Ivy the Elf

Yes, for the third year a little elf came to visit our family after Thanksgiving.     For the second year in a row we did the North Pole breakfast which was festive and fun.    The elf arrived and brought donuts, Pez, candy canes, and their 'Christmas' pjs!    Yes, Ace's were Hulk pjs but well he's green... and red and green are traditional Christmas colors.  ;)   He was thrilled.   It was a fun morning (though mommy was quite unhappy with picture quality, fooey!)

The kids again enjoyed the game of hide and seek - they are allowed to touch our elf and play with her throughout the day once both kids have found the elf in the secret spot and as long as she wasn't up high.   If she was up high - mom or dad had to get her down first!   Ace was quite frustrated some mornings because his sister had little desire to find the elf.  It didn't concern her in the least but he desperately wanted to get her before he left for school.   It caused some tension sometimes, but again they loved the elf and the hide and seek game that we make of it in our family. 

As December waged on Ivy the Elf got herself into lots of festive places and at time antics!    There were a few parental favorites and one request from a friend for where/how to hide the elf.    There were a few "phoning it in nights" (Ivy under tree skirt, Ivy in bucket of blocks)  and one night that must have been so lack-luster I didn't take a picture and I can't remember where she hid one night.    Overall not too shabby! I *do* have to pat myself on the back that while there were many nights it was right as I was going to bed I remembered to hide the elf every night and only once had to get out of bed to do it and the elf did move every night!  ;)

There were a couple of nights when the creativity bug got a hold of me and we spent a decent amount of time being *THOSE* parents that other people blog angrily about regarding elf mayhem.   Sorry folks.  :)   To be fair we were only those parents 25% of this holiday elf-hiding season.

My first wave of creativity came when I wanted Ivy to sail the seas, then I thought a battle scene would be fun and so it just evolved after that.   It probably did take 20 minutes, but let's be honest a good part of that was cleaning enough so that I would be willing to capture that space of my house on camera. 

And well we couldn't just let Ivy get away with charging attempting to take over the Pea's land...couch?  and so I wanted to build a jail out of tinker toys... but Ace had dispersed them amid the house and my best efforts to collect them from his room (and Mae's) before they went to bed was not enough to construct something with them alone and thus the Zoobs had to be brought out and the husband called in for some serious construction assistance - but I have to say the jail is still intact and in Ace's room... pretty sure the minion is still in it.  ;)

On another night as I was ready to just go to bed I was hunting for a good spot for the elf to hide and I was struck with inspiration for drawing on the chalkboard and so I went to work drafting up a drawing for Ivy to have been posed to draw.   There was also another good 5 minutes of shoving stuff away from the easel and if you panned the picture out - to the right would be a pile of crap that normally lives under the easel.  True story. 

We recently have been undergoing construction.  New floors, new paint, new fireplace, new mantle.   Our fireplace and mantle before was this ugly shabby chic brick.   Not shabby chic pretty - like shabby crap.   Like there once was tile stuck to it and it was ripped off.  Not pretty!  HOORAY for family that is good at stuff like this and was willing to do the job of building us a new mantle and tiling up the fireplace nicely for us!  Love it!    So I wanted to unveil the mantle in an excellent display of photos of Ivy.   Alas my excitement and all of my toner spectacular photos were upstaged and barely noticed because it snowed the night before and there Ivy sat all day with barely a notice.  

Finally for you fine readers I present to you this delightful elf!  My friend sent me a picture of another elf in a Christmas tree sitting on an ornament, someone (the same person that posed it, or maybe not)  had posted the ever so infamous Miley song lyrics along with it... my friend begged me to please do it!   Since I'm mildly obsessed (in the way that you can't stop looking at a car wreck) with Miley's utter train wreck of the last year of her innocence I couldn't resist and thus this fabulous (and carefully posed) shot was taken! 

Merry Christmas, Ivy!  Now off you go until next year and a new personality will be born! 

