Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Just in time...

So, my boys love books. I love that my boys love books. I love reading to my boys... mostly. I mean, I love the idea of reading to them, and I love a lot of children's books, and I love that they want me to read to them... but I don't love all the books all the time. When Michael was about Liam's age I started hiding "Going On a Bear Hunt" from him because I was tired of reading it. If only we could go back to that... now I just find myself wishing that Liam would irreparably destroy some of the longer Thomas stories (which we bought! why did we think that was a good idea?!). But I digress...

For Christmas, Liam received four Llama Llama board books. 

I'm a fan of Llama Llama--short, nice rhythm, short, etc. But in the last few weeks Liam has grown so attached to these books that he will throw an outright tantrum if I so much as hesitate to start reading one as soon as he brings it over to me.  

I thought it would be an excellent teaching moment to work on his signs for "please" and "more," but apparently we need to find a less emotionally volatile situation to work on using our words.

And in case you were wondering, the tantrums apply equally to the first and twentieth readings. In a row. He will demand the book again as soon as I finish. And again. You get the picture.

Cue the big brother. Michael has long been in the habit of reciting books along with us while we read them. Some he knows really well--and I think it's fun to just stop in the middle of sentences and let him finish them (lazy mom, or early homeschooling? You decide). Some he doesn't know at all, but he'll still kind of mumble something along as I'm reading... maybe out of habit? Who knows.

The other day I got creative in avoiding zippity-zooming my way through Llama Llama for the umpteenth time, and asked Michael to read it to Liam. He happily obliged, and then kept looking for other books to "read" to Liam. 


Eldest child can read favorite books to middle child just in time for birth of youngest child? Yes please! Oh I am SO thrilled with this. Please don't let the novelty wear off too quickly for either Michael or Liam...

Friday, May 3, 2013

These are a few of my favorite things...

This boy.


This boy is 6 months old today.  Can you believe it?  I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the (usual) already/only 6 months paradox.  What a crazy ride.



A crazy sleepless ride, as of late (like, the last month or so).  I'm thinking (hoping?) teething, and when that little bugger pops through we're going to go straight to 6 hour stretches at night (do I dream big or what? but that is seriously my idea of an awesome night).

We're working on solids... sort of.  Liam is not a fan.  Actually he doesn't seem to mind the bananas and sweet potatoes so very much, but he is decidedly not a fan of the spoon unless he gets to hold it.  Perversely he wants nothing to do with one of my favorite inventions ever, the mesh teether.  He's still nursing like a champ and obviously not wanting for lack of nourishment (um, did you see those cheeks in the first picture?) so we're not particularly concerned about his lack of interest in big people food.  M loved pretty much all food from the first taste of bananas at 5 months, but with L I'm thinking we may take a much more laid-back, baby-led weaning approach.

He's been a bit fussier than usual today (again, blaming the still invisible tooth), but generally he is just the happiest little guy.  Like this:


In addition to being tickled, Liam's other favorites include his jumper, the changing table, chewing on anything other than food, and his brother.  Here's his diaper dance:


And this boy.


As discussed before, nap time is always a favorite.  Well, always a favorite for me.  Overall Michael is a great napper, but every now and then (and for really rough weeks sometimes a couple days in a row) he will flat out refuse to nap.  But last week I had a ton I needed to get done for work, and even though I knew it was going to be a napless day (after over an hour of listening to M sing and play in his crib, despite multiple attempts on my part to settle him down and get him to close his eyes and give the nap a chance) I just left him in his crib so I could get my work done.  Liam was sleeping, and Michael was more or less happy, and I needed nap time.  After a while I realized I wasn't hearing any noises from M's room any more, so I stuck my head in to make sure he wasn't up to any mischief, and the above picture is what I found.  He had thrown everything except his pillow out of his crib, and eventually fell asleep under his pillow.  What a lovely surprise.

This week Michael has decided he has had enough of a Mama who tries to finish the sentence (or two, I'll admit) she is reading before responding to whatever incredibly important thing he is saying.  Michael's newest way to get my attention: Mama!  MAMA!  OOO-HOOO!   And now he'll do it forever because I've thoroughly positively reinforced the behavior by laughing my head off the first time he did it.

Puzzles are another current favorite with the big boy.  Michael + puzzles = so much fun.  He has thoroughly mastered his two Thomas puzzles, so we broke out some new ones this week.  Here's a video of him putting one of them together pretty much all by himself.  The whole thing takes a little over ten minutes, but the first minute or so will give you the general idea (find it? fit? fit? no... find it!)


Love my boys so much... even with all of the ooh-hoos! and non-sleeping.  Thank you Lord for these little boys! :)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Dance party!

Michael loves music.  One of his latest habits is to walk around holding both ends of a drawstring from a sweatshirt up to his ears and tell us he's listening to m'ic.

He also, to my unending delight, loves to dance to music.  All kinds of music.  Especially TV show theme songs (NCIS, Eureka, and Numb3rs being his favorites).  Unfortunately his lazy parents have been thoroughly remiss in capturing said TV theme song dancing on video.

Instead, I present to you Michael's David Crowder Band dancing.  It is much more involved than his TV theme song dancing (which usually only involves arms), but oddly enough he still failed to nap that day... grrr...


So there you have it.  The impressive dancing skills of Mr. Michael Crane.  He also likes just about anything with drums and brass (I think we're going to be in trouble when it comes time for him to pick an instrument) and he's a pretty big Newsboys fan.  But just the real (old) Newsboys, none of this dcBoys nonsense.  (And if you have any idea what I'm talking about, you can join my "I grew up on 90s CCM" club).

Friday, March 1, 2013

Story Time (part 2)

Michael "reading" Percy's Chocolate Crunch to Liam.  It's kind of our favorite.  As in, read it multiple times every day favorite.


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Story Time (part 1)

One night when Michael asked for a Thomas story at bedtime, Daddy asked Michael to tell him a story instead.  I was in the glider nursing Liam, but that's a poor excuse for the fact that it didn't occur to me to grab the camera and catch this on film (chip? card? magical digital-ness?) until several minutes into the story. This is the rest of it.

My sincerest apologies to my parents (and everyone else who visits the blog primarily for tales, pictures and videos of my boys) for taking so long in posting this!  

(Yes, that's Liam's heavy breathing/light snoring as a lovely counterpart to Michael's story.)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Playtime!

It's hard to believe our little one is over 10 months old now!  Here's a video of Michael enjoying two of his favorite things: blocks and books.


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