A Crafty Thanksgiving Continued

Crafty Thanksgiving Day 2:

We made pictures of the Mayflower crossing the ocean - the kids' handprints were the ship and we glued on sails, painted the ocean and sky, and added cotton ball clouds and glittery suns.



Crafty Thanksgiving Day 3:
We made dough and formed it into Plymouth Rock cookies, imprinting 1620 on them to signify the year the Pilgrims landed. We read Psalm 100 aloud together, just like the pilgrims did when they saw land.

BB's rocks were a little flat




Forming our Plymouth rocks


Ready for the oven

While the Plymouth Rock cookies were baking and then cooling, we made Native American headdresses and talked about Squanto, who cousin B was learning about it school, who interpreted between the pilgrims and other Native Americans. I tried to really emphasize how the Native Americans helped the pilgrims in their unexpected circumstances and that helping people in need and being thankful for help received is part of what we celebrate at Thanksgiving. While I do think that Thanksgiving's origins are surrounded by complex issues in our nation's history ("Hey, I discovered your front porch, and it's mine now!", as J says), I think the "helping people in need" and "gratefulness" lessons are good ones we can pull out for the toddler-preschool-elementary set.


My new favorite picture, modeling our headresses (I'm wearing SS's)




Crafty Thanksgiving Day #4:

We put the glaze on our Plymouth Rock cookies. We had fun making the glaze gray using red, blue, and green food coloring.





One of the finished products

Of course, then we had to eat some of the cookies. Once the kids finished their cookies (I tasted them, they were kind of okay, kind of grossly sweet with the glaze), then we talked about how the Native Americans taught the pilgrims to farm the new land and also to fish in order to get food, and we made fish using toilet paper rolls for the body, buttons for scales, and tissue paper for tails. BB decided to do his crafts in his duck costume wearing his Auntie's sunglasses - with his headdress on, it was a pretty entertaining look.





Once we were done with our fish, I of course forced the kids to line up for a photo shoot with their Mayflower paintings, headdresses, and fish.

Smiles from SS!!
SS is holding BB's fish, so you can get a better idea of what the fish looked like.

We have one more craft to go, which we are going to do on Thanksgiving day, and if you think of what obvious Thanksgiving-y thing you haven't seen yet, you can probably guess what the craft is making...gobble gobble.

Happy almost-Thanksgiving! I'm getting ready to make my grandma's cranberry salad, Memaw's (candied) yams (it's my friend's Memaw, I just got the recipe from her), and corn pudding - those are my Thanksgiving-dinner contributions. What are you guys making?

A Crafty Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a week away - how did that happen?

Inspired by this post on Passionate Homemaking in the beginning of November, I decided that I wanted to craft our way through the Thanksgiving story with BB and his cousins. I thought it would be a way for BB to start learning about the (albeit controversial) origins of Thanksgiving, get into the holiday spirit (because usually the holidays all sneak up on me and then they're instantly over and I'm left wistfully wishing I had done more to enjoy the season), spend time with my nieces, and also could be something the kids could all present at our big Thanksgiving family dinner. (As a kid, my cousin Jacqui and I did innumerable amounts of performances for our parents - we thought it was the most fun ever to make costumes, write a "script", and block it all out. Often our performances included musical numbers. I have been really excited for BB and my nieces to "present" the story of the first Thanksgiving at dinner using all of their crafts and I think it might be because now I can perform once again, just vicariously through them. I mean, I guess I could do it myself, but, I don't know, I guess some people might think a grown woman donning a paper pilgrim bonnet and displaying paper-bag-turkeys and cookies shaped like Plymouth Rock is weird. I guess. I'll let the kids do this one. Anyway,)

I am mainly just following along this blog's crafts.

http://frymanfour.blogspot.com/2010/11/story-of-thanksgiving-in-crafts.html

Except for the first one - instead of just coloring pictures of pilgrims and gluing them to popsicle sticks, we made pilgrim hats and bonnets, which I found tutorials to here and here.

Of course, since the BB's cousins both chose to make bonnets and not hats, BB wanted to make a bonnet too, just like his cousins, but you know, you have to put your foot down sometimes. I mean, he wears my high heels around and is no stranger to B and K's pink toys, but a bonnet? Nope. So I made him do the "boy" thing and make a pilgrim hat. And of course we had to make one for SS too.

The hats

The bonnets


Auntie Seen told BB, "Make a pilgrim face!" and this is what he did. What does that even mean?


