Week 35: 365

Week 35!
February 20, 2010: This was the first time the boys have bathed together! Grayson was tired of laying in the baby bath so we borrowed this bath ring from our friend Abby. He loved it! I was even surprised that Weston didn't mind sharing the bath. They both love bathtime. :)

February 21, 2010: Weston grabbed one of Ms. Adrienne's famous cookies from church before we left. Clearly, he enjoyed it.

February 22, 2010: The day before this I had made Almond Pound Cake. I decided it needed a little something more so I made the Almond Butter Cream Icing it called for originally. It was SO good. I even let Weston lick the icing off of the beater which he appreciated very much.

February 23, 2010: Grayson is doing new things every day. This was his accomplishment on this day. He got up on the first step! I'll definitely have to be using the gate for now on.

February 24, 2010: The boys and I met my friend Terri and her son Bennet at Port Discovery for a playdate! It was so much fun and afterwards we walked a couple blocks to Alperstein and Diener, P.A. where I used to work. After all the playing and visiting, the boys were so pooped.
Grayson fell asleep soon after this picture was taken.

February 25, 2010: So Mike, Weston and I were in the kitchen getting dinner together while Grayson was playing in the living room. I went in to check on him, and this is where he was. He had pulled up on the recliner! This was one of the first couple times he pulled up onto something....he's doing it all the time now!!!

February 26, 2010: I did not take this picture. Weston ended up getting sick on this day so I totally forgot to take a picture... :( However, I'm putting this picture up because on this day, Mike went down to hang out with some of his friends he hasn't seen in a long time. Doug, Scott, and Ryan were all childhood friends of Mike's and I'm glad he got to spend some time catching up with them. In this picture is Mike and Scott. (I don't have one of all of them together).

Week 34: 365

Week 34!
February 13, 2010: We made Valentines to give to Weston's friends on Sunday. His cards included these yummy sugar cookies I made with a recipe from Blue Cricket Design.

February 14, 2010: Mike and I couldn't contain our laughing when Weston went and picked up my pump and put right up to his chest. He has watched me pump with curious eyes but I never thought in a million years he would do this! He was even trying to adjust the buttons. Hilarious!

February 15, 2010: "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Looking so cute with your pants on the ground!" A hazard of being tall and skinny. He doesn't seem to mind though.

February 16, 2010: Grayson climbed on my legs and literally crawled all the way up them and onto my back. He is such a little monkey!

February 17, 2010: After a fun night of playing and wrecking the preschool room, I had the boys sit for some songs. Do you know how hard it is to get 5 boys to sit? (2 are not shown in this picture since they were sitting next to me) I was pretty proud of myself!

February 18, 2010: Believe it or not, Grayson totally and completely pulled himself up onto this ottoman without any help whatsoever. He is awesome.

February 19, 2010: Gray, just chillin' under our kitchen table eating puffs in his walker. Cute.

Valentines

Check out how we made some awesome Valentines!!!

First we had to do some finger-painting. Here is Weston-mad about it for some reason....

But then he got happy. Notice how he is finger-painting with a sponge....

We taped the artwork onto the door to dry. Aren't they pretty?

After they were dry I cut them out in heart shapes and glued them onto scrap paper hearts.

Here they all are! (I want to thank Terri Peters for her finger painting idea!!!)

We also did these fun Valentines for Weston's teachers at church. We used cut outs of his hands to make hearts. I got the tutorial from sproutonline.com (here).

Finally, I made some sugar cookies using a recipe from Blue Cricket Design. They turned out pretty awesome!
I'm so sad that I didn't take a picture of the final result. It was late, I was tired and just trying to finish them up (lame excuse, I know.) We put each cookie in a baggie and punched a hole in the top of each Valentine. Then I used ribbon to tie the bags to the Valentine. They were so cute! All of Weston's friends and teachers loved them. :)

Ok, so really I'm posting this 2/20/2010 but with the magic of "post options" I made this post appear on time! Yay!

Week 33: 365

Week 33!
February 6, 2010: Being stuck inside because of the snow made way for new crafts, including these adorable big/little brother t-shirts I made! I'm so happy with how they turned out...even if Weston didn't want to model them....

February 7, 2010: Mike took Weston out on the deck to play in the snow and he actually liked it this time! So much so that he did not want to come in and almost got smooshed in the door while trying to run back out!

