We'd meant to have someone take a family picture for us for our Christmas card last weekend at my parents' house when all 5 of us (humans + dogs) were together, but we forgot/ran out of time/weather was crappy/etc. Yesterday we attempted it ourselves by using the timer feature on our camera. The 'session' improved greatly when we discovered the 3-pictures-in-a-row option instead of just the 1--a lot less up and down and dog-wrangling after that. In the end, we did end up with a couple of usable photos and cards have been ordered, but here are a few not-as-successful pictures from the experience. It was hilariously difficult to get 3 people and 2 dogs mostly looking at the camera and/or smiling all at the same time.
Hattie didn't quite make it in time
(she was, not surprisingly, so 'over it' by the time we were finished).
Peter Dink, trying to escape :)
Lewis, a moving target.
Ornery Little Rascal
(And, yes, I am aware of the mullet.)
That's better! :)
I ordered them from the same company who did our birth announcements, and I gambled and selected the slowest shipping speed because it was almost 1/3 of the cost of standard shipping. Currently, it says they will be delivered December 31, which I hope is a gross exaggeration (I did the same for our birth announcements and they were here in 5-7 days). So hopefully it pays off again--otherwise, people will be getting our cards in the new year. :)
For the past few weeks, I've been trying (and failing) to find the right childproofing locks for our kitchen cabinets and drawers. I bought some of the traditional ones that are supposed to catch when you open the door (and you push down on them to open the door/drawer all of the way). When I went to install them, I discovered that our cabinet doors and drawer fronts are designed so that there is a routed out section exactly where the one crucial piece needs to be placed, meaning I had nothing to screw into. I absolutely could not figure out how to align it otherwise.
I luckily started out with a bag of $2 pieces I'd bought at a consignment sale, so I returned the unusable pack of traditional ones to Target and went to look for a different design. I found that there were these fancypants magnetic locks that got really good reviews (you install a magnet inside and have a special magnetic key you place on the outside when you need to 'unlock' it), BUT (and a big but) they were $20 for a pack of 4 (at both Target and Amazon). I decided that was way, way too much to spend and that there had to be another way, so I found a pivoting, folding, and more advanced/more thought-out looking version of the traditional ones for $5 a pack and thought I'd give those a try. I'm not 100% sure they would have worked for us either, but it turns out I didn't need to find out!
I went to Goodwill yesterday and hit the childproofing motherload. Someone had donated three unopened packs of the magnetic locks ($20 a pack, so $60!!! worth of supplies), and GW had priced them at $2.25!!! a pack. I snatched them up and now have $60 worth of locks that will definitely fit our cabinets and drawers for only $6.75 (plus tax). :) Oh, happy day.
On a side note: Speaking of Target, what is the deal with their carts? Why is the child seat so loosey goosey? It's awful! It reclines back too far, so if I strap Lewis in tightly, he can't hardly reach the handhold. (And I've tried not strapping him as tightly, too, and that is equally disastrous.) Because the seat is hinged so loosely, he tries to reach forward the whole time, or better yet, he is able to twist around and has even managed to stand up in the cart. I am constantly turning him around and saying "Sit, please." Nowhere else can he do that.
They should have parents on their cart design panel. And take a cue from JoAnn's whose carts are the best I've found. Small, compact, and the child seat is sturdy and sits low.
Look out world, Peter, Hattie, etc. He is getting braver and closer to stepping off into the great wide world of the walking!
Kevin caught this last evening--he's been doing it since the weekend, where he gets to the corner of the furniture and sort of continues out in a straight line (I think Mathilda rubbed off on him!). :) Seems like he is on his way. When Kevin is home this weekend, we can work on trying to get him to walk from one of us to the other.
Sunday morning we helped get things ready for the Carter Holiday Dinner at my parents' house. Even Lewis joined in the fun and helped Mamaw tear up bread for the dressing. He got to eat some toast for the first time as well.
Mamaw's Little Helper
Standing for Papaw
Dad picked up Lewis and put him on his feet to see if he would stand long enough for us to get a picture (his standing abilities have taken a sudden uptick since his playdate with the standing and walking Mathilda!). :) He can stay up for quite a while now (maybe 20 seconds??), especially if he is distracted by something in his hands.