The littlest pilgrim

And I haven't forgotten about or bypassed Halloween, I have all kinds of posts and photos in the works, but in the interest of staying seasonal, I wanted to get this posted!

Always Be

There is a combined sense of joy and wistfulness that comes with knowing that I am actively living the happiest days of my life. I am instantly nostalgic for moments as they happen and pass. First smiles. The edge of laughter. Licks with kisses. Tiny hands holding each other. W's and b's instead of l's and g's. Uninhibited dancing. I am pressing these things into my mind, willing them to always be.

3 months

2 years & 5 months

Aren't these the most beautiful sets of lips you've ever seen?

Three Months

SS turned three months old in Washington state, taking his first airplane ride to visit his aunt and uncle and cousins, where we celebrating Fall and Halloween. More on that later.

At three months old,

SS is sleeping through the night consistently. He started doing this consistently at 11 weeks old, and J and I are very happy and relieved to be getting full nights sleep once again.

He has developed a little bald spot on the back of his head, just like BB had.

SS is sooooo smiley and coo-ey. When he smiles he moves his head back and forth like the smile is just bursting out of him and flowing through his whole body, it's so enthusiastic.

He had his first cold this past month - it was so sad to hear him sneeze and cough. His own coughing startled him.

SS is starting to use his hands more - he is playing with a little ducky toy hanging on his bouncy seat, and will bat at it, and he seems to like holding our hands. He also reaches up to his pacifier.

He loves his yellow light-up sun, and smiles at it while he lays on the playmat. He also smiles at the ducky toy.

SS is starting to laugh - he laughed at his Auntie Seen at Apple Annie's, and has since tried to laugh at Mama a couple of times.

When J's Grandma Kaye came to meet SS, he fell asleep in her arms and while he slept we saw him make a sucking movement with his mouth. We've seen him do it a couple other times now and we're thinking we might have another tongue-sucker, just like BB!

SS rolled over for the first time in Washington on Halloween night - apparently all that trick or treating got him excited! (Or maybe he snuck some of BB's candy?) He was laying on the ottoman with his auntie, doing some tummy time, and he rolled himself right over. We saw him getting into position, and I grabbed the camera and was even able to get it on video!

Mama went back to work - we are very blessed that Daddy is on duty while I go to work just one day a week. (Work went good - sweet patients, learning the new computer system with help from my co-workers, and I was able to pump, and SS was happy with his Daddy).


SS showing his support for Mama by wearing his scrubs on Mama's first day back at work

Strengthening those neck muscles with some tummy time at about 2 1/2 months

Just a couple of weeks after the picture above - his neck is getting really strong and he had good head control now, just a little bobbly now and then.
This was taken right after he rolled over!


Smiles!! (It's tough to get a good smiling picture because I can't see where I'm pointing the camera when I'm talking to him to make him smile! But this will do.)


Meeting and visiting with great-Grandma Kaye


Sleeperin'

Happy 3 months Boo-boo! We love you!

Apple Annie's

This year we decided to check out Apple Annie's Orchard in Willcox, about an hour and a half away, where in addition to the apple orchard there is a pumpkin patch, corn fields and other produce, as well as an advertised "Fall Pumpkin Celebration". While the "Celebration" left something to be desired, J's whole family went together and we made a celebration of our own!

We all decided to meet at the orchard at 8:30 am, when the pancake breakfast at the orchard opened. This meant we all needed to leave Tucson between 6:30 and 7, and unbelievably, we were all on time. More than on time, we were a few minutes early, and pulled in like a caravan - J and I parked, and saw J's older sister's family and then his younger sister pull in and park right in a row next to us, and we hadn't even seen each other on the drive! For a family in which tardiness is practically part of the genetic code (and I can say that because I fit right in!), this sparked a lot of amazement and laughter.

Our day at the orchard started with a pumpkin pancake breakfast at the apple orchard - they served apple cider syrup with the pancakes and it was delicious enough that I keep thinking we need to drive back to Willcox just to buy some. No other reason necessary. We ate at picnic tables in the trees, and it was lovely.


I was simultaneously nursing SS and taking this picture.



My cowboy

After breakfast, we headed into the orchard, where we spent the next couple of hours searching for apples - due to a big freeze, their crop wasn't very good this year (for apples and other produce) which was a bummer for the produce shopping, but gave us a fun challenge in trying to spot the few good apples still in the trees. We threw the rotten apples lying on the ground, and the boys played lacrosse with their apple-getting-stick-tools (those things must have a real name, but I have no idea what it is).






