Happy Birthday Dad!

When I was thinking about the Happy Birthday post for my Dad this year, I knew exactly which picture I wanted to use.

It was the one of Dad and Kiera doing fist bumps over Christmas.

Cutest thing EVAH.

Unfortunately, after sifting through every single photo I have of the trip (and those of my siblings) it would appear that the only photo I actually took of Dad and Kiera doing fist bumps this Christmas was in my head.

Fortunately, I have one or two other photos of Dad that I like from this past year.

It took a lot of work and patience for Kiera to FINALLY hold Colonel's hand! 

Fortunately, when he visited us a few weeks later, she was very happy to hold his hand!

Someone needs to teach this kid rule number 1!
Hydrate?
No, the OLD rule number 1. 

Happy Birthday Dad.  I love you.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Following last year's successful Valentine's, this year I decided to get even more creative.

We no longer let Asher eat artificial coloring, so it would be cruel to tempt him with those adorable red heart lollipops.  After my dismay at the sheer volume of candy he received last Valentine's day, I decided I would no longer contribute to the problem.  But I still wanted the magic of last year's photo Valentine.

My solution.

Behold - Pencil holding Valentine's!

I had the kids hold a wooden stake that was outside the construction site at our neighborhood pool, and then "transformed" it into a pencil that they were using to write their friends a Valentine's day message.

Get it?  Get it?

Honestly, it didn't turn out quite as brilliant as I planned it in my mind.  I couldn't find a font that looked like handwriting, and it turns out pencils are a fair bit bulkier than lollipop stems - they bend the photo more and they look quite a bit thicker than the stick the kids are holding.

But all in all, I think they turned out okay.

Constructing them took a little longer this year since Deenesh helpfully suggested that Asher would probably love to help assemble them.  And Asher did love it.  I a little less so since Asher wasn't content to just use the little slider to cut the photos in half and instead was desperate to get to use the razor to make the pencil holes.  (Thankfully I had only pulled out a scrapbooking cutter with a teeny tiny blade about 1mm deep.  I can only imagine if I had pulled out the real razor).

*sigh*  Good bonding, right?

Happy Birthday Tara

Art

The other day I pulled some of Kiera's artwork from her schoolbag, and she saw it and came running over yelling "Art!  Art!"  She was just so happy to see her "art"

Meanwhile, Asher has recently taken quite a leap forward in his art. For quite sometime we have mainly gotten scribbles which he says are "roller coasters"

Then the other day he came home with this -

He was SO excited to show it to me.  It was the first time he had drawn a heart and he was so excited about it!  (I was also excited about the smiley face sun).

The next day - he drew a couple more :)

And it's just gotten better.  Here's his grass, tree, smiley face sun, and (very large) bird.

 And here's his grass, giraffe, tree, (brown) rain clouds, and sticker person.

I tell you, we are experiencing a Renaissance over here.  And I am loving it!

Pichy!

Kiera is very into the camera these days.  As soon as she sees it she comes running to us, yelling "pichy!  pichy!" (for picture) and then she takes the camera away from us, usually to take "pichies" of her "Ash-ar!"

She gets very excited to look at the screen and then at the person and point back and forth to let you know that they are the SAME person.

Over Christmas I put some magnets on the refrigerator that were photos of the kids.  She would take Asher's off the  refrigerator and take it to him yelling "Ash-ar!  Ash-ar!"

In a similar vein, her favorite bedtime books right now are the family photo books (such as "Asher becomes a big brother" and "Everybody Sleeps").  She calls them her Asher books - even though she does seem to finally understand that the baby in the books is her.

The other day she found a photo that I had printed out for Deenesh's office, and it contained something that she loved as much has having a "pichy" of her brother.

What.  Herself?  Please.  Look Closer.

Taggies.

She carefully spread out taggies and would lovingly lay the photo on top of taggies.

 The photo is now crumpled and worn.  Much like the actual taggies.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful Mom.  I wish we could be with you to help you celebrate your special day, I guess we will just have to be with you in spirit!

Have a wonderful day and we look forward to a birthday do-over when you return!