Christmas blast, recipes and not high enough

Well I have several things in mind to blog about today.

First of all, Wow! What a wonderful Christmas. We had such a great time. I will have to post pictures. Caitlyn got a Dora bike for Christmas and yes, she can ride it, to my amazement (it has training wheels). She got 3 games which will take a little while to get the hang of (maybe a long while). She got a Dora battery powered 4-wheeler from our good friends (yes, they love to spoil her). She got an aqua doodle, which is supposed to be mess proof (more about that later). She basically raked it in.

Brent also got some fun things, one of which was a Glo-worm. He has gotten so big. Jeff said it looked like he had gained 3 pounds alone today. We weighed him and he is about 15-16 lbs. It is hard to get accurate weight on our scale at home. I call him my chunky monkey. Whenever I tickle his belly he giggles so sweetly. Now if I could just get him to keep his pacifier in (especially in the middle of the night) or better yet learn how to find it, pick it up and put it back in his mouth.

Caitlyn showed typical 2 year old behavior when our friends gave her the 4-wheeler. She cried and kept saying "I don't want to". Now that's one way to say thank you. Now there were 6-7 adults staring at her and she had just been awoken from her nap, but still. When everyone left and we told her, "No problem, we'll just go inside", she changed her tune. Now it is hard to get her off the bike.

Tonight I updated my menu. Several years ago my mom gave me the idea to write all the recipes I cook down on one paper. This helps so when I'm making a grocery list, planning meals for the week (this happens maybe 4 weeks out of the year) or trying to figure out what to make AT dinner time, I can go through a list and see what to make. It really has helped. Tonight I updated my menu, even adding side dishes. Now so many are SIMPLE, like tuna sandwiches, but when you are brain dead at the end of the day and a 2-year old is climbing the pantry shelves this list really comes in handy. I also cleaned up and organized my cookbook and made a list of common ingredients to better help me shop at Costco. We will see how it works out, maybe I will even menu plan for the week.

So we get the aqua doodle for Caitlyn because she has been marking on inappropriate things with pencils, pens and markers. To work the aqua doodle pen you must add water. Well she has figured out how to open the pen and dump water. Now there is not a lot of water in the pen, but believe me it takes a little to ruin something, depending on what it is.

This has been the story of our life lately. Marker, pen and crayon in wrong places. Finding her on top of the computer desk grabbing something high. Or on top of the counter getting into cookies. She is scratching up her DVD's from handling them wrong, so of course we gather them all up and put them on top of the TV armorie. Well that doesn't stop her. She just gets her little chair (that my mom painted for her) and moves pictures on the TV to get to her DVD's. She is constantly coming out of my bathroom with fingernail clippers or gobs of lotion on her hands. Everything is up high but we still can't keep up with her. She is non-stop. She is constantly monitored too, all this happens in mere seconds. She is quick.