Even the Sink

Valentine's Revisited

2012-02-10T18:18:00.002-05:00

I have absolutely nothing against store bought Valentine cards and have even used them when I don't have time to do something fun with the boys, but last year I got creative and here's what we ended up with...

Riley loves frogs and wanted something along those lines, so I bought these little frogs at the dollar store and glued them on a little topper with some homemade treats in them. He loved it.

Owen went with a robot theme (and I think they are SOOOOO adorable!!!). Again, used it as a topper with homemade treats in them.

Owen also needed a decorated box to take to school and decided on a monster theme. The hearts for the hands, feet, and antennae are actually red despite looking a bit orange here. He had a lot of fun making this. Soon I'll post this year's creations.

Pintastic Projects

2011-12-12T22:01:00.000-05:00

The holiday season is here and with it an abundance of opportunities to peruse pinterest for ideas to keep us busy! But before we get to that, I need to show you one of the first projects I completed after finding pinterest. I'd been looking for a jewelry organizer for a LONG time and finally found exactly what I needed. I actually combined a couple different projects I found on pinterest to make exactly what I needed. I bought a large wooden frame at the thrift store, spray painted it, staples hardware wire into it, added knobs for necklaces and nails for bracelets. I also needed somewhere to hang earrings that wouldn't hook on the "chicken wire" so I found a ribbon type thing (that's the official term for it, by the way) with loops in it and ran it vertically down one side. One unexpected hiccup in this is that it turned out to be VERY heavy with all my jewelry on it (and I actually only have about 3/4 of my jewelry on it so far!) so hanging it has been a bit of a challenge, but I finally found a good place for it. Not sure if it will stay there but it works for now.

My pinspirations for this came from here and here with Chelsea at Us Three Birds really walking me through the steps.

The next project was a fairly simple one, but I must say the boys got bored with it (especially Riley) and I ended up being the one to finish them. Right now I only have a picture of Owen's creation. I used two sheets of 8.5x11 cardstock to make the cone for the tree shape and my circle punch to punch out all the circles. The boys used good ol' Elmer's glue to glue all the circles on. Ours isn't quite as sophisticated as the pinspiration was but it's from the heart and the boys LOVE them. Thank you to Better Homes and Gardens for this pinspiration.

Owen missed school today due to a fever so I promised him a craft he could take to school to share with his class. We did the Hand SANTA-tizers. Both boys really enjoyed this and made it their own. I gave them options for everything from how/what to make the belt from (they both decided on electrical tape!) to what they used for the white "fluff" at the bottom of Santa's coat as well as for the buckle on his belt. Thanks to Beth Newlin for the pinspiration!

And while we were crafting, we made some paper circle ornaments for the tree. We each picked two patterned papers and alternated the circles on each ornament using the directions from Sarah Nielsen . The boys did a really great job. And Owen decided he wanted some beads on his (I had them out as an option for the belt buckles on the Santa-tizers). Riley, as usual, wouldn't be outdone so he wanted beads too. Owen's is in greens and blues and browns with green beads at top and bottom. Riley's is greens and blues with one bead of each color on his. I left mine beadless but I actually really like the bead look so will likely add some at a later date. And after looking back at Sarah Nielsen's tutorial I see she used 10 circles per ornament and we only used 6. I think we'll go back and add more tomorrow...

One last pintastic project was snack for Riley's class the other week. Reindeer donuts. They LOVED them. And of course the boys enjoyed making more with the leftovers at home for the next couple days. Thanks to Oriental Trading Company for the idea! I didn't make them exactly the same way as the recipe suggests. I just used whatever was cheapest that I could find. So cherry sours were the noses and little bits of Crunch ice cream topping (or something like that) had white and brown pieces in it so I used the white ones for the eyes. The noses were just sitting on top of the donut, but the antlers and the eyes were pressed into the donuts. And the one you see in the close up is my favorite little guy. I love how the "mistake" hole on the donut makes Rudolph look like he's being taken by surprise. Just adorable. (You may also notice in the bottom picture, I didn't place the hole as strategically and it kind of looks like that Rudolph got shot. Oops. Unintentional, I assure you!!!)

Doughboys

2011-11-18T21:24:00.001-05:00

So I'm hanging out on pinterest (of course) and see a pin of something familiar. But when I click on it to read about it, I realize the way we do it is SO. MUCH. COOLER! When we go camping, we like to have doughboys cooked over the fire for breakfast. All you need is a dowel rod (about the diameter of your thumb), a can of biscuits, and a fire. Oh, and whatever you want to go IN your doughboy. The possibilities are endless.

We had our backyard fixed this past spring and it is soooo worth it. We'd been here for YEARS and not been able to go in our yard and enjoy it. Actually, Memorial Day weekend in 2006 Eric and Owen (who had JUST turned 2) decided to camp out back there. And Eric ended up with the worst case of poison ivy I've ever seen. We're talking about a big, huge blister the size of a golf ball on his arm. If you get queasy easy, skip this part, but when he popped the blister there was a semi-solid glob of puss that came out of it. It was so gross. He ended up having to go to urgent care to get them to look at it and they brought all the doctors and nurses in to ogle at it! When he went to work he had his arm wrapped in gauze and the guys ribbed him and basically called him a wuss. So he unwrapped his arm and when they saw it, well they asked him to cover it back up!!! Anyway, NOW our backyard is useable and we've been trying to use it as much as possible. I'll try to do a whole update on that later (if I don't forget).

So we've had a couple campouts in our backyard. The first one was with my mommy friends and all their kids. Several moms weren't brave enough to give the camping a go ;-) so they came for the cookout and hanging out and went home to sleep in their comfy beds. If I remember correctly we had 5 moms and 9 kids stay the night in our backyard. So. Much. Fun. Have I mentioned I <3 camping???

The view of our little camping compound from the deck.

Anyway, Eric was out of town for that experience so later in the summer we invited my good friend Lillie and her family to come camp with us. We had a great time, as we always do with her family. And for breakfast the next morning we made doughboys. I've always made them with "whop biscuits" (that's the refrigerated canned biscuits you WHOP on the counter to open), but all I could find in the fridge was crescent roll dough so we improvised. And it worked great!

Mmmmmm. So yummy. And Lillie was kind enough to bring us ANOTHER jar of her homemade peach preserves. We made quick work of the first jar. Those peach preserves were perfect inside these doughboys. We also tried scrambled eggs and crumbled up sausage in them. Also yum! Butter, cinnamon, and sugar is also a must-try combo.

The trick is to make sure you do a good job wrapping it so you don't lose all your filling. If using biscuits, stretch the biscuit out until it's about 6 inches long. Start at the end of your dowel rod and coil the biscuit around. Make sure to seal it up well at all the seams. Hold it over the fire and rotate periodically to brown it on all sides. Once it's cooked it should slide off the rod with a gentle twist. If you twist too hard it will split open at the seams. There's also a right and a wrong direction to twist it, but it depends on which way you coiled it. Also, the first couple times you use the dowel rods for this it will stick more. I've never tried using Pam or anything but I guess that might help. After a few times though it will kind of get seasoned and will work better.

Two years later...

2011-11-18T16:19:00.004-05:00

Wow. Life gets busy and the blog gets neglected. Let's see, I've got boys in 2nd grade and Kindergarten and they both love school (Hallelujah!!). They're also both doing really well at school. It helps that their school is awesome and they both have amazing teachers.

And with all my "free" time I'm now going back to school full time to get my Master's of Education. In addition to that, I've gotten more serious about running and when the boys started school back in August I started training for a Half Marathon. My goal was 2 hours and ten minutes. I finished the Athens half mary last month in just under 2:07 (I think it was 2:06:55). VERY happy with that. I have some really great friends who helped me get ready for it. I never could have done it that fast without all of them. Leah and April became my workout partners back in the spring. We started out doing Insanity with Sean T. Oh man, it truly was INSANE. But when summer started we decided to start walking and running at the track instead of doing Insanity. And we have kept it up. Some weeks are crazy and we only get together one night, other weeks we exercise 4 mights and one afternoon together. It sure has made a difference. Then Eric told his running buddies about me running and one of them told his wife and she texted me about starting to run together. I'll tell you, Robin is F-A-S-T. She's a machine. We do 5-5.5 miles once a week. There's hills. Big hills. And she doesn't let up. I usually have to walk at some point but she just keeps running. Wow. But she pushed me and I'm a better runner for it. And Eric has always been a big supporter. He's always encouraged me to run and had faith in my ability. I love him for that!

Eric, on the other hand, is taking a break from running. He did run a marathon just over 2 years ago and I think he wants to run another, but it will be a while before that happens. Three months ago he had hip resurfacing surgery. This was an alternative to total hip replacement. Instead of cutting off the whole head of the femur they just whittle it down some and put a new cap on it along with a new socket for that to fit into. He now sets off all the metal detectors at the airport. And speaking of the airport, Eric's job has changed greatly. He works for the same company but in the corporate arena. He helps with internal audits of safety and environmental procedures among other things and this requires traveling. He averages about one week a month of traveling. Sometimes he gets to go to exotic locales like Oklahoma and Tennessee. But he also has spent a lot of time in San Diego as well as trips to Maine, Virginia, Modesto, CA, the Philippines, and Brazil.

Okay, now that we're all caught up, on to the real reason I'm here. I have a problem. Well, maybe not a problem, but it is definitely an addiction. An addiction to pinterest. I love that sight. Man can I find some AWESOME things on there. Like this Praline Pumpkin Cake that is personally responsible for me gaining about 5 pounds. You may think I'm joking but I'm not. This cake is AWESOME. Apparently I think the word AWESOME is AWESOME. Anyhoo, I think I've made it 4 or 5 times in the past month. And I'm planning to make it again next week for Thanksgiving. I think what makes it so divine is how the praline layers kind of soak into the pumpkin cake and make it oh-so-moist. Oops, sorry about that little drop of drool on the screen. Let me dry that off for you... There, that's better.

