Day 2: Annabelle is driving me crazy

Day 2 of our Truth in the Tinsel project is going well. EC LOVED making the crown ornament today! She is a big fan of the hot glue gun and is pretty good at using it safely. No, the craft does not say to use a hot glue gun, but we thought the jewels would stick better.

Now if only I could teach AB how to climb safely. She is climbing on EVERYTHING and trying to sit on everything else. The girl is keeping me on my toes! I just thought she was falling a lot when learning to stand and walk. And who can forget when she climbed on the dishwasher door... speaking of, I just had to pause and run pick her up off the floor again. She fell while trying to put her cute little bottom in this chair.

And then sister had to have a picture in the chair too. Of course, she is showing off her "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Christmas socks".

Today we found our elf on the shelf, literally. He poured EC some cereal for her morning breakfast, but he spilled a little because the bag is so much bigger than he is =)

We also enjoyed "Weston's story time" this morning. On the way back EC asked, "Why is Weston's story time all about music?" =) She is so funny. This story time was not at a library, so the lady read books and played music for all the children to jump and dance. Then of course, we dropped by the bookstore on the way home.

Then we came home to a surprise from Grandma!

A Dora coloring/sticker book with glittery stickers!!!

And she practiced her name some more. She is obsessed with learning to write.

I think today's ornaments turned out quite beautiful!

EC is excited about making tomorrow's ornament with Daddy!!! LOVE the weekends =) 

Day 1: Truth in the Tinsel

We started our Truth in the Tinsel crafts and made a topper for our tree yesterday! 

I made it following this video on youtube. The instructions were okay. I did not measure out my ribbon like the lady did on the video and I kind of just winged it. But if you have no clue how to make a ribbon tree topper, the video will give you the jist.

You can see, our elf hiding in the tree. It didn't take EC very long to find him! He left our diningroom table askew when he climbed up to hang out with Larryboy - aka mommy moved the table to get a better picture of the tree!

EC loved our first craft/ornament that we made from Truth in the Tinsel! She didn't understand why we couldn't keep going and make day two as well. I'm not sure if she totally understood the idea behind the ornament, but we had fun and spent some time talking about Jesus. Here is a picture of the finished product. She loved cutting, gluing, and picking out which tissue paper to use. Of course, I had to cut out the inside around the candle.

On the tree it looks even better because she reversed the direction of the paper on each side. Clever girl! 

I'm so glad she is crafty! Sometimes I feel like the only things inhibiting our craftiness are lack of time and budget =)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Lane house!

Hi stranger! Long time no blog =) Well, we are starting our twenty-five days of Christmas, so I decided to get my blogging fingers ready! EC is so excited about Christmas this year! Watching her decorate Pop & Gran's tree on Saturday and then our tree on Sunday was just too much. She sang, "Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, your leaves are so unchanging" over and over. Everyone had to join in because it was too cute! We did have one ornament bite the dust at Pop and Gran's, so after that I knew she would not be handling my Radko ornaments =)

Here are few pictures of the cuties! (Yes these are already on FB)

I didn't get pictures of them decorating our tree this year. I decided to just enjoy it! But they did have a great time decorating with Pipo and daddy on Saturday! Gran and Pop just sat back and watched =) 

Here are a few shots of our tree tonight and some of my favorite ornaments.

This one is a family one from Gran. EC had a big time hiding little things in this ornament two years ago, so Gran let us keep it!

 My first Glory Haus ornament. I have two new favorites: "Daughter of the King" and "Jesus knows me, this I Love".

The ornament the adult choir in Hazlehurst gave me for singing their child solo when I was 10.

These are just a fun addition to the tree!

EC's first Radko from Oula.

Quite possible my favorite Radko ever.

EC's first Waterford from Pipo.

Our first Christmas/Waterford ornament.

And Edward the elf has joined our family this year. (That is his name for tonight at least!) And apparently he and LarryBoy go way back!

I'm not into the whole "convince your child to be good or nice so Santa will bring them gifts". We should teach our children to do what is right any way. But EC is really into hide and seek, so I think she will get a kick out of trying to find the elf every day! He may become part of our family Christmas tradition. And speaking of, have you checked out Truth in the Tinsel. Thanks to Jill, we will be starting this tomorrow! It is a cute crafty way to get your child familiar with the real Christmas story (for preschool age). For you super crafty and bible familiar folk, you could probably come up with this on your own. But for lazy folk like me, the download is only $5 and we have most of the crafting stuff on hand or something else that will do - who is really going to buy a pop-dot?

