Saturday Snapshots 2015

A Saturday tradition. Some snapshots from our everyday life…

Winter finally arrived in Minnesota. This is the view out my bedroom window. I love that big tree in the side yard. We’ve lost a few large branches over the years. One even fell on that electric line one day this past summer, causing it to snap right off of our house and lay on the ground right where my children had been playing less than an hour earlier. Crazy.

This little cutie pie finally got her glasses. Of course she picked out pink ones (with teal and a few diamonds on the sides!) She loves the diamonds, and she loves pointing them out to anyone and everyone. She’s not quite used to wearing them yet, so we’re starting with a half-hour at a time. I set a timer, and she gets to take them off for a while when it goes off. We’ll increase to an hour this next week and see how it goes. She’s also not quite used to having to be careful how she handles things like glasses, and is learning how not to leave giant thumb prints on the lenses…

Little Man got this little Spider-Man tent for Christmas (thanks, Grandma!), and it has quickly become a favorite place for him to escape to. This tent was so awesome to get, because I’ve been meaning to get something like this for a while, ever since his occupational therapist suggested setting up a quiet place for him to go to when he gets overwhelmed/over-stimulated. He’s been having a lot of meltdowns again (they had gotten fewer and farther between for a while), and I have a feeling that this tent will be a sweet little sanctuary for him in the midst of our very-busy-and-full-of-activity-every-day home for many days to come…

A little more about this picture – He’s got an episode of Wild Kratts playing on my iPad Mini (which he has pretty much taken over, and I’m okay with that for now), probably the gecko episode, it’s been his favorite lately. He watches a lot of Wild Kratts. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. He is slightly obsessed, and by slightly, I mean totally and completely. For a while it was Curious George, and then there was a brief Clifford’s Puppy Days stint, but it’s been Wild Kratts for weeks now, with no sign of letting up anytime soon. He usually screams when another show is suggested. The other thing you’ll notice in this picture, is the cheap plastic tool set that I got him. I thought he’d like to screw those little nuts & bolts together, and he does, but he’s way more interested in hitting things with the hammer, and sitting with that child-sized cordless screwdriver, making it go while holding the end in his hand, just feeling that piece go round and round. Yep, he’s a sensory kiddo alright.

I’m including this picture not because it turned out fantabulous (let’s be real, the best part of this picture is my favorite pink hat), but because I’m determined to get over my fear-of-the-selfie and make sure that there are a least a few pictures of me for my children to look back on someday. I take lots of pictures, too many some days, of my family, and yet if you look through the archives you might not know that these children even have a mother (you know, other than that whole fact that they exist thing.) I’ve never considered myself very photogenic, and I still don’t, but I’m determined to just get over it and get in some pictures.

I want to share more of me this year, and that’s going to have to include, well, me. So there you have it, the first appearance of yours truly on the blog this year. ***waves hi!***

This year’s New Year’s Eve was SO MUCH BETTER than last year’s!

Much fun was had in the kitchen. I tasked the teens with watching a couple of those viral crazy awesome they-make-it-look-so-easy food videos and recreating the party food masterpieces all by themselves. Two large pans of Garlic Parmesan Baked Potato Wedges (don’t accidentally call them wedgies, your kids may not let you live that one down, don’t say I didn’t warn you…) and a scrumptious Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Ring were successfully made. The videos didn’t lie. They were both easy to do and turned out fabulous. We’ll definitely be doing that again. Game night anyone?

One last Little Man pic, Wild Kratts in hand, because, you know, Wild Kratts. He spends a lot of time on my lap, or leaning up against me, usually pushing his head hard against my body (seeking deep pressure input). He also tends to pick at his face around his eyes, sometimes poking himself in the eye, intentionally, multiple times, sometimes scratching and or pinching himself above his eyes. I think it started a couple summers ago, when he was about a year and a half, with some mosquito bites. He scratched them open, repeatedly.  He picked those scabs, repeatedly, and has a couple small scars to show for it. I just could not keep his little hands away from his face! In this pic I had just reminded him not to pick at or poke his eyes, and he switched to pinching along his eyebrows. Yep, sensory kid ‘fer sure.

So there you have it, a peak into our past week…

I’m off to upload some pics to Shutterfly, as I am determined to print more pics to put in albums this year!

Have a good one