Light Box

I almost never spend time checking out blogs, but my friend told me about Play at Home Mom and I couldn't get enough of it.  I was super excited about the posts where they use their light boxes, so I jumped on Craigslist and found a great one for $30.  It is a pretty decent size, 19" x 15", and we are loving it.  Check out what we've been up to.

We painted with watercolors one day.  The light box really makes the watercolors glow, it's awesome.  The middle picture is where we were talking about mixing two colors together to make a new color.

These are floral beads, you can get them at the craft store.  They come in a little packet and are very, very tiny, until you add some water and give them a few hours.  They soak up all the water and become much bigger and beautifully transparent.  We got two different colors, pink and blue.  They look so cool together.  On this day we put them in a 9x13 glass dish and put a bunch of small glass bowl in the dish as well.  Riley loved scooping and pouring the beads from one bowl to another.

I think he looks so much like his daddy in this picture!

These things are so cool!  They feel cool and they look cool.  In this picture you can kind of see that they reflect each other too.  The more layers you have the more colors you get.  They are awesome!

Now, usually Baby Dash is not invited to play with the floral beads, because he tries to eat them.  But I was taking a chance this day and he was being pretty good.  

Until . . .

Floral beads EVERYWHERE!!  

And those suckers are NOT easy to pick up!  Oh well, at least I got a good action shot!  Unfortunately I don't think we will be trying that again soon in the near future.

Park Skillz

Dash is constantly trying to do everything that his "bruv-der" (brother) does.  It is crazy sometimes the stuff he is able to do!  Here are some videos of his (and Riley's) wicked Park Skillz . . .

This is one of my favorites!  He totally does the slide all by himself.  And it isn't a little slide either.  No, he goes for the biggest slide on the playground.  So fun!  You can see him turn himself around at the top, just like he does before going down the stairs.  Riley loves to go down this slide Superman-style, but I don't have a video yet.

They both love to swing, but Dash is finally really starting to get into it.  I love to hear him say "Weeee!" as he swings.

Here you see Dash playing on the . . . you know, I don't know what you would call these . . . bouncy animal things??  Anyway, he loves it, probably because he is always bouncing and bee-bopping himself.  You can also get a little glimpse into what a dare-devil Riley is, but he also minds pretty well and seems to understand what "safe" means, so we are able to keep him out of most perilous situations.

Of course, no park post would be complete without a little video of Jack going down the slides.  He loves this and it is so fun to watch him!

Sharing a room . . .

Last night Riley and Dash slept in the same room for the first time.  They were both tired out from our Safari Park excursion so they both went to sleep almost immediately.  About 5:00 am Dash woke up and started fussing, which woke Riley up.  Our first reaction was to go in their room and each take a kid and try to get them to go back to sleep.  But we finally decided to just leave them and see what happens.  Over the monitor we hear Riley softly say, "It's okay baby, don't cry."  Then Riley sang "I'm a Child of God" to Dash, which is what we sing to them when we are putting them down for the night.  Soon they were both asleep again, and a lot faster than if we had gone in there to try to help.  Awesome!  I was really hesitant about putting them in the same room.  I thought that they would just keep waking each other up and no one would be getting any sleep.  And I guess there might be nights like that, but I have to say that last night was a total success!

Riley-isms . . .

We were saying prayers with Riley the other night, and Gary was prompting him on what to say.  Gary said, "We're thankful that Riley and Dash are super healthy."  Riley said, "We're thankful that Riley and Dash are super-duper awesome!"  It's true!

We were putting the kids in the car one evening and it was kind of chilly so I put Dash's sweatshirt hood up around his head.  Riley said, "Mom, will you put my neighborhood up too?"

We were driving to the Safari Park and were driving past an Ostrich farm and from the backseat we hear, "Do you see that duck!!"

When I'm in the bathroom and Riley comes to see me he always says, "You need a car mazgazine mom."  And picks one out for me.

Scary Halloween . . .