So, do you all have any cute family traditions? How do you or would you teach your child the real Christmas story?

It was a busy, fun day!

We had so much fun today! EC has not been into coloring much lately. She makes me color all the time. She makes her Sunday school teachers color and her dance teacher color, but she does not actually color her own pictures. Today I found her doing this:

This was kind of a big deal. Check out that two toned Boots! I was so proud! And I think she did a pretty good job trying to stay in the lines!

She also surprised me by doing connect the dots today. I printed a bunch of stuff from nickjr.com. She loved everything! She asked me if we could do more when we finished! Even after we did the chore charts!

She had such a great time and loves her new chore charts! Mommy thinks they are awesome too!!

We shared some carrots with AB and was kind of upset when AB took the fork with the carrots one time.

Then Weston and Kelly came over to play! EC was a little tired because she refused to sleep again. How a kid that tired can lay there and read books for two hours without falling asleep is beyond me.

I feel like she is saying, "Are you really going to take this shoe from me?"

Both girls are passed out now, thank goodness!! Goodnight everyone!

She always has a lot to say

EC woke up this morning and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Oh, we have to get ready for church. Daddy will you snuggle me just a minute?" Then it was, "I have to put on a beautiful dress and big girl panties!" She is all talk non stop from dawn till the wee hours of the night - when we let her stay up =)

There are times, when she is very tired, that EC just cannot quite find the words to say. It is so cute to listen to her stumble through something. It reminds me that she is still a little girl. She stumbled through her sentences a lot when her friend Kirsten came to play. Kirsten is 15 months older than EC. It was so much fun to listen to them talk about being princesses and pretend mommies. They even had a little "concert" with ballerina clothes.

Well, today was the first weekend we have attended our church since the children moved up to the next class. So they both had new teachers. EC didn't mind. She said hello to the kids and didn't even notice when we left. After church Bo picked her up and EC's teacher asked, "How old is Emma Catherine." Bo replyed that she is two and her birthday is in October. The teacher told him, yep that's what she told us too. She is just so tall and knows so many words!

Their are a few phrases she has picked up that I do not care to hear come out of her mouth like "I don't want to" and "I can't do it". We are working on them. I pull out the phrase my big sister taught me, "I can do hard things." So for every "I can't do it" that comes out of her little mouth, EC has to follow it up with "I can do hard things."

This afternoon EC was asking us if we had any ingredients as she pretended to cook. I need to thank Grandma Sandra for teaching her the word ingredients because she is always cooking for us and talking to EC! It is just so incredible what their little minds pick up! Incredible and challenging!

Does anyone have a clever response for her "I don't want to" phrase??

Kathy's visit and AB's first teeth

My sister Kathy and two of her children came to visit at the end of August! We missed Jim and Rachel, but I'm so excited that Rachel is drum major for her high school band and I understand how important her part in band camp is this year!

It was so nice to see Kathy, Robert and Caroline. Robert and Caroline were the babies of the family until Mark, Scott, and I started having little munchkins! So this trip was a little different for them because they were "the big kids" of the bunch. They went from being the babies,

to being the middle children and now they are "big kids". Wow how time flies!

I love how EC is trying to take care of Eden and Eric is climbing the couch in that picture! So funny! EC thought she was as big as Caroline! And she had the best time playing with her.

Caroline was such a doll and played just about everything EC wanted. EC was in HEAVEN!

Everyone enjoyed some time in the back yard!

Here they are soaked from running in the sprinklers!

And hanging out in pjs!

And just playing!

Cousins are fun!

And I do not have a picture, but AB cut two teeth! I notice the first one on Monday during her shot visit at the pediatrician's office and the second one on Wednesday. She also decided to climb a stair on the same day. She didn't cry or run any temp with the teething, but she was a little cranky and clingy during Kathy's visit the week before. We knew something was up!

Another funny thing during Kathy's visit was hearing EC say swagger wagon! Hilarious! Scott and Amelia finally broke down and purchased a minivan. Bo had not seen the swagger wagon you tube video, so we were talking about it and showing it to him. And we all know EC has to try out every new word she hears, so that was her new word/phrase of the week. Swagger wagon ;)