Happy Halloween!

Little Doggie

Red Fish has a habbit of trying to drink out of Blue Fish's water bowl. It's nasty. I have to drag her away pretty much every day. Now I've started getting her a bowl of her own to drink out of. Then she insists I praise her and tell her what a wonderful little doggie she is. She is such a funny kid!

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

It was a decent read. It kept my attention but I didn't enjoy it as much as I have liked Brown's other books. I thought The Lost Symbol was a little bit of a weak followup to the Da Vinci Code. I think Mr. Brown got a little too caught up in all the controversy that was sparked by his last book. The Lost Symbol is too much research and too little story. I felt like Brown was trying to prove that his research is sound instead of just weaving an interesting story. I've never understood why people took the last fictional novel so seriously instead of just enjoying an engaging tale.

One great thing about Brown's writing is his sense of timing. I love how he tells multiple storylines and leaves you hanging over and over. It always tricks me into reading one more chapter...just one more chapter before bed. Unfortunately his writing just wasn't as convincing this time around. I didn't feel as drawn into the story or as concerned about the characters as I have in Brown's other books.

I felt like a lot of the dialogue was forced between the characters. They don't have as much chemistry and their relationships feel sort of insincere. It's difficult to care about what happens to them. The writing has cultural references to technology and popular websites that seem lame. The mysteries just aren't that interesting. The historical references aren't as convincing and the final "conspiracy" falls flat. The religious implications seem disingenuous and smack of an underlying distaste for religion.

So overall, it was an okay book but didn't live up to my expectations.

Foam

Mommy was too lazy to paint today so Red Fish painted with shaving cream in the bathtub. Fun for everyone! Red Fish loved the foamy texture. When she was finished painting the walls of the tub she lathered her legs up good and squished the shaving cream between her toes.

Pumpkin Carving

Red Fish scraping the first pumpkin.

She didn't think much of the goo inside but she loved the purple scraper. She started transferring the guts back into the pumpkin after awhile. This was the first time we have carved pumpkins as a family since I got married. Two Fish always wanted to wait for kids. Now we actually have one old enough to appreciate it a little bit.

New Fish of course had no idea what was going on but she needed a picture anyway.

Red Fish got tired of scraping so she made Daddy do the rest and she painted hers while I fed the baby and tried to supervise. We used Elmers squeeze and brush paint. She made me do the squeezing for her but she liked the brushes and I could still feed the baby while she used them.

My cute girls.

I know our pumpkins aren't very imaginative but we were going for easy. Turns out carving pumpkins with a toddler is harder than I thought but totally worth it. It was fun for all of us.

Heads Up and Color Mixing

Little New Fish has learned to hold her head up for pretty long periods of time. She's getting so much bigger so fast.

Today was a pretty laid back day. Red Fish spent a whole bunch of time coloring, playing with stickers and playing with her play dough. She requires a lot of stimulation and pretty much always has to be doing some sort of project. I was looking for something easy to do with her and found this project on my list.

We decided to mix colors together in bags.

1 cup cornstarch
1/3-cup sugar
4 cups cold water
Combine in a pot and heat. Stir constantly and when it starts to thicken, remove it from heat. It makes sort of a white gel. Divide it into three bowls and add food coloring to each bowl. We stuck with the primary colors. Put some of two colors into a seal-able sandwhich bag. I taped the top shut because I knew Red Fish would try and open it. Then I gave it to her to start squishing and mix the colors. She loved squishing the bag. I'm not sure she even understood that we were combining the color to create a new one but that will come later. For now it was just a nice clean project. She was especially excited about the purple. I let her squish the bags for quite awhile until she popped them. There is a color mixing experiement with different bottles of liquids in one of my art books. I want to try it out but I think we will wait until Red Fish is older and can understand what we are doing. Mostly she just enjoyed squishing the bags this time around. Who knows though. She learned her colors without my knowing so maybe she got more out of our project than I really know.

