A Pinterest Success Story

It's been a quiet week on the blog but don't let that fool you! Next week is finals week for Shuky so he's been studying up a storm and I had a crazy week at work.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this year's Chanukah project I had. I saw this photo menorah on pinterest and knew it was going on our wall. I came, I pinned, I conquered!

I really love how it came out and can't wait for the kids to see it in the morning. Didn't have it done before lighting tonight so I decided to surprise them with it, put it up once they were both in bed.

And my camera battery obviously died within seconds of starting to light so here is the one picture I got of Bella lighting. My Benny pictures were taken on my phone, which has possibly the worst camera known to phonekind. But, I will post it anyway!

All nicely lit.

Reading her first present, an Elmo coloring book.

Enjoying Benny's first present, a hexbug nano zip line kit. Or something like that. All I know is every three seconds we heard "WOAH!!!" from both of them. Success.

Actually, here's a video of what that thing does.

It's late, I have stuff to do tomorrow morning. So, to everyone out there with homes lit up, have a happy Chanukah!!! And to everyone with other holidays coming up, may this be the best yet! Looking out the window, we are having our first infinitesimal snow of the season. Here's to hoping it's also the last. Now THAT would be a Chanukah miracle for me!!

Conditioning

If you sat back and truly watched what your kids are doing, I think you would be amazed at what you will see. Kids are totally conditioned into their daily routine, whether it's the routine you have planned or one you tend to default to!

For instance, let's talk about Bella, my 20 month old daughter. She wakes up and instantly asks for breakfast. Will not consider anything else. Straps herself into her booster seat and yells til she is served her daily cereal and milk. And that comes with it's own specifics. She has her bowl with the built in straw. And she usually slurps all the milk out, at least twice, before getting to the cereal part.

She knows that after dinner, she goes straight to the bath. So she asks for her bath when she's done eating. And goes straight to the tub, leaning over to feel the water temperature. And then she knows, bath time leads to brushing teeth. Which leads to sitting on the toilet. And then on to getting pj'd up. And then we do shema.

And then she runs out of the room, plops herself on the couch, and asks for TV.

Turns out, I've been letting her watch TV more often than I realized, so Benny would go to sleep nicely and she wouldn't run in there to chat with her.

Tonight, I offered her the leapster instead. She took it. I'm obsessed with her.

A second before I snapped the pic, she had her feet crossed at the ankle.

Now let's talk Benny. I won't even go into how he has been conditioned into working with our routine. I just want to mention how much he picks up without us even realizing it. Shuky took him to Best Buy the other day and he was giving them his phone number. Benny pipes in with, "Hey, that's Mommy's number!!" Our numbers are the same until the last two digits. Then he rattled off my number. Just from hearing me give it to people over time, he knows my number and was able to recognize it. Dude. I can barely remember numbers that I stare at. On a regular basis. 

The moral of today's post is that I need the brain juices that toddlers have.

Melmo!

I feel like maybe I shouldn't be saying anything out loud but who should I run to first, if not my blog, when I have cool things to talk about!!

I heard rumors that girls tend to be easier to potty train than boys. I decided I wasn't interested to find out until Bella would be practically begging to get her on the toilet.

She has been doing exactly that over the past week or two. She tells me when she needs to go, we run to the bathroom, and she does her business. I sing and cheer and she revels in the attention! She even got up in the middle of the night last night, requesting to visit 'melmo'! The toilet seat we have is covered in sesame street characters. Elmo, aka Melmo, is her favorite, followed up by Big Bird, whom she fondly refers to as Bee Bah!

So we've been doing having a lot of bathroom time this past little stretch of time, but I am so happy and so not pressuring her. She is obviously doing this on her own and I am totally ok with that!!!

In other news, she dropped her Minnie Mouse doll in the toilet after seeing if maybe SHE needed to work anything out. So she has been asking about 'Mee Mow' all day.

Tomorrow, Uncle Zalmy is leaving us and, while we are all really going to miss him, I think Bella is going to be asking about him for quite a while. She has really been having an amazing time with him and gets so excited when he walks into the room!! I better take a picture of them together to print out for her.

For the sake of everyone around us, I should really get that load of laundry taken care of, time for Mee Mow to put on her bathing suit!!

