Monster Knees

When Boy was little I had so much fun dressing him. He always wore cute Gymboree Rompers and Gap Madras plaids and bow ties and hats. As little boys get bigger it gets harder. I still have fun on special occasions, but in his day to day, he typically wears jeans, khakis, and t-shirts. This is namely because he is so much harder on clothes. The knees of his jeans always get worn out and he instead of a napkin, he typically uses his sleeve. I found this cute idea on pinterest, Monster Knees!

They were super easy to do, even for me, and my sewing skills are challenged to say the least. It only took about half an hour. Best part, Boy LOVES them and wants to wear them all the time.

Hope your little one enjoys their Monster Knees as much as Boy did. Still not figuring out how to link to posts, so copy and paste the following to get to original post, or find in the DIY section of my pinterest. http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbymiek.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F10%2Fdhz-monster-knie.html

Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

I want to try to get my kids more "cultured" and decided to take Boy to the theater. We got front row tickets to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I loved this book as a girl and I was so excited!!! We went with our friends Rachel and her son Hudson. We ate at a fine restaurant downtown, where Rachel and I "fine dined" but sat outside so the boys could run around and ate fine truffle french fries and Margherita pizza. We then fed the ducks in Falls Park Greenville before taking a nice walk to the Peace Center. The weather was beautiful, brisk and perfect for an evening out. I have to admit, I had forgotten how violent this book was and seeing Edmund nearly get stabbed and battle scene and Aslan get crucified right in front of us, well, it was a bit scary. I heard a few kids whining, and though Boy told me at points he was scared, his eyes were glued to the stage. It was really impressive acting and the effects and stage were more than I expected. At the end of the show, he put his fists in the air and said "That was an awesome story!!". We then went and met all the kids who acted and Boy got each of their autographs and shook their hands. It made them seem far less scary to see that they were just kids in costumes who gave him high 5's! I was very impressed that Boy held his hand out for a handshake, got an autograph, told his name when asked and said "great job" to each and every one of them. I felt this was a great skill building activity. he fell asleep quickly once in the car, but when Daddy came to take him to bed, he told him it was "the best ever Daddy". He is still looking through the program at the future productions. We can't wait til next week to go see Give a Mouse a Cookie, this time we will take Daddy and Bluebird along.

Valentine's Day Wreath

Sunday Dinner Dialogues

Sunday is a day I always try to make a really nice big dinner. My cousin Tiffany comes over and we cook and chat and set a big spread. My mom is always telling me to post pictures of these meals, and so I will begin today. There really are not any menus to mention as I try to keep these dinners simple and fresh. I make biscuits or some sort of Amish bread, and I almost always roast chicken (to use leftovers in weekly suppers throughout the week). the meals also always have some sort of broccoli or cauliflower since my kids are always guaranteed to eat that. Today we mixed it up and made things with an Italian flare, roast chicken with Oregano and rosemary spices, Amish bread with olive oil, coarse salt and fresh rosemary, Parmesan orzo, sauteed squash with onions, garlic, carrots and basil, and a Italian bean medley with chick peas and kidney beans cooked with garlic and basil and oregano with a bit of Parmesan cheese. I recently started spatchcocking my chicken before roasting. This is a technique that delivers the more moist and evenly cooked resulted and makes de-boning later a much easier task. If you have never spatchcocked a chicken, I highly encourage you to google it on youtube for a demo.

Sleepy Bluebird

It has been very difficult lately to get Bluebird to sleep in her bed. Sleeping is not the problem, it is really about her bed. She is constantly finding ways to get into our bed, or sleep on the futon, or sneak downstairs and sleep on the couch. She is quite stealth and quiet, and there are times you can look up and she will be sitting beside you...sometimes it scares the beejeezus out of you. About a week ago the kids were upstairs sleeping (so we thought). Daddy went up to do the final tuck in for the night. To his surprise, he could not find Bluebird. He came downstairs, to which I immediately jumped up to look for her myself. I searched her bed, the pile of toys in her room, her closet, Buttercup's room, Boy's room... as you can imagine, at this point I was starting to reach a panic. I checked windows and doors.... I came downstairs and told Daddy that she must be downstairs somewhere...and that is when we saw her. She was asleep behind the very couch we had been sitting on. Apparently she fell asleep as she had been hiding behind us. Of note, she is always in different clothes than the ones we put her to bed in, usually dresses. Here are some photos of various places we have found her:

on the couch (I think she must have eaten a cracker or something)

hiding behind the couch

Dinosaurs

My Boy loves Dinosaurs. I don't want to redecorate the kids rooms on their every whim...but I did let Boy make a wonderful garland for his room. He colored lots of dinosaurs and we covered them with glitter, and we strung them up on his walls. It is really quite cute!

2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th haircut

Remember when I posted the adorable pictures of Bluebird's first haircut. She liked it too. She liked it so much that she then cut her own hair, a few more times. I know you are thinking that I am the fool that could have left scissors within her grab not once, but 4 more times. I DO accept the blame. The entire family was sick and we were not as attentive to the fact she took a bit longer on restroom breaks. I thought I had hidden scissors, but that girl is resourceful. She found scissors I didn't know existed including a small pair of eyebrow scissors at the bottom of my makeup bag. so...we did take her for a cute pixie cut (by the same girl who cut it the first time), but she managed to do one more little bald area before I think I finally put a stop to it (fingers crossed).

you can kind of see what she did the first time.

cut off both pony tails (one was obviously a smaller pony than the other)

final result...yes, her hair is now shorter than Buttercup's....but I must say, it is actually still quite cute. Good thing she has such a beautiful little face!!!