Painting Name Frames

I'm still playing catch-up and adding some things to this blog that we did in the past. We did this at the beginning of July.

So, keeping in tune with the Pinterest site that I love. (I'm sure I mentioned that before.) Anyways, I saw this idea on Pinterest and so, a quick trip to the dollar store for supplies and we set to work on our newest art project!

You will need a roll of painters tape, a canvass - ours was $2 at the 'Dollar Store with More' (which really just means they can charge you more than a buck for some things in there.) And of course, you need some paint. 

Cut the painters tape and arrange it into letters on the canvas.

You can pick any word you want (LOVE? Family? etc.) We chose Lincoln's name. Once you decide on your word, place the tape in the shape of the letters on the canvas. I tried to get it centered but that didn't quite work for me so I added an exclamation point at the end of his name for balance.

Next, put on the paint smock, spread newspapers on the table and you're set to go.

Lincoln checking out his name and getting his paintbrush ready to go!

Picking his first color. He chose red. He seems to always pick red. A long time ago we were looking at paint colors for his bed and one of the options was 'blood red'. I thought it was kind of morbid, but since that day, Lincoln always calls any shade of red 'blood'. I'm hoping he grows out of it soon so I just don't say much about it. I know when to pick my battles.

And Let the painting begin.

He was very happy about the project.

It took a lot of concentration to do this 'hard' work.

I love that in this picture - he looks soooo deep in thought and concentration.

Another attempt to get a close up of his little 'artistic' face.

A lot of red went in that top corner to start off with!

Spreading the paint around.

Another picture with deep concentration going on! And everyone knows that you concentrate better if you stick your tongue out!

Painting the inside of the 'O'.

He got some paint on his finger and I told him he could use his hands to paint the picture as long as he was careful not to press too hard and poke a hole in the canvas.

He wasn't nearly as excited about the 'finger-painting' process as I thought he'd be.

He didn't do it for too long and quickly went back to using the brush.

Making some more loops with the red paint. I think I put most of these pictures on here because it shows his little face so deep in concentration.

Finally, we begin to use some other colors.

And then back to red.

It took him quite a while to paint the whole thing. I'm thinking we may do a bunch of smaller ones for the basement walls, but I'm going to use a bigger brush!!

And he finished painting the whole thing! (About an hour later!!)

I have no idea what his facial expression is all about. I think he may have been blowing the paint dry, but I'm really just not sure!

TA DA!!

Pretty darn proud of the finished product! We let it dry for just over an hour. (I don't know that it was totally dry, but I was excited to see how it turned out.)

Once the painting is dry, you peel off the letters It was a bit tricky to find the edges on the wet paint.

AND THAT'S how it looks in the end when you remove all the tape strips!

SO happy with the outcome!!

Hanging it in the hallway. Looking sharp!!

And one final picture of him beside his art - so very pleased with himself!!

And, there you have it. Our afternoon spent making a lovely wall hanging. Like I said, I might get him to do some smaller ones or ones with nice sayings on them for the basement or playroom. He quite enjoyed the project. 

The Ivory soap Experiment.

I love pinterest!! I love LOVE LOVE Pinterest. You can find all sorts of ideas on there. Fun crafts, neat recipes, science experiments and just a variety of other things. It's great. Lincoln and I do a lot of things that I find on Pinterest. This is one of them.

First, you take an ordinary bar of Ivory Soap. You put it on a paper towel, I just used a regular kitchen dinner plate. You microwave it for about 3 minutes. I had to take our bar out once becuase it got so big but was only half done, so I took it out and separated it. Once the heat stops, the mushy Ivory Soap does shrink a little bit when you take it out of the microwave, but not that much.



This was the first half of the bar of Ivory Soap.



This is what the Ivory soap looked like when it came out of the microwave. All poofy and fun, ready to be played with!!



The second half of the Ivory Soap. Now we're ready to play. The "Pinterest" site said the woman just puts her kids at the kitchen table with thier Ivory Soap, but I had a revalation -- why not just let him play with it in the bathtub? Made sense to me.

I knew that I'd be taking pictures of him while he was playing - so after many minutes of convincing him that it was OKAY to wear his underwear in the tub, he finally conceded to leaving them on and getting in the tub.

Here's the first guy he picked to go into the 'snow'.

Putting the first guy into the 'snowbank'. Pirates were made to make snow angels apparently!!

Adding more guys to the snow...

Having a lot of fun... All the pirates are now in making 'Snow Angels.'