The surprising thing about this cake is how easy it is. You use cake mix and store bought icing and just jazz it up. I know of 4 people who have tried this cake since I made it and are planning to make it for Thanksgiving too! So without delay, here a link to the recipe: Praline Pumpkin Cake and this is what it looks like (I took the pic with my phone so please excuse the quality)...

I do have other pinspired creations (I think I just made that word up!) and I will be sharing those with you in the future.

Update on Owen's wrist

2009-09-21T08:04:00.007-04:00

The lump on Owen's wrist wasn't going away so we decided to go ahead and do the MRI. It was scheduled for last Monday and went pretty well. Owen was actually pretty excited about getting to go in "the tunnel" and he did FANTASTIC. It took about 40 minutes for them to get all the images and he was so still for the whole thing. I was very impressed. But then that afternoon after we got home, they called back and said they needed us to come back in for a couple more images. At that point she told me one of the images hadn't turned out clearly so they needed to retake it and then they were going to take one more just to make sure they got a good image. The whole thing would only take 10 minutes she said. When we got there Tuesday though she said all the images from Monday had come out fine but there were just a couple images she didn't get that the radiologist wanted. And of course it took an hour to get these two images, not 10 minutes like she said. And much of that hour, she was standing in the hallway talking to her pal. ANYWAY, we had to wait until Thursday for the results even though we asked if we could go ahead and talk to the radiologist Tuesday (since they made us drive all the way back down here), but it was no deal.

Of course, after the second round of images on Tuesday, my mind started spinning. Was there something suspicious on Monday's images that made him want more? Is it a bad sign that he couldn't determine anything conclusively with just the images from Monday? No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't find a way to make myself believe having to go back for more images was a good thing. By Thursday I was beginning to feel sick!

But on Thursday when we went to see the PA at the orthopedic clinic, the first thing he said when he came in the room was that it was good news! Hallelujah! I almost burst into tears of joy right then and there. It is a cyst. It is benign. It is filled with blood and there's some calcium crystals in it as well. He said there's no need to even discuss the "c-word" which made my heart jump for joy.

Other than the lump shrinking by about half in the first 24 hours after I noticed it, it didn't shrink any more in the next 3 weeks. We always took it as a good sign that it wasn't growing any larger, but we were still concerned that it wasn't shrinking. But that Tuesday of his second MRI, I thought it looked like it had shrunk just a bit. The next day it looked slightly smaller and by his appointment on Thursday we were certain it was shrinking. This is, of course, a GREAT sign. His PA was definitely glad to see this and it has continued to shrink and the bruised coloring has faded drastically. It's a small bump now and just slightly darker in color than the skin around it. His soccer practice Thursday and game Saturday were both rained out. He should be able to start practicing again this Thursday though! The PA just wants to see him again in about 6 weeks to make sure nothing changes, or if it does change it's for the better and he can basically return to normal activities.

The bump may not ever go away completely. It might be something he always has. Or it might go away and never be seen again. Only time will tell. Until then, we'll continue to wrap his wrist for soccer or anytime we know he'll be particularly active (and therefore likely to fall on it), but it's not necessary to keep it wrapped at school or while he's sleeping at night. And we don't need to keep giving the ibuprofen either. For all practical purposes, he'll be returning to life as a regular 5 year old boy. Praise God!

Ganglion Cyst???

2009-08-27T22:24:00.002-04:00

So Tuesday afternoon I noticed this big lump on the inside of Owen's wrist. He had no idea how it got there or how long it's been there. He has no recollection of having hit it on anything, but it looked like he had a grape under his skin and we were concerned so I took him to Urgent Care to have it looked at. First we saw a Nurse Practitioner and she wasn't sure what it was but was thinking maybe a hematoma. So she went and got the doctor and he came in to look at it. He also seemed a bit unsure but thought it was probably a traumatic ganglion cyst but he's never seen one "that color" (it was a bruised purple color) and he's never seen "one like that on someone his age." So he referred us to an Orthopedic clinic and I got an appt for Owen for this afternoon.

Owen saw the Physicians Assistant for the orthopedist who specializes in the lower arm (elbow to fingers). He agreed that it's probably a traumatic ganglion cyst or a hematoma. He's encouraged by the fact that it has shrunk by about half since Tuesday and wants us to continue with what we've been doing (ice, wrap in Ace bandage, elevate, and anti-inflammatory) and come back on Monday to see how it's doing. Hopefully it will be greatly reduced by then. He did say no to soccer practice (the doc at urgent care had said it would be okay) and then tonight's practice got rained out anyway (yay!), so MAYBE Owen will be doing good enough Monday to return to practicing.

Still not sure what caused it. The PA said it almost had to have been from an injury and he especially liked the idea that maybe it happened at some point Monday night at soccer practice since he fell a few times. But then he also said Owen would have come to us crying/screaming in pain when it happened and he never did that. Owen still maintains that he has no recollection of anything happening that could have caused this.

So we're hoping for it to resolve itself on its own and hoping that will happen SOON. Not sure exactly what the next step will be if it doesn't get better on its own, but I think it will involve either using a needle to remove the fluid or surgery to remove the whole "lump." If I understood him correctly, we will have to determine whether it's a ganglion cyst (filled with joint fluid) or a hematoma (filled with blood) before deciding how to proceed.

So, we're waiting and seeing now. And hoping to see improvement everyday. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it tomorrow although it's not nearly as dramatic as it was. Or maybe, if we're lucky, there won't even be anything to take a picture of by the morning!

Thrift Shop Finds!

2009-08-20T13:44:00.003-04:00

The conversion of Riley's room into a playroom and Owen's room into a bedroom (for both boys) is an ongoing process. We need a lot more storage options in the playroom and I want to set up a reading corner in their bedroom for all their books and such. Anyway, a little while back I found this great coffee table at the local thrift store. They were asking $20 and everything was 20% off that day, so I could have gotten it for $16, but I felt like I could wait and get it for 50% off. So I went back the next week only to discover furniture was only 25% off saving me only an extra dollar from the previous week. But then I discovered they'd marked it down to only $10!! So with 25% off I got it for $7.50. Needless to say, I was thrilled. It was a sturdy table with simple lines (making it easy to sand and paint). The only problem was the supports are partly chrome and they were quite tarnished. I used leftover paint from when we painted "the nursery" (now the playroom) so it's a very light blue to match the walls (I actually meant to paint it white and didn't realize I had the wrong color until later). And used a can of silver Rustoleum spray paint on the chrome part. I didn't think to take a "before" pic, but this is what it looks like now:
My beautiful model refused to move out of the way, so I just went with it!

I use it to store some of the larger toys that previously were taking up all our floor space. Some fit nicely underneath and others sit on top. See those toys piled up tot he right of it? Those are the ones that go on top. I haven't finished "decorating" it, but that will have to wait until next month when Riley starts to school. Owen has specifically requested it have sharks and fish and such on it.

I've been going back to the thrift store periodically and so far haven't found anything that was exactly what I was looking for AND at a price I was happy with (they like to price all the endtables and coffee tables at $20). I had 30-60 minutes to spare today so Riley and I headed down there. Got there around 11 am and saw that furniture was 50% off until noon! Found 2 tables I liked. The first is going to be used in the "reading corner" in their bedroom. I'm actually considering NOT painting it white like I'd planned because we're kind of going for a rustic look in there anyway. I do still need to get some chairs to go with it, but for now the Lil' Tot Spot will have to work. Again, it was sturdy with simple lines so if I do paint it, it will be fairly easy to sand down first. This one was marked $20 so I got it for $10.

The other table I bought was another end table. This one is also very sturdy but will require a little more time to get it sanded before painting because of all the little groves on it. Maybe I can just get a really good primer and not have to sand??? Anyway, it will probably eventually have fish or something on it too to tie it in to the coffee table turned storage shelf. You know the cute little fabric-covered, polka dotted bins on the table in the first pic? I got those at Michaels for 60% off (I think???) so they were $3-4 dollars each and I think they'll work perfectly on the little shelf of this table. Not sure when I'll have time to start working on this one, but hopefully next week! It was marked $15 (it's been there a while so I think they'd marked it down) so I got it for $7.50!

I'll post more pictures when I get it all finished or maybe even some "in progress" pics.

Gotta love a good deal... or three.

First homework assignment

2009-08-13T10:35:00.008-04:00

I know ALL of my followers (yes, all 3 of you!) have been waiting on pins and needles for the promised pics of Owen's first homework assignment. It was a poster they were given at Open House to fill out and turn in at the end of the first week of school. I cannot put into words the amount of excitement surrounding this assignment. Owen kept begging and begging to do it. We actually worked on it 3 separate days and unfortunately I don't have a pic of the FINAL version (not sure why???), but it's basically done in the last pic.

This is the Saturday before school starts. He sat at the kitchen table to work on it while we were getting dinner ready.

Now, the little disk on our camera that lets us know what mode it is in is missing. I'm not sure what happened to all these pictures to make the poster so blurry, but I'm guessing it was on fireworks mode or something. I think I took 5 of these and only one has the poster semi-infocus but of course that's the only one where he's not grinning from ear to ear. So I'm including this blurry one on the left just to show you the level of excitement.

