halloween.

We had the most fun Halloween and boy are we exhausted! We went trick-or-treating with one of the families in our neighborhood and the boys did street after street after street! Once we got home, curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to see exactly how much loot the kid brought home. Trusty kitchen scale to the rescue! The damage? Over four and a half pounds! I can guarantee that most of it will be going to our office to get it out of the house!

N dressed up as The Hulk this year and, while his costume did come with a mask, I talked him into some pretty awesome make-up ... or at least passable make-up.

I saw this costume as the perfect excuse to yell (there was lots of "HULK SMASH!"). I'll be honest that he wasn't the best at going through the proper boiler plate: door bell ring, open door, "trick or treat," candy, and follow up "thank you." In fact, he told a lady that she was wearing the most terrifying costume that he's ever seen .... she was not wearing a costume. AGH! At least we were on a street on the opposite side of the neighborhood.

In any case, it was a fun-filled night and we had a blast! And, these eyes are simply gorgeous. This little boy has his daddy's eyes.

Our yearly tradition is to close out trick-or-treat by stopping by my parents' house. N promptly emptied about half of their candy into his bag and proceeded to run around in a sugar-induced frenzy. On the way home he happily proclaimed, "This is the best night ever! I am never going to bed!" After five minutes of sitting still on the couch once we got home, he passed out - costume, make-up, and all.

fourth of july.

The fourth gave us a blissful three day weekend this year! Just piling up the freedom over here. Before the weekend got started, N's summer camp had their annual fourth of July parade. The babies are wheeled through the parking lot in their cribs, the toddlers in strollers, and the older kids (normally holding something especially crafty and patriotic). Apparently N's class started in high spirits with a round of 'yankee doodle went to town' but when they saw the parents lined up outside, the kids definitely started hamming it up. Especially mine..and with his very own royalty wave.

On the fourth, I decided that photos of little man were a necessity. My neighbors probably think I'm crazy, but I got the shot I wanted. Imagine a grown woman practically laying on the sidewalk, coaxing her kid with a two second attention span into cute poses. The end result though? Pretty darn adorable.

I can't remember the last time that I didn't go to a city fireworks display. I lied. I can remember, but I was nearly nine months pregnant and no mortal could drag me away from air conditioning. This year we got invite to a friend's house, so we tried something new. It was a lot of fun and no awful traffic afterward.

The tale of my child with a sparkler:
Me: Do NOT touch this. Once it starts sparkling do not get near other people and when the light goes out, put it in this bucket. Do. not. touch.
Nate: Whoa this is pretty! [runs around near lots of other people, under a tent, and once the sparkler went out, grabbed the extinguished remains]
Me: Noooooooo!

Thankfully, he was more startled than hurt. Then came the big fireworks! For a do-it-yourself display, this far passed my expectations! These shot up over the rooftops! 

 

Hope that everyone had a happy and safe fourth!

father's day.

My husband is a laid back sort of guy and, as such, wanted nothing more than a laid back Father's Day. After sleeping in pre-child style (code for waking naturally), Nathan gave him some sweet gifts that his teachers helped him put together at school.

First, Nate gave his dad a coupon book. It had all of these nice coupons for yard work, making breakfast, doing laundry, etc. As my husband aptly told someone later, these were "coupons for stuff my kid can't actually do by himself". Hysterical! Also, preschool put together one of their famous questionnaire forms. Remember mine from Mother's Day this year? Just when I thought something couldn't get funnier, Nate delivers this little gem:
(hint: see number nineteen)

Oh, this child cracks me up! We also gave Chris a gift certificate for a massage, which he's very excited about. Happy Father's Day!

mother's day.

I'm a sucker for preschool art - especially when it's Mother's Day themed! N couldn't stand the suspense of waiting until the actual day, but instead had me open up his gifts in his classroom when I picked him up at the end of the week.

So proud!

So, here are the goods - an adorable little book that he put together, carnations that he dyed light green, a little photo strip of him spelling out 'mom' on a chalkboard, and a cute little cutout with his little face on there. Precious!

