Grocery Shopping Can be Fun!

 During Christmas break, I took my camera to the grocery store.  The kids we so cute!  They usually are not too excited to let me photograph them, but they were all for this.  I did let them choose things that I would normally have not gotten for them.....For instance, they each got to choose a box of cereal when usually we only get 1 box.  I don't like to have more than a couple of boxes at home at a time, but this was worth taking up a couple of more boxes worth of shelf space.

They almost always get to pick out a fruit for a snack though so that was nothing new.

 We don't buy eggs at the store, but I had Avery check to see if they were cracked just because i wanted to take a picture of him.

 Is Avery looking to see if that can is full of all natural ingredients?

 We look at the fish almost every time we go to the store.

PLEASE! NO MORE PICTURES!

Earrings for My Big Girl

 

Natalie has been talking about girls in her class at school who have pierced ears lately.  I asked her if she thought she wanted hers pierced.  Of course she said she did, but I don't think she realized at the time that it hurts.   I explained to her that it hurts a lot and showed her how the post goes into a hole in your ear.  I have my ears pierced and I showed her the post and how i put earrings on and how the back keeps them from falling out.  She said she still wanted them done even thought they poke a hole in your ear and it hurts a lot.  

I took her to pick out a starter pair, but I did not have my camera, so of course we could not really do it.  then I took her a couple of days later, but they said they only had 1 person there to do it.  With little kids they only do it with 2 people because after the first one the child does not let them do the second one.  With 2 people they can do both ears at the same time.  Third time's a charm.  We got there and she was all ready to go.  There were 2 people there to do the piercing and I had my camera.  As it was getting closer I could tell she was getting more and more nervous. She was not really letting them see both of her ears at the same time, so while I was holding her hands I was also holding her head straight.  I don't think she expected it to hurt so much because she was crying so sadly.  It was like she was heartbroken.  Not angry...or hurt....or frustrated.  She just sobbed quietly and I held her for probably close to a full 2 minutes. 

It didn't take long after that to be her cute smiley self again, only this time showing off her new earrings.  To her Daddy and brother, Cameron, the ladies who did the piercing, the cashier.  Everyone we saw.  After her ears are all healed, 6-8 weeks, we are going to go let her pick out another pair of earrings.  We were looking at the kid earrings and there are some very very cute Hello Kitty earrings, but I could see how her eyes lit up at the Tinkerbell pair, so I would guess that will be the pair she chooses.  We will see.

Here they are cleaning her ears.  She was nervous until we told her they were just cleaning them and not piercing them yet.

I did not get to actually get a picture of them putting the earrings in because she was nervous and I was holding her hands.  When they did it she seemed surprised that it hurt so much and I just held her for a few minutes.  

It looks like she is over the sadness.

 Here she is showing off her new earrings.

Oh No....Not AGAIN!

 When I walked into the bathroom and found this pile of hair on the floor I was less than pleased.  I found my little daughter and saw that she had hacked off some of her bangs up to her scalp.  There was also a big hunk chopped off the back.   I did what I could to "fix" it.  I am far from a hair stylist, but I figured I could not do much worse than she did.  I cut the back to match the part that she cut, and I trimmed her bangs, but there was not much that could be done to help.  She would not have had bangs in the first place if she had not cut her own hair this past fall.  It looks like she did not learn her lesson the first time.  Unless the lesson is "Cut my own hair and I get a haircut."  She did look pretty cute afterward when she was walking around flinging her hair around.  I guess cutting off over 12 inches of hair makes that a lot more fun.

Natalie's long hair on the first day of school, 7 months ago.

You can't see very well here, but the front is about 1/2 inch from the scalp.

See....I told you I was not a hair stylist.

After cutting more than 12 inches off her hair she could not help but fling it around.

Valentine Bookmarks

What fun we had with this year's Valentine photos!  At first my oldest, Avery, was not at all interested in doing picture valentines.  I was of course disappointed, but was all set to buy him the valentines from the store.   Then next day after school I was talking to my daughter about how she was going to get to paint for her photos and my oldest says, "Can we do pictures of me blowing a bubble?"  Apparently he has gotten really good at blowing bubbles with his gum lately and is excited about it.  Of course I used the opportunity to talk him into doing picture valentines.  YES!  Check out that bubble!  He really has gotten good at blowing bubbles.

 

 My daughter, Natalie, is almost always a good sport when I want to take some photos.  And when there is paint involved she really gets excited!  She had on some cute jeans so I told her to go get her red shirt on.  She came out of the dressing room wearing this frilly dress.  Okay.....that works too.  She is such a girly girl.  I have a major in Art, so I have palettes, brushes and paints on hand.

My littlest guy, Cameron, is a different challenge all together.  Sometimes he wants nothing to do with the camera.  I still take photos of him because he is cute even when he is crying., but I don't want to make valentines out of those, so his photos were a little bit less planned than the other kids'.  I had him all dressed in a plaid shirt and work boots and he did not want pictures that day.  The next day though he was being all silly and happy wearing the cute little tool-belt so that is when we did his Valentine photos.

 

 Next was coming up with the cheesy sayings.  I had trouble coming up with sayings I thought were cheesy enough.  Thankfully I have great family and friends to help me with that.  Then I put 2 bookmarks side by side in PhotoShop and being always thrifty I sent them to the lab to be printed on a 4"x6".  When the package arrived I just had to cut them in half to have 2"x6" bookmarks.  That size is just right.

I took the kids to the store to pick out ribbon for the bookmarks.  Each of them got to pick out a spool.  Avery's favorite color is green, Natalie chose pink, and Cameron chose brown (with a little help).  I think the part they liked best was choosing the beads to put on the ribbons.  In this photo my husband is helping Cameron by holding the ribbon while he puts the beads on..

Then they each wrote their names on the Valentines and taped candy to them.  I think one of the reasons Avery didn't want to do photo Valentines was because he thought he wouldn't be able to give candy with them.  He was very happy to see that he gets to give candy to his friends at school.