"AVALANCHE!!!"

Making a snowball.... The Ivory soap was mold-able. But it was also flakey. I expected it to be more gooey than it was. But it didn't matter to Lincoln. He had a blast!

FUN!! FUN!! FUN!!

When he was done playing, he got his hands a little bit damp and the soap became more gooey. He had a great time goo-ing up his hands and then clapping them together and sending the soap flakes flying. Because it was in the bathtub, it was perfectly fine to do this.

One final picture of his gooey hands before we added water to the bathtub and got all washed clean and ready for bed.

This was a great experiment. He had a blast and it was relatively cheap. The Ivory Soap came in a 10 pack for about $4 at Walmart. He litterally played in the tub with no water and just the soap for just over an hour with the pirate men that he has. THEN when he was done playing in the 'dry' tub. He took off his undies and played with the soap in the water making ice-burgs and other such creations for another hour or so. I expected him to be entertained for maybe an hour in total. I certain had no idea he would have over two hours of fun with it. Definitely going to do this one again!

Mommy is Beautiful!

So, last night we're coming back from the park and I had told Lincoln he could have a freezie when we got home. Sadly though, he began whining about something so I told him no freezie. (I gave him a chance first! I'm not THAT cruel!) So anyway, he didn't get his freezie last night... This morning I wake him up for daycare at 6am and he says to me: "Mommy, you're so beautiful." I sigh and think how sweet that is... and before I can even finish that thought he says, "Can I have a freezie?" Little bugger!!!

I have no idea how to rotate the pictures... So... sorry, tilt your head to the side for optimal viewing... this is from Fort George at the Waterpark, July 2012. 

Can't you just see the evil glint in his eyes as he waits for his sprayer to come on?
July 2012, Fort George Waterpark Again.

The poor little guy was waiting up for Nanny and Grandpa a few weeks ago... he made it until about 11:00 before he finally passed out... poor guy! He woke up in the morning and went to the bathroom and then came running back to the couch to tell me: "Mommy! I think someone is in our house! I think it's Nanny and Grandfather!"

Again, I have no idea how to rotate the pictures... Here he is driving Uncle Lorne's boat and wearing his hat on the lake in Kelowna. July, 2012.

Laying on the back of Uncle Lorne's Boat, looking all cool! (Becuase of course, he is cool!)
July 2012

We hadn't brought his life jacket so he had to wear Jamie's Cinderella one. He didn't seem to mind, he had sooo much fun!
July 2012, Kelowna, BC

He was one pretty darned happy guy on that boating trip. Although, he kept calling it a ship:
"Are we going on the ship today, Mommy?"
"Can I bring these toys on the ship?"
It was pretty darned cute!

Since I'm always the one with the camera, I have very few pictures of Lincoln and Me. (And it doesn't help that I hate having my picture taken, I always look awful! But I'm working on some dieting and things so we'll see. Maybe I'll be using that timer on the camera and be taking pictures of myself all the time!)

Choking to death?

Lincoln came home from daycare one day a few weeks ago. We're eating a snack or something and he says to me:
"Mommy, Aunty Christine (his daycare lady) is trying to choke me to death."
Me: "Lincoln, what are you talking about - I'm sure she's not trying to choke you to death!"
L- "Yes, she is Mommy. She's trying to choke me to death because I take a little bite of my food and she tells me to take a bigger bite - she's going to choke me to death."

The things this child says sometimes just leave me speachless... Today we were at the park and there were a bunch of East Indian fellows in turbans with long beards and Lincoln points at them and yells, "Look Mommy!! Some guys from the palace!!" (NO MORE ALADIN for him!!)

Not so Irritated....

Okay, so I'm not so irritated anymore - turns out, I found the posts... some how or other, I attached them to the wrong blog... I knew I had made one in error!! SO... here they are...

Playing Catch-up with some Posts from Facebook!

Some things Lincoln has said to me lately: *they are likely not in any order, since I just cut and pasted them from my facebook status!*

So... I always say to Lincoln.... (after I've had to tell him to do or not do something more than once.) I will say something along the lines of "Lincoln! I've had to tell you that two times now! That's not behaving nicely!" --- So today, we're getting out of the car and I'm going to undo the snap on his carseat and I hear him saying "I want to do that one." But I didn't realy process it until he says, with huge sigh - "Mommy, I had to tell you that two times! That's not being a nice behaving Mommy!" Darn kid! Picking up on everything I say and then throwing it right back at me!