Dr. Seuss Food & Fun

Dr. Seuss is so much fun to read, bizarrely tongue-twisting, a whole world of adventure and weirdness!  I love it!    So on Dr. Seuss' Birthday this year (which happened to fall on a Saturday) I went all out on oddly themed Dr. Seuss food and drink!    To see my other post about Seuss-y School go here where there is another ideal for food there as well.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish:  

Pink Ink Drink!

I have a hard time choosing between three books of Dr. Seuss that are my favorite:  Ten Apples Up on Top,   One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham.   All have special memories for me - but I think if I must choose OFTFRFBF (now that's an acronym for sure!)  truly encompasses Dr. Seuss in a broad peek into the worlds he created.    Within it there is a Mink who drinks pink ink and so with a little food dye and some pink straws the kid's milk was transformed!   They loved it!  Mmmm ink!

Green Eggs and Ham:

Crack 6 eggs into a bowl and dump a whole lotta green food dye in.  Then scramble them up!   Ace was a bit bummed I didn't dye the ham, but he recovered quickly when the aforementioned drink emerged to accompany it.    After the kids were mostly through with their food - I brought out this book and we read through it.   (As a good tip, it's a motivator if the oddly colored eggs aren't a hit.)  In our house - I've never seen our kids gulp scrambled eggs down again.  I might dye food more often! 

The Cat in The Hat:

Jam Hat Pancakes!

When dinner rolled around it was time for some festive food again that was Seussical!  So I stirred up some more ink for them to drink and went to flipping some flap jacks in a smaller size.   Then to get a more precise size I broke out the biscuit cutters and cut them into one shape and then laid with strawberry jam.    They were a huge hit with Ace.  Mae.. just made herself sticky and needed an alternative.   "No like it!"

The Lorax:

Bath Time in the Truffula Forest

As Mae went onto consume something less Seussical for her dinner - I drew them a bath and was inspired by the foam circles that I had used for a previous polkadot themed bath they had a while back.   So I went to the craft room to find other foam and found some tree trunk material, clouds, and some orange and yellow and in 5 minutes cut up supplements for the forest.     Went and set that all up while the kids remained at the table and then when they were done let them see their new bath world.    They spent some of their time deforesting the walls and it was fun to talk about that.  During their bath I played the soundtrack from The Lorax.    They had a great time!

 

Bedtime was followed up by reading The Cat in the Hat, and we finished by reading OFTFRFBF. ;)   Ending our evening with the following:

"And now good night. It is time to sleep. 

So we will sleep with our pet Zeep. 

Today is gone. Today was fun.

Tomorrow is another one. 

Every day, from here to there,

funny things are everywhere."  

- Dr. Seuss

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

A Tea Party

Last Saturday a boy and his dad set off on a 7 mile hike, Ace's first!  They had a grand time.    Us ladies stayed home and had a tea party.  There were guests, hats, bracelets, purses, food, dishes and most importantly lots and lots of fun!

Mae enjoyed gathering all her babies to join us.  For a little girl under the age of two she certainly already has amassed quite the collection of baby dolls.   She loves them all and after gathering over TEN of them she hugged each one and shook her body back and forth in a rocking hug motion.  Adorable.  

Mae chose a less traditional method of getting 'tea' out of the teapot - less pouring and more scooping.  She enjoyed giving some to her dollies, but mostly herself and mommy.   It was delicious.

This made her very excited.   It made mommy smile an awful lot too.

Mae decided that tea time was over so she grabbed her purses and was off. Thanks for playing!

After a raging tea party she reclined back on her exersaucer and let her feet be her guide to some tunes from the tree.     It was a fabulous way to spend an hour with my favorite girl.  :)

Messy March!

