Paxton

When you're little and it's hard for you to write your letters and you get *so frustrated* when they just don't come out right (especially when you have to write a "P" on a whole class worth of Valentine cards), crafty little tricks can come in handy. 

I saw this genious idea on Pinterest the other day, and knew it would be a good way for Paxton to be involved in his Valentines, without making it too hard (and frustrating) for him. 

Just combine small wood alphabet stamps together to spell out the word (in our case it was "Paxton") and put a rubberband around them.  That keeps them together and turns the word into a single stamp.

{source: The Frugal Crafter}

Easy enough for an *almost* four year old...Now that's easy!

Paxton has been waking up early.  Too early -- and he's starting to drop his afternoon nap most days, which means he wants to wander around all afternoon while we are trying to work. 

When Ayla was his age, she would quietly go downstairs when she woke up in the morning, get a bowl of cereal and sippy cup out of the refrigerator and quietly (and safely) entertain herself until we decided to wake up.

Paxton, however, is a more social kiddo and gets lonely quickly.  So he shows up in our bedroom (on our bed), heads to Ayla's room to wake her up, or just gets into unsupervised trouble.  Plus, he takes after me...he sounds like an elephant walking through the house. (Ben is a great tip-toer, and Ayla takes after him.  I tend to make more noise the quieter I try to be.)

We tried having Paxton stay in his room until "there was a 7" on the clock and made him little index cards with drawings of what that looked like...but he would come and tell us about every 7 he saw (and sometimes when he DIDN'T see a 7).  Same thing during rest time - the time cards weren't working. Chalk it up to another trick that always worked for Ayla...but utterly failed on Paxton.

So we took his alarm clock out of his room. 

Enter our next effort - The Magical Lamp.

We put a little side-table lamp on a timer on top of the tall shelf in his bedroom (so he couldn't mess with it).  It's set to come on every day at 6:30am and again at about 2:45pm (after rest time). 

The rule is -- If your magical lamp is OFF, you stay in your room.  If your magical lamp is ON, you can come out, because it's morning time or because rest time is over.

Genious right?  Well, the first two days we tried it, he slept in and the light woke him up.  Bust.

Then he would come out often to tell us "My magical lamp isn't on yet." Double Bust.

But...we've stuck with it for a few weeks now and it's going a little better -- at least we have some leverage to work with.  For instance, if he comes out of his room too early, we ask, "Is your Magical Lamp on?" If the answer is no, he goes back to his room.  When it does come on, he comes running out to tell us, and is very excited about it (as well as completely mistified about how it knows to come on!)

Just one of the many trial-and-error efforts of parenting two kids that are SO different from one another!

A little bit of reflective rambling about the first week of school:

Admittedly, I like schedules. I like routine. I like to know what to expect.   However, I also like to think I'm pretty good at being flexible and going with the flow when necessary (that's what makes trips like this work!) But, overall--I think schedules and routines are good and they generally suit me well.

So, imagine my surprise, when this first week of school came around and actually got going...I've found that I'm a little bit out-of-sorts and...bored(!).  Getting up at 6am everyday and completing about 15 tasks by the end of breakfast had been WAY forgotten over this wake-up-late, get dressed when you feel like it, watch-a-lot-of-television summer. 

I've noticed that I've spent a good part of each day this week making sure I'm ready for the next section of the day--which means I'm wandering a little aimlessly inbetween because my mind won't focus on what I could be doing NOW. 

It's funny, because I dread the summer arrival when both kids will be home ALL DAY EVERY DAY, all the fighting, the noise, the messes, and overload of kid-themed activities.  I anticipate with excitement when they'll head back to school to see their friends and go to their classes.  I'm thrilled that I'll have more quiet work time by myself, and that then I can focus, create, and produce more easily.

So, how come now that I have all this quiet, my brain feels like mush and I can't focus on anything?  Waking up too early? Too many days of exercise? Too much schedule to keep straight? By 3:00 when Ayla comes home and Paxton wakes up from rest time, all I want to do is stretch out on the couch and veg out till bedtime.

