Month: November 2010

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 22, 2010

Well, the snow has finally come. Day after tomorrow is predicted to have a high of 13 degrees. bleh!! Sorry, but I just don’t like it much. (Except for the fact that I don’t have to shave my legs very often now.) SOOooo we’ve been playing inside most of the time! But we’re having fun.

Chase & Charlotte like to play with things that aren’t toys, especially kitchen things, and they use their imagination a lot. I think in the photo below they were floating on little boats in the ocean. They’re fun kids! Chase is a great older brother and he takes the lead with all their pretend play (usually “dogs” is what they like to play). I’m so glad they have each other!

Pilgrim headed toward Plymouth Rock, perhaps??

See that dented wood on the banister thing to the right of Chase? Well, he decided to pound it with a spoon, thus creating those marks. Yeah, we have one of THOSE crazy kid houses with dents and stains and such. I can’t quite keep up!

Charlotte has all of a sudden been pushing and hitting Chase for no apparent reason, so she’s been frequenting the time-out chair. (After committing the crime, she immediately shouts “Sah-ee!!” to apologize and try to get out of doing the time-out, but it doesn’t work that way.) It’s been going well, and Chase has been amused to find that sweet, innocent little sister has been visiting the infamous time-out chair! She didn’t have a naughty bone in her body ‘til about a week ago, but even so, she’s still quite the sweetie pie.

Charlotte really enjoys the song “No One” by Alicia Keys. She requests it quite often, including the other night on our way out to the car for our own little girls night (an Old Navy trip—she’s really fun to shop with!). So we often get to listen to “No One” over & over again in the car! I guess the simple lyrics are a hit with toddlers, because I remember Chase loving that song at about the same age. Even though Charlotte’s hitting the rambunctious age, I’m loving it because she can talk a lot more now and is more entertaining then ever. Smile

We need to break Charlotte of the binky soon, but I just love when she has it and she nuzzles her blankie under her nose. Binky + blankie = instant tranquilizers => bliss.

Health

MORE to worry about…

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 19, 2010

I like to know what is in the food my family is eating. Our modern foods kind of scare me. I’m not super informed about our foods, and I’m not a hardcore nutritionist by any means, but I am aware that so much of what we eat is full of pesticides, preservatives, and all sorts of nasty stuff. I do prefer to buy some organic foods. And I like to avoid partially hydrogenated oils because they fatten us up in a jiffy, but they also harm our bodies by not letting essential fatty acids through. Side note: You might be surprised to know that partially hydrogenated oils are found in a lot of snacks and foods that we eat and feed our kids all the time, like ALL PEANUT BUTTER that is not organic, baking mixes, margarine, some candy, hot cocoa mix, candy bars, crackers, graham crackers, rolls and breads, and LOTS of different snacks. And we’re generally consuming way too much sugar and sodium. But now, I am shocked to find that there’s something else that we need to avoid: LEAD!

http://www.inhabitots.com/2010/06/11/85-of-kids-drinks-snacks-could-contain-high-levels-of-lead/

Does anyone else feel a little bit stressed about what’s going on with our food? I think that all we can do is try to be selective about what we eat. I debate all the time about buying organic, or buying cheap. Because organic is NOT cheap. Lately we’ve spent more on groceries, but knowing that at least SOME of our food is free of hormones, preservatives, and pesticides makes me feel better.

This other subject comes to mind: There’s an unfortunate fact that incidents of autism have increased by over 600% in recent years (Pace and I watched an investigation of this specific issue). Some blame immunizations (and avoid them at all costs, which causes a resurfacing of diseases that we haven’t had to worry about in decades… But that’s another issue for another day…). However, study after study has shown that there’s absolutely no correlation between autism and immunizations/thimerosal (preservative in immunizations). Could it be something in our food, or something to do with modern technology, that is causing this shocking increase? I wonder about this. Any thoughts?

Family Fun

Creativity

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 17, 2010

I feel so glad that I finally cleaned up our “office room” closet. My friend Sarah, who is super organized, keeps everything in these nice, uniform bins. Her organization inspired me a little and I bought 3 bins at Wal-Mart. 🙂 I know, getting a little crazy, huh!!

