Channeling her inner Gus....

I guess the fact that we named her Augusta, after my paternal grandmother, is not lost on Gracie. Background info: Maw Maw Gus might possibly have been the cleanest woman on the planet. She cleaned everything. All the time. With Clorox. She mopped the cement... outside... with Clorox. She mopped the carpet with Clorox. If you stood still long enough, she'd clean you with Clorox. Grace does not have any loving feelings toward Clorox just yet. However, little sister does like to help keep things tidy. She likes to wipe down her little table, sort and rotate laundry, throw away the trash, and take off and put away her shoes when she walks in the house (which she does with more consistency and accuracy than her almost 5 year old brother). She also cries on the nights when we skip baths. Maw Maw would be so proud.

Lately her favorite chore is cleaning up her dishes. I was in another room when I heard her scraping her little chair across the kitchen floor. I wanted to get the camera out just in case she was up to something goofy, and by the time I did, she was almost to her final destination. Almost. My word, it was quite the process just to get that little bowl in the sink. I love how she stopped to fix the rug after she messed it up (another classic Gus move). I love how she pronounced that she was doing it because she was "All Done". I love how her lazy brother ran into the shot in the middle and put his bowl on the island, because it would have been too much of a trek for him to walk the extra 3 1/2 feet to the sink. (Then, for an added bonus, he announced that he tooted.) Mainly, I just love that they are both mine and that I spend so much of my day giggling at their little personalities.

Grace says Grace

At Ben & Grace's Mother's Day Out, the kiddos say a little blessing before their snack time. "ABC... 123... thank you, God, for feeding me. Amen."

Ben's had it down pat forever, but here is Gracie getting up to speed:

Crafty Christmas

I had so much fun making a bunch of our Christmas gifts this year. It all started with the Sew Mama Sew blog and a link for making "baby legs".

So, for Grace and Addison I turned some of these (knee socks from Target):

Into these:

Couldn't stop there, so dresses with matching bows were next.

One for Gracie:

One for Addison:

The matching bows:

And one for Gracie's baby doll:

I also made some Christmas Countdown blocks for Ben. These are not them, because I forgot to take a picture and they are already packed away, but this is the picture of the tutorial from the Little Birdie Secrets blog. My paper was different... more Christmas-y... but you get the idea.
What to do for the ladies that were over 2 years old?

Tote bags!

From left to right, we have Dee, Holly, Mom, and Jess.

Diane's was already in the mail for her December 11th birthday. :)

And what good are fun gifts without fun gift tags... so I made these to match the cute wrapping paper I picked up at Hobby Lobby (50% off - woo to the hoo!).

It was a fun season of creating and giving some hand-made items.

I hope everyone enjoyed receiving them as much as I enjoyed making them!

And as an added bonus, seeing me hard at work using a borrowed sewing machine inspired Brian to get me one of my own! Merry Christmas to me! Thanks, Babe!

"First I drew the head and eyes and mouth."

This is definitely my favorite Ben moment from the past few months, if not ever. It is a miracle that I could stop laughing long enough to get the camera and make him explain it to me again. My words can't do this justice... the video will speak for itself.

Also, it is important for me to mention that this is a drawing of a man. A male zoo keeper, to be exact. He later added a turtle. The turtle (thankfully) did not have nipples.

Frito Pie Fright Night, take 2!

Last year’s frito pie potluck was such a success that we decided to do it again. This year, the Sullivan’s hosted the festivities. The kids had an AWESOME time! Ben wanted to be “Tiny” from Dinosaur Train. I found his costume online, and then I made Gracie’s to match. She’s an almost hatched “Shiny”.

My favorite part of her costume is the little bow on the top of her egg shell hat!

Another fun part of the night was the news we shared. The Dinosaur Train theme song said it best:

“Once upon a time there was a Mom, her name was Mrs. Pteranodon. Sitting on her nest she heard a scratch and said, “Oh boy my eggs are hatching!” One by one, the kids popped free… baby pteranodons one, two, THREE!

That’s right! The 5th member of our family is due to arrive in April of 2011. We are SOOO excited!

Ben’s and his best bud, Buzz Lightyear (also known as Tanner).

Getting things started… Gracie wasn’t too sure about this trick-or-treating thing.

She soon got the hang of it.

She held her own with the big kids!

Get candy, get candy, get candy!

Break time!

It was a little on the warm side (that’s Texas for you), so by the end of the night, Gracie decided on a costume change. Here she is up to a little “Risky Business”.

What a fun night!!! Thank you to the Sullivan family for hosting!

Grace versus Goat

One of Ben's favorite things at our zoo is the petting zoo. I use the term petting zoo loosely, as it only has a small herd of goats. Regardless, it's always been a fun activity to visit their corral where you can pet them, brush them, and feed them. The goats have always been perfectly pleasant. I have proof, I swear.

See... here you go... what a sweet goat that little 8 month old Ben is petting.

And here we are again... NICE goat. And again, a year and a half later... "How are you, Mr. Calm, Relaxed Goat?"

Well, our opinion of the zoo goats has now been tainted. We were there this past weekend for a birthday party, and I took Ben and Grace into the petting zoo area. Ben took off to say hi to the goats, while I put Grace down to walk around in an uncrowded area. She took about three steps before two goats decided that they were going to spar. It happened so fast. One minute we were walking around by ourselves, the next minute Grace was plowed over by two crazed goats. I mean PLOWED. She landed face down in the gravel and slid across the ground like she was sliding into home plate. She was covered in dirt and grime.... even in her mouth, poor baby. (I'm not even going to begin to think about the yuckiness that was the dirt & gravel in the goat area.) When I got her all cleaned up, I saw that she was going to have a nice little shiner and some scrapes to go with it. She cried hard for a minute or two, but she got over it fairly quickly. We went straight from there to the party area for cake and ice cream, and that went a LONG way to smooth things over.

Here she is with her goat injuries...

We'll probably be avoiding the goat petting area (aka war zone) for a while. We'll stick to petting Army... he's the same size and color, and he can be counted on to never go faster than 1 mile per hour.

The (Asian) Artist

Ben wanted to show off (especially for Grammy & Grandad)

using his new easel and paints!

Here he is showing off his fancy smock...

It fits great!

Working on his first painting.
Using ALL the colors and doing a great job! The finished project. It's a tree (bottom left) and a bunch of birds, for those of you without an eye for art. ;)

You know it wouldn't be a Ben activity if there wasn't a humorous anecdote to tell. When he finished painting, he told me that he had painted it for our friend Drew. (This normally wouldn't be relevant information, but Drew is Asian). I reminded him that Drew and Jamie had just moved away (Jamie is an Air Force doctor - we were sad to see them go!) He thought for a second and said, "Well, then I'll give it to Mr. Ikki." (Ikki is our neighbor from across the street, and happens to be the only other Asian that Ben knows personally.) Apparently, it was VERY important to Ben that the recipient of his work be of Asian descent. I have NO IDEA how this child's mind works, but he cracks me up!