Wow. Really? At ONE?

Today I was stripping the sheets in the master bedroom only to look up to find my pile of sheets gone. Hmmmm. Where could they have gone?

In the washing machine of course. A one-year-old passing by the door saw what mommy was up to and, knowing what needed to be done, did it himself, without even being asked.

I had started the hot water in the washing machine and that's where I found the sheets - chugging their way into the warm, soapy suds - put there by little hands who knew just what to do.

Wow! He really DID help me!

I didn't really know what to say! I was like, "Thank you Micah! Really! Thank you!!!" Oh how I love that precious boy!

Baking Cinnamon Rolls

This morning, Micah and I decided to bake some cinnamon rolls. Micah pretty much did all of it, pouring everything in the bowl, stirring it, kneading the dough, and watching it bake. Am I glad I have a one year old! Now I can just sit around with my feet up all day!

Kneading was especially fun!

This does absolutely NO justice to the mess that was made. He was covered in flour from head to foot! I kept asking him to look at the camera and say, "Cheese," but as you can see, he couldn't pull his eyes away from the flour.





He only fell off the chair once! Mental note: get a stepping stool!

What Can I Say? He Likes Things Clean.

My carpet is the kind that hides a LOT, which is good (I guess), since my vacuum barely works. Sometimes I feel like I'm vacuuming "by hand" - which isn't fun, let me tell you! Thankfully, God gave me a little helper to lighten the load. For months now, Micah's been picking up little fuzzies, or bits of leaf, or whatever he can find on the carpet, and holding it up to me saying, "Eeewwww!" before throwing it in the trash can. The other day, he actually grabbed a tissue before picking up the fuzzy on the floor. You know, so that he wouldn't have to touch the fuzzy. Because that would just be gross.

His help doesn't just end there. The other day he ran up to me, got in my face, and with a worried expression in his big brown eyes, said, "Uh-oh." Needless to say, I was afraid, because that is usually not a good sign. Thankfully, I followed my scurrying one-year-old to nothing but an already dead fly lying on the carpet. The thing is, Micah didn't know it was already dead. I decided not to tell him. "Uh-oh," I said. Micah didn't wait any longer. He knew what to do. He ran off to his room to grab a very small, corduroy shoe, which was just precious in and of itself, and then he came back to the fly, and whacked it several times. Dead. Now he was sure of it. He led the way to the bathroom, where I grabbed a bit of toilet paper, and then he went back to the fly and picked it up with the tissue, ran back into the bathroom, tossed it in the toilet, and flushed. That boy has seen his mommy kill one too many spiders! (I can't wait until he actually CAN kill spiders for me!)

Anyway, another thing he helps me do is dust/clean. I use natural cleaners so that he can help me scrub, and the two of us have a good old time together wiping things down. My favorite part about it is how important and helpful I can tell he feels. (Those Colin eyes are very expressive!) The funny thing about it is how quickly his paper towel gets so dirty he feels he must throw it away. That's why in most of these pictures, it barely looks like he has any paper towel at all. I tear one up into several pieces so that it lasts a little while longer. Otherwise I'd have a trash can full of clean paper towels!

So, if you want to buy a Christmas present for Micah and you're not sure what to get him, I have a great idea: a toddler-sized vacuum cleaner! It will be sure to take a load off of both Micah and mommy's minds as the current one just doesn't seem to be doing the job.

Oops.

This morning Colin had a migraine (some of you are doing a double-take, right? It was his first.), and so I was quickly getting ready for church, trying to keep Micah quiet. However, Micah was more interested in, "Daddy? Daddy?" So I handed him my socks and said, "Micah, could you go put these in the hamper?" Really, I was grasping for straws here. I wanted Colin to get some sleep, and so I decided to take a leap of faith in an effort to get Micah out of the room for a few more seconds.

Micah helps me with the laundry several times a week, but we don't often speak the word "hamper" out loud; however, sometimes he surprises me. I do often ask him to throw things away, so naturally, he scurried off to the trash can to throw my socks away.

"No, Micah," I said. "The hamper. In the bathroom."

I saw the light go on in his head, and thought what a smart child is my son. He scurried down the hallway to the bathroom. Suddenly it hit me. I got up as fast as I could and I was running down the hallway, but not before I heard the dreaded sound. I was able to save one sock. And you probably caught on way before me that the other one was flushed down the toilet.

My excuse is that I only got two hours of sleep last night, thanks to the fact that two of my favorite people in the whole world were in need of me. I am just not on top of my game!

Since we have a septic tank, I guess it's time to call my landlord. Sigh.

(Thankfully, Colin is feeling much better now!)

Too Cute!

If you haven't seen these on Brian's facebook, I just had to post a snippet here. You may not be able to tell right away, but Micah and Brian are trying to copy each other's facial expressions. I was in the other room not paying any attention whatsoever for most of this. They were having so much fun! I was hearing lots of laughter but it took me a long time to figure out why!
















That's one pretty amazing uncle if you ask me. Micah loves him! His "B."

Corn Anyone?

Okay, I got a little camera happy today. But when it's cold outside and there's not much to do, I usually just take a lot of pictures of Micah. It's always lots of fun!

Around naptime things got really quiet. Suddenly I wondered what Micah was doing. I searched the house, and had to look the living room over twice before I found this in the corner.





He was just sitting in the corner, eating a plate of corn. It was so funny! I hurried off to get Colin and the camera, and when I came back, he just looked at me, grinned really big, and said, "Cheese!" (Yes, we had been practicing!)

Money Money Money!

Grandma Charlene bought Micah a piggy bank, so we thought now was as good a time as any to teach our firstborn the value of saving his pennies.

"Micah, show me the money!"

Grandma almost didn't give the piggy bank to Micah because she was afraid it would make him cry. He thinks it's great. Am I the only grown up who thinks it's kind of scary?

"Micah, smile!"



"No, smile!"

Maybe next we'll work on saying "Cheese."

First Snow

Of course, we stayed cozy inside all day long. Maybe tomorrow we'll go out and play!

What to do on a Long Weekend?

We decided to have a little post-Thanksgiving fun and make snowflakes to decorate the house for winter. I made a salt dough and then Micah "helped" me roll it out and cut out snowflakes. After we baked them, he also helped me paint them (with his new, washable Crayola watercolor paints). It's so much fun watching him learn new things! I love being able to include him in my little projects.

Rolling...

Pounding (complete with sighs and grunts to let mommy know how hard he's working!)

Before they went in the oven...

And the final product...not exactly what we were going for, but close enough!



We also made a gingerbread house with daddy on Saturday night. I am trying to put it in a place where Micah can't snitch the little candies! He figured out pretty quickly that our craft was edible and I have had to keep a close eye on him ever since!

It's Good to be One...

Fun in the Fall

I'm a little late in posting these pictures, but oh well. Better late than never!

This year we went to East Heights Methodist Church to pick out our pumpkins. We love this church, because we got married in this church, and those are some good memories.

Micah loves pumpkins. Apparently his daddy loved pumpkins when he was a little boy too. However, now he doesn't like me to photograph him picking out his pumpkin because he thinks it's silly. I photograph him anyway, and so he plays evil tricks on me. If you can't tell, he's crossing his eyes in this picture.

Then, when it's his turn to take a picture of me and my pumpkin, he takes it when I don't expect it. Forget counting to three! Most of the time I'm not even looking at the camera.



However, in the end, I think Colin has just as fun a time as the rest of us, because deep down inside still lives a little boy obsessed with pumpkins! Not to mention he gets to spend time with his son.



Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year, and I do love pumpkins. But most of all I love making memories with my two favorite people!