Happy Birthday to Us

My parents had Buffalo Bills Party at their house on Sunday. Maggie wore the football dress I made her. This is the second dress I’ve made, and even though it was the same pattern that I used before, it was very much a “learning experience”.

09e581a7-b7e0-43a7-92bc-9951477de1c7The biggest lesson I learned is that I really shouldn’t sew when I’m short on sleep (which is pretty much all the time, I probably should just put my sewing machine away for the next 6 years or so). You see that buffalo logo on the back of the dress? That was supposed to be the front. I got all the way to sewing the button holes and realized my mistake. I put the dress down for a couple of days and after talking to my mom and sister about it, I decided to put the football on the front (removing the buffalo and reattaching it to the front was not an option, it’s on there super securely). Even with the sewing mistakes, Maggie was a hit in her dress and we all had a lot of fun at the party (despite the Bills losing).

2013-10-13 15.02.20I did learn a lot about following (and modifying) a pattern though. I have the fabric to make a Christmas dress for Maggie and feel like I am better prepared to work on that now. I just need to get the Halloween costumes I am working on done first.

Monday was my and my sister’s birthday (I think that ‘s grammatically correct – if not – sorry mom*). Adam raided Mabel’s sticker stash and made an awesome sign for me, with some help from Aunt Stacy.

2013-10-14 11.09.56 2013-10-14 11.10.28Stacy and I went shopping and when we got back there were cakes (courtesy of Rob & Dave) waiting for us (good job husbands). Mine was a cookie cake and Stacy’s was ice cream (they went together nicely – just like us).

2013-10-14 14.16.00It was a great birthday and I loved being able to celebrate it with my sister. I’ve said many times before, that she is by far the best birthday gift that I’ve ever received and that is still true. She’s my best friend and an incredible aunt to my kids.

I’m so very blessed.

*Sometimes I imagine my mom (the English teacher) furiously correcting my grammar mistakes on her screen with a red pen (even though I know she prefers purple or green ink). I figure I am afforded a little bit of leeway since my run-on sentences and lack of commas are counterbalanced with pictures of her adorable grandchildren.

2013-10-14 14.09.36See? All better.

5 Months

This sweet girl turned five months old earlier month.

005 Maggie

She’s currently going through a nocturnal phase, which isn’t all that fun for me. She is a great sleeper, but getting her to sleep sometimes takes longer than I would like (which is why I’m updating this at 1:30 in the morning). She’s a bit of a night owl and likes to stay up late and sleep late. She is ridiculously adorable though, so that sort of makes up for it.

0-5 Maggie

Pumpkins & Puddles

After our trip to Home Depot on Saturday, we went to a fall festival.

IMG_1642Luke was pretty crabby when we first got there, but his mood got better the dirtier he got. It rained while we were there, so there was plenty of mud for him. I later realized that he had a molar breaking through, which explained the crankiness.

20131005_121809 20131005_122118 20131005_122258 IMG_1645 IMG_1662Miss Margaret was not impressed that this cow shared her name.

IMG_1666 IMG_1667 IMG_1671Luke was all about the pumpkins. He kept trying to pick them up (even ones that were close to his size) and had to point them all out to us, “Punkin! Punkin!”

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20131005_132123By the time we got to the apple picking, Luke was in a great mood. There were apples and mud puddles everywhere. Maggie fell asleep during our wagon ride out to the orchard and slept through it all. She did look pretty cute in the apple dress I made her though.

IMG_1684 IMG_1691 IMG_1705 IMG_1707 IMG_1715 IMG_1718 IMG_1721 IMG_1722 IMG_1728 IMG_1729Luke ended up completely soaked. Thankfully we had brought a change of clothes for each of the boys with us.

IMG_1730IMG_1679 The boys loved playing on the hay bales and going down the slides.

IMG_1680 IMG_1736 IMG_1739 IMG_1740I know it’s just the angle of the camera and the way that they are sitting, but Luke looks so much bigger than Adam in this last photo. Adam is showing off one of the gourds he got. Dave told him he could get one small pumpkin, like Luke did, or two gourds (they were the same price). Of course Adam went for the gourds – they are green after all.

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Snake and a Plane

Adam had another Home Depot workshop on Saturday. When we got there we were surprised to see some people (and animals) from the zoo there. They had a gecko (who did not try to save us 15% on our car insurance), a hawk, a huge rabbit, and an even larger snake.

Luke loved the hawk. He would have been happy just sitting a couple of feet away and watching it the whole time we were there.

20131005_094026I was super surprised that Adam touched the snake (he was petting it with one finger). I really do not like snakes, but I don’t want the kids to be a afraid of them, so I did pick Luke up and get him close enough so that he could pet it too.

Adam got to build a fire rescue airplane and was so happy to get another pin for his work apron.

