Melting Crayons

We have this thing Back East that most of my West Coast friends, especially my So. Cal friends have never heard of. We call it Winter (pronounced WIN-TER). It's when it gets really cold outside and snows and you can no longer comfortably play at the park or walk around the outdoor malls. It's when even buttoning your cardigan won't keep you warm.

So when it's WIN-TER we are faced with the daunting task of entertaining our children indoors. And when said children are also having a very difficult and long recovery from surgery, it makes the task that much more fun....

So I've been looking at a lot of toddler and preschooler activity blogs (a couple of which I have added to my blog roll for you to look at) for things that we can do at home.

Since both girls are driving me up the wall today, I decided that this would be the perfect time to melt crayons. It's actually a very cool thing and a great way to use up all those broken crayons you have laying around.

Step #1-Find all your broken crayons, peel the labels off of them and then put them in muffin tins. You can use any shape you like (I love the idea of doing the alphabet), I just used small circles today. You can keep each crayon "muffin" the same color family or you can add a bunch of different colors to see what it looks like when it comes out. At first, Ella wanted to keep them all the same color family but she started experimenting towards the end of our tin.

Step #2-Put in a preheated oven and bake until all the crayons are melted. I found different recommendations for temperature, but I just put it at 225 and it took about 20 minutes.

When they are melted turn off the oven and let them sit for about 10 minutes. You want to be careful not to move the mixed color ones around too much or the colors will all blend and just make it brown, not multi-colored. After 10 or so minutes you can pull them out and put them on the counter to cool and harden.

If you are really impatient, you can put the tin in the freezer. It doesn't take long for them to harden, but I would wait at least a couple of hours before using them to color with.

Step #3-Gently remove from muffin tin. Make sure you do one at a time into your hand not on the counter or you risk them breaking upon impact. I was warned on the blogs that if you use washable crayons, you will get a clear layer of wax on the top. Obviously, the only type of crayons we use in this house are washable, so we shall live with the thin layer of clear wax. It actually makes it look pretty cool.

The finished product-clear wax side up
Bottoms up! Look of vibrant the colors are.

Step #4-Color!

This was a really fun and easy craft. Lord knows I'm no Martha Stewart so easy is right up my alley. Next project will be making edible finger paints with either plain yogurt or vanilla pudding and food coloring. I think Sofia will especially like this craft.

If anyone else has some fun, easy crafts geared for 3 and 1 year olds, I'd love to hear them!

Sofia's 18 month Well Baby Visit

Sofia had her 18 month well baby visit on Monday. She is ever the typical 18 month old in so many ways-including temper tantrums. She did really well and in typical Sofia style, charmed her Doctor.

Her stats:

Weight: 26.4 lb 75%ile
Height: 34.25 inches 98%ile
Head: I don't remember but he said it was normal...
Diaper Size: 4
Clothing: Believe it or not, she still fits into most of her 12-18 month old clothes. We're starting to get in 24 month clothing especially for smaller brands like Old Navy.

When he walked into the exam room Sofia just started chatting up a storm with him. He was cracking up because she just didn't stop. After a couple of minutes of this he told me that she's is well above a 2 year old speech level. It's hard for us to gauge what's normal in speech since Ella was such a delayed talker. Not that I think Sofia is some baby genius, I know they all develop at different rates and it really all catches up at some point, but it is fun listening to Sofia conversations.

Some of our favorite Sofia-isms are:

*I don't know/ Where'd it go? (said in a very high pitched tone with shrugging shoulders)
*I Wuv you
*Hewwwo Gaga/GG/Daddy/Ella (like all 18 month olds, she loves to talk on the phone)
*Bless you (when you sneeze)
*Please and thank you (coupled with sign language-although please is more like *pwwwweeeeessse)
*Ella! Ella! Ella!
*There it is!
*Sings the wheels on the bus (open and shut is her favorite part)
*Sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when she wants to wash her hands (this is from Potty Power)
*Sings Taxi (Music for Aardvarks) and does most of the hand motions.
*Knows almost all her body parts
*Knows almost all the sounds animals makes
*Throws her trash in the garbage when we tell her to
*Tells Ella "shhhh" when she gets too loud
*Loves to sit on the potty-although she's yet to actually pee. She just reads books and then says "pssss" with her mouth and then wipes
*She tells us when she's gone #2-Sofia did you do poo poos? "Yeah!" Then she goes and gets us a diaper.
*When it's time to get out of the bath we ask her to hand her toys one by one like, "Sofia hand me the duck, hand me the little girl, hand me the boat, the fish, the cup, etc.." and she loves to wait for what we are asking for and then searches around the tub until she finds it.
*She loves to dance after her bath and if we forget to turn on the iPod she'll yell, "MUSIC". She also loves the song, "So What" by Pink. She'll get out and start singing nanananana to request it. Sometimes if I have the older iPod upstairs which doesn't have that song, she'll make do with a little Ozomatli and Yerba Buena. She loves her Latin music!
*She loves to read books and we always put a couple in her crib at nap time. It's great because when she wakes up she just grabs her books and "reads". She'll sometimes sit in there for an hour just reading and hanging out.

