Zebra stripes

Shiny

First Book

So excited. I received my first book from a publisher for reviewing.  I've need sent e- books but this is my first sent directly to me.

Broadway.

Love seeing a new musical.

Bloo

Brrrr

Nothing like a cold morning to way you up!

Homemade chili.

Project 365...almost

So I think this year I'm going to try to do the 365 photo project. This is where you post a pic a day. So I'm a little late getting started but it could be worse it could he March!  So here goes. First up, nails. What I'm into a nail painting thing right now. :)

A New Year

You know I say this every year, but maybe this will be the year that I actually keep up the blog on a semi regular basis.  Well here goes nothing! 

Halloween Part One

After last year's Halloween my sister and I started discussing costume ideas for this year's Halloween.  We talked to the kids to see what they wanted to do.  Kira again wanted to be a princess, but we were having a hard time coming up with another fun theme that would allow for this.  Damian mentioned Angry Birds.  He is addicted to the game and even owns a shirt.  After discussing this we decided that  this would be a great theme.  The kids all settled on which birds they wanted to be.  Kira would be the Black bomb bird, Damian the Red birds, Joy's two would be the Yellow and Blue birds, and Joy and I would be the Pigs.

Now that our themed was settled we started looking for costumes.  After looking around we realized that cost was going to be a huge problem.  Manufactured costumes were running between $30-50 apiece.  If we dressed everone up, it was going to run us anywhere from  $220 to $300.  Ouch.  Thus we decided to make our own.  We looked around online and found this blog, The Clock Blog.  They blogger had made some for him and his friend.  The problem was this is about the only instructions and they aren't very good from a instruction stand point.  Its more of a rough how to.  So out came the art supplies.  I have enough know how to wing this project. A couple of designs later and we were ready to start.

I took measurements from the kids to get a rough idea on fabric amounts.  The ranged from 0.5 yards for the littlest to 2 yards for the biggest. The it was just a matter of felt, fabric paint, fusible interfacing, a couple of t-shirts, and some miscellaneous supplies. A trip to the fabric store and two to the art supply store. Netted us enough materials to make 6 costumes.  The total cost was right at about $100.  Not bad considering what it would have cost us to buy them.  Now it was just a matter of time to complete all of the costumes.

I started by making a newspaper template for each costume.  This was much easier than trying to draw the shapes out on the fabric.  I was able to hold the templates up to the kids to determine sizing and a rough fit.  If you try this, make sure to account for seams and allow yourself an extra inch or so. Then it was just a matter of laying it down on top of the fabric.  I pinned it to all three layers, the front, back, and the lining so I would only have to cut once.



Then I cut out and sewed the bottom sections of the red, black, and yellow birds. A little bit of trimming and the fronts were off to a good start.






I didn't want to waste the felt, so I raided my kid's art supplies for some construction paper.  I had already sketched out rough faces, so between my drawings and Rovio's site I made faces for each of the birds.  This This worked well as I made stuff too small to start with and had to resize the pieces a few times.  I played with the pieces until I was happy with how everything looked.  A double check from Joy and Kevin to make sure that everything looked right and I had my templates for all of the felt.

Oh Bucket

Bucket is an unusual  (almost) 3 year old.  He is completely fasicinated with how things work.  He already likes to take stuff apart and put it back together.  He plays with toys that are for much higher age groups since the stuff for his age isn't designed to come apart.  I already know that he will be the kid that takes apart the DVD player when hes 6 just because he wanted to see how it worked.  His newest fascination though it a little strange.

He is obsessed with the toilet.  It's not even in a lets flush stuff way, it's more of a how does it work.  We keep finding him with his head in the bowl watching the water come out of the rim when you flush it.  It doesn't seem to matter that we keep telling him not to do this, every time he goes to the bathroom there he is checking out under the rim. 

While it doesn't really bother us, it does the daycare.  She is worried about the whole germ factor since multiple, little, toilet training kids are using it.  However she has the same problem as us, that being you can't really get him to stop.  He has been doing it for weeks at her place, but when I talked to her this week it turns out that he has stopped at her place.

Daycare is in an older home and that means older pipes.  With kids that use to much tp this means that it backs up once in a while.  Our house doesn't have this problem so Bucket had never gotten to experience this gross lovely phenomenon before.

A few weeks ago he went in like normal and did his buisness, and the next thing Daycare hears is him yelling.  She goes in and he is standing there watching the toilet overflow.  She gets it stopped and cleans up the mess.  Bucket being the curious child, stood outside the bathroom and watched the work.  She noticed him looking at her and then the toilet.