Running




The "lacrosse" I mentioned. Matt and J discovered this, and then of course J had to teach BB


Serene found a beehive


Here she is showing it to BB


The whole family apple-hunting and fetching


More apple fetching


Swinging with Daddy and Nacky





Me and SS getting in on the fun

Shortly after these pics were taken, I felt like SS had peed through his diaper onto me so it was time for a diaper change and a trip to the bathroom for Mama. We plopped SS right down in the apple cart, and J and his mom took over while I went to wash the pee out of my shirt. It turned out to be a good diaper change to miss, from what I was told :)


How do you like them apples?



After we were fresh and clean again (turned out SS hadn't leaked, I had just felt the warmth from the full diaper, score), we snapped this picture. SS started getting really fussy. We realized the rest of the family had disappeared. We decided to go find everyone else. SS continued fussing. We realized he had been perfectly happy in the apple cart. So we put him back, as an experiment. No fussing. Picked him back up, crabby baby. So back in the apple cart he went, and that's how he rode around the orchard while we searched for our family.


Loving being pulled in the apple wagon

Turns out the rest of the fam had found a donkey and were trying to feed him apples! We were reading a Christmas book a few days ago, and BB saw the donkey, which he usually calls a horse, and he said, "Donkey....donkey eat apples," and it took me a minute to realize that he was remembering the orchard donkey!

After we had our fill of the orchard, we bought our apples, I bought a freshly-baked apple crumb pie from the shop, and then we drove down the bumpy dirt rode a few miles to the produce and pumpkin farm. The advertised "kids area" was pretty sparse, but BB didn't notice because he was fully engrossed with the one attraction - bins full of corn kernels for the kids to play in.




I heard his Nacky picked him up by his feet after this and kernels poured from his pockets.
I found corn kernels in his diaper later that day.
(Those pictures were courtesy of Nacky, since SS was eating his lunch with mama in the (air-conditioned) car - did I mention the temperature got up to the 90s?)


BB climbed all over this pumpkin display




All boy


Like father, like son

The Produce and Pumpkin farm also had a hayride to the pumpkin patch and a corn maze, but by this time we were ready to pick our pumpkins and get out of town. We camped out at a picnic table while BB climbed on the pumpkin display, enjoyed some shaved ice courtesy of J's dad (root beer flavored, yum), fought off the many fearless bees that wanted to share our shaved ice - J's dad sustained a sting on the elbow, and then J was convinced he got stung on the tongue when he took a big bite of the shaved ice and then got a weird stinging sensation. I couldn't really see anything on his tongue other than a little redness, but we all remember J's last episode of pumpkin-patch-induced-hypochondria. :) Just kidding. J is actually the one who remembered that, when we were driving home discussing the possible-tongue-bee-sting.

Anyway, once we were done with the roasted corn, shaved ice, and bee-swatting, we skipped the hayride in favor of just hiking out into the patch. BB picked a big orange pumpkin and a little white one, and the we headed home with some apple butter.

Of course, you know we snuck in some family photos along the way - I just saved them for last:


Decked out in plaid and boots with SS in overalls for a day at the farm


Our family of four in the apple orchard

BB adores his cousins and auntie and uncle, and often when I ask him what he dreamed about, he lists off "Bewel, Tada, Auntie Seen, and Mattttt." Uncle Matt taught BB how to flip on his cowboy hat fancily when we got to Apple Annie's, which BB turned into more of a hat spin on his head trick.




J's sister's beautiful family,
taken after our pancake breakfast


Cousins in the apple cart

Papa and Nacky with all of their grandkids

(Somehow Shawna escaped the family portraits, but you can find her in the group shots!)

Sleep-playing?

So today BB was mid-nap and he started crying, which happens sometimes if he has a bad dream. I went into his room and found him sitting in a fabric bin that he likes to play in, sleepy and crying. His hamper was out and the dirty clothes were emptied onto the floor, which is something else he likes to do when he's playing. When I walked in, he stood up in the fabric bin and reached for me; I didn't know why he was crying and since it looked like he'd been playing, I asked him if he hurt himself. He said "Yeah" but looked so sleepy, I laid him back down and he went right back to sleep, just like he does when he wakes up crying during a nap.

I mean, I've heard of sleep-walking, but sleep-playing? Too funny!

After posting this on facebook, my brother-in-law reminded me that my niece Aubrey has done similar things, and then BB's auntie (J's sister) told me that both her and my niece Belle have also sleep-played - who knew? With all of this sleep activity on both sides of the family tree, I guess it was only a matter of time before BB joined in on the fun.