My Cradle....

As wonderful as my Grandmother is she had her perfect match in my Grandfather. Between the two of them they could do anything. I know most kids idolize their grandparents, which I did, but my grandparents really could do anything.
When I was young Grandpop made a cradle for all my dolls. I have so many memories of this. Grandmom had even made the bedding for it. While I don't have hat bedding anymore I do have the cradle. While I was getting everything ready for the cruise I found the cradle down in the basement and brought it up for Bella and Jack.


Bella enjoyed rocking it so much she thought she might just try it for herself



And of course because Bella did it, Jack followed



I can not express how excited I was to see how much they liked it...

The WORST bed head ever....

Poor Bella...
this is her saying "cheese"




And she gets mad at me when I pull her hair back....

The perils of crafting with 2 year olds.....

So I wanted to do something fun with the kids, (Jack, Bella, and the little girl I watch) so I thought of pasta necklaces. I thought it would be fun and it would help teach. So I waited the hours to dye the pasta and let it dry and got the ribbon ready. It ended up being fun and it taught me a lesson.... 2 year olds are waaaayyy too young to make pasta necklaces (as least my 2 year olds).
See Jack's awesome necklace:

See Jack's awesome necklace in a thousand little pieces after he realizes that if he throws the necklace on the floor hard the pasta shatters.... oh what fun

See Jack's necklace with a tenth of the pieces left...


*sigh* It was fun for a bit

Christmas Cookies....

Right before Christmas the kids and I made some Christmas cookies. I gave each of the kids the cookie with icing on it and some mini m&m s to decorate them. It was kinda funny how different they all came out
Here is Jack saying "cheese"

Jack's issue was that he had to sample every cookie he decorated

Bella did not want to sample the cookie, she just wanted to sample the icing and traced her fingers around in it




I think I may have mentioned before Bella's obsession with blankets.... Well she got a little bored with decorating so she decided to hide

Where's Bella??

P.S. I wish I had a dollar for everytime I say "Where's Bella" or "Where's Jack?" and "boo"... I would be a very rich lady
Here she is

Jack leaning over to try and get a kiss... Bella is having nothing to do with it

Here is the finished product. Jack's are in the upper left as you can tell by the bite marks from all of the cookies. Bella's are on the bottom and if you look closely you can see the finger prints all through hers. The other ones belong to the little girl I watch... she didn't do too much decorating, she just wanted to eat the m&m s

It was a fun time and I think the kids are smarter than I give them credit for. The cookies got packaged up with their name on it because there is no way that these were for anyone but them.

P.S. And since I know Grandmom worries about them being cold, they had their shirts on as soon as we are done!

Christmas Magic....

We went to a Christmas Lights display near our house last Sunday with the kids and Jason's parents. I was surprised how much they really liked it. Bella just looked around in wonder and Jack was kinda just running around.
'
Jack would hold your hand and say "hurry, hurry, hurry" really fast and then run. If he was holding two hands it was like he almost went off the ground because his little legs were moving so fast

along the way there were little houses you could go in to warm up and check out different displays. Bella and Jack loved the ones with the trains



Jack thought this igloo was super cool

Towards the end there was this cool little sleigh that you can sit on and take a wonderful family picture.... yeah, that does not happen with two 2 year olds
these were the best I could get


It was a fun time... it makes me even more excited for next year when they "get" what Christmas is about.

Merry Christmas!

Hi Grandmom....

Love from Jessie and Calla....



They came over the other day and they were both wearing the sweaters you made them.
Love you!

Jack loves lemons...

He makes a billion faces but he will still eat lemons. If he is fussing at a restaurant lemons usually do the trick.

Santa came early this year...

We decided to have Christmas morning a little early this year so that the kids would have some time to enjoy the presents. I figured that they would be getting so much from family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that they could enjoy the ones from us early.
We went small for them this year. We figure this may be the last year we can get a way with it before the kids realize who Santa is.
Here was "Christmas" morning before they got up
Bella got a new tea set


Lucky for us Bella and Jack got up at the same time. Bella went straight for her table





Jack went for his presents



What did the kids care about the most? The Goldfish crackers from their stockings

But then Jack started to open his Woody doll

he got a really big smile on his face

If you pull the string he talks

Jack kissed him

and then blew him kisses

Bella could have really cared less about most of her present (except the tea set)

She enjoyed playing with Jack's toys more

She actually enjoyed his toys too much. Bella just really really wanted to play with Woody and Jack was not about to share this toy. They fought over poor Woody (keep in mind that they are usually pretty good about sharing). So I made a decision that Bella needed a Woody too. We had some money that Grandmom had given the kids for Christmas so we went off to Target and got Bella her very own Woody. I will tell you, that is some of the best money ever spent. They each play with their own and make my life much easier


It really was such a wonderful morning... I kept wanting to cry all morning because I could not believe how lucky I am