blatant random silliness

our little valentine's tree

I saw a valentine's tree on one of the blogs I read, or maybe it was a link from a blog I read, but now I can't find the original post to cite it.  Basically, you collect sticks or branches from your yard and tie on hearts with the names of those you love.  I initially thought this would be hard for us since everything here is covered in snow.  But, when we were out playing yesterday I found some willow branches in the snow and thought they'd be perfect.  I stuck them in a bottle that I kept for flowers and trimmed them a bit.  

Dylan punched out red hearts with our heart puncher and wrote the names of those we love.  And I punched small holes and threaded through the yarn, then we hung them on the branches.  Denny suggested adding a bird (the design of which is from our Valentine's cards) and I perched him up there with a bit of scotch tape and a supporting branch.  Voila, a lovely centerpiece for our table.

Dylan really enjoys using the puncher.


Dylan writing Daddy on one of the hearts.

Dylan puts another heart on the tree.


Dylan and I by the tree.





The finished project (well, almost finished, we need to add a couple more hearts today). :)

way back wednesday: valentine's cards and hugs and smooches

My friend Bethany does Way Back Wednesday on her blog, and I thought I'd adopt that practice on mine.  Today, we will look back at Valentine's cards.  We'll start with this years card, and work our way back in time.  :)

This year's Valentine's Cards.

This years card was inspired by a handmade lovebird card I saw on someone's blog (I can't find the post, I have to get better at that).  I changed it a bit...we went with one bird and made it entirely out of hearts.  We added a branch and leaves and I used patterned scrapbook paper that I've collected from various places. The Target dollar bin can be a great source for cheap patterned paper as can buying a pad of scrapbook paper on clearance (the thick paper we're using is from the same pad we used paper from last year...that $6 pad will last us another year yet!).  

Here's my method.  I had Dylan help me draw straight lines with a ruler on the back of the thick scrapbook paper. Then, Dylan cut along the lines to make 4 squares.  His next task was punching out two sizes of heart–teeny tiny ones for the birds feet and beaks and larger ones for the wings and leaves.


Dylan punching out hearts. He really really likes the heart punches.

Meanwhile, I traced half-hearts on a folded piece of patterned paper (I could have Dylan do this part as well).  He and I cut out the bigger bird body hearts and then cut them in half.  I also had Dylan cut strips of brown paper to be branches.

Next up is assembly.  We've been assembling a couple of these a day in hopes we have enough for his preschool class next week.


Dylan cutting out branches. That's Erin, one of his ABA tutors behind him.


All the pieces ready to put together.

 First, we stamp the back of the cards and write our message. I also had Dylan draw hearts on the backs.


The back of the cards.

Then, depending on the type of glue Dylan chooses to use, I mark the back of the pieces we are glueing down.  I use dots for the squeezy glue and X's for the glue stick.  This way he has a guide and knows where the glue should go. After making a couple, he knows exactly where he wants to put all the pieces. After glueing on all the pieces, he uses a marker to draw an eye on the bird.  Let them dry and we have Valentine's cards.  :)

Dylan adds a tail to the birdie. Note the x showing where to put the glue and the wing.

Dylan adds an eye.


Glueing on the half a heart leaves.

Last year, Dylan was 3 and the cards were also bird themed.  I don't remember how I was inspired to do owls, but I did and I thought they turned out really cute.  I cut out the owl bodies and had Dylan cut out the hearts.  He used a "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp from the dollar bin at Target and then wrote "Love, Dylan" on the backs.  We glued on the heart faces (using the same dot method we used this year), wings and the googly eyes.

Dylan cutting out hearts to be the owls faces. I see Dylan was wearing the same pajamas as he was wearing this year when I took photos. Too funny! I don't think these pajamas will make it another year though...he's getting too tall.


Dylan putting glue on the backs of the hearts.

Dylan's letter to Grandma and Grandpa.

And since Valentine's Day is all about love, here's a photo of Dylan and Elena going for a smooch in February 2010. We miss you Elena!

In February 2009,  Dylan was 2. I took one of his paintings and cut out hearts. I had Dylan help me glue on the hearts and then he decorated the cards with stamps and scribbles.




Dylan gives his friend MC a valentine.

And some more lovey dovey photos of Dylan with one of his girlfriends.  :)


MC hugging on Dylan.


Dylan going in for a smooch. Back in those days he used to say "that's a good smooch!"

The year before that Dylan was 1 and we were getting ready to move from Japan to Ohio. Dylan colored on red paper and added some stickers. Then he added his own unique folds to his Valentine's card for Grandma and Grandpa.


