Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Our Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day began with the traditional shows of affection (Heaven help our poor daughter)...
...and ended with making playdough. For their Valentine's Day party, one of the girls in Clayton's class gave all the kids homemade heart shaped playdough (cute idea). Anyway, Clayton loved it and played with it a lot. Well, it had gotten left out. Clayton was crushed that his beloved heart shaped playdough was ruined so I told him that we could make more. I had never made playdough before but it was really easy, really fun, and one batch made a TON! Clayton loved helping out. It was a really good Valentine's project for us!
Clayton loved mixing all the ingredients and stirring. He usually runs the opposite way when I ask him to help me cook, so it was fun that he actually wanted to do this with me!
After we had made our playdough, Uncle Rick came over and he and Clayton played together for a while. Uncle Rick showed Clayton how to make a playdough person. Here is Clayton with his playdough person (whose name is also Clayton).
After his playdough 'Clayton' was finished Clayton decided to make a playdough 'Noah'. By this time though, Uncle Rick was done helping. Can you tell which one Clayton made by himself (I think they're both pretty cute though)? Noah liked playing with the playdough too! He initially wanted to eat it, but after one taste he was content to keep it out of his mouth (it's mostly flour and salt - yum). This picture is a little blurry, but he looks so grown up here! I can't believe that he will only be my baby for another two months!!
Finally, a shout out to Justin for the best Valentine's Day present ever (even though it was a day late). Those of you who know Justin well are thinking, 'hey, he doesn't celebrate VD, he didn't get you a gift!'. Well, no, technically the gift was non-VD related, but it was still an awesome display of how much he loves me so I'm counting it!!
We sleep with four pillows on our bed. One under each of our heads, one in-between my knees (this is only a pregnancy thing - I usually don't need one there), and one that we affectionately call, 'the Berlin Wall'. We aren't big cuddlers and we both like our seperate space when we sleep so the pillow in between us helps us to each stick to our own sides. However, the 'Wall' is technically Justin's pillow and he usually ends up sleeping on it somehow. Lately, however, I have liked having this pillow up against my back as support. It's nice to have something to balance out the belly. Justin isn't a fan of this and usually takes it back (hey, it's his pillow, right?). The other night though, he LET ME HAVE IT!!!! I lay in bed waiting for him to take it like always, but he didn't - on purpose!! Honestly, it felt so good to be able to sleep with it all night long!! The following night he decided that he wanted his 'Wall' back, but instead of just taking it, he replaced it with another pillow! So now I have my very own pillow to sleep against! We now have five pillows in our bed. It's a lot, but we need them all! Thanks Justin, that was a really nice thing for you to do and the baby and I appreciate it!!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valentine's Party

Clayton had been looking forward to his school's Valentine's Day party for over a week. On the day of his party I had to go into his room and wake him up (he is a kid who likes to sleep in). At first he wasn't too happy with me but when I told him it was the day of his Valentine's party, he jumped out of bed and told me that as soon as he went potty we needed to go! I had to talk him into eating breakfast, getting dressed, and brushing his teeth and hair.

He got to bring a stuffed animal to school today, because part of their Valentine festivities involved celebrating a stuffed animal. You can see by his face how excited Clayton was to take Teddy to school. (Teddy was Justin's stuffed animal when he was Clayton's age. I love that they can share that.)
Not to be outdone, Noah decided he wanted to bring Elephant along for the ride (you can see that we are extremely creative with naming our stuffed animals around here - we also have a cat named Cat and a dog named Dog...heaven help us).
When I picked him up after school, I told him that he had made Teddy a very nice necklace. Clayton got a little frustrated with me and told me that it was NOT a necklace, it's a collar. Excuuuse me! Once again, you can just tell by his face what kind of day he had at school!
Here he is with Teddy and his Valentine bag. When I dropped him off he was so excited to show me the wall where everyone's bags were hanging. He pointed his out and was practically bouncing off the walls when he explained how everyone was going to put a Valentine in his bag and then he could bring it home!
His party was such a success! He has great teachers who really went all out to make sure it was a special day for the kids. I'm really glad that he loves school so much. I know that special things like this only reinforce his love for it!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A Good Day

A lot of things made me smile today. Starting with this little boy:
While Clayton was in school we went to Wal-Mart. Among our purchases was this laundry basket. Noah thought I bought it just for him. He was having such a good time with it that I let him play with it until we had to go get Clayton.
As I was putting laundry away I came across this shirt that my mom gave me for Christmas. It made me smile that a) this isn't a maternity shirt - hooray for the light at the end of the tunnel and b) she has this much faith in my weight loss abilities (love you mom):
I was crafty today. I saw these clip-holders once on someone's etsy shop and thought, 'I could make that'! Well, I did and I love it! It's functional and decorative!
I love sitting in the nursery, it's my new favorite room in the house. Doesn't this just make you anxious for a little peek inside? Well, hang in there, it's getting close to done and once it is - there will be pictures a-plenty!
Clayton got his Valentine cards ready for his class party on Thursday. His handwriting makes me smile. You can actually tell now that it says his name!
Finally, after dinner tonight, Clayton asked Justin if he could use his stethoscope. He wanted to be a doctor and listen to see if our hearts were 'beeping'.
At first he couldn't hear my heart and when Justin tried to correct him he said, "I'm the doctor, you let me listen!" (apparently Justin and I are medical marvels because neither of our hearts were 'beeping'). How could that not make you smile?
What a good day!!

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Superbowl

You gotta love candid family photos...
It was a great game and we all had a great time (even if it isn't obvious by my facial expression)!