More Brotherly Love

I posted some sweetness last week with Bunny and Monkey, so I thought I’d share some photos of Cricket with him. It’s been such a joy watching her blossom in her big sister role. When Bunny was born, she just wasn’t all that interested. Babies don’t do much, so she just went along doing her own thing and mostly ignoring the new little creature in her house. She loved her sister, but wanting  to hold her or play with her just didn’t enter Cricket’s two-year-old mind. Now, at five, she appreciates having a baby sibling a bit more. After all, he doesn’t take her toys (much), doesn’t pick fights with her, and generally thinks she’s pretty amazing. She’s very patient when he pulls her hair,

and at least 4 or 5 times a day, I’ll catch her rubbing his head and saying “You’re so CUTE!”

Sorry for the toes in the bottom of the picture! Sort of detracts from all the cuteness.

Of course, nobody gets to play with the baby by herself for long. Especially not if Mama is taking pictures!

It’s not easy holding a baby brother who’s more than half your size!

But sometimes he’s content to snuggle.

No doubt this boy is loved!

Haircuts!

It’s haircut time at our house!

Cricket has very long hair, and it grows super fast. I wish mine grew as quickly as hers! She loves it long, but there is a point at which it is hard to take care of properly. Once she can almost sit on it, it needs a trim. Sorry for the lousy before shots. I forgot to get them until she was already up in the chair, and no way was I going to get her back down and start that whole thing again once I had her excited about the idea. She did a pretty good job holding still while I cut it!

After. I just trimmed the ends. I took off several inches, since I probably won’t get back to this for several weeks.

Years ago, Cricket was in the hospital on a ventilator. When they took off the vent tape from around her head, they were patiently removing it from her hair with alcohol. Meanwhile, she was coming out of sedation and starting to resist the vent. I told them thank you, because I appreciated that they were trying to save her beautiful hair, but I really wanted them to just chop it off and get her off of that machine! After some reassurance that I really would be okay if they did it, out came the scissors. I saw them cut it, so I know they were not trying to style it at all, but the angle that it made when they were done was super cute! It created perfect soft layers around her face. I’ve always just kept the same general idea as it’s gotten longer and longer.

Bunny’s turn. Hers doesn’t grow anywhere near as quickly as Cricket’s, but it had gotten fairly long.

This what it looks like when Bunny starts banging her backside against the door! Oops! Never a dull moment around here.

This is what it looks like when she then tells me the very exciting story of how she fell through the door.

I decided to hack it off do a shorter bob for Bunny. I generally prefer long hair, but I have to admit, I love it on her. It highlights her expressive little face! These are not the best pics of the haircut. I’ll try to get some once it shakes out a bit and looks better instead of this still-damp look. It is not nearly as crooked as this appears; she kept raising one shoulder in anticipation of the flash. Kind of like when I was cutting it, and she was all over the place. Between her case of wiggles and Mr. Monkey doing gymnastics while tied to my back, it’s kind of amazing that I didn’t lop off an ear!

I swear that this girl has a range of facial expressions to rival Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace. I’ll never be able to capture half of her faces with a camera.

Well, not sure Cary Grant ever made that one!

Okay, a day or two later, I got this one. it’s an awful shot of her face, but it shows the hair cut quite a bit better.

Not to be left out, Monkey wanted to show off his temporary new hairstyle: the after-bath fauxhawk

Brotherly Love

Bunny and Monkey have had a special bond since before he was born. Her voice was the thing most likely to cause him to kick and wiggle. His first laugh was for her. Within days of bringing him home from the hospital, she was telling me “He’s my boy!” She is still likely to pray “Thank you for letting Mama bring him home from the hospital!” She spends a good part of her day narrating her activities for him and telling him all of the fun things he’ll be able to do when he is big like she is.

One morning last week, she was barely out of bed before she was begging to hold him. He’s pretty mobile now, and more than half her size, so it’s not easy! But he loves her and will stay still for her snuggles for a little while.

Of course Cricket wanted to join them, and she thought that Monkey needed some toys.

He was much more interested in playing with them. Got your nose!

My sisters love me!

I can just see him thinking. “Little do they know…one day I will tease them mercilessly. I will embarrass them completely. I will refuse to watch their girly movies, and I will insist on light saber duels instead of tea parties!”

After all, what are brothers for?