Our dogs made the trip with us, and we played a little chess game with 1 dog (Maggie), 2 dogs (Peter and Hattie), all 3 dogs, and Lewis. Altogether, they run too much to be in the same room as Lewis. Separately, Peter and Maggie get along fine (though Maggie wants to play/run more than Peter does at times). Hattie, on the other hand, does not like Maggie. No surprise there for any who have met Hattie. :)
We baby gated them into one part of the house while Lewis was in another--at one point, Hattie jumped the 3-foot baby gate to get back to us because she is awesome like that. Maggie actually cleared it shortly thereafter, too, but took the gate down with her in the process. Eventually we figured out a way to keep the peace by putting the gate a bit higher. This video was during one of Peter and Hattie's breaks from lock-up. Lewis is harassing Hattie who is on my lap--she kept trying to scoot higher to get away from him. We need to work on teaching 'gentle' as he likes to grab handfuls of hair and likes to grab their wagging tails (ooh, a toy!?!).
We ran down to church after Lewis' nap so everyone could see Lewis, and then it was back to the house to make final preparations for the dinner. We had an amazing spread of food, as always, and it was great to see everyone! We didn't know/expect that there would be Christmas gifts for Big Lew, but there were--he received a book, an ornament, an outfit, a toy, and two sleepers! Here he is opening his first Christmas present ever, a sleeper from the Papenhauses.
I love grizzly bears! Rawr.
So that was that! We had to hit the road to get back in time for bedtime--it unfortunately was dark and rainy the.entire.way down Interstate 65, but we made it safely. Lewis couldn't tell that the drive suuuuucked. :)
Socks as Toys? Why not?!
One last video from yesterday--as I was getting the grocery list ready, I decided that cottage cheese would be one of Lewis' new foods to try this week. Then I proceeded to put down a spoonful as finger food and let him go to town--what a mess!! It was all over his highchair, on the wall, on his lap, up to his elbows, and on his face. I guess some got into his mouth, too. :) Today, I spoon fed it to him. You'll see some of the damage here--he was trying to paint with it, perhaps? Oh, boy!
I tried (and failed) to get him to wave to me and the camera--maybe next time! He is learning that and to high five.
So Saturday after Lewis' playdate and afternoon nap, we headed out to see Papaw down at the Christmas tree lot. For as long as I can remember, Dad has spent his free time between Thanksgiving and Christmas selling trees for Lions Club. We used to go down there as kids and play hide and seek in the trees and drink hot chocolate in the trailer. Now that he is retired, Dad has been spending even more time there. Saturday he had an 11 hour shift to work, so we took Lewis down to see him since he wouldn't get home until after Lew's bedtime.
Can't wait to chase him through the maze of trees when he's older!
Lew with Lion Sonny/Lion Papaw
Extreme close-up :)
After the tree lot, it was up to see Santa Claus! To rewind, we looked into getting his picture taken with Santa here in town, only to find out the malls make you pay an outrageous minimum of $25 for a photo package and don't allow you to take pictures with your own camera. Merry Christmas to you, too, people. Kevin mentioned that maybe New Castle might have something going on while we were in town, so I found on the newspaper's website that there would be a Santa uptown from 5-7pm on Saturday (perfect!) and that you could choose to purchase professional photographs or could take your own. They didn't mention a price, so we figured it would be donation-based or free (it ended up being free).
We mentioned going to see Santa to Mom, and she told us that the Santa would be the same Santa that we went to see as kids! Pretty neat and nostalgic and full-circle and all of that. I've mixed in some pictures of me with him at 1 year old for comparison (thanks for sending them, Mom!). I don't look too traumatized in these--I know I have seen some of me screaming and trying to escape, so my fear of him must have come a few years later. :)
Me (1 year old) with Santa, Christmas 1981
Lewis (9 1/2 months old) with Santa, Christmas 2011
Not quite sure what to think!
I talked with him for a little bit and told him who we are (he knows my dad)--he said this is his 41st (I think...40-something) year of being Santa. Afterward, he offered Lewis a candy cane, and I told him thanks but that he was too young for candy. He then proceeded to straight-up Santa Guilt me into taking a candy cane--something like, "Ho, there, you're never too young for caaandy!" It was pretty funny--I did end up taking a candy cane and thanked him. I'm so glad we went.
Some more pictures from Christmas, 1981.
With big sister, Emily (making a very Juniper-like face, I might add)
(Em was almost 3 years old at the time.)
Trying to escape while Aunt Peggy looks on and smiles
One more post from our weekend to come when I get some more time--probably this evening.
We just spent the weekend at my parents' house--while we were there, we had set up a playdate with Dietgard and Mathilda, a trip to the Christmas tree lot to see Papaw, Lewis' first time meeting Santa Claus, and the Carter side's Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner.