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Catch Up

These past few weeks have been busy ones for us. Dave and I celebrated our seventh anniversary. We took a weekend trip to Canada (thanks again Mom & Dad for looking after the kids).

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Maggie turned five months old. I’ll get a bear-in-the-chair update posted soon.

Luke cut the third of his two-year molars (just one more left to go, thankfully).

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Luke has also been pacifier free for the past two and a half weeks. It wasn’t an intentional thing, but we only had one left and he misplaced it for a couple of days. He did okay without it, so when he did find it, we hid it again on him. There were a few times that I almost caved and got him one. It just about broke my heart each time he’d ask for his “fa-fa-fa”. It is definitely harder getting him to sleep for naps and bedtime, but I know it needed to be done.

Jack-o’-Lantern Shirts

Last Friday when I was at the dollar store I found some orange tee shirts. As soon as I saw them, I knew they’d be perfect for a Halloween craft project. They only had one size (kid’s medium), but for a dollar each, they’d do just fine. I washed them over the weekend and then prepped the shirts on Monday night.

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I found some jack-o’-lantern faces online and printed them out. Then I traced them to freezer paper and cut out the details. Once that was done I ironed them on to the shirts. (I’ve done this before. It’s an idea I found online and I’m really curious who came up with it first. I mean, I’m not sure I’d have ever thought to iron something used to preserve food on to fabric and then paint over it – but whatever, it works and it’s fun.)

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So yesterday morning all I had to do what stick a piece of cardboard inside each shirt (to keep the paint from bleeding through to the back) and give the boys some brushes and fabric paint. The freezer paper acts as a great stencil after you iron it on and it peels off super easily when you’re done.

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Adam was excited to wear his new shirt today and has already asked me if we can do this again to make Thanksgiving and Christmas shirts (the answer is yes, if you’re wondering).

2013-10-09 11.49.42Luke’s shirt turned out well too. He went off of the sides of the stencil a couple of times and also got a bunch of paint on his belly (it washed off fine). He did most of his painting on the white paper, and not the face of the jack-o’-lantern, so I helped a bit. No pictures of him wearing it, because he is not at all interested in wearing his Halloween shirt (or his Halloween costume, or clothes in general really).

I’m very pleased with how they turned out and it was a fun activity for both of them. I already had the freezer paper, the fabric paint, and brushes, so it only cost us a buck a piece for the shirts – not too shabby!

No License Required

My parents got a new set of wheels. They spent a lot of time researching to get exactly what they wanted it. It needed to be green and seat two people. I think they ended up getting the perfect vehicle.

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Both boys absolutely love it. Adam took to it right away and does a great job steering it and shifting between high, low, and reverse. Luke is a big fan of the gas pedal. He throws his arms in the air like he’s on a roller coaster when he’s driving, completely ignoring the steering wheel (which is why he went straight into the neighbor’s bushes on his first solo trip). He also likes to step on the gas from the passenger seat (which is why he’ll only be allowed to ride in the backseat in twelve years when Adam gets his license).

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Both boys love their new “behicle” (as Adam calls it). As soon as Adam woke up Saturday morning he was asking to drive it.

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Adam can’t wait to go back to Papa & Mabel’s so he can drive it some more. I know it will be fully charged and waiting for him.

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Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C

We started working on the Letter C last week. One of the first things Adam made was a toilet paper roll cowboy.

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He also did this dot-to-dot. He didn’t realize it was a “C” though. He asked me if it was something eating the clown (as if the clown wasn’t creepy enough on its own).

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He really liked this graphing activity. He had to roll the cube and then chart which picture turned up. We made it a race to see which one would get to the top first.

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I found some shapes that were made to look like roads and printed them out. Then we colored in the centers and I glued them all to a piece of poster board. I dug out a toy car in each color and gave them to Luke. I had him match the cars to their colors and we worked on shapes at the same time. He knows his colors so I started by saying, “the red circle” or “the green rectangle”. Then later I would tell him to park all the cars on the heart, or all of them on the square, and only add the color if he needed help. I’m sure it won’t be long before he has these shapes mastered.

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He did have them all correct in the above picture, but Adam swapped the orange and the purple just to see how long it would take Luke to notice.

These sun catchers were just a fun thing Adam did last week. He had a blast painting them and I’m going to pick up some more next time I go to the store.

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Maggie is not a fan of the flash on my camera.

2013-09-26 13.50.41I picked up this shirt for Adam from the craft store on clearance. They only had one size – which is why it’s so big on him. He loved coloring it in though and did a really nice job.

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Last Thursday night we had another family movie night. We watched Cars and snacked on eclair cake, candy, and grapes.

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Well that was what was supposed to happen at least, Luke insisted on lining the grapes up on the fireplace.

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