More Knitting

I finally finished knitting this sweater for Jack. It took forever. Not because it was overly difficult, but because I'm what you might call a "slacker knitter". I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though... It fits him AND it didn't fall apart!! (yet).

Not bad for a second attempt. (Well, third if I count the dud sweater I knit whilst pregnant with Annabelle).

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Day...Annabelle patiently waits to open presents
Jack patiently waits for Daddy to let him play with the trains
Carefully inspecting a gift from Auntie
Jack tries to have a go on the keyboard BUTquickly realizes it's a lost cause and moves on to the car trackStill going, and has now added karaoke Unable to take the noise, I mean singing, any longer, Jack retreats to the kitchen The single will be available soon!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Christmas Eve

Santa makes a surprise visit to Nana & Papa's house...

But Santa, where are your reindeer?

OH BOY! You brought presents for meeeeeee!!

Um... Actually Annabelle, this one is for your brother and by the look of things he is ready to fight you for it.

I'm Such A Sucker

I had originally purchased this piano with xylophone for Jack as one of his Christmas presents, then decided to return it because he is also getting a super sonic keyboard which makes this toy seem really lame. As I was leaving the house on the way to return it I got side tracked and left the toy (in it's box) in the bag on the dining room table. Guess who found it and claimed it was her new favorite toy?

Just Jack

In The Bath

Me: "Annabelle, come over here so I can rinse the shampoo out of your hair."
Annabelle: "I'm a little bit busy right now mommy."
Me: "What are you doing?"
Annabelle: "I just need to fill this water can... And I'm very busy."
Me: "What are you going to do with the water can once it's filled?"
Annabelle: "I'm just going to pour it on Jack's head."

Bad Teddy

We put our Christmas tree up last week, since then that cheeky little monkey Jack has been trying to remove all of the ornaments. He will go up to the tree with a gigantic smile on his face, shake his little pointer finger at it and say "no, no, no", look at me with that sneaky smile, and then proceed to grab at anything within reach. Obviously he knows that he is not supposed to touch it, so in an attempt to get him to leave the poor tree alone, I started putting him in "time out" whenever he takes off/breaks an ornament.

Time out has had no affect on him whatsoever. If anything it's had a reverse affect and has unleashed his inner monster. He has since become fond of the temper tantrum, complete with ground dropping, head banging, kicking, screaming (my personal favorite) and tears... It's like he's decided to get back at me for having the nerve to give him a time out.

Because of his reaction to the time out, I thought I would take a different approach to get him to stop harassing the tree and did a little role playing thing with his favorite Teddy Bear- where I made Teddy touch the tree and Mommy got very sad and told Teddy no, that it wasn't very nice, blah, blah, blah. Oddly enough that seems to have gotten the message across to Jack because he hasn't bothered with the tree much since then.

The funny thing was that Annabelle, who was watching this whole thing, started to imitate me by making Teddy touch the tree, but rather than having a friendly little chat with Teddy like I did, she immediately whisked him off to have a "time out" on the step. Like little sponges, they are...




At least she was kind enough to sit with him during his "time out".

FINALLY, We're Allowed REAL Haircuts!!!

Jack and Annabelle had their first visit to an actual hair dresser this morning. We went to a place that specializes in the "toddler haircut" (read: they can whiz those sissors around any tantrum throwing toddler's head at lightening speed without so much as a nick)... We found that out first hand. The place was actually pretty impressive: it had books, toys, cars, video games, televisions, lollipops, balloons, prizes... They even held birthday parties there. What kid in their right mind would want to have their birthday party at a hair salon?? Did I mention the mini manicure for $7.99?

ALL DONE *sniff sniff* ALL DONE!!!!!

Hmmm, I could get used to this...

A Visit With Santa

Last night as Annabelle was getting into bed she told me that she was not going to cry this year when she sat on Santa's lap, even though sometimes she gets a little scared. And even though she does look a little scared, she was very brave and didn't cry once. She even told Santa that Jack wants a red car for Christmas and that she wants a red car too!

Jack on the other hand was not so happy about sitting on Santa's lap this year. He was pretty smiley for the first 30 seconds, but after that it all went down hill...

That's My Boy!

I've been meaning to write this down, it cracked me up...

The other day when I was changing Jack's diaper I noticed a bit of a rash, so I loaded him up with some Desitin (rash cream). When I did this he started clapping loudly and shouting "YAAAY!"...

I almost got the impression that if he could formulate a sentence he would have told me off for not sorting him out sooner!