After a discussion with Lincoln - it appears we will be going to West Lake this morning... and it appears we will be bring Myles with us.... AND further more - it appears we will be having Subway for Lunch becuase (and I quote) "Subway doesn't make peanut butter sandwiches cause I don't like peanut butter." -- I think it's nice that Lincoln thinks that the ony reason Subway doesn't make peanut butter sandwiches is because he doesn't like them... apparently - he still believes that everything is somehow related to his likes and dislikes!

Four year old Logic... yesterday was a great day... and then it rolled around to about 8 o'clock at night. It was a rough go for Lincoln. I was on the phone talking to my mother and he was crazy loud. Way beyond loud. I told him he could go play in the playroom if he was going to be loud, but if he wanted to stay with me while I was talking to Nanny, he had to be quiet! I even took the phone in th...e bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub with the door shut and he was still just phenominally loud. He kept opening the door and coming in being loud and finally, I had enough! I yelled at him -- very loud -- not one of my proudest parenting moments - but the nice talking wasn't working -- you would think my yell would have put the fear of God in the child - but that was not the case. He gave it one last yell of his own and that was it! I told my mother I would call her back. I told Lincoln (in a loud voice that he was not behaving nicely and he could go to bed!) He was most upset and began crying and whining and worked himself up into such a tizzy that he made himself sick. So... now I'm even more angry because I know that the only reason he got sick was because he wasn't listening to me and if he had just laid down and go to sleep everything would have been fine. So... I'm now ripping sheets of his bed and probably yelling a bit more. I get him cleaned up, put to bed and retreat to the couch to call my mother back. Soooo... this morning... he comes out of his room and says to me, "Good Morning Mommy, you are the best mommy in the world."
I say thanks, you're the best kid in the world - or something like that ... to which Lincoln replies,
"Well, actuallly (yes, he said actually) you are the best Mommy in the world, all the time, except when you yell at me - then you aren't the best Mommy in the world... sooooooo (here comes the logic!) Soooo Mommy, you should never yell at me and then you'll always be the best Mommy.
(Forget trying to reason with him that if he behaves, I won't have to yell... to him - it's pretty simply... don't yell at him - EVER - and I'm the best mommy in the world!

So... we're driving up to Noah's Ark today... going up cranbrook hill... up ... up... up... and Lincoln says, "Are we still going up cause I'm afraid of Heights." I say "Oh, why are you afraid of heights?"
Lincoln has this look that he sometimes gives me... and you can see it in his little (sly eyes as my mother calls them!!) he get's this look as though he's humoring me and that I'm beyond stupid... so ... he gives me this look when I asked why he was afraid of heights and says... "Because I don't like being up high - you dough-head!"

Todays (or likely just this mornings) conversation with Lincoln....
Me -- "Lincoln - do you want to go to Noah's Ark?"
Lincoln - (with crazy excitment) "Oh Yeah!! I do!!"
m- "Okay, I put some clothes on the bench in your room - go and get dressed."
L -"Okay Mommy." And off he goes - happily down the hall to his room.
A few minutes later...
L -- "Mommy, I don't like this Underwears you picked out!...!"
M-- "Okay, well don't wear those ones." (seemed like a simple enough solution to me.)
L -- "Oh! That's great, Mommy."
(He's simple to please - let him pick his own underwear.) Anyways... a few more minutes pass and I hear him kinda chuckling to himself in there. I am now down brushing my hair and head to the kitchen waiting to sunscreen him up. He comes happily skipping down the hall with this wierd - but happy - look on his face. He get's right close to me - leans in and whispers - "Mommy? I'm half naked."
I look at him in his shorts, T-shirt and even has socks on --- VERY CLEARLY -- he's not in any way naked....So I comment on that. "Lincoln, that's sillly talk - you're not naked."
He again, leans in super close to me and whispers, "Yes I am Mommy, I'm half naked -- he gets even quieter now as he whispers, "I don't have any underwears on."

Little tip for the rest of the world... If you're house is smoking hot, you shut your curtains, take a nice cool shower and plan to sit under the ceiling fan in your undergarments to let yourself cool off.... MAKE BLOODY SURE YOUR CHILD HASN'T OPENED THE CURTAINS!!!!

back from Kids Art day at the Gallery-- Lincoln had a ton of fun... painting and playing...and eating hot-dogs... but the best part was when I said we had to leave so that I could have a nap for work tonight and he said.... "Okay Mommy, thanks for brining us here, that sure was a ton of fun wasn't it?" --- Now here's hoping I can get to sleep - otherwise... I'm apologizing in advance to my co-workers because you'll have to suffer with me on 3 hours of sleep since our last nightshift.... may not be pretty.....