I'm sure this feeling will pass quickly - it always does, and then I'll be back to my get-er-done self, but for this week, I think I spent a lot of time with a blank stare on my face! 

So, I'm wondering if anyone else goes through a week or two of bewilderment at the beginning of each school year?

It's teacher appreciation week at Paxton's school, and BOY do I appreciate those teachers! :)

Each day has a theme, so I tried to comply as much as possible:

• Monday: "Cards of Love" - a super-cute free teacher appreciation printable from Balancing Home
• Tuesday: "Pamper the Teacher Day" - scented hand sanitizer from the $1 bins at Target
• Wednesday: "Bouquets of Love" - hand-made fabric flower pins
• Thursday: "Special Luncheon" (no gift necessary)
• Friday: "Sweet Treats" - whoops! I better make cookes for Friday!

The tutorial for making the fabric flower pins can be found here.  Though this time, instead of cutting flowers, I just cut circles - same result, easier cutting!

Next, I found this adorable free Teacher Appreciation printable last week and thought it would be perfect for the "cards of love" day. 

I downloaded it - which gave me this (8" x 10) print in gray and white.

Next, I opened the PDF file in Photoshop Elements and used the used the paint bucket tool to change the background to teal to match my pins & the hand sanitizer labels.

Then I used a "wallets" action from The Coffee Shop Blog to turn one image into 9 wallet-sized cards. 

Then I printed them, cut them out, rounded the corners and signed Paxton's name to the back.

Finally, I added punched star-shaped tags to the hand-sanitizer, and called it a gift.  Easy Peasy. 

Here's a look at last year's Teacher Appreciation Gift: Chapstick Pockets

A few months ago I finally caught up on a few of my annual scrapbooks.  Specifically - the pages for Paxton's year-by-year album to match Ayla's. 

I love these books.  They only require that I make one two-page spread a year, but show a great collage of photos of the kids from each month of the year as well as highlight some of the milestones and big events.  Simple, and do-able. 

His album is an 8" x 8" book by American Crafts.

Also...a good reminder of how miserably hard his first year was...

and how sweet and fun he became about 1/2 way through his second year...

And while I was at it, I finished up Ayla's next two pages too:

Felt good to do a little bit of scrapbooking. :)

For Paxton's 2nd birthday, I was all about keeping it simple.  Even so, I wanted the "theme" to be special and represent something he loves.  There's NO better choice than his prized possesion: PUPPY.  Puppy has been around since before he was born, and Paxton attached himself to Puppy sometime around a year old (I think).  Puppy sleeps with him, plays with him, and calms him down when he's upset. 

So, I thought it was fitting to try and put his beloved Puppy on Paxton's 2nd birthday cake. Initially I had NO interest in making the cake and decorating it myself. I thought it ought to be easy to just bring in a photo to any old bakery and they'd whip up a great design for me.  So I took this photo and went cake shopping:

Bust. Most places wouldn't do it at all and suggested alternatives like other dogs or bears (NOT the same), some would scan it and print the photograph onto the cake (eh, not really right), and one bakery would do it and charge me an arm and a leg for a teeny-tiny cake (which if I had lots of money, probably would have been a perfect choice), and finally I said, forget it. I'll do it myself -- he's only two, he won't care if I screw it up.

So, I stopped at a sandwich shop and I sat down and drew this picture (lucky for me, they even had crayons at the counter for me!):

I figured, if I could draw Puppy, surely I could ice him on a cake...right?  (Keep in mind I'm SO not a food display or preparation kind of girl.  I much prefer paper, glue & paint!)

So, next, determined to give Paxton a Puppy cake he would love, I trudged around WalMart looking for icing, cake mix and inspiration.  As I got to the front of the store, my cart full with cake mix, frosting, yellow cupcake icing, I make a last-ditch stop at the bakery to see if perhaps the Walmart Bakery could help me out.  Once again, they said, nope, we don't do freehand. 

