Arts & Crafts

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do more crafty-type things, which I've always enjoyed but never really made time for. Also, my mom gave me a new sewing machine for Christmas, so that's definitely inspired me to spend a little more time being creative these days. Also, I find it's a lot easier to justify spending time making fun little things for Silas than I ever could on making stuff for myself.

Disclaimer: I have neither time, talent, nor patience, so, if I can make any of these things, I'm sure anyone else could.

Below are some pics of recent projects and links to any tutorials or patterns I used:

Toddler Tie Shirt: Pattern and tutorial at Saltwater Kids
Toddler belt: Tutorial at Prudent Baby

I'll admit, I'm a little addicted to the tie t-shirt, belt combo.

Silas's favorite (felt) food
Waffles and bacon: my own "pattern" (obviously)
Apples: Pattern from Umecrafts

Silas's Sonata

I can't tell if my favorite part is when he dramatically pauses or when he cracks himself up.

Happy President's Day

Last night, I got the urge to make Silas something to commemorate President's Day, so using this tutorial, I made him this fabulous shirt.

Of course, we had to take him to the Lincoln Memorial to show off his festive duds.




Happy President's Day!

Please make it stop: Snoverkill

Silas's face when he saw that we had more snow.

So, we got some more snow. Approximately 14 additional inches, in fact. This in addition to 50mph wind gusts that took the original 25 inches and created 4 to 8 foot sand dune-like snow drifts.

Taken at the tail-end of the blizzard.
Remember our walkway that we just shoveled?

The balcony off of our kitchen

As a result, in addition to having been completely homebound all weekend long, we have been stuck in the house with poor Silas all day for the past two days as well, and, I think it's starting to get to all of us.

Because both Matt and I are expected to work on snow days--despite the actual blizzard warning, my office didn't even close (I know! I LOVE being a lawyer at a big firm in DC on days like this!), we tag team. One of us plays with and watches Silas for a couple of hours while the other works and/or shovels snow and then we switch. Occasionally, we've had overlapping conference calls, which has been fun. During one of Matt's calls yesterday, Silas repeatedly tried to grab the phone out of his hand while screaming "buboh, buboh!" (bubbles). During one of my calls today, I had to pause the discussion of Medicaid prescription drug rebates to fish crayon bits out of Silas's mouth. To any of our coworkers who read this blog, we apologize. It's stressful and exhausting, but, to be honest, both Matt and I are really enjoying all of this extra time the the Buddy.

Silas seems to have really had a good time the last couple of days. We all spent yesterday in our pajamas, watching the wind whip huge quantities of snow down our street and marveling at the "white out" conditions. After we read every book he owns 25 times, played blocks, played pretend picnic, located all missing puzzle pieces, put puzzles together, distributed puzzle pieces throughout the house to be found later, built towers of blocks, repeatedly and loudly knocked down towers of blocks, and watched videos of elephants on YouTube, I honestly ran out of things to do. That is, until I wondered if my son would perhaps have the same love of office supplies that I do.

Why, yes. Yes, he does:

You should see what I can do with some post-it notes and a highlighter

He's also enjoyed coloring (with a paci in place in an attempt to prevent his having the crayons as a snack)

And playing the piano

Let's see, I think I remember this chord...

Don't let them fool you. This snow stuff is terrible. As soon as it melts, I'm moving to Florida.

Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, SNOMG! Part I

So we've been dealing with a little bit of weather here in the last week or so. Good thing Silas loves the snow. Hahahaha. Er, wait. Homeboy hates snow with a burning passion, which is, honestly, a little inconvenient right now.

This weekend, starting Friday night, we got walloped with approximately 25" of snow. Here's Matt working to shovel the walk mid-snowstorm Saturday morning.


We ended up having to shovel at least twice more, taking turns shoveling and entertaining Mr. Anti-Winter Wonderland, using our neighbor's snow shovel, because amazing planners we are, we DON'T YET OWN A SNOW SHOVEL.

Once we got the walkway and sidewalk properly shoveled, Sir Silas deigned to venture out of the house without pitching a complete fit. Here we are leaving the house for a short walk down the street.

Please hurry up and take the picture, Mother.

Why, yes, the snow is indeed quite high.

Fine, let's take a walk

My, that shadow is handsome!

Mama made chocolate toffee bars to reward me for going outside!

I was a big fan

Currently, we're experiencing a second major snow event, "Snoverkill," as it's being termed here. I'll post later about our adventures enduring the current blizzard outside.