February 8, 2010: After a cold and cabin fever set in, i decided to bring the "no" (snow) inside and let Weston suck on an icicle. It kept him quite content for a while.

February 9, 2010: Just a cute picture of Gray trying to fit his whole hand in his mouth. You can spy Weston moping on the floor in the corner of this picture, the sickness still under way.

February 10, 2010: I made a trip to our next door neighbors to get an egg so I could make cookies. Here I am in the snow!!! It was up to my waist with more still to come down!

February 11, 2010: After shoveling off the deck, the snow on the ground was up to the top of our neighbors privacy fence...tall enough for Mike to jump onto from the deck! Here he is in action!

February 12, 2010: After a day of running errands with Mommy, and still not feeling well, Weston spent the evening relaxing on the couch with his juice, his ninny and his blankie. Fun times. :)

Big/Little Brother T-shirts

For the life of me I could not find a "Big Brother" t-shirt in Weston's size. Granted most 19 month olds are not big brothers yet but still...that's no excuse! I'm sure I could have checked the internet or paid someone else to make me one, but I thought it would be more fun to do it all by myself. With all the snow we have had this weekend, I figured this was the perfect time to work on this project! So here it is...

I first learned about freezer paper stenciling from reading Samster Mommy's blog; however, I followed this website's direction since they were a bit more detailed on the process. Ok so here we go...

First I asked my friend Kristin to make a design (free) for me since she is amazing at graphics and I haven't quite mastered that craft yet.....So here is what she came up with:

Then...I traced the design onto the non-waxy side of freezer paper ($5.99 at Walmart)

Next was the grueling process of using an X-acto knife (already in my craft drawer) to cut the design out. Because this design was pretty detailed, it took me a few hours to cut out but it was definitely worth it to get the final outcome! I def made a few mistakes like forgetting to bridge the cut out in the "R" but it was nothing major and all fixable when it came to ....

The ironing stage! After ironing (who doesn't have an iron?) the stencil onto the t-shirt ($3.50 a piece at Walmart) I went back and fixed any mistakes. See how the "R" looks right now? I also cut the bridges off of all the letters using the X-acto knife. You have to be careful doing this so you don't cut the fabric!

Time to paint ($12 for 3 paints and 3 sponge brushes at Michaels). I'm impatient so I did all my colors at the same time. I didn't have any smears thank goodness!

My work space....
An hour and two coats of paint later it was time to see the final results! Taking the stencil off was so much fun! Next time I'll read the tips first and do a base of white so the colors pop out more. This being my first time though I think they turned out FABULOUS!!

Here is an improv fashion shoot...over top of pajamas! Hehe. One of my models was being feisty...(priceless!)

Little Brother Ferrante!

Big Brother Ferrante!

For about $25....this was the perfect snowy day project!!!

Week 32: 365

Week 32!
January 30, 2010: I finally went and bought bubbles for the house. Weston LOVES them. Here he is rolling around and popping them as they hit the floor. He's such a goofball. :)

January 31, 2010: Weston was really concentrating on putting coins in his bank. It's almost full! So far, this is his college fund so he can put in all the coins he wants! Haha.

February 1, 2010: Again with the determination...Grayson really wanted to get the cat even if it meant crawling through the smallest space possible. You can see Ginger's paw under the table...I'm so glad she didn't run off after he put in so much hard work to get to her. What a good big sister!

February 2, 2010: I'm so proud of my little man! He can actually do this puzzle and others like it all by himself! I'm so glad that he's finally interested in his toys and not just watching Yo Gabba Gabba. I love how pleased he is with himself when he fits the piece in the spot. So cute.

February 3, 2010: Mike was trying to stretch his back out, but the boys thought he was pretending to be a jungle gym!

February 4, 2010: Who doesn't love it when a baby eats his toes!? Usually Gray can't get his toes to his mouth due to all the little rolls you see there in the picture (adorable!!!). This was the first time he was successful at his attempts.

February 5, 2010: I used this tutorial from SamsterMommy to make Weston a sticker book today! However, I used duct tape instead of ribbon for the border, and I used an exacto knife to cut a layer off the middle between the pages (basically the crease) before adding the freezer paper. (See picture below) The book was too hard to close otherwise (after the addition of the scrapbooking paper).