Moving

Moving is tough. 









Thats all I had to say. Thanks for listening.

Ok, just kidding.  Here's part of the reason why moving is tough.  Gargoyle cant help pack. 

 

But I managed to keep Bruce busy for a few minutes while I was unpacking.  Thank you pinterest.  Where would we be without your wonderful ideas? Not a good place.  Not a good place.

 

We'll be seeing you soon grandparents.  Sending our love till then <3

Calli Turns 9!

Birthdays call for presents, and presents means lots and lots of wrapping paper.  Getting to the good stuff took some work!

These are gifts from her father, step mother, and her Grandparents W.

 

 

In the mailing paper isn't bad enough! Here's some regular wrapping paper. 

 

Boxes are problematic.  Gargoyle had to step in to cut it open...

...Turns out it was well worth the wait

 

The dresses look very nice on her.  You'll have to check the facebook page to see her wearing them, though.  Sorry guys.

Now for the gifts from Grandma S.

The anticipation is all but palpable!

 

 

She really was happy, and loved the presents, but she got confused trying to pose for two cameras.

 

The shirts fit her very well and she looks very cute, with just enough room to grow. 

 The shoes are too big, though.  As fast as she's going, I'm sure that won't be a problem for long :)

 

 She really liked the card.

 

Now the gift from Gargoyle. 

 

Its difficult to see from the picture, but its a set of hair accessories with sparkles. Needless to say, she loves them.

 Next came my gift.  I'll post more about that later.

 

 And from Rosie, a set of Extreme! Crayolas.  Not regular crayons- Extreme! Crayolas.  She loves these too.

 

Gifts from Calla's mom and daddy came last.  I thought it might be best to video it instead of take individual photos.  But I kind of, sort of missed when she was actually taking the stuff out of the bag.  Oops.  So I made do...  Also, very unfortunately, I cant (figure out how to) rotate the video.  Sorry guys.

 

 What were we doing with Bruce this whole time, you ask? How did you know he wasn't here for all the festivities? Was it the lack of excess ripping of paper and boxes? Was it the fact that Calla had the opportunity to pose for all these pics with the gifts?  Well, whatever gave it away, you were correct in thinking Bruce could not be present to have such an easy going party.  We stuck him in the bathtub.  He had a great time.  He wouldn't take toys with him, so I gave him the containers again.  It was going great until Calla's daddy had to leave because of shrieking.  He had dumped an entire bowl of water on the floor.  So the punishment was that he had to drain the tub.  He didn't get out for another 15 minutes.  This is what he was doing. 

 

I wish I had kept videoing for a few seconds longer.  He started saying "cheese" for the camera.  Goober.  He loves cameras as much as his now 9 year old sister.  

It was a good day for this huge clan of ours.  Calla got to stay home from school today.  When we took the others to school today, she got to tell me where to turn to get home.  She had a great time sending us all over town.  Then she watched cartoons with Bruce.  They got to veg out because its a special occasion.  The family (minus Gargoyle who has an evening class) went to dinner at El Cam.  Calla got strawberry pancakes and hot chocolate.  How much better could a birthday dinner be? Then we opened presents.  We're all pretty tired now, so we're turning in. Calla sends her thanks for the gifts and love to all the family. So do I.

A Walk in the Park

Last week we went to the dog park.  Well, its kind of a dog park.  Its fenced in at least.  There is a big grassy field at one end and an old track at the other end. The dogs seriously needed to get out and run around, otherwise I would have gagged them and stuffed them in Gargoyle's room. We had fun at the park just running around.  After Bruce and the dogs got tired of running around in the grass they headed to the track.  The dogs are still wearing their leashes for good reason.  Last time we went Bella weaseled her way underneath the fence and started to take off! So we learned to keep the leashes on so that, if worse comes to worst, we can just step on the leash and stop the dog from running away. Bruce loves it when the dogs have leashes on. He can walk them that way.  Most of the time we don't let Bruce walk Bella because she pulls too hard and gets loose from him, so getting to walk her in the dog park was a fun treat.

Ok, the truth is that Bella really does the walking.  Bruce does the chasing. Sorry the videos aren't great.  Considering the fact that it was very sunny outside and I couldn't even see the screen, its decent. 