This is the almost finished version of the poster. He opted for drawing himself and his family but then decided he wanted to tape a picture of our (now deceased) dog on there. We put it in his book bag to turn in Thursday (a day early) but I guess his teacher didn't notice and he didn't say anything so it was still there Thursday night. We got it back out and he colored most of the stars and circles and decorated it up a little more before turning it in Friday so the final version was even more beautimous that this pic!

On a side note, I've been really impressed with his school so far. I was a little concerned before school started because all the lists we got from the school of things they should know listed things he's known for 1-2 years! And when looking through some homeschool materials for Kindergarten I realized he knew 95% of it so I was worried that he would be bored at school and might not learn much. I was wrong! He's loved everyday of it so far (well, one day was just "okay") and has learned something everyday. We have learned more recently that his teacher is gifted-certified so I think she incorporates a lot of that into their daily lessons.

I almost wish I hadn't seen this...

2009-08-04T17:17:00.002-04:00

Remember the blog I mentioned a few days ago about cooking with food storage. I'm still looking through that blog and came across the cutest recipe. It makes a single-serving of cake in a coffee mug! I love it. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but maybe tonight after the boys are in bed... And I have a feeling the boys' teachers will be seeing this come Christmas time. ;-)

Anyway, here's the recipe and you can go to her blog for a video showing her making it in case you have any questions. Note: She uses egg powder and powdered milk in hers but you can just use the regular stuff instead.

Minute Chocolate Mug Cake
1 coffee mug
4 T. flour
4 T. Sugar
2 T. baking cocoa
1 egg (1 T. dry egg powder and 2 T. of water)
3 T. milk (1/2 T. Dry Powdered Milk + 3 T. Water)
3 T. oil (or applesauce)
3 T. chocolate chips
small splash of vanilla
Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla. Mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug but don’t be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. EAT!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

2009-08-03T12:28:00.002-04:00

Owen has been so excited about starting Kindergarten. I was a little worried that after going to Open House last week he might get a little worried about being at a school so big, but he LOVED it. They gave him a homework assignment already and we worked on it some Saturday night but we haven't finished it yet (it's not due until Friday). So he gets up this morning and was NOT excited. He complained about being tired despite getting to bed plenty early last night. Then as we pulled into school he starts saying he wants me to stay with him. Oh boy, here it comes. He did this at the end of last year and it was NOT fun. As we're walking down the hallway, he's crying. He doesn't want to stay. He needs to go potty (and thinks he needs me to help him!). Luckily his parapro took him under her wing and ushered him in (very lovingly) and took him over to the restroom. I'd already given him a kiss, so we went ahead and left at that point. I hope he wasn't too upset when he got out of the restroom. There were some days last year where it would take him an hour or more before he'd relax and join the class. I REALLY hope that's not the case this year! He does always have fun once he gets settled, it's just getting him to that point that is the problem.

I'm not Mormon, but...

2009-08-01T23:25:00.007-04:00

...I really like this whole food storage thing they have going. I've always been one who likes to stock up on the staples when they're on sale and in the past I've been really good about keeping around a half dozen cans/jars of each of my favorite things on hand. We have a big shelf in this back hallway we keep it all on and it's not too far from the kitchen so that keeps it convenient.

Anyway, I don't know all the details but apparently the Mormon church puts a big emphasis on being prepared for when disaster strikes. I think it's mainly talking about natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc, I guess) but being prepared is never a bad thing and I'm sure more than a few members of the LDS church have been extremely thankful for the food they had stored up in recent months as economic times have been tough. From what I understand, the Mormon church encourages its members to have 3-12 months supply of non-perishable foods (3 months of certain things and 12 months of other things). I've seen a few blogs about this recently and although I don't personally have anywhere near a 3 month supply of food, it sounds like something that would be good for any of us to do.

One blog in particular has caught my eye and this lady does the type cooking I do. I've been going back through all her old posts reading and finding recipes and ideas that interest me. I just thought I'd share it with you in case you find it helpful as well. In particular I like the idea of having powdered milk and powdered eggs on hand to use when you run out of fresh milk and eggs. I looked at powdered milk at the store tonight and it was actually slightly more expensive to buy powdered milk than fresh milk although apparently that is not the norm. I couldn't find powdered eggs though. Not sure if that's something Kroger doesn't carry or if I just didn't look in the right places. If anyone knows, I'd love to hear! Or if any of my LDS friends out there want to enlighten us more on this or correct anything I might have said that's wrong, please do so!

COMING SOON: Owen's first homework assignment!!!

P.S. Anyone know if/where I can get wheat kernels? I SOOOOOOO want to try making these Blender Pancakes.

I really want to try her recipe for Breadsticks or Deep Dish Pizza soon!

Ready to Make Craft Kits

2009-07-22T11:00:00.019-04:00

Owen's best friend, Emma, just turned 5. She's got plenty of toys and I was having a hard time coming up with something she'd really enjoy. She loves doing crafts at our house but her mom has told me they don't do them at home. So I decided to fix up some Craft Kits with directions and everything she needs to complete the craft all together in one spot. Owen loved this idea and helped me put them together and, of course, insisted on trying a couple of them out himself to make sure they work right. ;-) These are all crafts I found around the internet in various places because, let's face it, I'm just not creative enough to come up with these things on my own.

One of the crafts uses scrapbook paper, chenille stems (a.k.a. pipe cleaners), and buttons to make flowers. This is one of the ones we "tested." I put everything she could need to make 4 of these into a bag and added a little topper to it. I wanted to do the toppers on the computer like I did for the boys' birthday favor bags, but we were at the lake all week and I just didn't have time to design it, so I printed out the name of each craft on card stock and quickly (VERY quickly) decorated them by hand. By the time I got to the tenth craft kit, I ran out of creative ideas for the toppers.

Another one uses scrapbook paper and googly eyes to make a little bird. We also "tested" this one, and let me tell you my boys loved this. Riley, in particular, fell in love with this little paper bird and took it everywhere with him for a few days afterward. The sample in the picture is Owen's and he insisted on putting both googly eyes on one side, but both sides of the bird are done with the patterned paper so it's pretty all around.

Here's some of the other toppers. On several of them I sketched what the finished project looks like. The crafts included making crabs, jellyfish, mice, birds, zebras, giraffes, butterflies, submarines, caterpillars, and flowers and included materials such as felt, patterned scrapbook paper, chenille stems, buttons, beads, googly eyes, and clothespins. Mostly just stuff I already had at the house and I did alter most of them in some way to make it easier or prettier or to use materials I already had.

Then we decorated a little tote bag with ribbon and rhinestones. I had planned to put her initial on it too, but I forgot to pack the stuff for it to take to the lake with us, so we just kept it simple. > All the craft kits fit in this nicely and HOPEFULLY she'll use it to help keep everything organized so it's not spread all over the house.

Then we put the tote bag with the kits into a craft organizer along with markers, colored pencils, and glue so that she has everything she could need to complete the crafts! The tote bag fit perfectly into the large section of the organizer. The only hard part was figuring out how to wrap it!!!

Oh, and an added bonus is that many of the crafts came from a website of a homeschooling mom. At the bottom of each set of directions I put the website I got the craft from so they can go there for help if needed and the ones from the homeschooling mom all have tips on tying it into your school lessons. Emma is going to be homeschooled this fall so her mom can use the crafts as part of her homeschool lessons!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYS!!!

2009-05-05T16:10:00.013-04:00

We had the boys' birthday party the other week. This year we just did one party for the both of them since they're birthdays are just a couple weeks apart and since we'd be inviting pretty much all the same people to both parties... Plus with Easter to plan around it was just too much. They wanted different kinds of cakes though so we had 2 cakes and we sang "Happy Birthday" twice.

First was all the prep and luckily my mom came early in the week to help me with everything. I couldn't have done it without her!!! First we had to get everything ready for the goody bags. We personalized some Hershey miniatures with a special think you from the boys:

Then I printed out some coloring pages with the boys' favorite characters on them and I wanted to include some crayons with them. Also wanted to include some sidewalk chalk since my boys LOVE that. But I didn't want to just throw the crayons and chalk in the goody bags loose, so I put them in bags with topper that match the mini candy bars. One side of the topper is a message from Owen and the other side is from Riley:

After that, the bags were ready to assemble with pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, stickers, small homemade coloring book, crayons, sidewalk chalk, and mini candy bars. Tucked it all in a brown paper bag that I'd stenciled each kids' inital on and Owen decorated (with my mom's help) and then tied the bags with some jute. I wanted to do something to add a little more color to it, but we just didn't have time so they're a little "Uncle Knit Knot"-ish.

It was a little warm in the sun, but we had the canopy set up and it wasn't too bad in the shade.

The kids had fun driving the cars around:

And Eric's boss loans us his small bounce house every year for the party but now that the kids are getting bigger we thought we needed something more so we rented a large one to go with it so the little kids could be on one while the big kids were on the other.

Then there's the gift that keeps on giving (don't ask!!):

Riley's cake request was originally for a Buzz Lightyear cake. I'd looked and looked online for some ideas for this but was really not feeling creative about it nor looking forward to it. Then he came up with the idea of a Frank cake. For those of you who have not seen the movie Cars 8 billion times, Frank is the combine tractor that chases Lightning and Mater out of the tractor field when they go tractor tippin'. My mom helped me out with this and luckily it came together very easily and turned out pretty much just like I imagined. And Riley loved it, so that's what mattered.

Owen wanted a Star Wars cake. It HAD to be blue with stars all over it. I took the easy way out and just bought some Star Wars people to go on it, so it ended up being a cake and present all in one! Owen can be a little picky about his cakes and tends to get upset if it doesn't end up the way he envisioned it, so I was a bit nervous with this one. Turns out he LOVED it! Yay!