My Dog Wears Chapstick & Other Randomness

Red Fish is obsessed with wearing chapstick. She steals it from Two Fish. When she gets a hold of it she insists on applying some for every member of the household. The other day I caught her applying some chapstick for the dog, Blue Fish. Two Fish wasn't pleased. She also tried to brush the dog's teeth with Two Fish's tooth brush. Luckily his nice wife bought him a new one. Red Fish and Blue Fish have been best buddies lately and tease eachother like siblings. For some reason Blue Fish was afraid of this little wagon Red Fish has so she spent a good half hour chasing him around with it and giggling at the top of her lungs. We have a lot of chats about how to treat the dog. Now I just have to convince Red Fish that Blue Fish is not to be used as a step ladder and that he doesn't eat people food. (Or rather shouldn't eat people food.)

It's scary sometimes how closely a baby watches you sometimes. Red Fish has started knocking on the window when Blue Fish barks and shouts NO! She has even drug him to his kennel and locked him in a couple times with a stern no no. She knows how to wrap New Fish up in her blankie the exact way that I do it. She dabs milk off of New Fish's face when she dribbles. She copies things I do all day long.

Red Fish now knows all of her main colors. She likes to play games with colors. Whenever she colors she has to hold up each crayon for me to name. She held up a maroon crayon the other day and when I told her it was red (trying to keep things simple -silly me) I was chastized because it was so obviously NOT RED. I received a stern no no and a finger shake. When I changed my answer to maroon she clapped and patted me on the head. We also take the cards from candy land and when I hold up a color she finds something else in the room that is that color. It is her favorite game right now. Red Fish is also learning her shapes. She has ditched her beloved Little Einsteins to watch either the first half of Cinderella (she likes the mice and hates the princess part) or a Baby Einsteins video about shapes.

We've had some jealousy around our house lately. New Fish is old enough to enjoy a few toys and Red Fish doesn't want her to have them because they just look like too much fun. The baby swing, the tummy time mat, all things baby just look like too much fun and Red Fish wants to use them. Red Fish has also been wanting to be wrapped up in a blankie and held like a baby for awhile everyday. It's pretty funny.

One fish is starting to get some chub on her legs. She has her first thigh roll. It's tiny but it's cute. She is also developing a double chin. Pretty funny because the rest of her is still super skinny. She is lifting her head up a lot and enjoys watching her arms wave around.


All Aboard The Potty Train?
Red Fish has become a nudist. She disrobes anytime she can. Everytime I come to get her out of her crib after a nap or in the morning she is always in her birthday suit. Sometimes she is in her birthday suit and all of her baby dolls are in theirs as well. Lately this has escalated to removing her diaper along with her clothes. I can handle the lack of clothing but the diaper is mandatory. Yesterday I put her diaper back on no less than 15 times and Two Fish put it back on her three times while I was at the grocery store. Red Fish has even been known to take off her diaper and then put her pants back on so I won't notice. Yesterday she came out of the toy room with her clothes all on backwards and no diaper. I can only think of two soultions to this problem. 1) I could start duct taping her clothing and diaper on. I've seriously considered this. 2) I can potty train her. Oh how I loathe the thought of potty training her right now. She isn't even two years old yet. She doesn't talk yet other than sign language and a few words. Most of all, I'M NOT READY! I thought we had more time. The one upside is that Red Fish does seem to have impressive bowell control evidenced by the fact that she has had few accidents while streaking around our house. Now if I could just get her to produce something while on the pot I would be convinced it is time to board the potty train.

Halloween Festivities

I went to the ward party with the cutest little witch

I think Red Fish loves everything about her costume. She loves her dress, her hat, her gloves, her leg warmers. She loved wearing makeup (little sparkles on her eyes.) She is such a little girl.

Little pumpkin stayed home with Daddy

Gourd painting

It was the first time she has ever painted on something three dimensional. She liked painting the bumpy parts.