I did some organizing during Charlotte’s nap. She usually only naps for one hour, and I used to feel so unproductive during that hour because I’d have to nap at the same time (due to my getting up with her during the night). Nowadays, she sometimes sleeps through the WHOLE night (I know, pretty awesome for a child who’s about to turn two. Ha!)… Or if she does wake up she only wakes once or twice. So I don’t have to take a nap very often, which is a relief because it’s a time when I can do things on my own. I’m SOOOO glad she sometimes sleeps through the night! Anyway…

It was time to get some things under control. The box below may not look organized, but oh, it is. I now have just this one box for all the kid craft items, so when they want to do anything artsy, we get out this box, and we make a big, creative mess of it all. (Thanks to my mom, it includes a fun assortment of Mrs. Grossman’s stickers that my kids love to use!)

A second box holds all our our paper, coloring books, and workbooks. It’s nice to have all of that in one place—it’s all so much easier to find!

Charlotte loves coloring, especially if I color with her. She constantly requests that I write a letter “A” on her paper. Maybe she wants to feel like a stellar student?? I’m glad she likes to color because then Chase will also color. He’s never been into coloring AT ALL. But when that’s what’s going on, he can’t help but join in the fun, if only for a minute or two. But he does enjoy doing a few pages in his workbooks, so there’s something for everyone in here.

I like seeing all the creations kids come up with on their own. Nothing super spectacular– Just cute! I especially love the little caterpillar family that Chase made (below).

Ranting Tech

3 Reasons you should never use facebook email

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 15, 2010

Hey there McBloggers, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you on today’s announcement from Facebook that they will be launching a communications suite. Soon, (maybe even today?) you could get your email from Facebook, such as mcblog@facebook.com. (Insert your pref instead of mcblog). Wow! Really my favorite social platform can also be my email provider!? Yes, and here are 3 reasons why that is terrifying:

YIKES people! I mean come on! It’s bad enough we let email systems scan email contents to display relevant ads, but now a company who has repeatedly, time after time, dropped the privacy ball. Not only have they dropped the ball but they are taken the ball and punted it away with the whole Beacon thing!? Facebook has taken a bull horn and yelled at me, “I don’t care about you or your data, I want MONEY!” So without going into extreme detail, please please think three or four times before you sign up to have Facebook have complete, unfiltered access to your communication content. And if you’d like a blanket recommendation to share with people, just say NO to facebook email accounts.

Charlotte McVideos

I unna see

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 10, 2010

Charlotte LOVES LOVES LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She will frequently try to sing the theme song (“Come Inside, it’s fun inside”) and will usually just go around saying “Mi Mouse… Hu House”. This video shows her Mi mouse huh house dance; oh and every time the camera comes out she wants to see what we’re filming.

Charlotte McVideos

He push ME

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 10, 2010

Charlotte has become very aware of when she gets touched at anytime by Chase, it then becomes pushing or hitting, something worthy of her repeating it many many times. We also got a cute one of her dancing… I’ll have to find where that one went.

Family Fun

Dinner Dynamics

Post author By McAdmin
Post date November 7, 2010

I just realized that I didn’t take any pictures last week, as far as I know. I just didn’t even think of it. So this week, I will work on catching a few photos! In the mean time, here are a couple of random photos from a couple weeks ago.

Sometimes we have to force these two kids to eat some dinner! And this is what it tends to look like. By the time I’ve accomplished the task of making dinner while also refereeing Chase & Charlotte’s play, I’m pooped. Luckily, Pace eats really quickly, so he then takes over the task of getting them to eat something while I chuckle at the sight of it all.

What does a person do? Maybe I should have them skip their afternoon snack so they’ll be practically starving by dinner time. THEN maybe they’d appreciate it!!!

One might think, “Well, obviously they’re just not hungry, so don’t make them eat.” But we usually start on the bedtime routine afterwards, and if they haven’t eaten much, they both cry and put on this big show about how hungry they are. And if they don’t eat anything by the time they go to bed, they wake up all night crying and asking for food (=punishment for the parents). Hm.

So that’s why we avoid all that drama and just force them to eat some dinner at dinner time! I know, perfect parenting skills at work around here…

Family Fun