Found

Sometimes I feel like I lose things in rapid succession. How can everything be missing at once? Its hard not to blame Henry when he has a talent for walking away with important things he shouldn't have. But this past week was a week of found objects, so much so that I am going to tell you about them.

Found: Money.
I went to renew with my credit card processing company for an upcoming craft show and I found a nice chunk of change in my account. Normally I only keep a balance big enough to cover the annual fee but I guess I forgot to transfer the money after my last craft show. It was a wonderful surprise. Cha-Ching!
Steve also found $1 on the ground in our parking lot.

Found: Clothing.
While doing a quick closet clean for Goodwill, I stumbled across two pairs of pants I completely forgot about shoved in the back. And not only did I find them, they actually fit.

Found: Wii Remote.
Henry loves playing with our Wii remotes. He is quite adept at changing/choosing shows and rewinding to rewatch his favorite parts over and over again. He likes to carry it around the house and much to our annoyance they often get lost. Well one got lost weeks ago and we could not find it anywhere. This week I decided it was time to organize the mountain of shoes thrown on the bottom of my closet and someone sneaky had hidden the wii remote in the mess.

Found: Entourage.
No, not the Jeremy Piven drama but a store here in Athens. If you know Athens, you know it lacks in shopping. One can't subsist on Target alone. I was looking for a gift and remembered a recommendation my friend Lillie gave me, so I checked it out. They have a great accessories section and most things are trendy but still affordably priced. I found what I was looking for plus a couple birthday gifts for myself.

Found: Video Camera.
Now we didn't lose our camera but we could never get it to work with our Mac computer. It worked well with Steve's laptop but since his laptop died, I haven't taken any videos thinking I wouldn't be able to access them. Well Steve saved the day and figured out how to finally connect our video camera to the Mac. So beware, lots of annoying videos to come!

Recent Fav: instagram style

I hope you guys realize what you mean to me. I ran out of space on blogger for photos and have been adding them all manually from flickr. Talk about a pain in the... I also realized I haven't shared any of these for over a month so some of these are old.

Babysitting night. They are so easy now that the kids are pretty much old enough to entertain themselves. Popcorn, milk and Aladdin help too.

Fireman pajamas require fireman hat.

We ventured to Funopolis for a little date night. Mini golf and mini bowling. I think I lost at both.

 

Steve is crazy good at those arcade games. I married a man with skills.

Super Henry!Yes, he insisted on wearing that sweatshirt out to run errands one day. Luckily the ladies at Joann's thought it was adorable.

Favorite lunch date to Sam's Club.

Lots of Halloween sticker friends to line up on Halloween!

 

We love Little People here in our house. The Nativity fits right alongside the train track and far. Oh and that is Batman giving a ride to a Wise Man and a Farmer.  

Santa Claus beard. Ho Ho Ho!

Handsome boy!

For some reason Henry loves to hold my hand by interdigitation. And I love the sparkly super hero cuff. Yes, I have since trimmed my nails. Yikes.

Circles

 

Guess who can now draw circles? Henry really enjoys coloring these days and is getting pretty good at circles. He is also starting to at least aim towards staying in the lines. 

Have a great weekend!

Zippy the Elf: Day 1-5

This year we are not traveling for the holidays! I am excited to spend Christmas in my own bed and in my own house. And while I am sad to not see any family this year, I am super excited to start making our own family memories and traditions. Elf on the Shelf was one of the things I wanted to do so I will be posting the actions of our elf over the course of the next month. 

I was hesitant to start this year as I didn't know if Henry would get it but man, I should not have doubted. After reading all about the elf in the story book, I just knew he would love it. So in case you don't know, every holiday season Santa sends an elf to watch you and see if you are naughty or nice. Each night, the elf magically travels back to Santa to report on your actions. He can't talk to you but he can listen. You also can't touch him or he loses his magical powers. On Christmas Eve he goes back to the North Pole for the rest of the year only to return again the next year.

Since Henry is still so young, I have been planning simple things and having our elf sit up high. I know he understands not touching something but I thought I wouldn't tempt him-not at least for the first few weeks. We've also been reading the story each night so he continues to be reminded about the whole concept. I have been browsing ideas online and on Pinterest. I had seen people who wrap one book/movie/activity for each night in December for their kids to open and I wanted to do that too. Well instead of doing that, I'm combining them and our Elf is going to bring us Christmas books, make us popcorn to eat while watching movies and bring us crafty things to do.

 

Day 1: Our elf appeared tangled up in the Christmas decorations. Henry immediately found him and was delighted. Our first task was to give him a name. Names as submitted for voting: Henry-Arnold, Beckie-Zippy, Steve-Fizzy. Zippy was chosen by Henry. So Zippy it is. 