I tried to pack some on Friday during naptime and caught Peter also napping. Here is how he sleeps these days, with one ear and one eye always open and on the lookout for either Lewis or Hattie. :) My sweet, sweet buddy.
We got into New Castle around noon on Saturday and Dietgard and Mathilda were there, ready to play! I was happy that Lewis and Mathilda were a pretty even match as far as size, weight, and assertiveness (not sure if that's the right word) goes. They played well together. Neither was too rough for the other--it worked out very well! And Mathilda was able to show Lew a few things that she is working on (she is 3 weeks older than Lewis).
Mathilda and Lewis making music on the xylophone
Here is a video I took of Lewis playing with it solo on Sunday--he eventually seemed to kind of 'get' what he was supposed to do. Emily gave us one that I've had put up in his toy box, but I guess it is time to break it out so our little music man can do his thing. :)
Mathilda is walking (!!!) and starting to show interest in climbing things. I think here she is thinking about showing Lewis how to scale the bookcases.
And after a diaper change, she escaped without her pants. :) Sneaky, sneaky.
"You put your hand up high, then hike up your leg, push up, and away you go..."
Mom and Dad have a rocking horse that makes horse noises and moves its head. Lew seems to like it, but he still needs some help staying on it (as evidenced by this next series of pictures)! At least he didn't have far to fall. :)
Ride 'em, cowboy!
Whee!!!
Hahaha to Lewis being mid-air and (moreso) to Kevin's expression.
After Lewis went to bed, we watched Crazy Stupid Love and were graced with Maggie's presence--she is such a sweet snugglebuddy.
She eventually moved from my side to Kevin's feet:
Queen
of the
House.
What a lover. :)
So that was Saturday, minus a few outings that get their own post!
Just after I posted the last post, Kevin called me down to the basement to see the improvements that Lewis had made with the walker just in the course of the day! Go, buddy, go!
In between Lewis-Does-the-Walker video attempts, I took some pictures of him monkeying around the basement:
:)
Big Belly. :)
Those bottom two rows of bookshelves used to house books--they've been temporarily moved up and out of reach.
Attempting to break the disc door on the Blu-ray player
(We have since hoisted it up on a big, hefty Bible, but he can still reach it with his fingertips, so we'll be figuring out another solution before long.)
This week, I've started tackling Christmas crafts during naptime when I can and during some evenings. My two main projects are stockings for the family (the three humans and two dogs) and part of Juniper's gift. I'm halfway through the human stockings and maybe 20% through Peter's and Hattie's. I have not yet started Juniper's, but I do have a vision (and online tutorial bookmarked) and did buy fabric! I have 25 days from today--go!
I still need to figure out the Christmas tree situation. We donated our old, ratty, artificial tree last year and went with a small, transplantable tabletop tree (and then planted it in the hard, frozen ground at Waycross which was probably [er, most definitely] an unsuccessful endeavor). I think tabletop is the way to go for us again this year, given Lewis' great curiosity. I did complete a small cross-stitched ornament for his 1st Christmas last week! It's a small framed Santa to which I added 'Lewis - 2011.'
Also, I've started looking around for the best prices on items on my Christmas shopping list (haven't bought anything yet). We went to Goodwill last weekend when Kevin was off and found an 80-piece set of Mega Bloks for $3. The same set is normally $20 at Target (they were down to $10 on Black Friday, but still not as awesome as $3). What a score! I just washed them last night and counted to see if all of the pieces were there--we ended up with 81 pieces instead of 80. Even better. :) I'm going to wrap them and give them to him for Christmas.
I few other small items in mind for him that I'm looking for at Goodwill and/or Target, and then Kevin came up with the idea of each of us secretly picking out a gift for Lewis and being surprised on Christmas Day, so we are going to do that to round out his gifts. We aren't doing gifts for each other this year except for a much-needed laptop. Ours has one broken hinge (from me dropping it off the couch--oops!) and the power cord is 'held in' with duct tape (and I say that very loosely because you have to manually find the sweet spot and hold it there in order to have constant power). And it drops the wireless signal like it's hot. It is time. I have had daydreams of going all Office Space on the old one. We'll see. (Might want to turn down the volume if you're easily offended by cuss words.)
I also bought another pull-toy (he really likes dragging around his Fisher Price phone)...this one is a Playskool dog whose legs move when pulled and who makes dog noises when you tug on the string. I had a little fun with Peter and Hattie the other day during lunch. Peter left the room once he saw/heard it, but Hattie stuck around--partly to examine the new toy but mainly because she didn't want to miss any Lewis Lunch Droppings (Cheerios, cheese, sweet potato, etc.)
