James Brandon + Rebekah Zoe!: April 2008

Baking cookies ...

It's been another week of staying in and not doing too much since Mummy now has an ear infection. BUT we did bake some cookies! James loved squishing the cookie dough and got a bit more into using the cookie cutters than on previous occasions.

My new favourite photo!

Ready to go in the oven ... Mummy only burnt one batch ....

A fun food placemat

Since James is no longer using his high chair we made a special placemat for him. First of all we got some food pictures from the internet and then he used his pens to colour them ...

Next day - sticking all the different foods in place. Look at that concentration!

The finished placemat. It works really well and keeps James amused identifying all the different foods while he waits for pudding!

A great American tradition ...

Today we took part in a great American tradition - we had a yard sale! Well, technically speaking it was a block sale as several houses on our street took part. We managed to sell quite a few bits and pieces which was really good - I think we made about $170 which was way more than we were expecting. James was a great little helper!!

Having a snack and a sit-down ... all that selling can be exhausting you know!

Sitting at the big table

Tonight we sat James in his booster seat at the table, rather than in his high chair. He seems to be getting less patient with sitting in the high chair. It seemed like he liked sitting at the "big table" - he certainly enjoyed his dinner. It's nice to see he's getting his appetite back after being sick for the last few weeks.

Definitely a chocoholic ...

Uh-oh, there's been a breach in kitchen security ...

Playing with airplanes ...

Since our San Diego trip James has been really into airplanes. This week we used some dollar bills that were in his money box to buy a couple of cool airplanes to play with. He really loves the green one, and enjoys flying them around.

Doing some weeding

Last weekend James was out in the garden while Daddy was doing some weeding and so this week every now and then James has been taking a break from playing in the garden to help finish the job. It's been sweet to watch.

So THIS is what Daddy does with the weeds ....

I watched James walk cermoniously across the garden carrying his weed and then he lobbed it across the flowerbed!!! You can see it mid-air. I must admit it was pretty funny. Where did he learn to do that I wonder?!

Having a little rest from all that hard work!

A Cheerio Bird Feeder ...

(I got this one from the internet) We made this bird feeder out of Cheerio cereal this week. It was quite fiddley to thread the hoops on to the pipe cleaner but James managed to do a few before he lost interest.

The finished product ... So far the birds don't seem to have been interested. They're still going to the traditional bird feeder we have and steering clear of this. Oh well, we tried!

Welcome home, Daddy!

Daddy went to Seattle overnight this week - it was his first time away since we had James. James made a "welcome home" sign for him using these funky foam stickers (Mummy *helped* with the spelling ...)

House of Germs ...

So, I know some of you have been wondering where we've been as the Blog has been a bit neglected. We've all been sick for the last week or so. Dan started with it - passed it to James - who passed it to me ... I'm trying to decide whether to pass it back to Dan ..... James is on the mend now but was the most sick we've seen him yet. He was so forlorn and sad and off his food - he was even off his juice (SHOCK!) AND more shocking than that ... HE LOST INTEREST IN BINS!!!! So other than coughing, blowing our noses and generaly feeling sorry for ourselves we haven't been up to much! But here are a few photos of the last week or so.

Earth Day

Yesterday was Earth Day (in America anyway) and so we decided to do some things to celebrate it. We've been planning on counting up all the coins from James' money box anyway (they're not going to be much use in Enland!), but then we found out that you could make a special Earth Day donation to World Wildlife Fund through the CoinStar machines in the supermarket and so we decided to do that. James loved collecting all his coins up in bags and then we walked down to the supermarket and put them in the machine to count it all up. It turns out he had over $75 !!! It was his first big donation - way to go, James!

It took a while to bag it all up.

I like this photo - it looks like he's hoping to find more coins in there. ;0)

In the afternoon we coloured some "Take Care of the Earth" pictures. Mummy had a couple of other craft things to do but she wasn't feeling too good so this was as far as we got. Watch this space - maybe we'll do them another day!

He LOVES his pens!

James' work of art.

Mummy's colouring ... James dribbled on it and tried to sabotage my "colour inside the lines" aprroach ... I think he was jealous ...

Boredom Bag

Because we've all been sick for the last week or so we haven't been out and about very much at all ... Cabin fever was setting in all round ... In desperation Mummy put together a "Boredom Bag" for James. I filled a picnic bag with a load of totally random stuff from the kitchen and my craft supplies ... straws, plastic utensils, measuring cups, spoons, lollipop sticks and pipe cleaners and let James at it ... It kept him amused for an hour!!!!

Bath Time for Bear!

Bear was just TOO stinky. We washed him in the washing machine and he still came out smelly and with all the germs in the house at the moment we decided to give him a LONG, THOROUGH soak. James had fun and I think Bear enjoyed it too!