Of course I'm proud of my baby girl, but don't let her fool you. Although she's made of sugar, she's got A LOT of spice in her. She has trouble written all over her but then she flashes you her dimpled smile and melts your heart.

*She climbs on and in EVERYTHING and when you tell her no, she'll look you right in the eyes, smile and continue.

*She already throws wicked tantrums, with the full on back arching and throwing herself to the ground. Luckily she gets out of them pretty quickly.

*She messes with Ella. It doesn't matter what Ella has. It could be a comb, but Sofia loves to run up, grab whatever it is, and take off as fast as she can. It drives Ella crazy (which is obviously the desired effect) and 9 out of 10 times Ella will take off after Sofia. When Sofia senses Ella is near she drops whatever object she has but continues to bolt. She's no dummy.

Oh Sofia, you wear me out, but I love you anyway! (10 points for anyone who knows where that's from)

Not a great pic of Sofia but I took this today. My Uncle Michael, her Great Uncle Michael, bought this dress in Germany for me when I was Sofia's age. It's cute to see her in it now. I loved this dress.

Ella's Surgery

Ella had her tonsils and adenoids removed last Friday (Friday the 13th!). The procedure itself was quite simple and they even got us in early, which was great, but recovery has not been so much fun.

Ella was seriously awesome while we there. I think part of it was shock and confusion about what the heck was happening. Everything happened so fast. We got there and they immediately took us back to the pre op area.

She had to change out of her pajamas into the hospital gown which at first terrified her and she wanted to hide...

First on Daddy
Then on Mommy
But then they gave Ella a little Valium in a kool aid flavored juice. She didn't get spacey but she just kind of relaxed a bit. I guess it didn't hurt that daddy had to put on a silly outfit to take her into the ER.

Yes, Mommy chickened out and made Daddy take Ella into the OR. It's a good thing he did, because he even got a little teary eyed and said I would have lost it. She was so good though. No screaming at all, even when they laid her down on the OR table. She just sat up and requested a pillow which made everyone laugh and then she laid down, took deep breathes, and was out...but Ricardo said a little tear rolled out her eye, which is what made him kind of lose it.

She got out of surgery within the hour and the Dr. took us back to see her in recovery. Poor baby. Her lips were so swollen and her face was pale as a ghost. She was so out of it but still such a good girl. The nurse said she could lie in my arms so she did.

It was a busy day so there was no room up in the pediatric unit for Ella to recover. I heard the nurse call the main adult post-op recovery until and it sounded like they were resisting having a young kid in there and I heard the nurse say, "Oh but she's so good. She's just sleeping and resting with her parents and isn't crying or screaming at all." Ricardo and I looked at each other with large eyes...could they be talking about our Ella? Whatever! We'll take it!

She really was so good. They moved us to post-op and Ella took a 2 hour nap on me while Ricardo and I watched trash TV like TMZ and Access Hollywood.

She woke up in a wonderful mood and drew pictures for the nurses and ate her required lemon ice (notice the sweat drenched hair).

She was doing so awesome, we were sure she would fall in that 20% of kids who have no problems at all after a tonsillectomy. Then she threw up in the car...a lot.

The past couple of days have been really rough. Day 1 and 2 post-op I couldn't even get her to take sips of water. Day 3 she started drinking fluid and today, Day 4, she's starting to eat small amounts of softer food (mac n cheese, ice cream, Popsicles). She tried to eat a cookie but it hurt too much. Every day is getting a little better so hopefully tomorrow she'll be able to eat a little more.

She's such a trooper and I'm so proud of her and how she's handling the pain. I know it's awful for her. I just can't wait for the recovery to be behind us!

Some Randoms

Just some random pictures of the past week...of course I realized late in the week that I had my camera set to a high ISO, so my pictures are grainy and dark.

Last Saturday Ella had a Pajama Havdalah at school. I didn't get great pictures but first the Rabbi read them a story, lit the candle and they all sang songs. Then they all got to decorate their own Challah cover (which I love) and then had pizza and ran around like maniacs.

This is how the girls sat for story time
Ella and Natalie kept taking pictures of each other (and the floor, the ceiling, shoes, etc.)
Candle lighting
Making the Challah cover. It's a nice thick material so we'll be able to use it for years to come. I'm so excited-because you know we do Shabbat in our house so often....