All in all, it was a good day. Owen even said it was his best birthday ever (and he had a firetruck at his 3rd birthday party so that's really sayin' something!).

A few extra pics of the birthday boys:

The BE5K

2009-02-23T21:30:00.005-05:00

So almost a year ago Eric decided, on a whim, to run a 5K. Our church was sponsoring it and the proceeds go to missions, so it's for a good cause. Little did we know this one simple run would get him hooked. I'm not even sure how many 5K's he's run in since then but probably somewhere around 15-20 of them in the past 10 months. I've also started running although I didn't catch the running bug the way he did. I have more trouble getting motivated and prioritizing my time to fit running into my already crazy schedule. But Every couple of months I'll run in a 5K and about once a week I'll run in our neighborhood or at the track (with Riley in the jogging stroller) or on the treadmill.

I was very excited when the day after Christmas I ran for an entire mile... without stopping... for the first time EVER in my life. Sad, but true. I've just never been much of a runner. That Saturday I ran in my 3rd 5K and my sister-in-law, Whitney, and her husband, Nathan, ran in it as well. Nathan finished just a little bit ahead of me (probably 30 seconds or so). I knew about 6 weeks later we were all going to be running in the BE5K in Birmingham which is hosted by BE&K (where Nathan works). Since I had come SO close to beating Nathan in the December race, I decided I would train hard and beat him in HIS race. But then I had PRK eye surgery and was out of commission for 2 weeks and then Riley had his eye surgery and, well, I know it's just excuses, but I only ended having one week to actually train for the race. Not looking too good for me to beat Nathan.

The Thursday before the race, I did finally break my previous record of running 1 mile without walking. See, usually, as soon as I hit the 1 mile mark I CANNOT make myself run another single step. I HAVE to walk. But that Thursday, I ran 1.5 miles without stopping. I was so proud and excited. I know, pride isn't good, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm still going at a snail's pace so I figure it's okay to proud of yourself for being mediocre. :-P

So race day came. And I ran. I was watching my time hoping to reach the 1 mile marker in less than 11 minutes, but 11 minutes came and went and I didn't see the mile marker. Then 12 minutes. Then 13. At that point I was still running and I was pretty sure I HAD to have gone a mile already. It was a pretty big race so I thought maybe I was in a crowd when I went by the 1 mile point and just didn't realize I had passed it. And I had no way to know when I'd been 1.5 miles, but I decided I'd run for 16 minutes before allowing myself to walk. This turned out to be right at the water station which turned out to be... right at 1.5 miles! I guess I should have known. So anyway, I walked and ran the rest of the race. There was an out and back part from about 1.5 miles until somewhere around 2.8 miles which was kind of nice because I was able to see Eric (and cheer him on!) and I knew he was doing well and way up toward the front. And then I saw Nathan and cheered him on as well which he said was a real motivator because he was about to start walking but decided to run one more block after hearing me yell at him. ;-)

I was finally getting near the end of the race. There was a couple of turns right at the end so you couldn't see the finish line until you came around the last corner, but a block before that they had the road all blocked off to keep spectators out of the street so I knew I was getting close and I poured on the heat. There were a lot of other runners around me and ahead of me but I sped up and passed at least 2 dozen of them before crossing the finish line. Boy was I glad to be finished. Unfortunately I didn't meet my goal of finishing in under 35 minutes, but I was close. And I'm pretty sure I'll make that next time. We didn't get any pics of any of us running (although there are some from the finish line at brightroom.com) but we did get a pic after the race. **Please pardon my brother-in-law for the shirt he's wearing. No one is perfect.**

And did I mention how awesome my husband did? He finished 4th in his age group out of 56 runners! How amazing is that! And he was only 11 seconds behind 3rd place so he ALMOST got an award. He was 54th in his division (men) and 61st overall out of over 1100 runner! Can you tell I'm proud of him? ;-D My brother-in-law, Nathan, did really well also. He finished in just over 30 minutes (more than 5 minutes ahead of me!!!) and was 32nd out of 57 in his age group. And if you care, I was 45th in my age group out of 81. That sure beats my usual LAST place in my age group finish I always seem to have at all of the local races.

Valentine's

2009-02-15T19:59:00.004-05:00

I helped Owen make his own Valentine's for his classmates this year. We did monster-tines and he got a little creative. I found the idea on familyfun.com but it only had one-eyed monsters. Owen couldn't stick to just one eye, so we did 3, 5 and even 7-eyed monsters. And I loved all the logic behind deciding who got which monster (the seven-eyed monster had the smallest eyes so it went to Blake "because he's little"). And for what it's worth, I tried to think of something a little more clever to put on the paper the monster's holding but I was tired and couldn't think so we just used the suggestion given with the instructions. :-/

Coming soon: The BE5K and this weekend's trip to Birmingham.

I'm Baaaaaaaccccckkkk! Again.

2009-02-12T16:12:00.005-05:00

I swear this darn computer spends more time off getting fixed than it does here working. But it's here and working... for now. There's been a lot going, but I won't take the time now to fill you in on all of it. The most recent craziness has been eye surgeries for both Riley and me.

I had PRK laser surgery to correct my vision 4 weeks ago. It's kind of like LASIK but in PRK they don't cut a flap on your cornea but put a contact in to act as a bandage instead. They say the recovery is a little longer than with LASIK (supposed to be 4 days instead of just one day of discomfort), but my recovery was much longer. It took a full 2 weeks for me to reach the point where I could function anything close to normally. I'm not sure exactly why it took so long. I do think that on days when I'd start feeling better I might have over done it a little but who knows for sure. Luckily my mom was able to come down and stay for 10 days, then came back for a couple more days. I could not have made it through it without her! I'm doing fine now. My eyes are slightly sensitive to light, but other than that I'm doing great. My vision was 20/15 at my last check up! I guess it was worth it all.

Then fifteen days after my surgery, Riley had surgery. His was for his nystagmus. Nystagmus is a condition that makes his eyes wiggle side to side. Some people with nystagmus have a null point where their eyes wiggle less and therefore they can see better. Riley's null point was the extreme right corner of his eyes so when he wanted to see something clearly he would always turn his head to the left so he could look out of the right corner. So his doctor cut the four eye muscles on the sides of his eyes and shortened the left muscles while reattaching the right ones in a more relaxed position. The surgery went well and he was playing with Owen that very evening and the next day. But then, for some reason, he decided to keep his eyes closed for two and a half days! He finally decided playing would be more fun than sitting with his eyes closed and he opened them. He's been doing fine ever since. He does have what his doctor just referred to as a "raised area" on the sides of his eyes. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with that but she did say it's possible for a cyst to form at the suture site so we're still praying for continued recovery for him.

Here's a pic from the fall where you can see the way he looks out of the corner of his eye. Most of our pictures have his head turned like this. You have to kind of catch him by surprised to get a straight on shot of him.
Owen finally started back to school this week for second semester. I LOVE his school, but the one draw back is they don't go at all in January. The plus though this semester is that they're staying for a longer day. It's 8:30-1 now instead of 8:30-11:30. I have to pack his lunch each day, but I think it will make the transition to full days a little easier in the fall. Riley's not too keen on the longer days without his brother though and asks me a dozen times a day if it's time to go get Owen yet.

Hopefully, if my computer doesn't quit on me again, I will be on here more.

On a lighter note...

2008-11-08T19:39:00.001-05:00

Woman on Lindor Truffles commercial: "Do you dream in chocolate?"
Riley: "Yeeaaaaaaahhhhhh."

Me too, buddy. Me too.

A day of mourning.

2008-11-08T17:52:00.002-05:00

I'm sure it's not normal to have such strong feelings about a restaurant, but my family just adores eating at McAlister's Deli. For 13 years we've been loyal customers. As we've moved from Alabama to Mississippi to Texas to Arkansas to Georgia, one constant has been McAlister's with our only hiatus being when we first moved to Texarkana. Oh the joy the day we realized the restaurant being build across from the hospital was the exact shape of a McAlister's! I couldn't believe our luck! Eric dared to joke that they might not serve sweet tea at THAT one but I just laughed and said they'd never do anything like that. I can't even begin to count the number of times we ate at that McAlister's. I do know Eric and I ate there before every OB appointment throughout my pregnancies while we were there. There was just something comforting about eating there and having a place we could depend on for good Southern sweet tea.

Living where we do now, McAlister's is a bit of a drive so we haven't been able to eat there as much as we'd like, but it is still one of our favorites and our kids enjoy it as much as we do. Until today. Both boys had already decided what they were having for lunch (Riley a hot dog and Owen a turkey and cheese sandwich) and I was planning on doing their new "Choose two" combo with half an Orange Cranberry Club and half a Spud Ole' which is exactly what I had a couple weeks ago when my boys and I ate there after our trip to the pumpkin patch. They've made a lot of changes at McA's lately and although we haven't been too thrilled about some of them, we could still depend on them to have our favorites.

Immediately upon entering the restaurant, I noticed the menu was very different and my eye went straight to the kids' portion. Oh boy. No hot dog! And no PB&J! These are the boys 2 favorites (Owen had only agreed to a turkey sandwich because Eric bribed him with cookies for dessert). I pointed it out to Eric and then, just to be sure I wasn't overlooking something, I ask an employee about it. Nope, no hot dogs and no PB&J. Riley was NOT happy. And as a matter of fact he proceeded to pitch a fit that lasted pretty much the entire time we were there. Then I noticed the Spuds section of the menu seemed a bit shorter than it used to be. Only four spuds to choose from. And one of the ones they eliminated... my favorite, the Spud Ole'. I knew right away this wasn't going to end well and quickly started scanning the menu for other glaring omissions. The Orange Cranberry Club. The Chili Nachos (a meal in themselves). The Muffaletta. The Pot Roast Spud. All missing. Then Eric noticed one of his favorites, soup in a bread bowl, was missing as well. Eric joked that maybe they had gotten rid of the sweet tea. This time I wasn't laughing.

