Jack and his trains.

Oh Jack, you make me laugh. He has recently started building his own tracks. Only in straight lines. He will stretch them from the kitchen to the front door or one side of the living room to the other. And he will spend hours crawling from one end to the other, pretty funny to watch.




Oh, and if you try and make it connect or help him build one he throws a tantrum. At least he is happy:)

Finally.

I finally felt decent enough to get the christmas tree up. Good times. (on a side note, I thought I was feeling better... super good last night and this morning, but not so much by tonight... oh well, got a little accomplished! :) I didn't even care how it looked. Halfway through, I realized I needed to decorate the top being they couldn't reach, haha. I love how all the decorations are all clustered together. All the candy canes are by eachother, all the red balls are by each other, etc. I think if I changed it Abby would notice. But that is okay, I like it this way. Gives it... character, right?


And I finally got a little sewing done. Haven't done that since before thanksgiving... I was having withdrawls:) I made Abby and Jack bears for stocking stuffers... Still need to embroider their faces but that is an after bedtime task.

Mmmm...

I LOVE food blogs. Scrolling through all the pretty pictures of food. I can just feel the weight coming on. I found a blog, thanks to Jayelle:), that is amazing. Beautiful pictures, practical food. Heaven. I spent A LOT of time on the site yesterday and bookmarked a ton of recipes. (my pictures dont do justice ... just check out her site)

First I started with Garlic knots. Horrible experiences making bread and rolls. This was a breeze. Worked out perfectly!



http://annies-eats.com/2010/09/29/soft-garlic-knots/


Broccoli cheddar soup for my broccoli monster. A-k-a Jack.



http://annies-eats.com/2009/11/05/broccoli-cheddar-soup/

And while my knots were rising I threw together some banana bread. Anyone watch Cooks Country or America's Test Kitchen? The reason I look forward to my antenna's Saturday programming. Best shows ever. Even on PBS, not a huge fan of them normally. Anywho, the premise of the show is they take commonly made food and test it hundreds of ways to find the best method, the one that will come together in the best way. So, she had this on her blog and it is from Cooks Illustrated, the people in charge of the 2 shows.

http://annies-eats.com/2010/08/30/banana-bread/

Warning: Click the links and search her site at your own risk, it is likely to consume your morning/afternoon/night or all of the above. Enjoy!

Run, run fast as you can...

As of late, Jack is OBSESSED with the gingerbread man. Just ask Grandma or Grandpa, they read the story multiple times to him each visit. And he is to the point of reciting the main lines of the story. Love it. I caught him telling winky (his penguin) and puddles (his dog) the story in the backseat the other day. How is he growing up so fast?! Slow down!

Also, I love that he calls himself 'Jackers'. We were at the playground the other day and a kid maybe five or six asked him his name, he replied 'jackers' and the kid looked confused and asked again. This happened several times. Finally I just told the kid his name is Jack, but he calls himself jackers. The kid said 'that's so weird' and just walked away. Well, I think it is cute.

Okay, really I just wanted to show off this picture and so I racked my brain for a Jack story. haha:)

EDD: July 19, 2011

Ouch.

Times two. No, I don't beat my kids up... they are very accident prone, especially Jack.

We went 4 wheeling on Saturday, well, we were in a Rino. Abby was in the front seat (because Jack refuses to sit with anyone other than me... unless Grandma is there, but she wasn't:). We had stopped and she leaned out to try and touch the snow, Ben started to go without realizing this, and she got caught by a bush. Then later in the trip she got hit again (this time sitting up straight) by a tree. This was taken yesterday, so a few days after the incident... doesn't look as bad now, she had horizontal scratches all over her forehead.



Then to Jack. If this kid doesn't have a bruise or a scratch, he must have slept through the day. I swear he nearly kills himself at least once a day. This kid knows no fear. On Sunday he was playing in Abby's room and we heard a crash... then a blood curdling scream. He had pulled the dresser over on himself while trying to climb it. He has a pretty mean black eye and scratches galore. The picture really doesn't do him justice.