"Did you need somthing?"

He looked at her and then back to the toilet... "That freaked me out."

Then he turned around and went about his day.  I hear about the incident and laughed at his choice of words and then put it out of my mind.  Fast forward to this week. I was talking to her and she said something about the toilet again, and from the background we hear  "That freaked me out."  Apparently he has been going into the bathroom and when he flushes he eyeballs the toilet and then leaves.  She said thinks he is afraid its going to overflow again so he doesn't watch the water from the rim anymore.  She does say that once in a while she catches him looking over at the bathroom and muttering "That freaked me out" to himself.

So it seems that his fascination with the toilet at Daycare is over with, but somehow I don't think we will ever lose it at our house.  Living with a plumber does have its benefits.

Hello Weekend

I swear this week has just crawled by.  Its hard to come back after vacation and get back into the swing of things.  I think that the crazy weather we have been having is not really helping.  Its like we all know this is going to be the last of the nice weather before we have to start dealing with ice and snow. The weather has been so warm that my strawberry plants sent out a second rather small crop.  It was strange to have fresh strawberries in October, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.

It should be a nice weekend though.  My Dad is in town for a hunting day with Kevin and Tamir.  Tamir's Dad flew up from Phoenix as well.  Since they are going to a pheasant farm, rather than the more traditional route they should all at least get to shoot something.  I know Kevin was worried that if they just went out and about like he normally does when they hunt that they wouldn't see a single bird.  Either way it should be fun.

The kids and I don't really have much planned, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.  I know that there is stuff to be done around the house and I really have to take all of the books back to the libary. The nice thing though is since I was home yesterday, I got all of the weekend chores pretty much taken care of, so there is to much work to do over the weekend.

Ah Kids..

A friend of mine posted a picture of his kid covered in baby powder.  Well him, his bed, the pillows... you get the idea.  Its funny to see this since most parents have a story about their kids destroying stuff.

I think that one gift you get when you have a kid is "Parent Spidey-vision."  Its the ability to tell when your kids are up to no good, even when you just checked on them two seconds ago.  Its when its gets just a little too quiet and you know a disaster is about to befall your household.

Miss B had her "incident" about six months after Bucket was born.  She managed to get ahold of a tube of butt paste during a "nap".  Though I suppose you should call it B destroys a set of bedsheets in 5 minutes rather than "nap."  She mangaed to not only get it open but to squeeze out the entire contents onto her and her bed.  It wouldn't have been so bad but she decided to use it as a shampoo/body scrub.  It was one of the hardest substances I have ever encountered to get out of that kids hair.  That stuff stuck like glue, we ended up having to get special medical shampoo from a lady at daycare in order to finally get it all out. Fun times.

Bucket had his incident about a week ago.  I came upstairs to find him with a tube of cortisone. (You would have think we would have learned about keeping anything in tubes in the kid's bedroom after B's incident. I guess we just aren't that smart.) I had thought it wasn't a full tube since I couldn't find to much on him or his sheets.  Low and behold a day later we got to open their bedroom window and find it.  He had used the ointment to "wash" the window for us.  It was better than what Kira did, but still.

Ah the joys of kids!

I love my germ factories... no really I do.

I love fact that when a new cold comes through daycare either me or K is bound to pick it up.  This time it got all four of us.  The kids both have runny noses.  Which if you have had to deal with its fun considering the two year old has no frickin clue how to blow his nose.  Yay.  K and I both got massive colds.  I actually had to stay home from work this week cause I could barely function let alone drive into work.  It looks like K may have to head to the doc as he has noticed it moving into his chest.  Oh fun.  Gotta love the germy little ones.

I wish that I had pictures of the garden for an update, but alas the weather is being quite bitchy.  Its hard to get outside when it does nothing but thunderstorm and pour rain on everything.  At least we missed the tornadoes that came through the state last night.  That was fun getting to watch every 10 min on TV last night.  Really do you need to keep interrupting my shows with that.  I know your just doing your job but sheesh. 

I did however take note that I have a few tomatoes now on the bushes and quite a few sugar snap peas ready for harvesting.  I tasted one and it was heavenly.  So crisp and sweet.  I think I may have to plant them again next year. 

I Need A Bigger Bed

Its hard sometimes when you have small children to get a full nights sleep.  Its one of the few things that I truly miss from being a non-parent. 