Holy Dynamite!! I cheese grated the inside of my wrist and it hurts like crazy!! And then Lincoln, bless him, comes running to the kitchen and asks me if I want him to kiss it better, BUT when he got to the kitchen and saw the blood told me he couldn't kiss it and I would have to kiss my own 'bloody' hand... he meant cause my hand was full of blood but all I could think about was a co-worker of mine (Cathy) saying 'Bloody 'Ell"...(that 'Ell' is really 'Hell' with her lovely British accent!!

So... today Lincoln is playing in the basement - unsupervised for the first time ever--- (yes... the whole bubble thing!! I know!! But the basement has a separate entry way and I AM NOT going to be one of those parents who's kid wanders off and ends up half way to Walmart before I notice...so the other day, I re-aranged some furniture down there and the door is now un-accessible - so he's got some... toys and in particular his motorized quad down there).... and I thought to myself yesterday, that I would put the baby monitor down there so I could hear him if I was upstairs... but I haven't done that yet... so after my shower (WHICH I finally fixed yesterday!!) he asks if he can stay down there and play down there and I said he could... ANYWAY... point of the story is I let him play down there by himself this morning while I am upstairs folding laundry and I have decided 'who needs a baby monitor when your child is as loud as mine and never stops?? I'm in the living room folding laundry and through the heat vents I am listening to a medley of 'What's new Scooby Doo, The alphabet song and The man in the Moon is a Newfied!!' -- yup, I love that kid!!

After a busy day at the park and then Marlene's, we hadn't been home since 1130 this morning, I got Lincoln out of the bath and ready for bed at about 10pm... and he has this huge yawn... I asked him if he was tired and he looks at me with the most serious look on his face and says 'Yes, Mommy. I sure could use a good nights sleep!!" (of course after working a nightshift and then spending last night on the trampoline half cold and tossing and turning... I can't wait to have a good nights sleep either!!)

So I just decided we'd listen to a Newfoundland Radio station for our cleaning spree.... loaded it up and there was a commercial and Lincoln says... 'hey Mommy...I love how this crazy guy is talking.' --- even Lincoln knows the Newfies are crazy but that he should love them!! AND NOW...no more procrastinating -- WE CLEAN!!

just told Lincoln we were gonna crank up some music and go crazy cleaning the house.... he ran off to his room and came back out in a pair of PJs... I asked him what he was doing and he said "Well Mommy! We always do cleaning in Pajamas!" --- (AND Rhonda H. incidentally since we discussed this the other day -- again he's got the tone!!!)

today ... we're looking at my cousins little girl on facebook and Lincoln asks who she is. I tell him that it's Morgan and that she is his 'second' cousin. He looks all confused and tells me she is not. I say she is and we go back and forth for a few minutes and finally he gives me this exasperated look. (This look is like a cross between... I can't tolerate you and You're stupid. ) And then in... a voice laced with 'tone' he tells me that Landon is his second cousin... because he is the second oldest... Logan is his first cousin cause she's the biggest but then comes Landon and he's the second cousin.... You can't argue with that kind of logic.... BUT... we're definitely going to have to work on that whole 'You're too stupid for this explanation' tone he's got going on!

Oh, I forgot to write this yesterday... Lincoln had Myles over for a playdate... and upon listening to a few conversations they had, I may need to teach Lincoln a few things...
Conversation #1: The boys were watching Jake run around the kitchen:
Myles: "I don't have a puppy anymore."
Lincoln: "Oh?"
Myles: "Yeah, my puppy is at the pet store."
Lincoln ponders for a moment and then says, "No Myles. I think your puppy is dead."
(which is true... but apparently I need to work on Lincoln and SYMPATHY!!)
In Lincoln's defense, he does tell Myles that Buddy - Myles' dog is in Heaven with God and Serra (our old Dog.)

