
6. I have an assigned kit that I need to use
7. I know the pictures and subject I want to use, ahead of time.

And this was the outcome:

Everything is the Digital Freebies Mega Kit "Arizona Summer"

The journaling reads: "You certainly love your bubbles. You could play with them for a good 30 minutes, just trying to catch them and pop them. You are facinated by the fact that some hit the ground, but don't pop. Of course, when they do, they are no match for your little fingers.

I love how you take joy in the little things, like popping bubbles and swinging. I hope you continue to for the rest of your life."

I'm out. I'll try to update again soon, atleast with another video.

Azalea and Movie of the Week

There are certain times when I really wonder where Azalea came from and who she lived with for the first year of her life. If you didn't know, Azalea is our dog.

Precious(Azalea) the day we first saw her

We got her from the SPCA 3 years ago. All the other dogs were barking up a storm, but there sat Precious (that was her name before we changed it) curled in a ball in the front of her cage, with the sadest eyes. I saw her and fell in love. I showed her to Joe, so then we asked if we could go out and play with her. Joe rolled a ball along the ground, she watched it like, "What do you want me to do with that?". She was potty trained and knew how to sit and heel. We talked about it and decided to get her. That is when the adventure began.

We have been through a lot with her - kennel cough, anxiety, intestinal parasites and really bad allergic reactions to flea bites... Which brings me to why I thought to blog about her. The other day she went to the bathroom on the floor(which she doesn't do hardly at all), so when I saw it I yelled "DOG!". She went to the side door and was cowering. She wouldn't come to me even when I had a treat to give her. So that got me thinking... I wonder if that's what her old owners would call her when she was in big trouble. How did they treat her? Was it an older person who raised her? She's so low key, it wouldn't surprise me. Was she an only puppy? Where did they get her from? Why did they give her up? But I guess we'll never know. I don't know why I even think about it.

So, onto another topic. The movie of the week. We have another edition of "What does a ____ say? According to Elijah" Today's edition is "The Cow".

That's all from me for now. I have to attempt to make 4 cards and a scrapbook page before next Tuesday all while looking for the perfect black dress and chunky jewelry for my costume for the dance show on the 20th (You would think I love procrastinating by how much I do it.). So you'll probably be hearing from me again pretty soon.

Movie of the Week and a Card

I have decided that Movie Monday is never going to be Movie Monday again... Atleast not until the middle of June (after my dance show). So I have decided that it will be called "The movie of the week". Yes, I am copying off of the Hallmark channel, but it works.

This week's movie is one of the many things that Elijah likes to do now:





And now even though 90% of you saw this card already in person. I thought the other 10% would like a look. This is the birthday card I made for Charlotte:

It was super easy to make. I did the lettering with wordle.net, then fiddled with it in PSE until I got what I wanted. Clipped it (in PSE language) into the cupcake picture. Printed it out on regular white paper then used scrapbook adhesive to "glue" it onto some thick cardstock, then cut out the shape and used dementionals to put it on the pink cardstock, so it would pop up. Fold and done.

I'm thinking about making one like it for father's day, but with different colors and shape of course. We'll see how that goes.

Other than that, nothing interesting is going on. I'm out.

Movie Thursday...

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Man, life has been crazy. NSD wore me out. I didn't post a DYL last Friday, cause procrastinating is my life. And even though I knew I had to pick out 5-10 kits for my game on NSD I waited til, almost, the last minute to pick them out. Then Friday night I had to wait for Elijah to go to bed before I could put my game up on the forum.

I'm working on the wording and stuff (while watching Survivor with Joe) when I look down and it's like 11pm. The thing needs to be posted before Midnight. So I rush and post just to find out I have too many pictures... I can only have up to 4 and I have 10. Crisis mode sets in, so I post a message in the staff forum for any answer anyone can throw at me. Maria (in all her infinite wisdom) says, "Hey, why don't you just make one big picture with all the kits together". Duh, why didn't I think of that? 11:45 rolls around and I FINALLY can post.

So to make a short story, very long. After that drama, I was in no mood to declare my love for anything. NSD is a whole other story that I won't post about. But onto more happier news. Movie Thursday:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7QQ2eoNss0

Enjoy

Movie Monday was postponed because of...

a potentially broken toe. No, not mine... my mom's. Which meant I had to watch Elijah all day and therefore couldn't get on the computer for most of the day. But it's only a day late (and a dollar short) and I actually have two.

First Elijah walking through a Metro car:




This one is not Elijah, but it's from the zoo. A tiger playing with a ball:



I will have an actual update soon. Maybe if I have the time tomorrow.

BTW, remember National Scrapbooking Day is Saturday, so make sure you hit up a sale or seven. One of my favorite digital scrapbooking shops, Nitwit Collections, that hardly ever puts anything on sale is having a 30.5% off sale this weekend. I will try to restrain myself... but unfortunely (for my pocketbook) I will be online all day on Saturday because I'm hosting a game at Digital Freebies and will be "forced" to look around a little to waste time in between checking my PMs and watching bingo. Man, my second job is such hard work... ;-)

I'm out.