I'd have to say that we had a pretty successful Halloween this year.  Earlier this month Riley and I decorated our front sidewalk with lots of Halloween themed chalk drawings.  (If you look closely you will notice little scribbles and hash marks which are Riley's additions.) 

Bat with fangs

Happy pumpkin

Spider on web

Ghost (if you look closely you might see his purple stick arms, added by Riley)

This is hanging on our front door

I cut out a bunch of bats and Riley "helped" me hang them up in the entryway of our house.  He somehow ended up with tape and string all over him.  What can I say?  Halloween decorating can get pretty crazy!

Scary bats!  I even added a small cluster of bats hanging upside-down on the left

In this video Riley is asking me to hang him up on the ceiling like the bats.  He also shows how well he has practiced saying "Trick-or-Treat", nice and loud!!

Earlier today Riley and I carved an awesome little pumpkin.  He helped scoop out the inside and gave it a few good stabs with the safety saw.  I think it turned out pretty great!

We had a family theme of scary costumes.  I was a Witch, Dash was my Witch's Toad, Riley was a Ghost, Gary was a Mummy, and Jack was Count "Jack"ula.  I made both Riley's and Gary's costumes.  They started me out easy thankfully.  Riley's costume was made with white and grey chiffon.  I frayed the ends a bit and melted them with a candle.  This was inspired by a sweet costume made by my mom a few years back.  Gary's was made from 6 yards of gauze from the fabric store, cut in to strips and wrapped around him.  Pretty simple, but it turned out looking so great that he won "Scariest Costume" at the ward Truck-or-Treat party.  It was awesome!

Gary as a Mummy

Gary and Riley right after Gary won "Scariest Costume" at Trunk-or-Treat"

Baby Dash as my Witch's Toad

Riley in his Ghost costume

The whole Scary Family out to get some treats!

Here is Riley in his ghost costume, just practicing what a ghost says before we go out.  I am pretty proud of how it turned out!

New Little Man . . .

On Monday, May 2nd, we welcomed our second baby into our lives and our home.  Sunday night I started feeling contractions around 9:00 pm.  I waited about an hour before mentioning something to Gary, I wanted to make sure that they were consistent and that they weren't going away.  We walked the dog to see if that changed anything (it didn't) and then headed off to bed to get some sleep (yeah, right!) about 11:00.  My water broke around 2:30 Monday morning and we called my midwife, Karly, to let her know what was going on.  She said to try to get some more rest and to call her in the morning.  Gary got up around 6:30, packed up Jack and Riley and dropped them off at their babysitters' houses (Thanks Prices and Cranes!).  I spent the morning laboring in our bathtub and called Karly at 7:30 and told her to her head over.  She arrived about 8:00 and started setting up the birth tub and her supplies.  By then the contractions were getting pretty intense and I was really starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and tired.  I told Gary I didn't think I could do this, but he smiled and assured me that I could and that it would be fine and fast.  Not long after this the real work started and I got the okay to start pushing.  It was nice to be able to give in to the contractions and really start working with them.  It was hard work and I couldn't have done it without Gary.  Each time a new contraction would start he would hold my hands and help me get into whatever position I needed.  After really pushing my heart out for an hour and a half his head was quickly born.  By this point I was utterly exhausted, and my pushes just weren't very effective anymore.  I think it is mostly because I kept telling myself that if I could just get that little head down and out then the rest would come easily, but no, he needed help with his shoulders too.  Since I was so tired they pulled me out of the birth tub and onto the floor where Karly manipulated his shoulders and finally he was born.  What a cute munchkin!  Everyone is doing fantastic.  Riley loves his baby brother and asks to see and hold him all the time.  We are falling more and more in love each day!

Mother's Day . . .

My two little guys on my second Mother's Day. Wouldn't trade this for the whole world!!

I am so thankful for all the mothers in my life and for their wonderful examples, love and friendship. My life is made more rich because of you!