Such a sweet little guy. They grow up so fast.

Dylan and Chizuru on a strawberry picking expedition in February 2008 in Japan. Yep, he's always loved the ladies.

all the fun things

It's been a long time since my last post.  I got behind in blogging since my trip to Nashville (I'll post on that next).  I've been writing down all the cute things Dylan has been doing, and of course taking lots of photos.  As for me, instead of blogging, I've been doing some work, watching tv, knitting, reading and facebook.  :)

Here are some of the fun things my little guy has been doing:

Dylan likes to feed his trains.

We had lots and lots of snow a few weeks back. We had fun making "marshmallows" and building a snow pirate lump. *grin*

Making marshmallows.


I tried so valiantly to make a snow man. But the snow just wasn't the right kind of snow for snowman building. So, we ended up with a snow lump.

When we got back from Nashville, the snow was still on the ground and crunchy crunchy. It finally melted off the next weekend and we pulled out Dylan's new rainboots for the puddle jumping that was sure to happen.


Dylan splashes through a nice stream of water.


Dylan and Jax play with sticks. Jax tried to give Dylan that huge stick.


Dylan likes to line up his letters on the refrigerator. Sometimes in one long line. And usually he likes to sort them by colors.

And here are some other random bits and pieces:

• When Dylan talks to his trains now, he says "hi gordon, having good, having fun". I think he's trying to say "are you having a good time? Are you having fun?" I evidently ask him this enough that he's picked up on it. However, I can't get him to ask "how are you?"

• I've been trying to teach him how to answer the question: "What's your name?" He does good answering "dylan". So now, he'll just randomly look at me and say "What's your name?" and he expects me to say Mommy and then ask him his. Today, Tina told me that it's good for them to know your real name. So I tried to tell him my name is Jennifer and also Mommy and he corrected me and said "Whats your name?" "this mommy". Funny boy.

• He is also in the habit of laughing at random things and saying "this is funny." For instance, I've been showing him a happy face and a sad face. He requests them now, he'll say "happy face" and "sad face". When I do both he says "this is funny" with a big grin on his face.

• He's started saying "bless you" after he sneezes.

• There's an episode of Tigger and Pooh where Roo has a hole in his kite and it can't fly. Dylan has started pointing at anything with a hole and saying "juice can't fly, there's a hole in it" or he'll poke a hole in his hot dog and say "hot dog can't fly, there's a hole in it". Play doh can't fly either. He says it about anything with a hole. Tried to get it on video, but it didn't work.

• His favorite book right now is one I bought on the way to Nashville called "pout pout fish". The other morning he made a great fish face.

• When we were reading his "How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food" book and got to the page with the pterodactyl, he pointed and said "this a dinosaur duck" and made me laugh out loud. Funny little guy.

• He likes to say "Oh my goodness."

• Yesterday I told him we needed to clip his nails and he furrowed his eyebrows and said "want keep nails."

• Also yesterday I gave him a few M&M's when he asked for some chocolate. And afterwards he said to himself "good job eat some chocolate."

Holiday Wrap-Up

Denny and Dylan get some tickles and hugs in on the day after Christmas.

Phew.  The holidays are over and the Christmas tree is back in the box.  I have a ton of leftover ham, and no one to help me eat it (I am going to make a nice big pot of Split Pea Soup and freeze some to share later though).  

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's getting ready for Denny to deploy.  He left the morning of January 2 to go and play for the troops in the Middle East.  In between appointments, anthrax shots and packing, we tried to fit as much time in for playing as a family as we could.  

 

Denny and Dylan play a game of tug of war.

Denny took these shots of Dylan sticking grapes on his fingers and then eating them. Silly boy.

One of Dylan's favorite new games is putting a "microphone" (whatever he can fit in his mouth basically) in his mouth and singing Rosanna. Then, he puts the microphone in my face and wants me to sing. As you can see I tried to block.

New Year's Day we had a few friends over for a New Year's send off dinner.  I made a Shaker Ham, and my friend Tina brought over the black eyed peas and cabbage.  I also made a Butternut Squash Soufflé....I had a little help with that:

Dylan helps put the topping on the soufflé.

Dylan still wanted to "help" after the soufflé was finished, so I gave him a little bit of flour and two bowls. He had a good time dumping them back and forth....from high in the air.

And now Denny has probably landed in what he calls "the sandpit".  I heard from him along the way (yay for wi-fi) and should hear from him again soon (yay for wi-fi).  Denny caught a cold before he left and passed it on to Dylan, who woke up yesterday with a runny/stuffy nose.  So, we've been in the house for two days, and likely to be here again tomorrow.  I'm a little stir crazy...I sure hope he feels better soon so we can go out and do things.  We've stayed busy here though...more on that in another post.