Shavuah tov everyone! Have a beautiful week!!

Calling in Sick

This morning, I woke up feeling like a truck had hit me. It was almost 6:30 and Bella was totally up, trying to shove my glasses on my face in an attempt to wake me. When she saw my eyes open, she buckled down behind me and began pushing, yelling, "Doh!!! (her word for go) Mommy doooooh!! Nam nam!!! (her word for food)"

So I crawled out of bed with her, gave her breakfast, and collapsed onto the couch.

I ended up calling in sick to work. Well, there's not really anyone to call as I'm the only one working in the office. I emailed and texted in sick. Eventually, I went down to the office for about twenty minutes to get something done.

When Shuky was done with school, we headed out to Des Moines for our Torah Tots class. I probably would have skipped that if not for the fact that we've had one thing after another keeping us away for the past three weeks.

My home is a wreck and there's laundry up the wazoo to take care of. Mostly clean and needing folding. I just can't keep my eyes open!

Anyway, I'm kind of calling in sick here too. No exciting blog post today. Not much to say. I just want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Hope you all are doing ok!

C is for Cookie

Over the summer, Benny got involved in a Mitzvah-thon. The idea was to do as many mitzvos (good deeds) as possible and raise money for an amazing organization while doing so. Benny did a great job, raising over $100!! At the end of the event, based on how much money each child raised, they got to choose a prize for themselves.  Benny chose a cookie making machine. Not an EZ Bake. That would have brought on a blog post MUCH sooner! It's kind of like a play-dough thing, just cuts the cookie dough into fun shapes.

On Sunday, we finally opened the box. He won this in July. Let's not talk about the delay we have around here. Thanks.

Anyway, he and Shuky had so much fun making the cookie dough, shaping and decorating them, and eventually eating them. We definitely need to find a different recipe, though. We have all come to that conclusion. Otherwise, it was quite a successful afternoon!

Getting their hands dirty

Punch, punch, punch

Ready yet?

While Shuky and Benny were working with the shaping tools, Bella was casually eating what they put on the tray. Instant gratification for her, who needs to cook things when you can sneak it right away!

Notice Bella sneaking dough and Benny's disapproving look

Getting very into it

Into the oven we go!

Goodbye #2!

Ahh, the joy of ticking something off my to-do list. This list being my birthday resolution! I have 28 things to do before I turn 28 and I'm ready to knock numero dos off the list. I have officially, selfishly spent all of my birthday money on myself. And it felt amazing!!

I got a sewing machine with a couple accessories from my mom. Which will help me cross of some more of my list soon enough!

I ordered new boots and some good Black Friday deals from my dad.

I cashed my grandparents' check and physically went shopping with that money.

{Maybe I should have made something on my list about putting myself in our pictures more.}

Wow. What an awesome feeling to just walk in and buy things, not worrying where that money should have gone! Ok, not going to lie. I thought about that. I'm human. Mostly a responsible one, too. But this was truly a freeing experience!

Here's my wish to you all. May you have a spouse/conscience supportive enough to say, "Yes. Please spend it all on yourself! You deserve it!!" And then go and actually do it!

Sing With Me

Of all the things I registered for before getting married, my shower radio is the one thing that still gets the most use. People laughed when they saw it on my list. My mother in law ordered it. That was when I knew she truly got me!

For anyone that does not have a shower radio, stop reading. Get in your car. Drive to your nearest Target/Walmart/Bed Bath & Beyond. Get a shower radio. Come home. Get in the shower. Blast the hell out of said radio and sing like no one can hear you. Better yet, sing like everyone can hear you but you just don't care!

Chani PSR (that's Chani Pre Shower Radio) used to sing in the shower but there was always a wait for people to make requests or the same song being sung on a loop. Now the Chani Show has sold out shows! The chairs are in the hallway. The door is closed. The bathroom acoustics are amazing as always. It's not a real success until someone knocks on the door, asking me to shut up. Which happens ALMOST every shower I take. True talent right here folks!

Funny enough, there are people who really got somewhere doing this! Check out Rin on the Rox on youtube. They actually made it onto The Ellen Show for singing in their bathroom. All I can say is, Ellen I'm ready for you!!!

The moral of today's story is this: Live, folks. Sing like you don't care who's listening.