So I finally settled on the half Turkey Melt with half of a Spud Max (**sigh**), Owen still had the turkey and cheese, Eric didn't eat, and Riley wouldn't stop crying long enough to pick anything he wanted. All he kept saying was he wanted "nothing." He did finally change his mind and agreed to some Mac and Cheese but Eric had to pick him up and start carrying him out to the van before he finally agreed to calm down and eat. The food was still good, but under those circumstances, I left with a bad taste in my mouth.

As I walked out the door one final time, I couldn't help but think there should be someone there playing taps as we said good bye to a dear old friend.

Halloween

2008-11-05T23:48:00.007-05:00

I've got a lot of pics to post from recent activities, but I'll start with the most recent and work my way through them all.

Owen decided quite a while back that for Halloween he wanted to be "that thing that's wrapped in toilet paper." I couldn't see buying a mummy costume, so we made it ourselves. It was pretty easy really. I looked for some good ideas online and decided to learn from others' mistakes and NOT just wait and wrap him up each time he needed to wear his costume. I mean, he's good at holding it, but he's still going to need to use the little boys' room at some point. So I wrapped the gauze around his pants and a turtleneck and he was able to pull them on and off whenever needed. It worked really well and he loved it.

Riley still doesn't quite get the whole Halloween thing, so Eric and I picked his costume for him. He loves sharks right now, so that's what we went with. I couldn't find a shark costume though for less than about $40 (TOO MUCH!!!) so I made it for around $5. I think it turned out pretty good and he LOVED it, so that's all that matters, right?

Anyway, here's the pics...

First Owen had Trick or Treating at school and a little party there with his friends on Thursday. Riley and I came for the party and Ry had a great time.

On the way to school...

Party at school... (L-R: Will, Nolan, Jack, Blake, Owen, and Riley)

That afternoon was our MOMS Club Halloween party.

Shark Attacks Mummy...

Riley and Julia

Then Friday night we went to a friend's house for TorTing in their neighborhood. Let me say Owen LOVED it. Here's some pics of the boys with their friends.

(L-R: Will, Brady, Owen, Bowie, Riley)

(Will, Cloe, and Owen)

While out TorTing we ran into some other friends. Here we are with Jenni and her girls, Anna and Emma. BTW neither Jenni nor I live in the neighborhood we were TorTing in. I guess we're just a bunch of moochers.

I'm Baaaaaaaccccckkkk!

2008-11-01T22:36:00.003-04:00

Sorry I've been gone so long. I've had some major computer issues that are now (hopefully) resolved. There's a lot of catching up to do so I'll be doing all of that soon. I had a post written before all the issues started and I just need to add a few photos and then I'll be able to post it. It will be out of date, but better late than never, right?

The start of a mini-revolution.

2008-07-16T23:53:00.002-04:00

I noticed my friend, Kelly, has a new look to her blog and it's super cool so I asked her how she did it. Turns out she used Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates to do it. Our super savvy friend, Jenney, is the one who turned her on to it. Then Sheri saw my new and improved blog and decided to upgrade hers a little. Now there's talk that Mindy's blog will be undergoing a makeover soon too! By the time it's all said and done there's going to be a lot of really cool blogs out there!

FYI, before making any changes to your blog, be sure to save all the important information from your sidebar like the links to all your favorite blogs!

And if you've got a second, let me know what you think of the new look! I hope to one day remodel the whole thing myself...from scratch...but I don't have the time for it right now. Nor do I have the right program to create the graphics I would want.

Trying to find a pattern for...

2008-07-06T14:50:00.002-04:00

...diapers and wipes pouches and I came across some other cuteness. It seems simple enough and I'd like to try it one day (birthday or Christmas gifts, maybe???) so I'll post about it here where I can find it later.

This Little Boxy Pouch seems simple. Maybe one day I'll find out if it really is simple.

I'll probably NEVER get around to sewing this little top for myself, but maybe one day...

Hmmmm. After a couple hours of blog hopping, that's all I came up with. Still looking for the diapees and wipees pattern.

Happy Birthday America!

2008-07-05T00:31:00.003-04:00

We went to a friend's house after dinner for dessert and fireworks. We all had a great time and the boys all enjoyed the sparklers. Here's a few pictures...

First the firetrucks:

Then the sparklers:

And here's Owen and his pal, Will, watching the fireworks from their bikes:

More cuteness!

2008-06-30T15:53:00.004-04:00

I just ran across these Sticky Notes Books (a.k.a. Post-It Notes Books) and thought they were neat. I just might have to give this a try myself.

And I like these Crayon-A-Longs. There's not a tutorial for it, but how hard can it be, right???

I'm sure I've posted these Crayon Rolls before, but I still haven't gotten around to making any of them, so here it is again.

And I know it's not Easter, but I think these Chalkboard Easter Eggs are a cute idea. Oh the possibilities with colored chalkboard paint!

And I know it's not even school time, but this little number will be great for Teacher Appreciation Week. Except that Owen usually has about 25 teachers all together!

And while I'm posting things for holidays that are far, far away, how about this cute little drum valentine. I hope none of Owen's classmates are reading this because we just might do it next year for his valentines.

And here's one for an obscure holiday (obscure int he US anyway). Apparently January 26th is Australia Day and these ANZAC cookies (or biscuits Down Under, I guess) are just the thing for celebrating it. The reason I'm so excited about this is because my mother-in-law was born in Australia and her mother served in the Army there making this the perfect thing to add to our family traditions. What a find!

Well, it's dinnertime, so I've got to go feed the critters!

Hot Air Balloon

2008-06-27T14:58:00.005-04:00

Riley loves to doodle on the Magnadoodle and then he shows it to us and says, "Look! Look!" And we tell him how pretty his scribbling is.

Last night I was cleaning up the kitchen and Riley was showing Eric his "picture" and he kept saying, "Hot air balloon." Eric didn't catch it at first, but then, sure enough, Riley had drawn a hot air balloon! So I got out the camera and took some pics. Riley was SOOOOO proud. See it? There in the middle? I'm a little fuzzy on what the rest of it is though.

Vintage Children's Books Online

2008-06-07T23:06:00.002-04:00

I came across this tonight and thought I'd post it here so I can find it easily again later! I have a thing for vintage children's books and viewing them online isn't the same as having them in my hands, but it's better than nothing!

If you're looking for things to do with your kids this summer...

2008-06-07T20:25:00.003-04:00

...check out Let's Explore.

I specifically want to try this Sink or Float experiment with Owen. We did a miniature version of it at the pool the other day and he was haing some trouble with it, so we'll keep trying.

I also like these flowers from Plum Pudding. I've got buttons, pipe cleaners (a.k.a. chenille stems), toilet paper tubes, and I'll substitute green cardstock for the felt leaves. Might be a nice project for Owen this week.

I'm IT!

2008-06-04T21:50:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I've been tagged. It's happened once before but I pretended I didn't get tagged because the person who tagged me also tagged everyone else I knew with blogs. I'm hoping to get this done and tag 5 people before someone else tags everyone I know. The race is on!

Here's what you do:
Link to the person who tagged you,
Post the rules on your blog,
Answer the questions about yourself,
Tag five people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs,
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog,
Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
My 10th anniversary is in 2 months, so I guess 10 years ago I was planning a wedding! I was finishing up the last of my classes and getting ready to start my teaching internship. I was loving life and looking forward to the future. And I was clueless about what that future would be like.

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Southwestern Ranch dip and flour tortilla chips
2. Chocolate chip peanut butter chewy granola bars
3. Toastchee crackers (with chocolate Silk soy milk)
4. Goldfish crackers
5. Cool Ranch Doritos

Five things on my to-do list today:
1. Take my van in to get the power steering fixed.
2. Meet some friends at INK to let the kids play.
3. Stop by Hancock fabric for some bias tape.
4. Get a few more dish towels at Target.
5. Work on Eric's Father's Day gift.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Give some of it to my church and to support other worthy ministries like my friend, Mary Virginia, who is a missionary in Brazil.
2. Buy a cabin in the mountains, condo at the beach, and house (with a boat) on a lake.
3. Start my own business.
4. Fund more cancer research.

Five jobs I've had:
1. waitress
2. Ticketing and reservations at Opryland (one of my favorite jobs)
3. Undergraduate Physics lab instructor
4. Secondary school teacher.
5. Mom! (my all-time favorite job!)

Five of my bad habits:
1. Starting lots of craft projects then taking forever to finish.
2. Washing, drying, and folding laundry but not getting it put away.
3. Staying up past midnight when I should be sleeping.
4. Not mailing things in a timely manner.
5. Hiding in the pantry to eat junk food so the boys don't see me and want some.

Five places I have lived: Okay, I guess technically I've listed 9 places, but it's hard to narrow them down!
1. Nashville, TN
2. Alabaster, AL (and Mobile and Auburn)
3. Hattiesburg/Petal, MS
4. Texarkana, TX/AR
5. Athens, GA

Five people I want to get to know better (yes, this means you are tagged!)
1. Melody
2. Tiffany
3. Lelia
4. Jenney
5. Kym

School Days

2008-05-15T16:52:00.004-04:00

Today was Owen's last day of school for the year. A sad day for sure although when I told him this morning that today's the last day he wasn't at all upset. I don't think he understands. But give him a week and I'm sure he'll get it. I can already hear the "What can we do today???" question being asked day after day after day.