Wayback Wednesday: Holiday Edition

Wow, it's almost time to ring in the new year.  I had no intention of staying up this late, but we've been working on gathering things for Denny to take on his deployment and time got away from us.  Denny's still downstairs looking for specific DVDs and things.

So, here I am writing about wayback in years past.  Lets go back to January 2006 when we rang in the new year with a traditional Japanese rice-pounding party.  To read all about it, click here.

Me, pounding the rice. The rice is pounded into a sticky dough called mochi and then used in various dishes, both sweet and savory.

Now, lets move forward a year. In January 2007, we had a new little guy as part of the family. Dylan was just a little more than 2 months old on New Year's Day. Our friends Yuko, Yuki and their little one Chi-chan invited us to their home for a traditional New Year's dinner. Here's a link to the whole story.


Chi-chan insisted on "holding" Dylan. I don't think she realized just how heavy he would be.

Last year, we visited a Japanese shrine on New Year's Day. In Japan, it's tradition to visit the shrine and burn offerings for the gods after midnight on New Year's eve. Here's the whole story.



And I didn't get any photos of us on New Year's Day, so here's a cute one of Denny and Dylan taken in early January, and one of Dylan digging in his stocking on Christmas Day.





Stay tuned for photos from this year's New Year's Day celebration.

Kismis (Dylan's way of saying Christmas)

Like Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve brought a bit of sickness to our house. Can't seem to catch a holiday break can we? Denny was the victim this time around of a funky tummy and lack of energy. Poor guy. He came home after trying to do a little shopping and just went and crawled in bed. After a nap he was a little better, but headed to bed early on Christmas Eve.

He did stay up long enough to help me get Dylan's new train table all put together. And, I was left to do all the other parent-y things....like clean up the mess, rearrange the playroom, make sure our stockings were hung properly so Santa could fill them, and so on. I didn't make it to bed until midnight...which is never fun at our house because morning comes EARLY here.

The playroom after Santa was done with it.

The tree on Christmas Eve.

The next morning, we were up at em by 6. We all headed downstairs to see the reaction of our little guy to Christmas morning:

Dylan has been asking to bring Edward and Rusty home from the bookstore for awhile now. I started telling him that maybe Santa would bring them....and he did!

We just love the different ways he says Rusty's name.

As you can see, Dylan was very excited about his new trains.  He wasn't much into the opening of the presents.  I'd start to rip one for him and he'd not really care so much.  So, I ended up doing the opening and then he'd see what it was and want to hold it or open it (like the puzzle in the top photo).  We ended up with his fridge phonics magnets and puzzle pieces all over the floor while he went from being focused on one thing to another to another. 

Dylan's Grandma made him a cozy new set of flannel pajamas.  We put him in them and he quite happily climbed all over me.  I am, after all, his favorite jungle gym.

Dylan plays a game of "tackle mommy".

We spent the rest of our morning watching "Elf" and playing with or reading our presents (we love books at our house). Dylan wasn't interested at all in having a nap and going to bed was not his idea of fun either. He ended up sleeping with Rusty clutched in his cute little hand.

We had to delay our annual French Custard Toast until Saturday when Denny was feeling better. We invited some friends to share the yumminess...and it was yummy. 

Tomorrow I'll try and do a Way-Back Wednesday with photos from Christmas past.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!  We hope Santa brought just what you wanted.

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve, late, when I should be going to bed.  I'm tired, but excited to see happy faces in the morning.  Dylan was really wound up before bedtime tonight.  He was giggly and saying "Christmas Eve".  Tomorrow should be interesting and fun!

Dylan adds a sticker to his advent calendar.

I'll leave you with two cute videos of Dylan and his favorite Christmas Carol:  Jingle Bells.

Dylan dancing to Jingle Bells wearing his jingle bell. I purchased the bell at the mall, and he wanted to walk and watch the bell hit his belly and ring the rest of the time we were there.

Dylan and I singing Jingle Bells.

it's almost Christmas!

We had a little snow a couple of weeks ago. But unfortunately, we're going to have a wet and rainy Christmas instead of a white Christmas this year.

It's amazing how the time slips by so fast.  We've been busy doing our last minute shopping and wrapping and packing and shipping and baking and going to parties for the last couple of weeks.  Evidently too busy to blog.  So, I'll catch you up on what's been going on in our neck of the woods.

Last week some friends of ours hosted a kids Christmas Party, complete with Santa Claus. Denny had fun playing with Dylan and some of the other children at the party.

