Blanket Tales

When Kelsey was a tiny baby, I carried around extra clothes and a blanket in my diaper bag.  It came in handy several times when she had blow outs or was cold or her other blanket got dirty.  Lately, Kelsey has been trying to give up her naps.  Something I do NOT approve of.  But it does allow slightly more flexibility when I run my errands.  Sometimes that comes back to bite me in the butt in the form of a sleeping toddler when I pull into the grocery store parking lot.  I have started to recognize the signs of an immanently sleeping toddler based on her actions though.  Not only do her eyes get droopy and she starts to converse less, but she asks for her blanket.  But, she is intelligent enough to not ASK for her blanket.  No!  Then I would know what she was doing, and not let her fall asleep.  No, she is too intelligent for that!  Instead, she says things like this:

"My ears hurt.  They need their bwanket."

"My wegs are cold.  I fink a bwanket would make them feel hot."

"I wanna hold it on my face.  Its so soft."

"I don't wanna fall asleep.  I just wanna hold it!"

Thats my girl!  Gotta love her!

This week, my kids don't have school.

So, I'll be doing what I can to maintain my sanity while they are here.

Which will not include posting.

But it may include lots of eating and maybe some shopping :)

Why Not Be Random?

Its Friday.  And my brain is fried.  So...  why not take all the pictures that don't fit anywhere else and put them all in one place?  Being scatterbrained is a great way to start the weekend, AmIRight?

One day Kelsey and I were hanging out in the workshop and she said "Take my picture wike dis."  After I took the picture, she came over to look at it.  Of course.  And she said "Is dat my beeber (beaver) face?"

I often find Mollie like this.  The children feel like she gets cold, especially after getting her hair cut, and have to keep her warm.

This is my handsome dude.  Both of his front teeth are loose.  So I don't expect his smile will look like this for long.

What?  You don't wear your "flop flops" on your hands?

There it is!  There is the beaver face!

TGIF!!!

Hedwig

While Kari was baking cookies, Kaitlyn was working on her own project.  It wasn't due that week, but we knew hubby was having surgery the next week, and I didn't want to have to think about any big projects with that looming over my head.  She had to read a book, then decorate a pumpkin/squash as a character from the book.  We cheated a little bit and picked a book she had ready earlier this year: Harry Potter!!!  She picked Hedwig as her character and I picked the most owl looking squash at the store.  Then we started by sketching the outline of the animal, so we could glue the feathers on in a certain direction.  Then, we cut out a bazillion white feathers!

We started by making our wings.

Then spent the rest of the afternoon gluing.

Again, the kids had that Monday off school, which is good because it practically took all day to get all the feathers glued on.  Perhaps that was because Kaitlyn still required "breaks"...

But the end product is something she (and I) are quite proud of :)

Yay Hedwig!

Fundraising!!!

Kari's 5th grade class has the opportunity to take a pretty awesome field trip.  They are headed up to Washington DC!  As you can imagine, a trip of this nature is decently expensive (though not as expensive as it could have been).  While we haven't decided if she needs to raise half or all of the money, we DID want Kari to earn at least some of the money herself.  The teachers had divided the total fee into payments, so we knew we had time.  We decided to hold our own little fundraiser, and got things started off with a bang!  Kari (who is a natural saleswoman) pre-sold cookies by the dozen with two options: chocolate chip or pumpkin snickerdoodle.  Then we had to design a logo.

Kari was in charge of cutting them out...

...and gluing them onto the lids of the containers (that we bought at the dollar store).

Then it was onto the baking.  We made a crazy amount of cookies.  Like 21 dozen!

I was somewhat surprised that by the end of the day, Kari was dragging.  Literally dragging her feet and very tired.  

But I'm pleased how the packaging turned out as well.  Cute.  Ish.

Thankfully, we made all 21 dozen cookies on Monday (which Kari had off school thankfully) and then were able to deliver all of them on Wednesday!

Except the ones that were donated to a good cause.  (Super nice of my non-local friend to suggest it)

I'm fairly certain it taught Kari some decent work ethic, as well as a good life experience.  And, she made a wad of cash!  After paying tithing and supplies, she more than covered her initial deposit!  #ParentingWin!

