DORA

Brady loves Dora.  I mean LOVES Dora.  He gets so excited when she comes on, he immediately starts dancing.  Well yesterday he was watching it and Dora asked "Who do we ask for help when we don't know the way?"  and he yelled out "map!"  Which of course was the right answer, causing me to look around to see if I was being filmed for candid camera.  Did my kid seriously just answer the TV?  How cool is that?  I know many people think TV for kids is the devil...... I am not that person. 

And then just now Dora asked "Who is outside the window?" and he answered "Hoho."  I mean seriously??  How does he know to answer her questions??  If I wasn't here for these I wouldn't believe myself. 

Enjoy the funny stories, I know I did!!

Beading

My friend Tammy had pictures of her kid making beading necklaces.  It was so freaking cute.  But I never in a million years thought Brady would a:) like it or b:) be able to do it.  I ran out to Walmart to get the supplies.  Well boy did he prove me wrong.  We spent over 30 minutes playing with the beads and making the necklace.  And I am currently wearing his masterpiece.  There isn't anyone else here now to take a picture to prove it, but I am sure I will make Jim take a pic when he gets home.

Here he is all set up in his workshop.

 

I taped the end of the yarn to make it easier to get the beads on there.  Look how focused he is.   I head the yarn and he put the beads on.

  

Checking to see how much he had done so far.

  

He did spend a good bit of time just sticking his hands in the container and swishing his fingers around.  Must have felt pretty cool because he doesn't usually like different textures.

  

Of course his little helper had to see what was happening.  Zoe is obsessed with being right in the action.

  

He was saying "bead."

  

I found a new container to hold his crayons and markers so we had to try that out too.  

  

 

And I am VERY happy to report he didn't swallow any beads.  And neither did the dogs.  That equals a good time in my book.

Photo(art) Friday

If you know me, you know I HATE clutter.  I have a hard time saving things.  I have thrown out countless important items.  So now that Brady is making "art projects" daily at home and weekly at our art class I needed to come up with a plan.  Instead of keeping every little thing, which would pain me, I decided to just take pictures.  Here are a few samples of his recent "work".  I am going to explain how I made them, in case anyone wants to try it and so I can remember for the future in case I want to try again.

These first two we squirted paint onto trays and then pressed the paper on the tray.

 

  

The top on is just random drawings he did at the end of class.  The bottom one is the paper that didn't make it into the mug below.

  

This one we put masking tape all over the paper and then painted the paper with paintbrushes.  Then we peeled the tape off.  Peel off the tape prior to the paint drying.

  

This one we did at home.  It is ripped up tissue paper that he stuck to a piece of contact paper.  I then put a matching piece of contact paper on top to hold it all together.

  

This is a mug he made in class.  He handprinted the paper and the teacher put it in the mug.

  

We traced the kids on the big paper and cut it out.  Then they used funky rollers to paint them.  The rollers had all different textures and patterns.

  

He ripped up the tissue paper and used a glue stick (which he loved) to glue them to the fish.  It is double sided.

  

This one was super cool but super messy.  We folded the paper hotdog way.  Then we pulled long pieces of yarn out of a cup of paint and put the yarn between the paper.  We pressed down and then pulled the yarn out.  This is the finished product.

  

This is what we used as our Christmas present thank yous.  I cut out the snowman shape from a box of cereal and he sponge painted the snowman on the paper.  I obviously drew the rest on and we just HAD to use googly eyes.

 

This is a paper plate folded in half and then stapled closed. I'm not sure what's inside but my guess is it is noddles or beads. It is a maraca.  He glued little shapes onto it with a glue stick.

  

And that was just our first month of art class.  Yikes!!  I already threw a few pieces of these art  projects away.  I feel better.  Look forward to more arts and crafts pictures.  I just can't keep it all.  If you would like to be the owner of any of these crafts, please let me know and I will ship all this crap to your house.

These last 2 are a trick I learned in photography class last night.  Jim was nice enough to try it with me.  That is a flash light making the writing.  In the first one he tried writing his name but its backwards to me. 

   

So this is his attempt at writing his name backwards so it was be right for me.  Can you see it??  Pretty cool huh?  Jim is bringing home a laser pointer from work so we can try again.

 

Tubby with Miles

Today Cara and Miles came over for a marathon playdate/dinnerdate.  We were both without husbands so we figured we would do dinner together so we weren't lonely.  Both boys were melting and ready for bed so we quick threw them in the tub to get the nighttime business underway.  When I take pictures of just Brady in the tub I have to work super hard to keep them G rated.  Well add in a second set of privates and its a whole other game.  I blacked out any visible boy parts to avoid future therapy sessions when they are older.




Giving Miles the side eye.  Jim does tubby each night and we all know how anal his is about keeping things clean and not making messy.  Well Miles didn't get that memo and was a splashing little fish.  Brady didn't know what to make of that.


Working on their masterpiece.  Those are tubby crayons by the way.








Brady loves to write on his belly.


"Turn that god forsaken camera off and put me to bed woman!!!!"

Some more pics from today

What more do you need..... tears, snot, and lollipop drool.




I took this picture yesterday while I was practicing.  I was playing with manually choosing which part of my picture to focus.  Well I didn't toggle it back to the spot Brady was in so I focused on Maddux instead.  I love this picture and wish Brady wasn't so out of focus. 

Sledding with Miles

Today we took the boys sledding to a place I have always wanted to go to.  Everytime I drive by this hill I say I am going to go.  Finally today we did.  Lucky for me Brady enjoyed it, because it was one hell of a work out lugging him up the hill.

 

 

 

Then we headed to Lowes to pick up materials for a photo project I am working on.  The boys got to ride together in the race car.

 

 

Brady tried to leave his hat in exchange for a Dora brush.  We were at the dollar store by the way, I don't want anyone to think Lowes now sell Dora hairbrushes.

 

 

Miles is giving Brady back his hat.  

 

20 Months Old

Another month older..... pictures to prove it. I am not in love with any of these pictures. He wasn't really interested in having his picture taken this morning, I don't blame him, I didn't feel like taking them and I didn't have my trusty companion with me to entertain Brady.

There was a lot of sticking out of the tongue today.  I guess its better than his mean face I have been seeing a lot of.





Watching the snow plows.


Most of the pictures were like this.  He would rather read Fancy Nancy.  Again, I don't blame him.






And lastly a picture of Maddux wearing the "bling".  Too funny not to post.