Dylan had a good time running around with the other kids. He was not, however, interested in seeing Santa Claus. Poor little guy. Mommy really wanted a photo though, so Denny held him in the vicinity of Santa while I snapped a photo. Here's what we ended up with:

As you can see, Dylan was much happier with Daddy than with Santa. Poor little guy....the torture we put them through.

But, you know, torture followed by cupcakes isn't all bad.

Yesterday evening, we went to one of Denny's co-worker's homes for a little Christmas gathering. They have 3 cats and 2 dogs, and Dylan was very excited about the cats and scared of the dogs. And he really, really loved the drum set in the basement. We have a video that I need to download of him playing drums.

Today, we headed out for some last minute things (like breakfast fixings for Christmas morning). We've been teaching Dylan how to 'ask nicely' for things (saying "please"). As we were going into Target, Dylan told me "go home". And then he tried "please, go home." And when that didn't work, he said "ask nicely, go home." He really, really wanted to go home...and it was only the first stop! He ended up being a good sport and hanging in until the very last store.

And now it's Christmas Eve! I'm excited to see my guys' faces tomorrow morning. Denny and I have a bit of work ahead of us this evening, but I'm sure it will all be worth it. Dylan has been watching the "My Friends Tigger and Pooh Christmas Movie" a lot this past month, and we've been telling him "tomorrow is Christmas!". I hope he's as excited as I think he will be tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out.

And we're back

So, first, I have to thank Bethany and her blog for getting me motivated to get mine updated (finally). We've had a lot of "fun" at our house since Thanksgiving day...the day of my last blog post.  

Dylan and I on Thanksgiving morning.

Thanksgiving was off to a good start.  Dylan was up and in a good mood for the morning....he was very busy and crawly-climby and wanting to be helpful.  We had lots of fun watching the parade and having Dylan climb all over us in between me running back to the kitchen to do something useful for our meal.  Our plans were to go over to Tina and Jax's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  Tina's parents were visiting and we were looking forward to meeting them and having the boys tire each other out so we could get a good nights sleep.  I made the stuffing bright and early and took it over so they could stuff the turkey.  After that, I made butternut squash souffle, apple pie and pumpkin pie.  I had a little help with my pie crust from both of my guys.  Dylan also helped me mix up some cornbread dough (to which he really really wanted to add chocolate chips).

Dylan helps us stir up some bread dough.

Dylan had a good nap, but woke up still tired and cuddly.  Denny had some good cuddle time with him and then we got him dressed so we could head over to Tina's.  The food was all packed and we were ready to go, and Dylan (of course) asked for some milk.  We headed to the couch, I laid him in my lap, and he threw up.  Poor little guy!  So, Denny took our food to Tina's and brought back things for us to eat.  We spent Thanksgiving watching Cars with a poor sick toddler between us and taking turns eating.  And we didn't get that good night's sleep that we had wished for.  Dylan threw up several more times, and I ended up going downstairs so that I could hold him upright-ish on the couch and still be comfortable myself (and hopefully catch anything that might come up and not have to change the sheets for the third time).  Luckily, he didn't throw up any more after that.  He wasn't very interested in eating for a few days after, but his appetite finally came back and he's eating normally again.

Denny and Dylan after his nap....before we knew he was sick.

In between Dylan getting sick and me getting sick, we went to the mall to play. They were giving out free reindeer ears and Dylan enjoyed wearing his.

Unfortunately, I caught his stomach bug on Sunday.  I was through with the worst of it by Monday, but it took all week for my stomach to get back to normal.  And once it was, my allergies kicked in and yesterday I lost my voice.  It's still gone.  *sigh*

Despite my funky tummy, we did manage to get our tree up last week, and we took family photos on Friday.  It snowed all day Saturday (Denny was out of town for training), and we stayed inside.  Sunday, we headed out into the snow a bit (which Dylan very cutely calls sssinow) and got out of the house.  Tina watched Dylan for us in the afternoon and we got to go to the movies.  yay!  Of course,  heh, to top off the week, as I was carrying my sleeping boy from the car to Tina's backdoor, I managed to fall on my knees and bruise them up pretty good (and to wake up Dylan in the process).  Here's hoping my voice comes back and I can be normal again soon.

Dylan enjoying the snow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We made these puppets on Tuesday. Unfortunately, Dylan got sick today so we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving the way we had planned. We were going over to Tina's house to eat. Instead, Denny took our part of dinner over, and brought back plates for us to eat at home. Our poor little guy is sleeping soundly. Here's hoping for a good night's sleep and a well boy tomorrow.