I know I've mentioned Ella has ballet on Mondays. I'm so lucky for my incredible neighbor because she stays with Sofia (who's napping) so that I can take Ella. But last week Ella kept telling me that she wanted SuSu to take her to ballet while I stayed home with Sofia so Su-Su took Ella to ballet this last week and then to Toys-R-Us where she purchased her a Barbie Diamond Castle dress AND a Sleeping Beauty dress. These dresses are ALL she's worn the past three days. She's even tried to convince us to let her wear it to bed.

My ballerina
With SuSu

What really cracks me up is that she's understanding that certain things get attention and she's loving it. Yesterday we went to the library in the afternoon and she wore one of her dresses. She told me in the car that everyone would say, "Hey, who's that beautiful princess in the library?". Everytime she walked by someone she would seriously start to saunter and turn her body so they could get a full look. She was visabally annoyed if they didn't comment on her dress. And so it begins....

So today we had her pre-op appointment for her surgery on Friday and I'm pretty sure you can guess what she wore. It was a tough choice between Barbie Diamond Castle and Sleeping Beauty but Sleeping Beauty won out (don't worry, she wore Barbie to the park later in the day).

Horrible pictures because of my camera setting and the light behind the storm door.

Sofia just doesn't appreciate how lucky she is to live with a real life princess

I started to bribe them with lollipops after waiting over an hour to see the Doc. Luckily for us it was like Romper Room in the waiting room so the girls had some friends to play with.

Ella's Dr. is fabulous and she kept telling him that she loves him and wants to play soccer with him. I hate the 1 hour place waits for him, but he's definitely worth it. Her surgery is planned for this Friday, so wish us luck!

Music Class

Every week Sofia and I have music class with Jessica and Sammy. It's such an amazing music class and Sofia LOVES it. She also loves seeing Jess and Sammy. As soon as we get there she looks for them and runs right over and jumps in Jessica's lap. Sammy used to get jealous...now he's so used to it, he just makes sure there's some room for him too.

Their pre-music hug
Best seat in the house
Sofia hanging out with Sean and Cindy during the thumb song
This picture cracks me up because randomly throughout class Sofia and Sam seek each other out to give each other a quick hug. This time Sofia tried to pick Sam up, complete with the "UGGG" sound.
In the mix
Playing with scarves

I'm so chop liver-she always wants to be with Jess.
Sammy with Sean
Chatting

Ella is also taking a ballet/tap class with her friend Natalie. It's so cute, but the moms aren't allowed in the room with them and there are no windows so it's been challenging getting pictures. I'm going to try really hard next week. It's adorable!

Super Bowl Sunday 2009

We aren't really particularly fans of either the Cardinals or the Steelers but we rooted for the Cardinals for the sheer fact that the Steelers, Cowboys and our beloved 49ers were tied with the most Superbowl wins at 5. With the Steelers winning the Superbowl they now have the most Superbowl wins. Boo Hoo, for our Niners. But realistically, it's going to be a long time before our boys win any Superbowls, but we've got to be faithful, right?

Who says you have to care about the teams playing, or heck, even football, to enjoy a little Superbowl Party?

Our friends, Marc and Meredith, were gracious enough to open their home to us and our children, as well as Jess and Andy (Jordy and Sam) and Nick and Lauren (Nicholas and Jake).

The kids had a blast in their beautiful home, treating it like a Children's Museum.

With my girls before heading out

I love how Ella is hugging Sofia in this one

Meredith (our hostess) teaching Sofia how to ride this thingamabob. It was cool, but I don't remember what it's called.
Jess and I-I forgot to get one with Mer and Lauren
Andy, Ricardo, and Marc (host)
Meredith and Marc have a rather large house and these kids seriously filled it with toys. It was nuts, and embarrassing, but Meredith is so laid back, that she kept pulling out more toys for them.

Sofia playing in the tent
Ella and Jordy playing with a cash register

Sammy and Sofia hugging. They are so cute together.

Meredith pulling out more toys for the kids.
This picture cracks me up. Ella and Jordy were being all girl like and dramatic and when Ricardo tried to take their picture they turned around so he couldn't. Carson was seriously like, "Uggg, Woman!"
The food spread. There was even more on the kitchen counter behind me. Meredith is definitely a good Jewish girl ordering more food than humanly possible to consume.
After awhile we took pity on the guys and took the kids down to the basement playroom and tried to let the guys watch a little football.
The basement was another toy wonderland for the kids.

Jordy in the ball pit/tunnel
Jordy the Heart Doctor? I had no idea Doctors wore hard hats to work. Learn something new every day.
Ella the builder-"I'm building something"

It was a very exciting game. Unfortunately the Cards totally choked in the end but it was still fun to watch.

Thanks for having is over Marc and Meredith!