Never Fear - Michelangelo is Alive and Well

This is the underside of my table. Awesome work Sydney. The floor was even better. At least it came off easily with a Magic Eraser. I have to admit though that while cleaning off the table, that sentimental side of me thought, "Maybe I should leave this here so that when she's 15 we can all have a good laugh about it." Then I figured it would happen again soon!

Sydney has been a coloring fool lately, and it's all been completely voluntary! It's fun to see her exhibiting some creativity!
She is starting to figure out that when you draw you can do more than just scribble too, so that has been very exciting! If you're lucky, you'll get a Sydney creation!

Hallelujah

We finally found our copy of this last night. Hallelujah.

You bet we're listening to it. And Sydney loves The Little Drummer Boy. She keeps saying "Pum Pum again!" and singing with it. So darn cute. I love Christmas.

I'm so sad though because I am all done wrapping Christmas presents. Anyone want some help?

How to Eat Un-Fried Worms

We had such a great day at the zoo on Wednesday. Sydney asks to go almost daily, so it was heaven for her. (She chased the geese around telling them not to poop anymore.) Both she and Mady each got to have a friend come with us, so we all (moms included) enjoyed a much needed day of fun with other people. Sydney and Kenzie held hands the whole time. Mady and Brooklyn are 3 days apart. They'll be best friends too.

And don't forget the animals. It was a tad chilly so we popped in to the bird house to warm up and got there just in time to help feed them. The girls got to grab some meal worms (yum!) and toss them to the birds. Here it is in fullblown technicolor:

Here's the transcript version:

Me (while holding Mady in one arm and my shiny new camera in the other): Good job! What's on your hand? Let me see. Have you got a bug right there? Flick it off. Flick it off. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! GROSSS!!!!!!! YUCK!!!!!! It's in her mouth!

Casey (other mom): She thought you said lick it off!

We don't use the word flick anymore. Also, I almost vomitted on the spot. Oh. My. Gosh.

On a happier note, both kids LOVED the carousel. It was new for Mady to like it, but it was so fun that she did! She kicked and giggled and held on just like a big girl!
When we rode the carousel, our friends were the only other people on it. And no one was in line. So they let us ride again. Which means Sydney chose a new animal. Tiger first, gorilla second. During our second ride a peacock got in our friend's stroller and stole Kenzie's PB&J (Casey chased the peacock and got it back). So the zoo worker got us all little bags of animal crackers.

Go to the zoo in December. It rocks.

A Christmas Miracle

So that's where Mady's stashing her bottles lately...

Oh, and Sydney cleaned up the living room almost entirely by herself tonight. Oh Happy Day.

Promised Pictures

Sydney was watching me do my hair one morning and asked me to do hers. I jumped on the opportunity. Here's the resulting photo shoot:

And here is Mady's photo shoot a few weeks before:

I have such cute kids.

Sniffers

My daughter has a ridiculously good sense of smell.
I was secretly munching on a few M&Ms the other night when she came running over and said,"Mommy, ope you mouf." After quickly swallowing my secret treat, I complied. She visually inspected, then decided to use a more reliable method. She leaned in and took a whiff of my breath. Intrigued by this new behavior, I asked her what she smelled. "Chocolate!" she replied. I obviously had to share. A few days later we repeated this process as she correctly guessed that I had been sneaking licorice. Apparently, the nose knows all.

This weekend I discovered where she had gotten such a charming trait. We finally got our new bedroom set all delivered and in correctly. (Yay!) While rocking Mady in the room, Aaron came in and informed me I was going to kill our youngest by exposing her to the massive amounts of fumes coming off our new furniture. My reply? "I can't smell anything."
It's all explained. Sydney and Aaron both have overactive sniffers.
Here's the offensive furniture:

Wake Up Call

I'm a crappy blogger, I know. Sorry. I have a funny story to share though. This morning Sydney woke up at 6:42 am. Since Mady was not awake yet, it was a little early and I was super groggy, so I told her she could come sleep in Daddy's bed (he was already gone). She rested for a bit and let me sleep for a half hour. Then I felt her little hands wiping something wet all over me. I thought she had licked her hands and wiped them on my face at first, then I realized it was lotion. She proceeded to cover my face (and hair) with lotion and put chapstick on me to wake me up. I am now all pretty for the day thanks to my personal beautician.

I almost had a heart attack...

Warning: gross story ahead.
Sydney is a mouth girl. As in, she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Seriously. Thank heavens, she never tries to swallow things, but it still bugs us. She's over 2, this should stop now, right? Well, today we were driving to visit a friend and Sydney had one of those metal buttons that have slogans printed on them that you can pin on yourself. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Anyway, she had a small one of those, but I had removed the pin so that wouldn't stab herself or her sister. On our drive, she apparently put the button (minus the pin) in her mouth and it went back too far and got stuck. I heard her start choking and when I looked back, she was throwing up. I pulled the car over really fast and ran around to help her. As I swiped out her mouth a couple times, she continued to vomit on me, but we got it out. It got immediately thrown away. It was so scary, and so gross.
We immediately turned around to get her a new shirt and coat (Thank heavens we have 2 for her, which I previously thought was a waste of closet space). I got the car seat cleaned up (very little got on it) and we got to finish our day, after I washed my hands.
I'm obviously not happy this happened, my only hope is that it will scare her from putting things in her mouth again. Because in her own words, "I spewed, I coke." You sure did kid.

Productivity at it's best...

What a productive day. Seriously. We started by putting up this beautiful piece so the construction workers (and future homeowners) behind us couldn't watch me shower any more. We were good until the very tall house being built on a hill behind us went up. Now their kitchen looks into my bathroom. Hallelujah, the peep show's over. Then, thanks to my friend Karen who took my little angels for a bit, I got a whole day's worth of errands done in 2 hours. Including getting a stocking holder for Mady! Hooray! It was the last thing I had to put up in the house.
And last, but certainly not least, Mady pulled this trick out of her hat tonight. Seriously, what happened? This happened last October with Sydney. When she was 13 months old. My Mady is only 10 months! She's so big!

New Camera Brilliance

We got a new fancy dancy camera last weekend. Boy am I excited. We're finally going to be able to take some better (faster) pictures. Also, I dropped our camera about a month ago and to get it to work now you have to hold the batteries in while you are taking a picture. Not cool.
While you're waiting in breathless anticipation for my new pictures, I thought I'd share some of the brilliant advice listed in the manual of said new camera. These were reason enough to read it!

• Caution: Do not aim the camera at bright light sources such as the sun. Doing so may cause malfunctions or damage the image sensor. um, and your eyes.


• Do not sit in a chair with the camera in your pocket (Aaron would like it noted that it says nothing about riding a train with it in your pocket, but it's not exactly a paper thin camera, so this still seems uncomfortable.)


• Do not trigger the flash in close proximity to human eyes. It could damage eyesight. Keep 39 inches away from infants.


• When using the flash, do not cover with fingers or clothing. This could result in burns. Apparently my flash is actually a laser


• Putting the [6 inch long] strap around a child's neck could result in asphyxiation. Gosh, ya think?


• Stop operatin camera immediately if it emits smoke or a strange smell.


• Do not use solvents such as alcohol, benzine, or thinner to clean camera.


• Do not place the batteries in a direct flame


• Do not play the CD-Rom in a CD music player. It is possible to suffer hearing loss from listening with headphones to the loud sounds of a CD-Rom played on a music CD player.

I love our sue-happy culture. Can't blame Canon for not covering their bases!