So here he is on the first day of school:

And today, the last day of school (Can you see how much he's grown?):

Here he is getting his certificate of completion from his teacher. She was so sweet and said a little something special about each student. For Owen she was talking about how smart he is :-D and how one of the high school girls who teach the class said, "I think he might be smarter than me!" I also learned today that his favorite number is 105! Where did that come from?

And here's the whole class except for Nolan who was being camera shy. I guess I need to photoshop him in. Do you notice something about the students? There actually is a girl in the class but she didn't come very often and I haven't seen her there in weeks. Quick story about her...one day Owen told me he was going to marry Jenny "because she has pretty clothes." I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that she's the ONLY girl in class! L-R: Kelli Demott, Wyatt, Camden, Levi, Sammy, Owen, Will

Recent Scrappin'

2008-05-15T16:36:00.004-04:00

I'm fortunate to have a few friends I can get together with once a month to scrapbook. The thing is the kids always want to be "helping" us, so we decided to have a kids' scrapbooking night. I let Owen scrap about the MOMS Club Easter Egg Hunt we'd had. He picked everything himself (some very interesting choices to be sure!) and did all the cutting and taping himself. The left page is the one he did, then I used the same "color scheme" to do a quick page about the night with a pic of all the kid scrappers.

Last week they had Field Day at Owen's school. All us moms went and watched (along with our little ones) and had a great time. My camera wasn't, um, working (It was NOT operator error. No, it wasn't!!! *blush*) so Rachelle was kind enough to take pics of Owen for me and she was even sweet enough to print them out for me too! So here's the spread on that.

And this last is a two page spread to go in Owen's First Year album. Yeah, he just turned 4 and I STILL haven't finished his first year. **blush again** I did stamp the date on this after I took the pic. It's from April '05 about 2 weeks before he turned 1.

More INK

2008-05-14T16:18:00.011-04:00

This is a follow up to another post I did earlier today so you may want to check it out first then come back to this one.
These are some more pics from the Interactive Neighborhood for Kids. They're from Will's birthday party. INK is so much fun that I just had to share it with the rest of the world. Can you tell why we love it here so much? There's really not much to do in our little town beyond going to the library and the park, but there's SOOOO much we can get to in 30 minutes or less. Of course with gas prices being the way they are, it's not quite so nice, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

They have a stage and lots of dress up clothes for the kids. In the above pic, Owen is pretending to be one of the Village People!

Making an appt for someone at the beauty parlor.

Shopping at the grocery store.

The train playhouse. Where's Waldo?

Cop car.

Model trains.

Dentist's office.

Will and Owen at the train table with the Dentist's office in the background. Boy have they grown in the past 10 months!

Strawberry Patch

2008-05-14T15:36:00.006-04:00

I guess I'm making up for lost time today by posting about a bunch of our recent happenings. I think it's greatly because I have a headache and don't feel like doing much beyond just sitting here, so I'm sitting here typing.

Down near Athens is a farm that does pumpkin, strawberry, and blueberry picking. The pumpkin picking last fall was the best (maybe I'll dig up those photos in a minute and post them too) because they have all sorts of activities for the kiddos. The problem was that they're only open for field trips during the day so we had to wait until 3 pm. I think we stayed until 6 or so and there were several things we never got around to doing!

Anyway, back to the strawberries...We went this past Monday and picked about a gallon. I could NOT stop Riley from eating them straight off the bush (there was at least one he bit into while it was still attached), so instead of heaping the bucket full like they recommended, I just got it almost full. It's still more strawberries than we can eat, so we're good. The boys had a great time and they did let us go take a look at the goats before we left.

It was a cool, windy day and we weren't totally dressed for it, but I always have a jacket in the van for the boys (and even had one for one of the other mommas who went with us). Owen kept it on his head most of the day. If you know Owen, then you understand.

Riley playing with the flag that's supposed to mark where we stopped picking. He thought it was great fun and, believe it or not, he didn't poke anyone with it!!

This is Owen and his best bud, Will, and they are SOOOO proud of their stash! I told them to look at the camera and this is the best I could get!

Here's the guilty party. He knows he LOVES strawberries.

This is the old fashioned water pumps that they race ducks down in the fall. They had so much fun pumping away.

Feeding grass to the goats.

Interactive Neighborhood for Kids

2008-05-14T15:14:00.005-04:00

We have this wonderful "children's museum" about 30 minutes up the road from us. It's set up like a small town main street with a grocery, beauty parlor, post office, bank, vet's office, dentist office, diner, etc. They also have an old firetruck the kids can climb in, a police car, and now even an airplane. The boys LOVE it and Owen asks about once a week if we can go there. We went last Friday and here's a few of the pics.
Nolan and Owen at the grocery.

Riley playing with Thomas. This is where the boys spend about half the day...playing with Thomas. There's also a model train they can watch go round and a big train playhouse type thing.

Is it just me, or does this plane remind you of Wonder Bread?

Ready for take off!

Watch where you're flying buddy!

My Mother's Day gift...

2008-05-14T15:04:00.003-04:00

...from LAST year (or was it the year before?).
It's the gift that keeps on giving.

These roses are from the 2 rose bushes I got for a previous Mother's Day. Aren't they pretty? I love having roses just outside the door!

A little reminder from God...

2008-05-13T14:16:00.005-04:00

...not to take a single day for granted. Here's why...

We went camping this weekend up at Tallulah Gorge State Park. It's a nice park and we camped there once last year with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. This year they all came back to join us for the trip. Friday night after we got set up and ate dinner, Eric decided to take the boys up to the playground right behind the bathhouse. My brother-in-law, Nathan, decided to go with them. When they get there, Riley wants to go down the slide so Eric helps him do that and had just picked him back up when Owen starts fussing and backing up. Nathan goes over to him to see what's wrong and the next thing Eric saw was Nathan jumping with both feet like he was jumping over a log and there was a SNAKE flying through the air. They weren't sure what kind of snake it was at that point but it had a triangular head which is indicative of a pit viper. Mother-in-law and sister-in-law rushed Nathan to the hospital (after he CARRIED Owen back to the campsite!!) and I went to get Riley from Eric so he could kill the snake.

Turns out it was "only" about 10 inches long and a baby copperhead. I heard from a couple of people who say that the babies can be more dangerous because they don't know how much venom to release so they release it all. Anyway, they gave him the antivenin treatments at the hospital, he was admitted and stayed about 36 hours. He's doing much better now and is (hopefully) resting at home.

So as a result, I spent my Mother's Day being thankful that both my boys were okay and able to be running around and playing. I'm not GLAD Nathan got bit, but I am glad my boys didn't get bit. I think Nathan's 6'5" body can handle the venom a lot better than my boys could have.

Here's the snake. Sorry it's a little blurry but Eric took it with his phone. You can kind of see in the middle of it's body where Eric beat it to a pulp, but being the smart person he is, he made sure not to hit it in the head so we would be able to identify it.

Easter

2008-05-06T19:21:00.009-04:00

I don't know what has gotten into me recently, but apparently I've been very busy. So busy I still haven't posted pics from Easter baskets. I made cute little hooded towels for the boys. It was actualy supposed to be Christmas gifts, but I had too much else going on so these got set aside for a while and I decided Easter was a good time for them. Each boy got a bear and a duck towel. There were supposed to be frog ones too, but I didn't get around to that.

The bear towel was easy since all it needed was ears. The boys' faces are supposed to be the bear's face so nothing extra was needed for that. In case you can't tell, they LOVE their new towels.

The duck was a little tougher to make than the bear. I didn't have anything to actually go by so I just made it up as I went along...and then had to rip a few seams and try it again. That beak was NOT easy and I had to go to plan C, I think, before it worked right.

But in the end it turned out cute (IMO) and Riley knew that the duck was a duck immediately (that's always a good thing) and loves it the most. Owen prefers the bear but for some reason I took the pics with Ry in the bear and O wearing the duck.

So there I am. One step closer to being up to date on my blog. Both the boys got older last month, so I'll have to post some pics from their specials days and party...when I find the time.

Another new craft blog...this time for the kiddos!

2008-05-06T17:03:00.002-04:00

This is a new kids craft blog, but it's already full of great ideas. Some of them are really simple while others are a little more involved, but I think there's probably something there for everyone. Maybe you can find something to do with your little ones.

Newly found crafty place of ideas.

2008-04-21T23:48:00.002-04:00

I came across this tonight and just saw a bunch of things that interested me. Thought I'd share with the rest of the world (since the whole world is reading my blog, right?).

Gasoline is...

2008-04-20T23:59:00.003-04:00

...a short word for gas. That's what Owen told me and continues to insist is true, despite the fact that I repeatedly point out to him that gas is a much smaller word than gasoline.

I think it might somehow be related to the way he thinks anything brown is old. When Riley was a baby Owen had a Britax Marathon car seat that was blue. As Ry started outgrowing his infant carrier, we bought a Britax Regent for Owen to move into so we could put Ry in the Marathon. To this day, Owen still refers to his NEW brown Regent as his "old car seat." And heaven forbid if you grill hot dogs and they actually have (are you ready???) grill marks on them. Goodness knows he doesn't want an "old" hot dog.

It's all in how you look at it.

2008-03-29T10:58:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago we had some really bad storms in the area. You might have seen some of the coverage about the F2 tornado that hit downtown Atlanta. After the storms passed through Atlanta, they headed up our way. We had many hours of tornado warnings that day and made 3 separate trips to the basement. I lost count of how many times the weather sirens sounded in town, but it was well over a dozen times.