Well... Got the Trampoline yesterday and today had the first trampoline related injury! FOR ME!!! So, we're in the back yard... living life... being happy.... Lincoln is bouncing on the trampoline ... living life... being happy.... I'm watching him from the deck... again... living life... being happy.... and I think ... hey... while we're both out here living life... being happy.... this is a K...odak moment... so off I go to get my camera... while I'm walking out of the kitchen to the porch, I glance down to see how much battery life my camera has... next thing I know, I'm flying face first through the porch. Camera goes one way, I go one way and my foot goes another way! I lay there - writhing in pain - contemplating my options when my wonderful dog spots me and thinks -- oh -- this must mean she wants to play! Apparently the in the universal language of dog: "Ouch! I'm dying! My foot's on fire! Get outta here Jake!" Really means, lets jump all over her - she must like it!
My bellows of outrage at the dog, now bring Lincoln running - nice that he cares. He comes in, sees me down and asks what happened. I politely tell him that I think I broke my foot and perhaps various other bones in my body. This loveable wonderful boy then grabs my foot and goes to kiss it. The kiss was a nice gesture, the ripping of my foot, not so much!
I finally summon up enough energy to crawl my way to the kitchen and onto a chair to assess the damage. My medical opinion is that It needs to be amputated, I'm sure!! I call Christine who comes to save me and takes me to emergency and babysits Lincoln while I'm there. ((THANKS CHRISTINE!!))
Great news! They were able to save my foot!! It's swolen huge and bruised like never before, but the X-rays say it's probably a bad sprain. Tensor wrap, Kkep it elevated, ice it, stay off it for a day or two and all should be well in the world and we can go back to living life... being happy.... It hurts like crazy at the moment though.
Funny thing at the ER though... Doctor says, was this a work injury? I said "Nope, it's a stupitity injury!"
If I could sustain this injury just by being in the proximity of the trampoline - I doubt I'll be jumping on it anytime soon!!

Dear Fate... why you gotta kick me when I'm down?? I'm limping my way back from the bathroom... I pause in the playroom and I tell Lincoln how glad I am that he's playing so nice and quiet with his little dinky cars... I tell him how it's so nice because my foot is sore and it makes me very happy when he's being so good.... then I begin my limp back to the couch... and I step on one of his FREAKIN...G DINKIES!!! The only good thing is that I stepped on it with my good foot - HOWEVER - it causes me to lurch forward in pain and onto my bad foot!! End Result is both feet hurt like hell!! While I'm on my continued limp back to the couch... I mutter something about my 'stupid' foot. (Which in my defense -- could have been worse!!) but anyway... I mutter about my stupid foot and Lincoln, without even bothering to look up from the parking lot that he's creating, he tells me -- in a very condescending tone, I might add-- "Mommy!! Stupid is a bad word!!" ... Quite frankly... stupid was one of the better bad words I contemplated... I thought a heck of a lot worse words, that's for sure!!

I put Lincoln to bed tonight and then about 20 minutes later I went in to check on him --- he was still awake.... then said.... "What are you doing mommy?"
Me --"Just looking at you."
Lincoln --"Why?"
Me -- "Cause I love looking at you."
Lincoln -- "Oh... well... Mommy, I got a good idea. If you let me stay up and play, you can look at me all night!!"

This logic at 4 years old means only one thing.... I'm screwed when he becomes a teenager!!

Lincoln: "Mommy, I don't want you to go to work."
Me: "Lincoln I have to go to work to make money to buy you toys and clothes."
Lincoln, "Well, it's okay, I don't need toys and I can wear my old clothes."
Me: Well, I also have to make money to buy us food?"
Lincoln, "Well, we could just go live with Nanny and Grandpa and eat all their food." (So --- what do say Mom?? Can I quit my job and live with you forever??)

 

A few more posts from facebook... these were from 2011 and 2010...

Sooooo... Lincoln is walking around the house with a toy phone randomly saying things and keeps addressing the person on the other end as Robin..... I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out who Robin is -- cause we don't know a Robin....

then it all clicks when Lincoln says, "Okay Robin, that's cool -- can I talk to Batman now!!"

You laugh but he was walking arond for a good 10 minutes going on and on.... I was thinking of people we knew... going throug all those damn Thomas the train guys...I couldn't come up with a single Robin....

hmmm... I thought I'd have more... but apparently, that brings me up to date on all the facebook posts that I should have been adding to the blog...

A few more things I've just thought of off the top of my head... I was getting Lincoln dressed to go somewhere one day and told him to go get his shoes. He did and he put one on and said "This is the right one?" I was quite a proud mommy becuase I'm sure he wasn't even two when this happened and so I said, "Yes, it is the right one. Do you know what the other one is?" And he looks at me, then at his foot and says, "Yes, the wrong one!"