Here is the result

And this is why I usually only give her a couple of colors to paint with. Otherwise everything turns brown. We were low on tempera paints though vso we decided to use them up.

It's Scuba Time

I need to teach a scuba class. By need I mean I'm done with being pregnant and seriously itching to get in the water. Who wants to take a class? Come dive with me- pretty please?

Pumpkin Patch

One Month Old

It's crazy to me that New Fish is already a month old. She is already growing up too fast. She is now average baby size. (Well the average size of most babies at birth anyway.) She no longer looks mini. She has smiled AT me a few times now and I love it. She is a pretty smiley baby but I swear these smiles are actually directed at me. New Fish eats two to three ounces at a time and pretty much eats every three hours almost to the minute. She is sleeping three hours at a time but she likes to be held for hours and hours. I'm not getting a great night's sleep but I'm enjoying the snuggle time. They are only babies for such a brief time. Red Fish has been sleeping in later than usual so I'm getting a little extra sleep in the mornings to help me function.


It was a beautiful day today, warm enough for a lot of outside play. We took full advantage of it because we don't know when it will be this nice again. Red Fish has been needing some one on one time with me, so my Mom came over to hold New Fish for awhile. Red Fish and I ran past the mall to use a coupon before it expired. Red Fish wanted to ride the escalator a few times and we rode the carousel. Then we went to the park and spent most of our time on the swings. Red Fish was thrilled to have me all to herself and I was thrilled to be out of the house and get some special time with her.After we got home we decided to go for New Fish's first walk. Sadly it did not start out so well. It took me 45 minutes to figure out how to open the new stroller my friend gave me. After much frustration and a disappointed toddler and dog on the verge of total hysteria it somehow popped open and I ended up punching myself. Awesome. I'm batting a zero on my attempts at outings with both kids this week. We went to the library on Wednesday and it was a disaster. Happily, we all enjoyed the walk. Red Fish loved riding next to New Fish. They are so cute together. It was a little harder pushing the bigger stroller uphill with the dog but certainly doable. I wish it was going to be warm longer so we could do more of them.

After our walk we went out and did some painting the backyard and Red Fish played in the dirt. I used the moby wrap for New Fish. I've pretty much used it nonstop all week. I LOVE it. New Fish is too small to stay upright in the sling yet and she prefers to be held that way, so the moby is working great. Plus, Two Fish can use it without any adjustments. I don't like to share my sling with him because then I have to readjust it. The moby holds New Fish really close so she is nice and snuggly and it is comfortable for me to wear. It feels a little like being pregnant, just extra weight on the front of you rather than a separate pack.

Who Does She Look Like?- Updated

New Fish and One Fish (Me) same dress and same age

New Fish and Two Fish (unfortunately I don't have a pic of Two Fish wearing the yellow dress.)

New Fish and Red Fish (It's hard to compare when Red Fish was a baldy.)

Then I had to add this because everyone always says Red Fish either looks like Two Fish or my Dad.

Not So Silly

Yesterday we made silly putty. It started out pretty good (although it turned our hands kinda purple) but then it seemed to get stickier. I thought maybe I would let it dry out a little today and it got even worse somehow. Red Fish climbed up and got it off the counter and it took me forever to remove the goo off her hands. She didn't think much of it either as you can tell from the picture. Where did we go wrong? Has anyone else made this before?

8 T white school glue

4 T liquid starch

1/4 T food coloring

Also cute little sister and big sister shirts. i couldn't get either of them to look at me.

Freaking Out

It's amazing how one little thing can lead to a disaster. I left the bathroom door open when I was putting away some of the laundry. Oh if only I had forseen the disaster that would follow.