Our first trip to the basement was with the first tornado warning they issued even though there was no sign of bad weather in our area. The second time though, there was good sized hail coming down, some of it was almost golf ball sized. After the hail storm, it was beautiful out and we took the boys into the front yard to let them see the hail that was laying all over the ground. The neighbors across the street were out there checking things out too. They are from New Orleans and moved up here after Katrina. I was talking to the dad and he was telling me about how he prefers hurricanes to tornadoes any day, because at least with hurricanes you know days or even weeks in advance that it's coming. I guess I can see his point.

Later I was talking to a friend of mine who moved here about 2 years ago from California. I think this was really her first experience with that kind of weather and she didn't enjoy spending hours huddled in the downstairs bathroom with her husband and kids. She said she prefers the earthquakes over tornados since earthquakes come suddenly without much warning and you don't spend a lot of time worrying about what's happening and if it's going to get you.

I don't know if I'd prefer an earthquake or a hurricane, but I know what to expect with a tornado so I guess I'll just stick with those.

The day he's been waiting for...

2008-03-19T23:51:00.003-04:00

All Owen could talk about last summer was starting school in the fall and riding the school bus. I kept telling him he wasn't going to ride the bus yet, but he just didn't believe me. And he still asks me about once a week how old he has to be to ride the bus.

The letter of the week this week is the letter S. Well today they had a school bus at school and they got to go inside it and even ride it around the parking lot! He was so thrilled!!! He kept talking about it all day. I'm just sorry I missed his first school bus ride.

Never too young to start learning.

2008-03-07T14:52:00.002-05:00

When Owen was about 2.5 years old we discovered the Leap Frog "Letter Factory" video. He loved it and after watching it just 2 times he knew most of his letters and their sounds. About a week later he watched it again and ad them all down.

Now Riley is car seat resistant. He screams and kicks and bows his back, but videos are the secret. He'll usually calm down and let me strap him in if I promise him a show. Of course, if he's going to be watching DVDs whenever he's in the van, I want it to be educational, so I pulled out the Tad and that's what he watches. He's not even 2 yet so I didn't really think he would get much from it, but at the same time I figured it's never to early to start exposing him to it.

This past week, he's started showing off. It's very random, but he'll see a letter, point at it, tell us what letter it is, and then tell us what sound it makes. So far he knows R, S, H, and Q. Those seem to be his favorites although sometimes he seems to know more, but it's hard to tell because he'll just be pointing at a sign saying, "I...I...I" And there is an I on it, but I'm not sure he's pointing at the I.

Happy V Day!

2008-02-14T13:51:00.004-05:00

In accordance with my recent crafty streak, the boys and I have been busy this week. We needed to make Valentines for both the boys (Owen to take to school and Riley to take to playgroup). Oh, and you don't have to tell me, I know I'm an amazing photographer! Right???

We made butterflies for Riley to take. I thought these were so cute and I tried and tried to convince Owen to make these for his friends, but he refused. He wanted to make something with lollipops in it. Plus Riley's playgroup is all kids age 2 and under and I figured the babies wouldn't really have any use for candy. But bubbles...everyone loves bubbles, right? Even babies. So we used these little tubes of bubbles for the body. Both boys helped color them and then Owen glued the little hearts on for decorations. I did have to sign Riley's name though. He's not quite ready for that yet!

And Owen made mice and put chocolate lollipops (because that's all I could find since I was rushing to get out of the store before Riley fell asleep...I didn't make it, but anyway...) in them. The lollipops don't actually serve a purpose of any kind. There was another mouse he could have made where the stick of the pop was the tail, but he liked these better, so we did these. Owen colored the nose, glued on the eyes, put the pipe cleaners on, and inserted the lollipops. I punched the holes and put the to and from on the back. My favorite is the one in the top left with the wonky eyes. I wish I could have kept that one for myself. Then when I picked Owen up from school, I saw that some of the kids had given little bags of goodies and I kind of felt bad that we'd just given these silly mice with a single candy on each one. Then I realized that if I only let Owen have one candy after lunch and one after dinner, it's still going to take him over a week to eat all the candy (unless I eat half of it first!), so then I didn't feel so bad about only putting one piece of candy on his. I think next year I'll push him to do something without candy at all...like butterflies made out of bubbles!

I love the cheap little t-shirts they have at Target to celebrate each holiday. I have one for Halloween and one for Christmas, but I haven't been able to make the trip to town to get one for Valentines, so I made my own. :-P I just bought a pale pink shirt and stamped pink hearts on it. It turned out alright and of course it actually looks better when it's on me.

My favorite project though was aprons for the boys. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been wanting to make aprons for them and finally decided to do it for V day. After going back to get the right kind of bias tape (double fold, not single), I finally finished them up. I think they turned out really well. The dish towels came in a 2 pack and only one of them was "pretty" so while I was stamping my t-shirt, I got Owen to help me stamp the dish towel. He had no idea what it was for, but I think he enjoyed doing it. The interesting thing is that I used the same paint on the apron and my shirt, but the color looks totally different on the 2 different colors.

So that's my week in review! I had one more project I wanted to get finished, but I just haven't had the time. Tomorrow night is my scrapbooking night though and I have a couple of things in mind to finish up then, so hopefully I'll have more to post this weekend!

I'm not as craft-savvy as I thought.

2008-02-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

My mom is a crafty woman. She had a ceramics studio (if you can call it that) in our basement when I was growing up and she'd teach classes and such down there. It's one of those things I didn't think too much about since it had always been that way. It was fun to go down and help her pour the molds and scrape off the little creases (I'm sure there's "right" word for that, but I don't know what it is). And of course I painted my fair share (and then some) of knick-knacks. Later she got out of the ceramics business and started doing folk art. My friends and I always painted little ornaments for Christmas every year and thought it was lots of fun.

She also taught me how to sew. My husband and even his sister make me feel like a sewing goddess when I actually find the time to complete a sewing project. My mother-in-law is an excellent seamstress (my first sewing machine was one of her hand-me-downs), but I guess her kids never really paid much attention to what she was doing.

I actually put all the craftyness I have on the back burner for many years. I don't know if I thought it was uncool. I think it was just more of lack of desire and "better" things to do with my time. But since having kids I've started getting back into it and these past few months I've gotten "the fever."

There's a tutorial for making aprons out of dish towels. I love it. It's right up my alley because most of the measuring and hemming are done. I've been wanting to make these ever since I saw the tute, but it's hard to find boyish dish towels. Then today I saw Valentine dish towels and bought some to make aprons. After getting all the boys to bed, I had about an hour to work on these and didn't get very far before realizing I had bought single fold bias tape at the store instead of double fold. What's the difference? Does it matter? Turns out it does matter and I could make the single fold into double fold without too much trouble (at least I think I can), but then it will be too narrow for the ties. So I guess I have to wait until tomorrow to return the single fold and get the double fold and then hopefully tomorrow night I will get it finished...hopefully.

I ran across this blog...

2008-02-10T14:33:00.000-05:00

Whenever I have a little extra time, but I don't really feel up to actually DOING anything, I sit and kill some brain cells on the computer. If I'm not chatting with my wise mommy friends, then I'm often playing games. But when I'm not doing that, I'm blog hopping. I pick a blog I like and then I go through their lists of blogs to see if any catch my eye. When I see one I like, I add it to my list of blogs. But today I found a blog that I've been spending a lot of time looking through. She does a lot of cute things and they're things that I think, "I could probably do that." She seems to be like me and doesn't want to make something totally from scratch, but will use store-bought (or thrift-store-bought) items and fix them up to make something new.

One thing she did was to take your average solid colored tee shirt and used a bleach pen to make a design on it. Very cute outcome!

Or for her son, she took tee shirt with an emblem on it that she didn't like and embroidered some cute fabric over it.

And these cute magnets. I've tried to do these before with Owen's face on them to give to his grandparents, but the glass acts as a magnifying glass and made him look a little strange. I like her idea of using old books and even catalogs. I especially like the Richard Scarry ones. Brings back childhood memories. Although I think I would have trouble cutting up a Richard Scarry book. Maybe I can find one in REALLY bad shape so that I won't mind so much.

And how adorable are these shirts? I'm not sure Eric would consider them manly enough for his boys to wear though...I guess there's just one way to find out.

And these aprons.

And this mobile is such a cute little decorating idea. It looks like it would be easy, but I would have to put it REALLY high to keep it from being demolished. ;-D

And last, but not least, I'm going to HAVE to give this freezer paper stenciling a try. She says it's easy. I hope she's right.

Bon Mardi Gras

2008-02-05T20:55:00.000-05:00

It snuck up on me. I had no idea Mardi Gras was coming up until one of Eric's friends called him from New Orleans to see if we wanted a King Cake. What? It's this week? No!

So we told him to get us one and FedEx brought it today. God bless FedEx. We came back from eating lunch with Eric to find it on the front stoop. Yeah!

I also made a run to the store this morning so we could have Jambalaya. That gives all the ingredients for a great Mardi Gras...except a parade...and moonpies...and beads. I guess I would say that's the draw back to where we live. No celebration of Mardi Gras. Or none that we've found. Maybe in a couple of years we can take the boys to Mobile for a few parades. The Mobile parades tend to be more family friendly than the New Orleans ones. And Mobile is closer. But until then, we'll just stick to our little family mini-celebration.

Snowman!

2008-01-29T23:38:00.000-05:00

Riley is obsessed with snowmen. When we got our half inch of snow the other week, I had Eric gather up all the snow from the yard so I could build a snowman for Riley. It was 10 inches tall.

Anyway, Owen has decided he doesn't need to wash his hands EVERY time he goes potty and even though I tried and tried to set him straight on this (and Eric tried too), he still refuses. So I found some foaming, waterless hand sanitizer. Owen really likes it and uses it gladly after going potty. Riley likes it as well. Okay, he LOVES it. I squirt just a small (penny-sized) amount in his hand and he exclaims, "SNOWMAN!" I love it.