"But...." she said..."I could scan your drawing for you and give you an edible template that you could pipe icing over the top of".  Why didn't anyone else give me that option? Awesome!  So while she was scanning the turning Puppy into an edible template for me, I took a quick look at the pre-made cakes in the display case and noticed this adorable cake that was perfectly iced with multi-colored balloons and orange outline.  As I imagined a crumbly, probably burned, not-very-pretty iced cake that I made myself I thought "Oh, how much easier it would be to just add Puppy to THAT cake."  And so, that's exactly what I did!

(Unfortunately I was so excited to ice the cake, I forgot to take step-by-step photos of this part, but you get the idea)

Add a little bit of cupcake & cookie icing, the template went onto the top of the cake, and I iced and iced and iced and iced...

And we ended up with exactly the cake I dreamed of (okay, not exactly, but close enough) when I decided I wanted a Puppy cake for Paxton.  I'll call it "semi-homemade". :)  And believe me...everyone who eats the cake is glad it was!

Day 5 - Friday.  Busy all day long.  Working, laundry, packing the kids (for a trip with Daddy - yay!), errands, more work and then freedom (from kids), but not from work. :) That's okay, I think work is fun.

The stats:

• 160 photos saved to my hard drive.  30 shown here. Many of those were product pictures though...so they don't really count.
• Ben thinks Fridays are haunted around here.  The kids and I always seem to be worn out from the week, on each other's nerves, and have no patience with each other, which results in lots of crying, whining and yelling (by all of us).  So I usually try to take them someplace fun instead of keeping them cooped up inside.  
• Notable differences about today compared to every other normal day - Ben took the kids to Auburn for the weekend, and I got to stay home by myself!  I think the last time that happened was early last summer.  I was due. 
• Another notable fact about today - We received our information packet about our sponsored child in Ecuador via Compassion International!

Ahh...Thursday.  Day 4 of this project. 

Thursdays are usually pretty good days around here.  Lots of work to do, Ayla's at school, and usually Paxton goes to his friend's house for the morning.  This week, he was home, but he "helped" me work and read stories, so it worked out just fine.  My Week-in-the-Life exercise went a little better today (helped that it wasn't raining and I wasn't sleep-deprived from storms).  I have found though that I manage to do about 10 noteworthy "tasks" before I even make it downstairs in the mornings to get my camera.  Today, that included getting two kids dressed, changing Ayla's sheets, letting the cat outside, and starting a load of laundry.  None of which I enjoy doing before I've eaten my bowl of cereal and checked my email...but what can you do?

The stats:

• 75 photos saved to my hard drive.  30 shown here.
• Paxton *actually* performed on the potty tonight...after three consecutive trips DURING dinner.  He also appeared to be scared to death of the entire experience once he realized what was going on.  We made a big deal of how great it was, and he was rewarded with chocolate chips. 
• Notable differences about today compared to every other normal day - Paxton didn't go to Shelby's house this morning and was home instead, which means Ben & I didn't have our regular Thursday lunch-date.  But otherwise, today was a pretty normal day!

Day 3.  Wednesday. 

Rainy.  Cranky.  Tired.  Working. Seems like we had more fun the last time we did this project....hmmm...

The stats:

• 102 photos saved to my hard drive.  30 shown here.
• Paxton LOVES the self-timer.  Thinks it's hilarious.
• Notable differences about today compared to every other normal day - pretty much nothing.  Today was pretty basic and normal.

Day two..we made it through. Lots of work and things to do. :) Just click the image to see a larger version of our Tuesday:

The stats: 

• 96 photos saved to my hard drive (30 shown here).
• Don't be fooled.  Paxton is NOT potty trained.  He just likes to "try".
• Notable differences about today compared to every other normal day - I went to lunch at Ayla's school because she was "Star of the Week" and Paxton joined Ben at Disciples Fellowship for "Lunch on Lorna."