Around the house: February edition

One of my favorite things about Jane being a big girl now is watching her make "art." On this particular day, I gave her an old catalog, a piece of paper, scissors and glue. It was wonderfully cheap entertainment for both of us!

This chalkboard has been great too, and even easier to cleanup afterwards. 

"This is me and Daddy."

A rainbow.
Wish I could keep it, but erasing is inevitable.

And now some random pictures:

New dress-up discovery... Daddy's sweatpants!
Complete with Tinkerbell dress, of course.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One of these things is not like the others.

Jane continues her manual labor training with Richard.

When I was taking Ouisey's three month pictures, I convinced Jane (with a little bribe) to put on her Easter dress so I could try and get a picture of both girls. I managed to snap a few decent shots... 

Then Ouisey got this look on her face...

And then this happened... end of photo shoot.

 Here is a picture of Jane in heaven... Nickel is her BFF.

 (Nickel may feel otherwise.)

Ouisey is three months

Happy three months to Ouisey!  

Talkin'

Ouisey has started "talking" a lot more this week. It's fun watching her trying to make the sounds come out, and when she succeeds, she seems so proud of her little voice.

A Downton Abbey Shower

A few weeks ago, the girls in our church small group celebrated Ouisey's arrival by throwing me a baby shower. Before I got there, I was told that it would be a tea. But to my surprise and delight, when I walked in the door I found everyone dressed in period clothes from a wonderful Masterpiece Classics drama called Downton Abbey. They went all out with costumes, food and decorations. It was such a fun afternoon, and I felt so special. Thank you, girls!

Anna greeted me in this lovely maid's
outfit that she made herself!

So that I would not be left out of the
costuming, I was adorned with this vintage
fur stole, beaded collar and lace gloves.

Beautiful and delicious food!

Awesome sign with intricate silhouette of Downton Abbey itself.

Can you find Lord Richard, Her Ladyship Katie,
Lady Jane and Lady Ouisey in this cast of characters?

Downton Abbey paper dolls... this really is a hit series!

Old fashioned don't smile photo with the hostesses.

When I got home, I had to take these photos of Lady Ouisey herself...

Cindi made this awesome "Free Bates" onesie

If you haven't seen Downton Abbey yet, (and therefore were not amused by any of this post), you can watch the first two seasons on Netflix and catch up with the current season three on PBS.org.  I highly recommend it!!

Ouisey is two months

I took a few token pictures of our new little girl to commemorate her first two months of life. One really cool thing that my friends have done is take a picture every month in a similar spot and/or with the same toy so you can see how much they change. I didn't know about this fun idea in time to do it with Jane, but I'm trying it for Ouisey with this little pink teddy bear in her rocking chair. Here is month one and two...

And here is a little side by side comparison of Jane and Ouisey both at two months. I couldn't resist, since Ouisey has all Jane's old clothes, ha!  

Jane wanted in on the photo shoot, especially since she was all dressed up like Tinker Bell for no special reason...

"Help!"  - Ouisey

"Help!"  - Jane

Around the house

This post isn't about anything in particular... just an update on life with a newborn and a three-year-old. This may be the first in a new series called "Around the house with Ouisey and Jane."

The coolest thing that has happened in the past few weeks is that Richard and Jane built a club house! We conditioned part of our attic during our recent remodel, which has made for an unexpected play space for Jane. I think it started when she discovered all her old toys stored up there. So when we received a copy of Fancy Nancy: Explorer Extraordinare, in which a little girl makes a club house, Richard decided that was just what our attic needed. He cobbled up some pieces of wood and bamboo, lashed them together with scraps of ribbon, draped them with old curtains and sheets, and voilà!

Nickel helped.

And now for some random pics of our girls and what they've been up to...

Sleeping

Making friends

Rocking the awesome hat from Sally

Smiling

Exploring

Swinging... "Wheeee!"

Oops.

Painting

Burping the baby doll,
which has been named Ouisey.

Baby Ouisey and Baby Doll Ouisey
sharing some floor time together.

Jane is three!

Happy Birthday to Jane!

In the midst of all the Christmas crazy, we paused to pull out a birthday crown and blow out some candles. We are saving birthday gifts for her half birthday because the marginal utility of a gift received the day after Christmas is rather low. Besides, at three years old, Jane's only birthday requirement is cake. Easy! We also fixed Jane's favorite dinner: PASTA.

We cannot believe that she is already three years old, especially when we look at Ouisey and realize how much Jane has grown and learned since she was that tiny. Here are some pics that show Jane on her past birthdays... my how much they change each year!

Two years

One year

Zero years

One of Jane's favorite activities right now is hanging things around the house. Anything with a handle or string is likely to be found hanging on her dresser drawer knob, or the back door knob, etc. The ornaments from our Christmas tree were in constant rotation around the house...

Jane loves sorting and organizing things so much that when she discovered the easel she got for Christmas, she spent the first half hour just moving the crayons and chalk around to different compartments. I guess she would have been just as happy with a tackle box.

Jane has been a loyal companion on hundreds of Kroger runs in her three years. The stickers are genius. She gets so excited, even though the graphic has not changed since I was a kid. She has started asking for stickers at the check out line of every store now, which makes the employees feel really guilty if it is not a sticker distributing establishment. The guy at Home Depot ended up giving her a giant barcode sticker off of some kind of garden item.

Note: stickers hurt when peeled off of face skin

Jane continues to ham it up for the camera... anything but a smile. She also picked out this outfit. Please note the socks and sandals.

So, in this picture she is actually trying to smile. She walked into the nursery where I was sitting with Ouisey and said, "Mommy, look, I'm smiling. Take a picture."

One of my favorite things about Jane at three years old is all the funny things she says. Just listening to the way she views the world is so entertaining. Here are some highlights:


Jane (after reading a touch-n-feel book that said T-rex's have sticky tongues): What's he got a sticky tongue from?
Mommy: I don't know.
Jane: I think he ate some tape.


Jane: I'm just getting a rubber band for something... (looks around to see what she might need a rubber band for)... for my shopping cart. So it doesn't blow away.


Mommy: Did you go to the bank today?
Jane: No
Mommy: Why not?
Jane: Because we didn't buy any money for you.


Jane: You put all the gum together and that's how you make gum. You mix pink gum and "lello" gum and red gum and that's how you make blue gum.


Jane: My hair is so long. I think I'm going to need a haircut soon... maybe when I'm nine... or seventy-eight.


Jane (after opening our blinds a little bit): I'll just leave them like that for now, said Jane the big girl.


We love you, big girl Jane!