My Brain on Hyperdrive

My latest hyperfixation....

I've been creating a lot again lately. And it feels good.

Three and a half years... In the last three and a half years, we've moved to another state, had a baby, and bought a house (therefore moving again). I hate moving.  But this post isn't about all that. I wanted to capture what I'm doing to make this Christmas time more special for my kids (mostly the 5yo at this point because 15mo is clueless). First, every year I select my favorite of our extensive Christmas book selection and add in a few new books, maybe a puzzle or movie or two. Then wrap each item to make a (mostly) Christmas book advent calendar.  So I thought that was that and we'd be all good. We'd try to make cookies and go look at Christmas lights at some point of course, too, but I didn't need any of those toy calendars or chocolate calendars.  Except, our church sent out the supplies to make an advent calendar. And 5yo likes making things. And 5yo wanted to put something in the little bags. So fine, I thought, I'll have her help me make it then ru...

Mommy work. Daddy work. Ru work. One of the most common refrains around here lately. That and Mommy nap. Daddy nap.  Note, Ru doesn't nap.

Making sure baby gets some dinner.

My latest. Playing with steampunk.

Still having fun with my new doodling abilities. Made this for the boy. The edges got cut off slightly because the paper was bigger than 8.5 x 11, but most of it's there.

I'm not entirely happy with it. I had to change some things from what I wanted due to some constraints (like stud placement), but overall I think it turned out OK. Now the boy should be happy there is a place for mail, at least.

I forgot to take a picture of the painting I did for my in-laws for Christmas, or any of the jewelry I made for people, but I did make this this weekend. It feels good to create things again.

On the list of things I never thought I'd say: "We don't eat out of the potty."

In the "maybe we should keep track of this" category are the words my daughter now knows how to say. She can sign a few (milk, all done, more, and please), but her list of spoken words is growing fast. Her first word was "Hi." Now added to that list, in no particular order, are Daddy, kitty (occasionally), ball, bye bye, no, uh oh, and this weekend we added shoes. How did she get so big so fast?

The little one got her first haircut on Saturday. Just the back to even it out with the sides and get rid of the baby mullet. She was very good.

Someone is having a grand old time chasing the kitty at the top of the stairs.

It's been a while since I updated my phone home screen and I was feeling the need for change. So after browsing mycolorscreen.com for inspiration, this is what I came up with. I'm super happy with it!

Tired baby had a rough morning at swim class, but you'd never know it now. A 3 hour nap will do that for you.

Who cares about eggs? This basket is awesome!

Someone figured out how to empty her toy bin...