At least they got the injuries after family pictures... right? :)

Dinos and ducks.

Ben has been slow at work this week, so we took advantage of that and of the nice day and took the kids out for an adventure!


Have you met Abby? She is OBSESSED with dinosaurs. She knows almost everything there is to know about them. (well for an extremely interested kid, that is) She wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. yeah. She has been telling us that for 2 years now, so I kinda take her seriously. Really, next time you see her ask her anything about dinos, she probably has an answer!



Moments that make you go 'aw!'

She was so funny. She says to us, 'Mom, Dad, I have a hypothesis... ' have you ever seen "dinosaur train" that is Buddy's famous line, so it was pretty funny.

He was trying to make his own footprints:) But mostly I just love that he finally will *almost* happily wear his boots. They are some pretty sweet kicks.

Well, we really went to the duck pond first, but I don't know how to move my pictures around...

Haha. He was sooo nervous at first!

For a good reason... He got bit throwing out the first slice he got his hands on.

Which lead us to this... He felt a little better up on the bench.

And eventually started to feed them again.

It was a fun day! Glad Ben could spend it with us... But, work please pick up... Christmas is around the corner:)

Best.Cookies.Ever.

Well, best pumpkin cookies anyways. (and the easiest) .

Ingredients:
1 small can of pumpkin
1 box spice cake mix
1 pkg chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and bake for 8-10 minutes! They wont expand or change shape, so how you slap them on there is how they will come out:)

Get a big glass of milk and enjoy!!

I heart photoshop.

Oh yes I do. I just wanted to show some before and afters because I am always amazed how great the lighting and colors turn out.

Before After

Notice the wrinkles in the sheet? and the blah saturation?

Before After

This one just makes me happy. I really love the brightness of it.

Of course, having beautiful subjects always helps:)

The last two days.

I had two shoots in the last two days. yay!

Miss T


Big sis Miss K

And my gorgeous soon to be sister-in-law and brother-in-law.

Fun stuff! Oh, and I took a bunch of my niece's blessing after party, but I havent had time to edit yet.

So if anyone wants some pictures done... I am totally up for it! ;)

A new dress.

I offered to test another pattern for Littlelizardking who sells patterns on etsy. It was a lot of work, but LOVE it!! After I forget about how much work it was, I may make another one:) She has worn it all afternoon!

Halloween

We had 3 halloween parties to go to this year, and we dressed up for 2 of them. Here were some of my favorites from the night.

Of course, my kids were on the top of my list:)

He is still asking me to get his skeleton face on;)

Rachel won best costume. And Brandon was just awesome, especially his skinny legs.

Nate even wore eyeliner. Awesome. And Alisha said most of her stuff came from Rue21, so yeah, people actually still wear this stuff.

The face that makes kids cry.

This is it. The face that make a kid cry in Walmart.

Garage sale convert.

Andmaybe a bit of an addict now... But look at all the sweet stuff I scored yesterday for 27 dollars!!

A baby carrier, 5 bowls/plates, a bag of spoons and forks, 2 complete flannel sheet sets

Toy tools and Mr potato head

Slide and a lawn mower

TONS of Thomas dvd goodness and some books

And a bunch of stuff to go in the dress up box!

Everything was in excellent condition. Pretty good haul I think!

Testing.

I follow this blog that sells patterns, well I just happened to see she asked for testers on one of her new patterns, so I volunteered... and got it!!

I had been wanting to make Jackers a vest and that is what the pattern happened to be!! Yahoo!!

I LOVE it! And so does he! He wore it all day long, and when Grandma asked him if Mom made it he yelled "YEAH!" So cute.

This is the reason I love felt food...

This is how dinner goes nearly every night. Don't let the utensils fool you, he eats with his fingers. He flips it around with the fork.


