Sometimes I Amaze Myself

Hello

There are some days that my creative mind wants to hangout and be friends. I like those days. Today was one of them and I am amazed by the cleverness.

Creative Colie came up with Potato Bowling. It kept us entertained for well over a half an hour. After the novelty wore off and I needed to make myself breakfast--everyone knows that potato bowling takes place at 8am-- Clark turned into a mixologist.

Red Skin Potato Martinis anyone?

We also went to Disney on Ice today, my camera died and Clark passed out on the ride home--unfortunately, I missed many really great photo opportunities-- Clark fell asleep before he ate lunch and never woke up when I moved him from his carseat into his bed. The kid bulldozed the day away and woke up at 4pm. That's right, I totally spent 4 hours on Pinterest today and the honey-do-list just got 10x bigger. When he woke up he had the worst case of bedhead I have ever seen on him and he was famished.

Check out his face in this one, he looks like a mad scientist....

Many people know that I have an issue when it comes to sweets. I have great willpower to resist them, but once I get hint of sweetness it is all over and I usually eat a whole cake. I keep an emergency can of frosting on hand in case I desperately need something sweet, Clark just calls it "cake". His sweet tooth must have been in over drive today because he was screaming CAAAAAAKE at the top of his lungs. I am 100% ok with the fact that I eat a spoon full of frosting to curb a craving, but I am not going to lead him down the same path. So this is what Creative Mind came up with.

Step 1: Show the kid the "cake"

Step 2: Be thankful that the kid can't see your secret on to the kitchen table

 Step 3: Wa-la

 Step 4: Figure out if you're clever or making a mistake.


Clark has started going to day care recently. We are both having a VERY hard time with it--more on that later, once I have coped a little. Here is his first piece of art work. I may have cried a little when he gave it to me.

Hope everyone else has a moment of creativeness this week,

Colie

It was a Cold and Homely Day

Hello

This morning Clark woke up somewhat happy. He has been under the weather and very mean the last 6 days so it was a nice change of pace to see a smiling kid peeking out from the crib this morning. I dressed him and brought him downstairs for breakfast. We have been letting him pick what he wants to eat lately, today he chose oatmeal with "balls" aka sprinkles. He sat in his booster seat eating his oats away. Then he glanced over and saw the oatmeal box and said "read". I thought he wanted to look at the cookies on the back of the box and read the recipe like usual. Which he did. Then he turned the box around and pointed to the Quaker Oats Man and said "Mama".

Not quiet sure when I started to resemble the Quaker Man, I don't even own a hat like that. So I asked him again "who is that?" to which he replied "mama". I said "You think that looks like your mama?" and he said "yes". And it was a homely day for me.

It was also very cold. Reminder--yesterday was 71. Today 30's. Mother Nature is a cruel woman.

Frozen Rain on the Tree

 Have a good week,
Colie

Blue Eye Boy

Hi

Since I have gotten my new camera (back in October) I have been taking a lot of pictures. You can probably guess who my usual subject is.

 Previously, when I broke out the camera he would either have a stone faced expression or move so fast I could only capture a blur of a boy. Now he says Cheese and poses for a few seconds so I can snap away.

The hat was his idea. He gets such a huge kick out of saying a word, like HAT, and then getting the exact thing he was referring to. Like language finally makes sense. This is also why he constantly has ice in cup and snow is allowed in the house. I feel like if he is telling me what he wants " I nee iiiice" or "sno-no in bowl" who am I to tell him no. The kid needs to feel like he is being understood. Even if it means he runs around looking like a hoodlum.

The one thing I can't get enough of are his huge blue eyes! They just get brighter and brighter. If you ask him what color his eyes are he will say "bloooooo"

Hope everyone had a good week--it had to be better than ours. We were fighting one heck of a flu bug. Influenza A to be exact. That bug sure did do a number on me, Clark fortunately got Tamiflu so he seems to be doing a little better. Matt kept me in quarantine for 4 days so I couldn't infect him so he is doing just fine. However, his imagination leads him to believe he is getting sick every time he hears me cough.

Stay Healthy
Colie

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We hope that you all had a lovely Christmas with your families and that the New Year is bright and happy.

Matt has been off of work for the last three weeks--give or take a few days-- and it has been absolutely fantastic! Every day when Clark wakes up he calls for his Daddy. Matt loves it because he feels needed, I love it because I actually get to drink a HOT cup of coffee. I am not doing diapers, dressing, breakfast, cleaning up and entertaining in between sips of what ends up ice cold coffee with settled creamer at the bottom. Actually, I have been really spoiled the last 3 weeks, Matt has changed 90% of diapers, played with Clark to the point where he just collapses in a baby heap at night while saying Ni-Nite! and he has cooked a few good meals. A couple of nights Clark has been so exhausted from all the rough housing that he climbs the stairs and goes to his room asking to be put in his crib. Yes sir, little man, you can go to bed a half an hour early. It would be my pleasure.

Christmas Eve Clark decided that he would all together skip his nap and be a tiny demon child. We tried to tell him Santa was watching, but he didn't understand. 4pm came and he was demanding bed, dinner wasn't ready yet so he got Mac n' cheese. Look at these tired eyes....

Matt was in charge of Christmas Eve dinner. It started out with raspberry orange champagne cocktails.

The main course was beef medallions with rosemary and red wine sauce, roasted potatoes with olive olive and rosemary, and a spinach salad with pomegranate seeds, walnuts and alphfa sprouts. 

For dessert there was ice cream and apple pie. Sounds wonderful, huh. It was. Good thing I averted one small catastrophe---one recipe called for 7 cloves of garlic. This is the what Matt intended to use....

The only downside of such an elegant, made from scratch dinner is the mess.

Christmas morning Clark woke up at 7:00, rather than come downstairs for breakfast we made a detour to the basement. He rounded the corner and saw the tree with a shopping cart and kitty cat stuffed animal and let out the most wonderful scream of joy. He ran to the cat, hugged it and screamed again. He then grabbed the dog's new toy and claimed it as his own.

 Frazier did yoga while Clark played with his new farm animals.

The rest of the day was same as usual and I went to work that night.

Over the weekend we went to visit Matt's parents up in Michigan. We have gotten pretty good at keeping Clark entertained for 3 hours in the truck for the drive up and back down. It involves a lot rapid fire of toys into the backseat, gold fish crackers and lots of Old McDonald--that guy has been known to have werewolves and hipagriffs if we sing it long enough.

At Namma and Papa's Clark got books, trucks, shoes and clothes. He likes the kitty story the best--go figure.

Aunt Say and cousins Maggie and Edwin all piled onto the sled and got pulled around by Matt. This would have been the best picture ever! if I didn't mess up and white it all out. I tried to get them to do it again, but the kids were cold and had had enough.

 Somehow, as the evening progressed, this is what we ended up with...

No one has any explanation.

I took a lot more pictures, but I only feel comfortable plastering my kiddo's face all over the internets so just trust me when I say Maggie and Edwin are cute and I took some good picture of them with their Christmas haul as well.

Clark acts like he is 1 of 10 children and has to horde his food and toys. He took his snack and found a quiet corner to eat, like someone was going to steal his food.

Please notice in all the pictures of Clark he is holding a 1980's Fisher Price mixer. He called it his tool and cling to it for dear life.

We closed out Christmas Vacation with a festive bath with paint soap my dad got for Clark. He tried to eat it.

2013 has some big shoes to fill because 2012 is going to be hard to beat. Happy New Year.
Colie