Getting ready for V-day.

2008-01-28T10:58:00.000-05:00

I got an idea for making various garlands for various holidays from Jenny at allsorts. But I thought I'd buy the cute little wooden letters and string them together to make my saying. Sinc Valentine's Day is coming up, I decided that would be my first attempt. But when I got to Hobby Lobby I found some really cute little wooden hearts. They came with 10 hearts in the package for right around $2, so I decided to use those for my garland instead and to just put my letters on the hearts after I altered them. I found a cute little set of mismatched letters for under $2 there too.

My original plan was to paint the letters white, but after I finished altering the hearts, I realized they would blend in with the background too much, so I finally decided (with a little help from my friends) to do them brown. It kind of gives a chocolatey feel to them, and what is more Valentiney than chocolate?

I think it turned out really great and if I have the chance to go back, I think I'll get another set try something a little different with.

The Kidlet.

2008-01-25T01:11:00.000-05:00

I saw this post at JCHomemade with a tutorial for making her Kidlet. A Kidlet is just a large pocket (with a smaller pocket on it) that hangs on the wall. Very cute. Maybe one of these days, when I finish the 6 projects I've already started but not finished, I'll make a few for Owen's room. Seems simple enough that maybe even I can do it.

And while I'm posting links to her tutorials, here's another one that I like of hers. It is for a felt story board. I originally came across this as I was looking for a tute on how to make a felt gingerbread house that the boys would be able to rearrange the decorations as much as they wanted, but then I forgot about it. Yesterday, I was talking with some friends about felt boards like this and we were talking about doing gingerbread houses and nativity scenes on it. I like her snowman idea and would probably do a Christmas tree with decorations too. Maybe some animals and a barn. Cars and trucks and planes and trains and boats.

DIY Puff Paint

2008-01-23T18:20:00.000-05:00

I ran across this blog the other day and thought the puff paint looked like a really fun idea. And the best part is that I didn't have to worry about it when my 21 mo kept repeating "Candy!" and ate the paint. Unfortunately I have all-purpose flour, not self-rising, so I looked up the conversion for it and it worked pretty good although our might not have puffed quite as much as hers. I've included my revised recipe below for using all-purpose flour. And my kids are SLOW painters so I nuked it about every 5 minutes and then let them add more to it.

DIY Puff Paint
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
water
food coloring

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Then add water until it is a thick paint consistency. Separate into 3 or 4 small bowls and add food coloring to get desired colors.

Paint picture on thin cardboard or on cardstock using paint brushes or cotton swabs (you might try putting in a squeeze bottle to squeeze it on). Microwave about 30 seconds and it will puff up.

And here's our finished product. I'm sure it's not to impressive to most, but as their mom, I'm proud.

24 Carrot Gold Mac N Cheese

2008-01-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

I don't have the new cookbook about "sneaking" veggies into you meals. As a matter of fact, I haven't even seen it. But I have heard a lot of talk about it. From what I've heard, the recipes are kind of hit and miss. Some kids like some of them, but more often than not it seems the kids aren't "fooled."

And for me, personally, I'm a simple gal. There are some things I'll cook from scratch, but for the most part my motto is, "If it doesn't come from a box, I won't cook it!" I did see some of the talk shows promoting the book and they cooked/baked a few of the recipes. I guess the thing that put me off about them was all the measuring. Sure I can measure the flour and sugar and cocoa and...to make a batch of brownies that might or might not turn out right. But I'd much rather buy a box and go from there. Maybe add some chocolate chips or swirl in some caramel, but that's about as fancy as I get.

Well, some time ago I came across a recipe for Macaroni and Cheese with pureed carrots in it. Since mac and cheese is already an orangey-yellow color, the carrots tend to blend in pretty well. It's something I've been doing since well before this cookbook came out and something I'm sure I'll continue to do for as long as my kids will go for it. I tried to find the recipe the other day for a friend. I swear I originally saw it on the kraft.com site, but I looked for it there with no luck. I'd really like to give credit to whoever (or is it whomever???) deserves it, but I just don't know who that is. And since I can't find it, I can't give it to you exactly as it is supposed to be, but I will give it to you the way I make it.

24 Carrot Gold Mac N Cheese
1 box of your favorite mac and cheese
2 ounces pureed carrots
and whatever ingredients required for the box of mac n cheese you're using

Fix mac and cheese according to directions on package. Add pureed carrots and stir until well blended. Eat.

Like I said, I'm a simple gal. ;-D

You might even try adding more carrots depending on your family's preferences.

And if you're wondering, "Where/how do I get pureed carrot?" Well you can cook and puree it yourself in a blender or food processor (add water as needed to get it well blended). If you do it this way, I recommend doing a large batch, spooning it into ice cube trays, and freezing it. They you can pop them out of the ice cube trays and into a freezer bag for storage until you need them. Each cube (if filled to the rim) is approximately 1 ounce.

The other way to get pureed carrots is in the baby food section of your local grocery store. I actually needed 22 baby food jars for Christmas gifts for my oldest to take to school, so I bought carrots (and some squash and green beans) baby food and froze the purees in ice cube trays as mentioned above. That way I killed two birds with one stone.

I guess I've rambled on long enough. I do feel the need to weigh in though on the debate that seems to be going on about the aforementioned cookbook. There are some people who criticize the cookbook for being sneaky and deceptive and these people are saying it is wrong to lie to your children. Well for the record, I've never lied to my children about this. I don't sneak around adding carrots to things so they won't know. But they're kids and too busy playing to notice what mom is doing in the kitchen and they've never asked me what's in the mac and cheese. If they asked, I'd tell them, but as it is, they don't have a clue what is or isn't in mac and cheese anyway. In all fairness I should point out that I've also never told them that there are tomatoes in spaghetti sauce either. Shame on me.

Dishtowel crafts

2008-01-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

I found these two little tutorials for ways to use dishtowels to make something useful...not that dishtowels aren't useful in and of themselves, but this just allows them to become even more useful and versatile. ;-)

They both come from the same blog. The first idea is to use the dishtowel to make a little library tote. The second is for a kid-sized apron out of a dishtowel.

I haven't had the chance yet to try either of these, but I did buy some (rather plain) dishtowels the other day along with some bias tape, so all I need now is TIME to sit down and do the aprons. They look like they should be fairly quick and easy, but still, time is time and I'm short on it.

And of course, having boys, I need to find some cute, boyish dishtowels. Maybe some with trains or bulldozers? Anyone know where I can find those? No? Me neither.

I know this is a little late, but...

2008-01-19T16:10:00.000-05:00

...I'll post it anyway. Back after Thanksgiving someone (I can't remember who) directed me to the cutest little Advent Calendar I think I've ever seen. I looked at it and thought, "I can do that!" So I did. Of course by the time I finished it, December was half over, but Owen really enjoyed it and we'll be able to use it for years to come.

The original calendar I copied was by Jenny at allsorts. I did mine almost the same as hers, but, of course, we can't have anything at our house that is ALL red and white (War Eagle!) so I alternated red and white pockets with green and white ones. I think it turned out pretty good.

I made the little dangles using my circle and star scrapbook punches. The dangles go inside the pockets (along with some chocolate or little trinkets) and each day when you open the next pocket, you hang the dangle on the button. I also used some of the scraps to make a little tree that we actually used to help Owen be able to identify exactly which day we were on since it was larger than the dangles and he could see it more easily. You can see the tree hanging on the last day in the second photo.

He loved it and became obsessed with moving the tree each day and opening the pockets. And it made my days a lot easier since it helped answer the questions of, "Is it Christmas yet?" and, "Is Nana (or Aunt Whitney) coming today?" It was so handy that I'm actually thinking about making some for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the boys' birthdays. All I have to do is find the time...

The 365 Challenge

2008-01-18T14:37:00.000-05:00

I know myself well enough to know that I just won't be able to do the 365 challenge EVERY day, but it's a good idea and has inspired me to just take more pictures this year. So today we went to BK to have lunch with friends and let our kiddos play and took my camera along with me. I got several good pics and here's a few of them. Unfortunately Owen can be a little camera shy, so I only got one decent one of him...and of course he's not smiling or looking at the camera, but it does capture his personality. Riley on the other hand LOVES to have his picture taken. "CHEEEEEEEEESE!" he says.

Let it snow!

2008-01-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

We had such a blizzard last night! Well, it was a blizzard for the south anyway. I was afraid Owen would sleep through it at first because he'd just gone down for a nap (at 5:30!!) right before it started snowing. But it was still snowing when he woke up and we all went out for just a little bit to enjoy it.

Riley has been obsessed with snowmen lately (and Santa and Mater and McQueen and the King and helicopters and trains and...), so I had Eric bring some snow up to the porch and I made a little mini-snowman. Riley LOVED it. "SNOWMAN! SNOWMAN!" he kept saying. ****Sorry Owen stepped into the picture at the last second!****

I think we got a total of about half an inch, so like I said, it was a blizzard! This was Riley's first snow and the first one that Owen can remember and I think they really enjoyed it.

This blog will contain a little of everything.

2008-01-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

I guess it's time to jump on the bandwagon and get myself a blog, huh? I'm not sure exactly where this blog will take me, but I think mostly I'll use it as a place to keep everything together, from cute, adorable stories about the boys to scrapbooking (when I can find the time) to random crafts and activities I squeeze into my life. I figure I'll be loading this blog up with everything imaginable...even the kitchen sink, so to speak.

So bear with me and hopefully before long I'll this thing set up just the way I want it.