On the move!

Looks like I started reorganizing playroom to make more "baby safe" just in time!  I put Killian down, sitting, in front of that Santa on the floor.  I walked into the kitchen to get a snack and when I came back I found him under the tree!

Not sure if he is upset about the branch touching his head, not being able to get to the reindeer, or just confused about what happened but he doesn't look too happy!

My Helper

Killian has been rolling over and ooching forward a tiny bit lately.  He hasn't really figured out the army crawl, but he can roll himself around and if his toes find some grip he moves forward.  That combined with my latest ideas about the playroom have caused me to do some reorganizing.  I would like to do this during "nap" time but that doesn't happen often enough or for long enough when it does so I propped him up in there with me to get some work done.

Such a cutie!

Playing peek-a-boo with me.  He loves that game.  I'm not sure he entirely "gets" it but he giggles a lot putting blankets and scarves over his head and then pulling them off.

"Oooh!  Look what I got!  Keeley's book..."

"You see me, but don't seem upset.  Good thing I'm so cute."

"And it is even more fun when I can open it...."

The girls aren't ready for him being in all their stuff...

Christmas Decorating

Grandad came over on the Saturday after Thanksgiving to celebrate with us and help us get the Christmas tree decorated.  The girls were crazy when he first arrived so I got some of their works from school to give them something to focus on (other than running around like maniacs!).  Here he is checking out their placemats and Keeley's "thankful" book.  I should note that Keeley drew a picture of a house with stairs in her book.  When I asked her about it she said she is thankful for the house with stairs we are going to get.  That isn't exactly in the plans but it made me laugh that she didn't "want" it, she is assuming it will happen and already thankful for it!

Killian and his best friend getting some snuggles.

Kayden showing Grandad her woven placemat.

Getting ready to decorate.

Such focus.

Grandad reminding Keeley that we have to decorate all the way around the tree.

Keeley cooperated and put some on the other side of the tree...

Grandad and Dad did most of the decorating on the sides of the tree that didn't face the living room.

We had a great time and the girls love the tree.  This is the first year they have wanted to know about all the ornaments.  There are some that Kelly and I made growing up on there that were interesting to the girls.

Thanksgiving Week

The girls were off for the entire week so I wanted to make sure we had lots of things to do to keep us busy.  I think we all had a great week.  We played and cooked and colored every day.  Thursday we had Grandma over for a (dairy free) Thanksgiving.  I didn't get any pictures of that because it was crazy.  The next day she came back to bake.  So much to be thankful for and so many laughs. Here are some highlights:

Kayden's Thanksgiving Tree - included are pictures of an airplane, sky, sun, clouds, and rain.

Keeley's tree.  She has the same ones as Kayden as well as family, Kayden,a few she can't remember, and my favorite down in the bottom corner - for a donut.

 We made lots and lots of leaf rubbings...

Helping Keeley hold her paper for her leaf rubbing.

  

Keeley wanted to see if the leaf looked the same if was rubbed vein side up and down.  Then she wanted to put the leaf with the rubbing so we could compare.

Little brother playing while sisters worked.

 

Making sweet potato muffins.  YUM!!

Playing with blocks while we baked.

Tasting them....

Cause and effect experimentation.

Killian is still not eating any solid foods.  He is very interested in our food and wants to be a part of the meals and is becoming increasingly difficult to distract while we try to eat.  He has learned quickly that dropping his toys makes his sisters pop up from their seats to help him!  I put some pieces of banana on his try for him to play with the other day. He cannot get the food to his mouth yet but he enjoyed squishing it and moving it around his try.  When he did lick his fingers we all were able to witness his disgust as, once again, he was met with food that was not Mom's milk.

My aunt gave bags full of craft supplies she'd gotten on super sale at Joann's for us a few years ago.  A lot of them were too old for the girls but we held on to them.  Today we dug out the perler beads.  The girls worked on this for at least 45 minutes. 

Their finished work.  Kayden made the star.

She was so proud of her work!

Apparently they have this work at school and Keeley enjoys it.  She was surprised, however, that we could iron it to make something.  At school they just put the beads on and take them off again.  How frustrating that must be to painstakingly place all those beads and then put them back in the beads box!

Baking with Grandma (and Daddy!):

Light Box

My friend Amanda has a great blog, Dirt and Boogers, where she details some of the amazing things she does with her son.  I was intrigued by this light box and some of the ways she's used it.  Both the girls love those gems she talked about so I got all the supplies for us to do this during our week off.

 

First they just played with all the gems on the surface.

Discovering the tracks in the lid and that some of the gems were actually marbles.

Sorting by color - red, black, gold.

Arranging the sorted colors.

We had a great time and I loved getting to watch them play.  I'm excited to use this.  For the most part they used the light box simply as a surface for their work.  But we did have a few "moments" of more childlike exploration from my child that likes to live life to its fullest and fully exlored!

Feet...

Whole body.

They played with this for about 30 minutes and then we had to put it away for lunch.  When I moved it to the other room Keeley was very upset they wouldn't get to use it again.  I assured her we could and that I was just picking it up since we were moving on to lunch and rest time.  I'm excited to use this more.

Nature Walk

Inspired by my friend to do a themed activity week with the girls during their holiday break, we set off to the park on Sunday for a family nature walk/leaf collection. We plan to use the leaves during the week and it was a fun family outing!

Keeley was more interested in huge branch collection than leaf collection.