Before we could go to the park, we had to put clothes on.  Sometimes that doesn't work so well.  I'm a cruel, cruel aunt to just let him struggle like that :)

At the far end of the park there are these plants, I think they might be cat tails? I don't really know.  All I know is that they fit very well in Bruce's hand.  I got an idea from pinterest to make our own paint brushes.  I thought it would be good since Bruce is kind of hard on them.  So we used the top of those plants and hot glued some of the plants weeds out front to the top.  The picture looks awful, and it definitely does not look like that kind of plant anymore.  In real life it did not look innapropriate.  Unfortunately, I didn't do a great job with bristle selection and the brush was hard to use.  I have two more tops of the cat tail thingys so we can try again soon. 

After the park it was bath time.  Bruce keeps messing with the dog's water, throwing food in, etc.  I realized he probably just thinks pouring is cool.  So we gave him some bath toys he hasn't played with before.  I had a hard time getting him out of the bath!

Sending our love <3

The Mystery of Eating Solved?

Feeding Bruce is a bit tricky.  To say the least.  But I think we might have had a breakthrough!  I served Bruce some pasta and asked him to choose cheese or red and showed him each of his options.  He chose red sauce.  I used some tomato soup instead of pasta sauce because the real sauce is big and I don't know if the family wanted more spaghetti and I figured I could just make the rest of the soup up for myself. (Turns out Rosie ate it as an afternoon snack instead.)  I put the bowl out on a tray and just left it hoping he'd eat it better if I didn't stick him in his high chair.   

I poked my head out just long enough to see him eating.  Yay! I went back into the kitchen to see about getting some lunch for me too.  After a few minutes I hear Bruce calling my name, so I went out to see what he was up to.  

This is what he was up to. 

Apparently the way to feed the kid is to let him sit on top of crates and let him watch himself in the mirror :) 

At any rate, I've changed the way I feed Bruce now.  I don't put him in his high chair.  I try to give him choices.  And I only try to feed him when I think he'll actually be hungry.  So far, so good.  

Thanks family.  We love you. 

Art Catch Up

We do some form of art almost every day.  Bruce loves it.  I think his love comes from the colors he gets to use.  In fact, he refers to paint as colors, and when he brings me the bottles of paint he says, "Look! Colors!" Here are some of the things we've been working on recently.

These are crayon drawings.  

And Bruce presenting his picture

Working on the TyReck

The finished product.  He requested a tree, and then wanted to use the pencil.  Unfortunately he used it on the still wet paint of the TyReck.  Oops.

Using the left over orange paint.

The finished product. 

Still using the orange paint, but he got a red pen in addition to the green pencil.  We have a pumpkin in the house for Bruce's mom who wants to make some of her (absolutely amazing) from-scratch pumpkin pie.  Bruce is pretty taken with it. He's been requesting pumpkins to draw/paint on. 

Finished "pukins"

After the orange paint, green pencil, and red pen Bruce wanted a car to paint.  He chose green this time.  I added the video to show you guys the stippling technique he uses.  You can really see the results in the pictures of him using up the rest of the orange paint. 

Painting from another day:

Bruce used a lot of techniques on this piece.  There is a little finger painting, some stippling, and some stamping with the other side of the paint brush. He liked this, but he much preferred this:

Turns out he really likes mixing colors.  We'll do a marbleizing art project soon.  I think he'll love it. Call me crazy, but I see an abstract map of the world.  Canada is green, China is red, the Americas are blue (we're missing South America.  Sorry to everyone who just lost homes) and Africa is brown.  Am I the only one who sees that?  

Hope everybody out there is having a great day.  Sending our love to all the family members. 

Oh, and one more thing about Thursday...

This just in from Bruce and his mom.  Worth a smile or two. The battle is still going on :)

Paint Chip Thursday

Today was a pretty average day.  Bruce didn't want to eat, as usual.  So I had to pull out the big guns- pancakes.  Except today required even bigger guns.  Like a bazooka? I dont know if I really know what that is, but lets just go with it.  I made shape pancakes.

Bruce loves UmiZoomi right now.  Its all about Umi. I'm ok with it, mostly, because it teaches numbers, counting, shapes, and some colors (he already has those down). Geo and Bot are his favorites.  Geo, as the name implies, has the 'super math power' of shapes.  And if something is good enough for Geo, its good enough for Bruce.  He still ended up feeding a few to Bella and Akita, so he got a spanking and was sent to time out.  After that he ate the cresent- yes, he knows the word cresent, brilliant boy- and the triangles. 

