Pedicures, Punks and Paintings

Sometimes when Daxton is taking his morning nap, us girls take the opportunity to have ourselves a nice, relaxing pedicure. Actually, there is NOTHING relaxing about a pedicure with a 2-year old. It is nerve-wracking trying to make sure that your entire house isn't coated in nail polish by the time you are done.

This time, Arden really wanted to try and paint her toes herself. She promised to be "vewwy vewwy carefoo!" and looked up at me with those big blue eyes, so I decided to let her have a try. The first thing she did was look at the brush closely and get fingernail polish in her hair. I tried to wipe it out quickly with a paper towel, but it just smeared and she looked like she had gotten bright red streaks in her hair like people used to do in the 80's (sorry no pictures). Next I tried putting a little bit of acetone on it, and the streaks turned pink, which was a little better, but I still didn't think it was the best look for her. I wasn't sure if the polish remover would damage her hair if I put too much on, so I finally decided to just put her in the bathtub (where she had just been about an hour previously). I scrubbed and scrubbed and thankfully it came out!! Phew! So, I put her hair UP in a ponytail and we tried again:


She tried really hard and was actually pretty patient. Here is our final result:

Not too bad, huh? Seriously, sometimes my toes don't look much better than that! A couple of days later Arden wanted to color. Daxton looked very interested in the whole process, so I decided to let him give it a try too. See how hard he is concentrating? (see picture below) If you look at his paper, he actually made quite a few marks on it (I drew the heart to show him how it worked, so don't get too excited)...He had a great time, and was very proud of himself!
Arden LOVES Mickey Mouse clubhouse. She asks to watch it every day, at least 10 times a day, and I have to say we watch an episode most days of the week. I am pretty sure I have seen them all now, but at least they are only 20 minutes long! She decided she wanted to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, and I think they are amazingly good (of course, I am just a little biased:) Minnie is the one on the pink, in case you didn't recognize the bow on her head. So, I am thinking when Arden is a famous artist, these little babies could sell for millions. However, I am willing to sell them at a considerable discount, please leave your bid amounts in the comments :)

Lest you think we are not well-rounded, Daxton has learned how to "play ball" this week. If I roll a ball at him, he will try and reach out and grab it, and can usually do it if I aim it right at his hand. He then will try to roll it back to me, which is much harder, but he can get it rolling away from him about half the time, which I think is pretty impressive for an 8-month old! He gets so excited and shrieks and kicks his feet every time I roll the ball at him.

He is getting pretty LOUD!! Any ideas on how to explain what "shhhhhh" means to a baby?