Which is why I love felt food. No mess:)



Mmmm... Jack loves broccoli, so this was a fun one for him. And Abs had cauliflower at lunch today at school, so now she knows what it is! I also made a chocolate bar and some popcorn, but I messed up the bag, so I will show that after it is redone:)

Super duper easy Halloween kids fun

I LOVE finding new crafty blogs with their months or even years of archived crafty goodness. That is how I came across this idea. I found this blog servingpinklemonade.blogspot.com (AWESOME you should all go check it out!) And in their posts, like 2 years ago I found this idea:



It is just felt circles with more felt pieces to make faces. Let me tell you, hours of fun for the kids! I made them right after Abs got out of school and 2 hours later they are still playing with them. And requesting new and more pieces. Like more mouths and different eyes. Even a moustache:)

I love this idea. I am even thinking of making people faces and hair. In a bit though, I have plenty on myt craft to-do list:)

Star of the week.

Abby is the "Star of the week" this week in kindergarten. She was soooo excited! I went to her class to talk about her poster and take some treats. So the teacher asked the kids if they had any questions for Abby, so she got to call on a few of the kids. Seriously, they all said "soccer." or "I like soccer". one kid she called on was a larger kid and he came and stood next to me and breathed heavily. Never said a word. It was kinda funny. So the teacher had to explain what a question was and they tried and failed again. Oh well, the kids were cute.


So of course she needed a new shirt, so I made one:) this is my $3 shirt and I think it is way cuter than the stuff at the store, but of course I am a little more than biased. I got a coupon at Swiss Days parade and that is why I got it for so cheap, otherwise it would have been more like $6. Still not bad, but I like the 3 dollars better:)

Buttons! Again, why do I make things harder than they should be?! I have been avoiding them like the plague, but I am now searching for projects that have them:)

Sad note? Abby came home and like usual gets comfy aka naked (except for undies, of course) and she was "trying so hard to rip the shirt off" well, that is just what she did:( she ripped off the black binding around the neck. Luckily I know how to fix it, haha, but would rather not have to. Oh well, into the mending pile it goes.

Itty bitty dress. Only bigger, much bigger.

Remember how I made a cute little dress (out of almost the same fabrics)? Well, it was too small. Dang. I knew there was a slight chance of that, but that was all I had of the material, being it was scraps from another project. Well, when I found out it didn't fit... well you can guess... I made sure to fix that, by making a new one! Since the fabric was bought a while ago I had to search a few shops for it, found a little in one store and the rest in another. So it isn't the exact same, but I think I like this one better!


Hmmm... The outside of my house really needs to be painted... any volunteers?



Don't mind me. I don't like to follow pattern instructions after I have made it once, I cut the skirt too short!! So I pieced it together with what was supposed to be my bias tape, I LOVE the look of it and will probably try it this way again!

I am in love with piping. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? I am thinking of ways to add it into a project for Abby.

Just Jack.

Another funny post about Jack. Well, funny to me:) He always keeps me on my feet!



He was sooo proud of his holding place he found for his gun. I asked Abby and she said she didn't teach it to him. wonder where he got it from...

He had a meltdown when I refused to let this nice mess into my house. I had just mowed and he was "cleaning for mommy" .

We have been potty training for a week now and he is finally almost getting it. He will tell me about 50% of the time that he needs to go, and the rest of the time I just make him go sit until it happens, which is usually pretty quickly. He can last overnight, so we are down to only having accidents when he poops. Can't get him to understand that one. Any suggestions??? I HATE cleaning it out of undies, at least diapers you just toss them! Oh well. I am just happy he is finally (almost) done training.

New addition to the family...

Bahahaha. Not that kind. How many of you did I fool with the title?? Come on, just admit it...

This is Ben's new baby. He has been asking/bugging me about it for a while now, and I finally gave in. See how that works Ben? Compromise. You know what I am talking about.