Bucket decided last night to come downstairs and refuse to go back to his bed.  I have a hard time making either kid go sleep in their beds when its 4:30AM and I'm exhausted.  So naturally I just let him climb into bed with us.  This would be fine if either of my kids stayed in one place while they slept.  I told K this morning I can't decide which kid is harder to sleep with.  Miss B who moves around everywhere and will eventually take up half of the king bed with us crammed together on the other half or Damian who doesn't move as much but will poke you to see if you are awake yet.  He knows better than to talk to me but that doesn't stop him from trying to get me to look at him.  He has learned that if I do that I will usually get up and go watch cartoons with him. 

Really I think this is all practice for the next few nights.  He is terrified of thunder and we are due to get storms all weekend.  Somehow I don't think I'm catching up on my sleep this weekend!

On a side note.  K told me that I can extend the flower beds in the front of the house.  I'm super excited as I would rather weed more garden space than mow all that grass.

I Love My Garden

Its always great when I can start pulling things out of the garden.  This year we have a lot going on in a space that really shouldn't have that much.  Oh well.  I really like throwing things together and seeing what happens.  This is the first year that my front and side beds are really starting to fill out.  Its hard for me to get full looking beds as I'm always adding new things and moving stuff around.  Last year I didn't move to much since most of it was rather new and that did pay off this year.

The lilies really came out in full force and are stunning.  I don't remember them being this pretty last year.

 The daisies took off and went a little nuts.  This plant is about 3 years old and really peaked this year.  It is just covered in buds

Last year I planted a raspberry bush.  It didn't do much as the sunflowers I planted over grew and shaded it.  I was worried that I had killed the poor little thing since it was barely a twig at the end of the season.  I left it alone in hope that it was just playing dead.  Turns out it was just biding its time.

I'm already seeing baby raspberries.

 If you look closely at the big bush picture you can see the strawberries along the bottom.  That all is one plant that I made last year.  The plants are just covered in berries all waiting to be eaten.  Most don't make it into the house as the kids both like them warm and right off the plant.

The row of cucumbers that I planted are all doing well.  These are lemon ones.  The row of regular ones all died for some odd reason.  I think it may be due to me letting Miss B do the planting on that row.  Oh well at least she's out there helping me.

Small pepper plants.  I think that the broccoli and the cauliflower are over shadowing them to much.  Hopefully they will get a little bigger and I start seeing blooms on them.  One of them is a spicy cherry pepper plant.  I can't remember which one it is, so I'm hoping they both bloom.

Baby tomatoes!  I'm always excited when I start seeing these.  I planted a few different varieties this year.  The only one that didn't make it was the yellow jellybean, a type of grape tomato.  For some reason it refused to grow.  I also have three "wild" tomato plants.  The came up in the area of the bed that I planted them in last year.  I'm leaving them alone in hopes that I get fruit off of them. 

I have a ton of other plants in those beds as well but I wasn't able to get good pictures out of them.  There pumpkins, squash, watermelons, and okra are all doing well.  None of them look like much, but I'm please with their growth so far.  I also have peas, beans, beets, and carrots interspersed with the other plants.  Like I said before I may have over done it.  It will be nice this year to be able to eat out of the garden instead of the supermarket.  I may even try canning some of it if I have enough!

Happy New Year

I love the beginning of a year.  Everything is new and fresh.  Its a whole year to make new memories.  To watch the kids get learn new things and get bigger.  To travel and see old friends, to meet new ones.  Time to make resolutions. 

I try to make changes through out the year but do make big ones on New Years.  This year the big thing is to try to get out of debt.  We really need to stop relying on credit for stuff.  So both K and I are going to try hard to save and get the debt down. 

We have big plans for this year a trip out to Virginia, one to Hilton Head, NC, at least one to Ohio.  Kira will start preschool in the fall so I have to get used to the idea that she is going to be a "school-ager."  There will be babies born for friends and marriages as well.

All in all it looks like 2010 will be a good year for us!

Now I Really Feel Like a Mother...

We have had some great weather lately.  I can't believe that its been so warm and its November.  The weather was nice enough this weekend that we were able to get outside with the kids and get the yard work done.  We are trying to get it all finished before it starts snowing.  We managed to get half of the leaves burned and the garage clean out.  It will be nice being able to park in the garage again.  I was starting to worry that I would end up scraping snow this year.

The kids had a great time helping with the yard.  I think the highlight for them was getting to have lunch outside.  Since we had the burn pile going we couldn't all go inside for lunch since someone had to stay out and watch it.  So I took it all outside and we had a picnic.  It was great, strange to be sitting outside with short sleeves and no coats but fun none the less.

The real highlight this weekend though wasn't the nice weather it was getting to call the local Poison Control center.  I don't think you can call yourself a parent  if your kids haven't been to the ER and you haven't had to call PC at least once.