 

 

Day 2: Zippy returns and perches in a wreath. He brought along a note written on festive paper I colored. Note Says, "Henry, I'm excited to be your elf. We're going to have a fun Christmas together. I love my name too. Remember to be a good boy. -Zippy P.S. Enjoy this treat from me." Attached was a sucker. Again, Henry's face lit up when he found Zippy just sitting there.  

 

Day 3: Snip, snip. Someone was up late watching Harry Potter and cutting snowflakes. Complete with clippings on the floor. Zippy is so messy! Pinterest is a great resource for snowflake template/ideas. I just folded squares of computer paper into the wedges and free handed the templates on them before cutting. I am pretty proud of this one. 

 

Day 4: Taking it easy just sitting on a bird. I wanted to mix in simple ones with complex ones with treat/gift ones. That way expectations aren't always high. 

 

Day 5: Paper chain necklace. Zippy made a mini chain and left the supplies to make a paper chain counting down the days to Christmas. Henry loved making the paper chain and I'm crossing my fingers he doesn't rip it apart in a couple of days. He did insist on hanging it in his room...

Stay Tuned for more Zippy...

P.S. Henry is so crafty he even insists that Zippy likes to watch tv and that he should get a turn picking a show to watch. So after Mommy gets a turn and then Henry gets a turn, Zippy should get a turn. Guess what Zippy always wants to watch? Yo Gabba Gabba. Hilarious.

When your friend moves away...

Recently one of Henry's little friends moved away. We have really missed Lyla and her mom! Since Henry is almost three, I figured it would be best to just tell him the truth about the sudden absence of his friend. I didn't think lying about her going on a trip would be beneficial or any other such excuse.

So I made a plan. We planned an FHE about friends moving. I went to the library and had the librarian help me find a couple of stories about the topic and then I got out a map of the USA. We started by showing him where he lived, in Georgia and also other places he had been like Utah, California-where Mickey Mouse lives, Washington and Arizona. We moved a little person around to all the places. He chose the fireman to represent himself. We then placed him in Georgia and talked about how Henry has lots of friends here. We put a couple of little people on the map to represent Henry, Lyla and Maya (one of his other friends).

 

Then we had Lyla move away to Utah on the map. 

 

We noted that Henry still had Maya in Georgia with him.  For awhile he kept moving Lyla back to Georgia but we kept explaining that she lived in Utah now. He was sad that evening but now he understands better.

Then we read the stories from the library. I didn't like a couple of them but we enjoyed Toby and the Snowflakes by Julie Halpern.

After the story we drew Lyla a picture and wrote her a note, they are going to be pen pals. 

These things seemed to help him and it has taken a couple of weeks but I think he truly understands that Lyla is gone. She did answer his letter and he LOVED getting something in the mail just for him. Now when he talks about his friends he still mentions Lyla but he often follows it with how she "walked" to Utah. 

Happy Thanksgiving

A couple of days late but better than never, right?

With the rush of Halloween-it being the first holiday of the season-and then the burn out of holiday activities combined with the anticipation of Christmas, I kind of feel like Thanksgiving is the middle child. I spent so much time and energy making Halloween special for Henry that by the time Thanksgiving came around, I was done. 

We have a couple of traditions though that we do each year.

1. We make a "I'm Thankful for..." poster. We had a special FHE about being grateful for our blessings and then we started listing on this big piece of paper what we are thankful for. We tape it up and for the next few weeks we jot down our ideas. Henry actually seemed to understand it this year and here are the things that he was grateful for:

crayons, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, water, Mommy, Daddy, letters, stickers, pirates

Sometimes he would say funny things too like he was thankful for "W."

2. We watch all the Thanksgiving episodes from Friends. 

We had a nice day with a big dinner hosted by our friends the Gardner's. We brought homemade rolls and homemade stuffing. After overeating, we headed home to recover and that night I braved Walmart to replace our broken Wii. They actually had everything well organized and except for one fight at the Xbox games between a mass of football player sized men, it was pretty civil. I was home by 8:20 to eat another piece of pie and relax. 

Happy Monday! I hope that you are being as productive as I am.

Gallegos Family Pictures

 When my Grandpa passed away earlier this year, my mom inherited boxes and misc albums of family photos. She meticulously scanned, edited and compiled all of them for the family. A couple of months ago I received a disc of over 400 pictures of my Dad's family. Well I finally got around to looking at it and thought I would share some of my favorites.

 

 My Grandma Anna

 My Grandma Anna when she worked on fighter planes during WWII

 My Dad at two, I see a lot of Henry in him. In fact, Henry thought this was a picture of him.

 Some family vacation to northern California, my dad is on the left. I think my brother Micah looks a lot like him. I just love this picture, there is something so nostalgic about a family road trip vacation from the 1960's.

 Here I think my Dad and Uncle Marc were flying to Great Britain. My Dad is on the left. I LOVE my Grandma's hair and suit in this picture. She is wearing gloves at the airport!

My Dad worked for the LAPD and here he is in his uniform. It looks brand new.

I'm so grateful for my mom and all her hard work!