I have decided that the month of March is going to be MESSY!   Yes, Mae is old enough now to get dirty right along with her brother and she's doing better to not automatically put everything in her mouth, so we're entering a time where we can expand our messy activities.  Throughout the month I'll be posting some of our fun activities that involve a MESS!    Things that you should equip yourself with for messy play:  a splat mat (or a shower curtain works too!), a dustbuster (I love ours, does have some drawbacks, but for our purposes its great!) and a lot of patience!!!!  Ready, set, go!

In preparation for the kick off messy month, on Monday afternoon I broke out the mat and gathered some supplies and let the kids go wild with dry oatmeal.  Let me just say I was shocked at the staying power of oatmeal.   My thirteen month old baby girl not only stayed on the 48"x48" island I had provided her but she stayed fully engaged and playing for a solid 20 minutes.  It was amazing. 

Mae had a such fun picking it up, making it fall, pushing it around, and after observing her brother she even had fun filling bowls.   Ace was very kind in allowing her to repeatedly steal a bowl or cup that he had just filled so that she could dump it all over herself.  :)

 Ace played for over an hour!  Making muffins, pizzas, and various other things.  Sifting, measuring, funneling.  Lots of fun imaginative dusty play.  I finally said it was time to clean up so that I could start dinner.  There was a saddened protest, but an excited anticipation for a future opportunity.

It was a lot of fun to play with them and also to sit back and observe their own fun.  To see them play together and how to share (or not)  and to just be kids that made a mess!

A Superhero!

Ace's imagination is exploding! He plays with the idea of flying over the edge of the couch arm. He flies various superheros around by tying a string to them and swining around.  He talks about dreams of flying with a jet pack or a rocket ship and flying to the moon.  I love that his imagination is coming to life and currently regularly involves flying.

And what does a boy need more than anything when he wants to fly? A cape!  I saw on Jolly Mom today a free template for a superhero cape which was the inspiration to create one for Ace.  I eyeballed it, but she has a free pattern for download if the thought of just going for it isn't your style.  It was super easy and the boy was very excited about the idea of something to help him be a superhero and (pretend) to fly!

Ace also is currently obsessed with The Incredibles and while it is almost ironic to brand a cape with their logo (remember "No capes!" as it is the demise of many wanton superheros)  but aside from the objection of the logo should be on the 'front' Ace was super excited about it and had a blast running around the house in his Incredibles cape!

The project took about 15 minutes total to cut and sew.  Seriously not a lot of precision went into it.   No pinning either (which is why the logo is a bit off centered in the back) the stitching is wobbly and if you ever looked closely the felt is puckered in a few places... but the boy loves it.

And I love watching him fly away!

Pretending

Growing up there is nothing better than an imagination. Ace in recent weeks has really started to develop his imagination - including once when baby elephants had to be let inside from our front door so that they could play with him upstairs in his room. It was the first time that I had really seen him take nothing and turn it into a lot of fun. He really enjoyed that.

Like all kids they like to play with things that they see adults playing with. Of course he loves to talk on his phone and he loves loves LOVES to cook. He's owned a grill now for about a year, something I found on craigslist for not too much. It had been the plan that for this upcoming Christmas, both he and Mae's "big" gift would be a kitchen - I had been eyeing a particular one by Step 2 and it had been on my 'list'. A little over a week ago we drove by a garage sale and they had a kitchen and they only wanted $50 for it. Super! The one that I had my eye on was $140 and this particular model this family was selling, sells new for $220!! The woman also had drawers and drawers of utensils, dishes, pans, and food! So much food! We offered another $50 for all of it, which after some research after the fact I discovered she had well over $200+ worth of food alone. For $100 we walked away with so much imagination and excitement for the boy (and the girl, eventually.)

He loves it. He wants to play with it all the time, he wants to cook us food, he wants us to cook with him. He makes food for sister. It's pretty adorable and I love that he's playing with it so much. It certainly is bigger than one that we would have chosen, but I have a feeling that he will be playing with it for a long time to come - so it has ample space for he and his sister to play simultaneously with it.

I have to go ... I have been requested to go cook with Ace!