Little bookworm

Xander is obsessed with books at the moment... he'll spend ages turning the pages and exclaiming over everything in the book. He calls every book "goodbook"! One of his favourites is a book about birthdays that Grandma gave me when I was a teenager. It is full of very old fashioned pictures and quotes and recipes... not the sort of thing I'd normally choose for a toddler, but both JJ and X absolutely love it! Strange.

I love the 2nd pic - X adores his daddy and I don't get nearly enough pics of them together so it was nice to get a happy one today :)

We went on the train this morning to Mitchelton and shared a couple of milkshakes and a bowl of chips - JJ was beside herself with excitement!

A tough day today :(

Poor JoJo is pretty sick with a cold at the moment. J had to sleep in her room and she kept him awake most of the night, so he's really tired. I took X to church by myself and he had a great time "helping" with my sunday school class but then got knocked over by a swing afterwards and got a really nasty bruise and graze on his face. Poor little guy. Both kids have been amazingly happy today though, considering. JoJo was like a little ray of snotty sunshine and Xander must have ODed on cute pills because he was super happy (except in the pic where he doesn't want JJ to tickle him!).

Gingerbread painting

This pic is a couple of weeks old, but I've been meaning to post it, and I'm determined to try harder at this blogging bizzo, so here they are. We had some friends over to paint gingerbread men - a good time was had by all!

Yay for eating!!

I know that this probably doesn't seem very interesting to other people, but I'm SO excited about our successful breakfast time this morning! X will usually eat about a tablespoon of weetbix and then chuck a big wobbly and get food everywhere as he dodges the spoon and refuses to eat anything more, and JJ is willing enough to eat.... if we remind her to eat EVERY SINGLE MOUTHFUL. I could probably cope just fine if she was like that every once in a while - I could probably keep it together even if she did it once a day, but every mealtime? I'm LOSING MY MIND!! If I didn't keep at her and at her and at her, she would sit there until it was time for the next meal - without eating more than a couple of mouthfuls. Arghhh!!!

Anyway, I asked my prayer buddy at bible study to pray about it, and J and I had a talk about it last night, and we've come up with a plan... JJ has to eat 3 mouthfuls in a row without talking, putting her spoon down, singing, making up a bizarre story with whatever props happen to be on the table. When she has eaten the 3 mouthfuls, she can have a short conversation, then it's time for 3 mouthfuls again. I can't believe we didn't try this sooner! Anyway, breakfast was great today - JJ seems to really get what's going on, and she ate really really well. I didn't feel like I was nagging her, and it was so much less frustrating for me. Xander even ate 3/4 of a weetbix - I could have fallen off my chair! God is good! :)

It's funny how such small things can have such a big impact on how I feel about parenting!!

Here are a few pics I've taken over the last few months... the middle one is of the outfit JoJo wore to playgroup yesterday - very fetching! The 3rd is fairly self explanatory and the first one is JoJo playing with the rather *ahem* excessive number of easter eggs that I bought in the post easter sales. They were really cheap, AND they double as building blocks... what a bargain! See I DID need to buy 8!

Some recent customs :)

A few pics of some customs I've been working on lately. I'm really happy with the way the little cars turned out on the blue longies (there's one on the back too) - it was fun figuring out how to crochet them! The ladybug pants were great to make too... I enjoy thinking of a design and then making it happen. Hubby was out the night I embellished them and there was NOTHING worth watching on tv - it was nice to have something fun to do :)

I've also just done up a batch of tassel beanies for some friends' kids - they all seem to be having birthdays so it seemed like a good excuse!

How cute is this mop hat?!! A super wonderful friend minded my kids while I had a very productive trip to a couple of fabric stores to get the fabric. The shop with the lovely ribbon trim is closing *sniff* so it was reduced which made the buy / don't buy decision much easier! :D

I've since made a few more mop hats for friends and they were much quicker to make than this one (not that it was too hard!). I think JJ looks cute in it!