Apple print Father’s Day cards

ETA: I like to give credit where credit is due. Since we made these last year, I didn’t remember finding them anywhere specific. We did apple prints as a part of another school activity, so I thought this might have just come out of that idea. But I recently saw this page, and I think it must have been my inspiration for this idea. (Scroll down a bit for this particular card.) I apologize for not linking it sooner!

http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/mengifts.html

 

I’m always on the lookout for holiday card, decoration, and gift ideas that my littles can enjoy making. The girls and I made this last year, and I thought I’d pass the idea along. We had a blast making it, and their Papa really appreciated the effort that they put into it. It’s my idea, but may have been influenced by others, and I’m not one to think I am so terribly original that no one else could have come up with the same thing. Use it freely!

We started with apple printing. I will hardly eat a Red Delicious apple any more, because I find them terribly flavorless , but they are inexpensive and a beautiful shape for this! Any apple with a characteristic cross-section will work just fine. I just spread a little puddle of red tempera paint on a paper plate, laid out a big sheet of craft paper, and let the girls stamp away. I let them do several, knowing that some would be better than others. When they were dry, we picked the print we liked the best, added leaves and seeds with markers, and cut it out to paste on the front. My little Cricket could write words, but in order to help her with spacing, I printed out the phrases using the tools here: http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/ I use this tool all the time! It is great for practicing things like name and address that need to be personalized. We use them for days of the week, months of the year and any letters that need a little more practice. In this case, I printed out the sentiment that I wanted for the card, Cricket traced them with a colored pencil, and we cut and pasted them into the right places. Letter stickers helped to highlight the key words.

For the inside, I helped each girl make a caterpillar out of their fingerprints. (I find the index finger easier for them to manipulate than the thumb.) I used a thin layer of tempera paint for this, too. When they were dry, the girls added details like legs, antennae and faces with a marker. They signed their pictures and the card, but I edited them to show their blog names instead.

I hope this helps you think of some other ideas for helping your little ones to express their love and appreciation for their Father! What other themes do you think would be nice for a Father’s Day card?

Things I want to remember…

The funny little ways Bunny says things. Cricket was always extremely careful with her enunciation, to the point that it was strange. She spoke exceedingly clearly and was almost always precisely correct from a very young age. If she said it incorrectly, and we repeated it the right way, that was it. She had very few of the fun little mispronunciations that are cute for the short while that they exist. Bunny has them, and they make me smile, partly because she says them with such enthusiasm. They go away quickly. She has very few that she says regularly any more, and that is as it should be. But for posterity’s sake, here are a few of my favorites:

Helipopter

Cupcape

Balella (Umbrella)

Strawbuhberry

Bunny Turns 3!

Our precious Bunny has her third birthday today! When she was born, we never could have guessed what a delightful, hilarious, cuddly girl she would turn out to be! She says adorable things like cupcape, strawbeberry and bellella (umbrella). She is almost the size of her 5-year-old sister, and on track to be almost 6 foot tall. She loves to sit on my lap and cuddle, play with dollies, go to the park, and paint. She is also one of the funniest children I have ever seen!

One of her favorite things is to help me with baking or cooking. This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of her. She was helping me make pizza for dinner, and brought me two bandanas and asked me to make them into a hat and apron.

Bunny makes pizza

I made her a hat and apron of her own as a birthday present. Since Cricket got one for her birthday in November, this wasn’t a big surprise. Bunny loved choosing the fabric, and it didn’t bother her at all that it wasn’t a surprise! The apron is reversible, so the other side has cupcakes with a pink pocket.

 

Bunny's Birthday Hat and Apron

 

She is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, and Percy is her favorite. I usually do a frozen buttercream transfer, but didn’t have enough time for that this time, so I just drew freehand. The trains are pretty geometric, so it wasn’t all that hard. It ended up being a good thing that I didn’t stay up late to work on it, since she changed her mind about what she wanted on the cake between going to bed and getting up in the morning. Why can I draw better with a piping bag than I can with a writing utensil of any kind? I managed to do this in the midst of other birthday preparations with three munchkins, so I’m happy with it even though there are things I’d like to have done better.

 

Percy cake

As you can see, Bunny liked it, too!

 

 

She loved blowing out her own candles!

 

 

It was a great evening! My sister and brother-in-law were both off of work, so they came over with their daughter for a homemade pizza dinner, then presents, cake, and ice cream. (As an aside, if your daughter begs for a pink cake, but the store is out of strawberry cake mix, you can make a white cake and add food coloring. It works beautifully! However, no amount of reminding yourself will keep you from being surprised when you bite into it and it doesn’t taste like the strawberry you were expecting!)

 

My brother-in-law started by asking her “How old are you, 10? 12?” To which the ever-wise Bunny said “YEAH!” For the rest of the night, all of the careful practicing we’d done was out the window as she told everyone she was twelve while holding up her three chubby little fingers.

 

Happy, Happy Birthday to my darling Bunny! I’m so glad that you were born, and incredibly thankful to be your Mama!