Red Fish locked herself in the upstairs bathroom (we will be removing that lock immediately.) At first I thought I just couldn't get the outside doorknob cover to cooperate because I've had problems in the past but then I realized it was actually locked. I start trying to coax Red Fish to come unlock the door to no avail. Then I hear the bathtub running so I'm freaking out that she is going to drown and when I look under the door I can see Red Fish running around the bathroom (singing and giggling of course) and unraveling the toilet paper. The toilet flushes several times (I'm not sure what went down the toilet but so far nothing horrible has happened.) New Fish has been fussing this whole time and now begins to scream at the top of her lungs to be fed. The burglar alarm suddenly starts going off and I realize that Red Fish has taken my keys and the key faub with the alarm buttons on it with her into the bathroom. Luckily it didn't get flushed. So now the alarm people start calling and I have to keep answering because they will send in the cavalry to stop the intruders. I was tempted to ask them if an almost two year old little girl could be considered a dangerous intruder. So I'm trying to convince the alarm people to ignore the alarm for the next little bit while my baby screams in the phone and I lay on the floor outside the bathroom to watch Red Fish and make sure she isn't drowning. Finally Red Fish comes over to the door and we have a conversation through the crack under the door and she unlocks it. She comes out and we hug and she runs away while I shut the water off and throw a towell over the biggest puddle.

Then when I come downstairs (what could not have been more than 60 seconds later) there is crayon ALL OVER the walls of the kitchen and Red Fish has climbed up on the kitchen table and is eating out of a bowl of cereal like a dog. When she sees me she jumps up and proceeds to throw the cereal all over the room. When I get her down she takes off and dips her head in the dog's water bowl. Then when I catch her and am trying to drag her away from the bowl she kicks it over and bites me. At this point I'm so frazzled I don't even know how to discipline her and poor New Fish is pretty much purple from screaming for a bottle.

I fed New Fish and then went in the other room and screamed for a few seconds. Deep breaths. Daddy has to come home from work sometime right?

Sticky

We did a collage today with pieces of tape. I took pieces of masking tape, painters tape, packing tape, and scotch tape and put them around the edge of a pan. Then Red Fish stuck them all over a piece of paper. She loved it. Then she colored it with some markers. Unfortunately this did not satisfy her need to create.

So I tore up a bunch of different paper (mostly junk mail and construction paper) and gave her a paint brush, modge podge, and a bottle of squeezeable school glue. I was afraid it was going to get much messier than it did (I have a fear that most of our projects are going to get out of control messy and I need to get over it) and Red Fish spent two hours gluing little papers onto a newprint sheet. She also used some marker and crayon. We need art projects with multiple steps so it takes more time to make. I was surprised at how well she did painting and gluing the papers on. I thought it was going to be trickier for her. What you can't tell from the picture is how thickly the paper is pasted on. It has layers and layers.

Our Family

Texas Snowflakes

I'm supposed to make some table decorations for Thanksgiving dinner. I've decided that Red Fish should make them since she is so into art and craft projects. Today it was pretty warm outside and New Fish was asleep (at least she was when we started) so we headed outside with our liquid watercolors and texas snowflakes. They look like giant coffee filters. Red Fish used an eye dropper to squirt paint all over the snowflakes. Red Fish loved using the eye dropper. It was very easy for little fingers.

We're going to use them to put our centerpieces on.

And this is just a gratuitous baby picture because she is cute.

Art Attempts

We've been trying to have some fun with the fall leaves we gathered. We started with a contact paper collage. Red Fish was so thrilled with the result she made everyone kiss it, including the dog and baby. I think we will be making a few of these.

I had this lovely plan to do some print making with leaves. We tried to stamp pads first but that didn't work out at all. Red Fish has been BEGGING to paint everyday for a week so I gave in and got out the paint. (This was scary because I haven't set up our messy area in the basement yet so we had to do it in the kitchen.) Making prints with the paint didn't work out at all either.
So Red Fish just started painting the leaves and we ended up with a very colorful pile of paint and leaves. She wants to make them into another collage when they are dry. Red Fish had a great time. It's a good thing it's more about the experience than anything else.

Next I think we are going to paint pumpkins.

On a side note- I swear I fix Red Fish's hair every morning. It usually lasts all of five minutes before she pulls any accessories out and rubs some food in it.