We went to the park in the afternoon because Bruce hasn't been taking naps the past few days.  A good tuckering out was exactly what he needed.  Sorry grandmas, no pics. But, the park worked like a charm. He had a wonderful nap which allowed me the time to craft something I found on pinterest and have been excited about for a while.  

Paint Chip Wreath

One of the women in our church is out of town for a few days and she asked me to water for her.  She gave me a key to her house because she was expecting packages and I needed to take them in for her. It was the perfect opportunity to leave her the wreath.  She had mentioned that she loves fall colors.  She also has an affinity for wreaths.  I left this on her counter with the packages she received and a note that said I had found it outside and assumed it was hers.  I'm not sure if she'll buy that or not.  At any rate, it was very fun.  I like no love paint chips.  Ok, ok, I'm obsessed with them, and all the amazing, wonderful, awesome things you can do with them.  Projects are all over the place and I love them.  Bruce's mom says its not good for me to take so many from WalMart, and shes right.  So today when I went to get some, I took them to the register and asked to pay for them.  They said I could just take them.  After a reasonable amount of objection on my part I said thanks and left.  Let it be noted that I did try to pay for them!  I'm hoping she'll have a small welcome sign or something to put in the middle, but I'm happy with the result.  

I'm posting another video from a little while back. It goes along with eating.

Maybe I should just give him castanets to eat with every day? I'm not sure Calla will be pleased with him getting mac 'n' cheese in her pretty pink clickers, though.  

Half Day Wednesday

Today was a half day, which means we had a lot of possibilities since all the kids would be home at noon. We took advantage by going to the park.  Bruce and Calla played for a good half hour.  Bruce isn't quite as taken as he used to be with the swings.  Six months ago he would have thrown a fit when you tried to take him out.  And that was after 15 minutes or more of swinging! Now he's perfectly content to swing three or four minutes and move on to whatever is next.  But for those three-four minutes, he loves the swing.

After that we went to the ducks.  I had popcorn from a church activity last week.  It was a huge bag full, and we had eaten as much as we were going to eat (except perhaps Calla who asked while feeding the ducks if she could have some) so I thought we'd have a go at feeding the ducks the popcorn. I figured they'd like it.  Turns out they do.  And it was easier for Bruce than bread is because he doesn't have to tear it to make small pieces.

Overall it was a good day at the park.  

And it was a good day at karate.  Calla has been taking with me for three weeks now.  Her brand new black gi came in today, and everyone was very, very excited.  And well they should be. It turns out that we wont be going to the tournament this weekend like I thought we might.  We're shooting for one November 10th, so look forward to that. Here is Calla with another boy in all their new gi splendor. 

Previously with Bruce

Hi everybody. We will start posting day to day happenings shortly.  But, until then, these are some things to get you caught up.

This is the most recent video of Bruce I have.  I love it because you can see what happens "accidentally" around here. Its a shame about the duckie family, really.

We were at Burger King visiting with a family we know from church.  That boot is not Bruce's.  Its the other little boy's.  Bruce saw him putting it on (yes, the other little boy can put on his own shoes- over achiever) and so, of course, Bruce needed to put it on too.  One more note about the video, and all the ones I'll be posting for a while, they're from my cell phone. This one was when I had just gotten my phone, and I didn't have a very firm grasp about all the functions.  I meant to stop the video before all my commentary, but couldn't figure out how for a while.  Sorry guys. Just ignore me.

Bruce just has a thing for shoes, really. This one is about Holly's shoes.  I don't remember where we were trying to go (probably WalMart), but obviously the shoes she was wearing were not appropriate. Good thing we have Bruce around to help us with all our fashion quandaries.

Well, maybe we shouldn't ask him to help us with all our fashion quandaries.  On the upside, if we ever need to identify Bruce, we can just strip him naked.  If he runs around like a chicken with its head cut off, chances are its him.  If he also covers his bum and screams, "No pinching" its definitely him.  I'll have to get a video with him doing that.

One more naked video, and we'll be done for today.  Don't worry, though, I have about 20 more to put up here. We call this one, "Surprise! I'm naked!"  Bruce loves to hide in the entertainment center.  And who can blame him? Its the perfect size for him.  At any rate, he used to get in there all the time.  This is actually several short clips of him getting in it.   I missed the first time he popped out triumphantly, which always means he wont do it the same way a second time.  He knew I wanted to take a picture of him popping out, so he happily ignored me until he was good and ready to get out.  I didn't want a 10 minute video, so it was stopped several times as he was getting in.  Please excuse the jerkiness.