Halloween 2015

I would love to be one of those families that all does costumes together.  That would require 2 things: A) Children who want to dress together in a theme and B) the adults to dress up.  Since I am much too lazy to attempt the second, and much to sane to attempt to change the first, we have a random group of children and costumes assembled.

Kari decided she wanted to be something from Star Wars.  I'm not sure where she got the idea from, since she hasn't seen the movies (that I know of).  I think it came from the Lego versions maybe?  She didn't want to be Leia or Luke Skywalker or Yoda.  Darth Vader it was!

Kelsey decided to be Else (see below), so Kaitlyn decided to be Anna.

And she was even more excited when I let her wear a tiny bit of makeup :)

Dylan wanted to be the white ninja from Ninjago.  That was a bit more difficult than we thought it would be, so we just went with a white ninja.  And that ended up being slightly difficult, in getting the right size and one without a large brown stain across the front.  But, we ended up with a happy ninja, and that is all that matters!

And then there was Elsa.  She declared she wanted to be Elsa before anyone else decided on their costumes.  I thought about making a costume for her, but I found one on Amazon for $12, and that is hard to beat! The wand was from the circus a few weeks ago.

The wig didn't stay on very well while she was running from house to house.  But she also loved the make up I let her wear.

And who says good and evil can't be friends! :)

Happy Late Halloween!!!

Fall Centerpiece

I have more catching up to do (translation: things that are no longer seasonally appropriate and waaaaay out of date), but I wanted to throw this one out there in case any of you might be interested.  I wanted a centerpiece for my Thanksgiving/Fall table that I could reuse year after year.  There were several ideas on pinterest (of course), but most of them involved fresh flowers or pumpkins.  Then, I stumbled on something like this, or this, or this, and got a few ideas.  So I set about to gather supplies.  I got all the glass I needed from the dollar store or the dollar general.  They all cost $1.  I originally intended to get candlesticks of different heights, but, after 1 thrift store and 3 dollar stores said "Eh.  Three of the same height will do."  

 You'll have to take off the stickers (my least favorite part of all projects) and then used my E6000 glue to glue the candlestick onto the bottom of the glass vase.

I let them dry overnight.  I like that they each have the fluted top, even though they are all different shapes.  I think it helps tie them together while allowing them to be different :)  I also glued the candlesticks facing different ways because I liked them differently with different vases.

 My other gathering of materials consisted of going to Hobby Lobby.  All of their fall things are on clearance for 50% off!  I picked these things up because I liked them all, and I picked the glass vases based on what I thought they would fit in.  I didn't end up using everything, and all of this was only $15!

 I arranged them in the vases to my liking :)

 Then I put them on the table.  I wanted a table cloth or runner to put under them, but I either couldn't find one I liked, or it was too expensive.  I ended up finding these placemats at Walmart.  You can clearly see where I just lined them up together, but, lets be honest: most of the time the kids are gonna be pulling on it and touching it.  And for Thanksgiving, it won't be on the table anyway. In other words, I am ok :)

But I DO like it, just the same :)

Annual Polo Match

Grandma came into town on Sunday afternoon.  Ironically, it was the same Sunday as the annual polo match for hubby's work.  We didn't stay for too long.  For one, we had to pick up Grandma!  For two, it was hot.  Check out that beaver face and those pink cheeks :)

 Isn't that a lovely view?

 The polo match is actually a fundraiser for the boys and girls club.  As such, there is a ton of stuff for the kids to do.  Like riding horses.

 Free ice cream.

 Face painting.

 Kelsey decided she didn't want to get her face painted.  But, she was totally fine to sit in the girls lap and paint pictures.  She made a friend :)

 Dylan went to get his face painted, but I suspect he just went to flirt with the girls :)

 Like I said, it was hot outside! 

 Kari wore her horse earring in honor of the event!

 The kids always love the bounce house...

 And slides!

We got arrived early enough to watch the consolation match (instead of the championship match which would be later), and during half time, the kids joined a friendly group of ball.

 We always love to watch the horses and see how good they are at what they do!

 The kids were a bit on the tired side.  The day before we had been canoeing.  Then we went to the polo match.  Then Grandma was here.  At least they had tons of fun! :)