We had bowling early last night so that meant that we had to pick up the babysitter rather then her getting dropped off.  Kevin went to get her while I finished up dinner for the kids.  They were messing around in the bathroom and I yelled for them to come out and that's when I heard D gagging.  I go look and he has my deodorant in his hands and there is a huge bite taken out of it.  Great.  So I look at the label and it does recommend doctor or PC if ingested.  It turns out that kids can eat small amounts and the worst it will do is cause them to vomit.  I guess that was the good news.  Thankfully he doesn't seem any worse for wear from the episode.  Guess this means we need to remove the step stool from the bathroom so they can't get stuff off of the counter.

Halloween

It really is going to be Christmas before I know it. 

So Halloween has come and gone. Kira went as a princess this year and Damian was Captain Kirk.  We did a theme with Joy  and Oren went as Spock.  The boys were adorable together and Kira was super cute.  The best was that I actually made her costume.  That dress is the first piece of clothing I have ever made.  I think it turned out great.

This year we went trick or treating twice.  We were supposed to go three times but the rain kept us from the Family Halloween Night in Nevada.  The first time we went it was to Night Eyes at the Blank Park Zoo.  This is a great way for the little ones to get dressed up and still have fun during the day.   Basically you go around the zoo and at each animal area a group sponsors a tent and hands out candy.  The kids had a blast getting to walk around and see the animals.  The candy was just a big bonus to them.  The highlight though was getting to see the snow leopard.  Typically we only go during the summer and its just to hot out for the leopard, so you either don't get to see him or you just get to see a part of him on his platform snoozing.  This time he was walking infront of the cage.  The kids could have stayed there the whole time if we would have let them. 

The second time that we went was for Beggar's Night in Ankeny.  They do this usually the night before Halloween and then the kids don't go out on Halloween itself.  Its a lot of fun as the kids are suppose to tell jokes or do a trick.  We tried to get Kira to say a few jokes but she would not do it.  The only downside was that it was really cold and it rained for the first 20 minutes or so.  We only took the boys to a few houses before it just got to be to much for them.  Kira toughed it out and we went around to her bucket was mostly full.  By that time her little hands were bright red so we made the decision to take her back to Joy's even though she wanted to keep going. Once we were inside where it was warm she did relent that she was       really cold.  All of the kids ate way to much candy that night and were bouncing off of the walls till the wee hours of the morning!

Orlando

What happened to September. I swear all I did was blink and its gone. Its not like we did that much as the only thing that we had planned was our trip to Florida.

We took our annual trip with my parents and Joy's family last month. This year we went back to Orlando. It was a blast with way to much food and sun. At least this year no one got burnt, just a little pink. The big thing that we did was Sea World and Gatorland. Both kids had a great time at both. They both had their favorites, D really like all the sharks and the fish and for Kira it was the penguins and the dolphins that she seem to really like. We came home with a ton of new stuffed animals for them, but it was a blast.

The resort that we stayed at was great. All of the kids liked the pool as it had a huge kids area. All of us adults liked the pool cause it had a bar with really yummy drinks! The resort also had a really nice indoor play area for the kids which we utilized a few times. They pretty much had it to themselves and the staff even looked the other way with us going in it to retrive the little ones. I tried out the slide and I really think that they greased it. It was some of the slickest plastic I've slid down!

Dad was super excited to see that they had an arcade. We all got in on it and played games a few nights. The fun thing was they had Guitar Hero. Now other than Mom and Dad, none of us had played it before. Turns out that it's a blast, so when we got back both us and Joy went out and bought it. The fun thing is you can set it to beginner and Kira can play too. She's not half bad either!

The whole trip was a great vacation, but Kira gave us one of the great stories that will be told for years to come. On the flight down we had a set of three and a single seat. I took the kids and sat in the three together. Now D had his car seat so he had to sit next to the window so I put Kira on the aisle so that I could easily reach both of them. The problem with this is she would not stop putting her legs into the aisle. No amount of me telling her to stop was working, so being creative I told her that the attendant with the cart would take her foot off if she kept doing it. She looked at me trying to figure out if I was kidding or not and I said it again. She got this really funny look on her face while it sunk it what I said and she turned to me and replied, " What a bitch!" Umm.... I would like to say that I was the great parent and corrected her with a stern warning about not saying bad words, but no I'm not that parent. I totally lost it. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't explain to everyone what she had just said. Needless to say when I finally could talk, everyone laughed just as hard as I did. Ah memories.