Shaving Cream Fun

When I was in grade school, we had spelling tests every week.  On Monday we would get the words, on Wednesday we would have a pre-test, and the real test was on Friday.  If you got 100% on the pre-test, then during the real test on Friday, you got to write the spelling words on your desk in shaving cream.  It. Was. Awesome.  Seriously one of the highlights of my young life.

The other day I remembered this awesomeness and decided that my little boy shouldn't have to wait for this joy.  So I got Mando's shaving cream out and let him smear it all over our glass coffee table (which, ironically, I have wanted to get rid of since the day Mando and I got married, but I keep finding uses for it.  It has truly become one of the most functional and oft used pieces of furniture we own... aaaand I still want to chuck it).

This is what the girls did while I tried to keep Nicholas from smearing the shaving cream on the couches.

I put buttons in the shaving cream and had him look for them.  The problem was that once he found one, he couldn't get it off his hands because it kept sticking to the mounds of shaving cream in his fingers.  Not as effective as I thought.

Shaving cream is actually a REALLY great messy toy because clean up is super easy.  If you have a towel in your hand, you can just wipe the shaving cream off of any surface and it doesn't really leave a spot or residue.  Then when we were all finished, I had Nicholas help wipe down the table with a washcloth, which was his favorite part, actually.

Attempted Backyard Family Pictures

Last Sunday I put the girls in matching outfits with little headbands...two things I did not think I would do to my little girls.  I got really tired of people asking if they were one girl and one boy.  

Anyway, everyone looked so darn cute that we thought we'd try to take some kid pictures out in the backyard after church.  Not so successful.  These are the best shots we got. 

But in between we got a whole lot of this:

And this:

And a whole bunch of this:

And here are some more of the girls.  Kate has the pink headband, Lauren has the yellow one.

While I was nursing

I spend a lot of time nursing these days.  I am not able to quickly move or get up and down easily while I'm nursing two babies.  When I nurse them one at a time I'm actually quite agile and able to move around a lot with a baby still latched on because I feel so unencumbered---funny how your perspective changes.  Anyway, because I spend so much time "being milked," Nicholas spends a lot of time relatively unsupervised.  I've become adept at recognizing the sounds of mischief.  Unfortunately, recognizing the sounds of a stool being pushed to the kitchen sink means nothing when I can't get up to stop him from climbing into the kitchen sink on top of all the dirty dishes.

Yesterday I knew he was up to something, but I wasn't sure what.  After a while he cried out, "Mom?"
"Yes, Nicholas?" I yelled back from the twins' room.
"I wa-go downdairs"
"Okay, that's a great idea!  You go on down, I'll be down in a second." (See why he told me "just a second" the other night??)
A few more minutes pass, and I can still hear him messing about in the kitchen/living room area.
"Mom? Mom?  I go down, pweese?"
"Yes, Nicholas, you can go down."
"Mom??"
"Yes?"
"Mom?"
"Yes, Nicholas, what do you need?"
"Mom, you come."
"I can't come downstairs with you right now; you go down and I'll be there in a minute."
"Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.... come, pweese?"
At this point I'm getting a little frustrated, but I am finished feeding the girls so I get up and head to the kitchen to see this:



Apparently, he was trying to see the "Puhkin" on top of the fridge.
"Has eyes, Mom!  Dere's nose, Mom!"  He said, excitedly pointing to the jack-o-lantern printed on one of my reusable shopping bags. (One that I actually need to return to my friend, whoops!)



He was saying, "Come, help me get down."  Everything is "downstairs" to him.

There were pushpins and tissues all over the counter and floor.  And he had taken all of the stickers off of the birdhouse that he made me for mother's day and put them in random places-- I'm still finding them in my drawers and cupboards.  Little stinker.

Mirror, mirror

The other night after dinner, Nicholas was playing with his cars in the living room while Mando and I sat at the dinner table picking at the leftovers and chatting.  Nicholas came over to the table and said something, but I couldn't quite make it out.  I guessed and said, "You want me to go downstairs with you?"  because that's what he wants 90% of the time.  To my surprise he said, "Uuuuuum, just one second, Mom."  Then he mimicked picking up a phone and putting it to his ear saying, "Hello?  Oh, hi!  How you?  okay, okay, mm-hmm,  I call you back later.  Bye, bye!"  Then he hung it up and said, "okay, mom.  I go dundairs with you now."  

It's sad when you get a glimpse of yourself in the "toddler-mirror."  

Nitchisms

Bummel-knee---
Nicholas: "Mom, mom, mom!  I seed big bummel-knee!"
Me: "A what?"
Nicholas:  "A big bummel-knee and a buffer-lie."
Me:  "OH! A big bumble bee and a butterfly?" wow!"

We realized today that the reason he likes Kate's name so much is because he actually thinks her name is Cake.  Today he said, "Hi, Cake!"  and I noticed the "k" sound instead of the "t" sound, so I said, "cake?"  To which he replied, "Yeah, torta!"  :)  (which means cake in spanish).  He must have always thought her name was cake, but he used to say cake with a "t".... "cate."  So we didn't notice the confusion until now.  Lauren is "Lolen."

mini model

He was born for catalog work... :)

Scotch tape and prayers

This is how we get our 2 year old to sit still for family prayer...

No judging.  Whatever works, right? :)  He actually really likes it and asks us to tape his arms for prayers.  

2 of a kind

Can you tell which is which?  :)