Nate's goofy personality definitely came through on a Q&A all about mom - hysterical!

Oh, this little love :)

easter.

I had lofty plans for Easter this year. We were going to dye eggs with the dye kits that I bought on 70% clearance last year. We were going to have an epic Easter egg hunt in which I hid eggs in really hard to find places to really draw out the thrill of the hunt. Nate was going to have an Easter basket that was all about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And then the migraine hit. They've been bad this spring, worse than they've been in years. Easter ended up being a basket at 8:00 p.m. and seeing the Easter bunny with my parents the night before. Sorry, kid. We'll have that egg wonderland next year.

That being said, I don't think that N knew the difference. He was so excited to see the Easter bunny. So much so that he decided to take along a stuffed bunny, which I didn't even know we had, who N named Jerry.

The basket ended up looking a bit sparse, but it had the beloved TMNT toys and the coveted chocolate bunny, so all was right in the world. It's a nice reminder to me that I don't need to go overboard because he will be excited for just about anything special :)

Happy Easter!

valentine's.

We've taken a very low key approach to Valentine's Day over the last few days and I have to say that it's been nothing short of refreshing! Am I the only girl in the world who doesn't like flowers? Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful and do make me feel special (and when I've gotten them in the best hubby has done very well), but the pragmatist in me looks at the dollars and cents v. the fact that the flowers will be dead and in the trash soon.

So our V-Day weekend went a little something like this:

Friday afternoon, N's preschool class had their Valentine's Day party. This marks the first year where I didn't buy him a special V-day shirt to wear, but we tried to make do. The back of this shirt says "ladies dig me." There were cookies and cupcakes and vegetables to eat ... which one did my child not touch? :)

Once we got home, I let him open up his Valentine's from his friends. I'm so glad I didn't add sugar to the mix and hope that the other parents appreciated my candy-free Valentine's for the kids.

Saturday started off with a fun little Build & Grow clinic at Lowe's where my boys made another thing for N's ever-growing collection. This week's project was a Valentine's-inspired picture holder.

Then we grabbed some Panera bagels, some coffee at Starbucks, I took a nap, and then went to Target all by myself. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

This morning we headed to a birthday party where both of my boys got to play :)

Chris spent this afternoon and evening going on an organizing binge to straighten up the garage and all of the miscellaneous things that find their ways into junk bins and drawers. Love it!

diy for valentine's day.

I spent the afternoon working on Valentine's Day gifts for my kiddo's classmates and teachers. Amidst the paper, fun edging scissors, and double-sided tape I found myself wondering how I got to this new stage of life. I am not a very crafty person and anything that requires artistic talent is just right beyond my grasp, but the art of mothering has me channeling my inner DIY lately.

I've been on a candy-free kick, mostly because I hate it when my kid gets too loaded up on sugar and I don't want to pass that on to anyone else. My anti-goodie bag approach went over well at N's birthday party, so I'm doing something similar for Valentine's Day -- for the kids, that is. The teachers deserve all the chocolate they can get!

Candy-Free Valentine's Day For Kids: 

I want to give credit where credit is due: I came across this adorable idea for Valentine's 'cards' with crayons instead of candy. Albeit simpler and probably not as cute, I made these for N's class. I might have spent a bit more than I would have on out of the pack Valentine's, but I'm okay with that (I made up for it with the teacher gifts!).

What You'll Need:

• Crayons - the idea that I came across used loose crayons, but I opted for 8-pack boxes with classic colors (approximately $1 a box) 
• Red card stock paper 
• Double sided tape 
• Heart stickers 
• Edging stickers 

What You'll Do: 

• Figure out what message you want on the Valentine's (I went with "Color Your Heart Out!"), type and format so that you can print it out 
• Cut out the "card" for each box of crayons with edging stickers
• Put the card onto the crayon box with the double-sided tape
• Finish by adding in a heart sticker

Voila! So easy!

SUPER Inexpensive Valentine's for Teachers 

Again, giving credit where it's due, I found this adorable idea here. I'm all for a good pun and being thrifty -- and this is both! I was able to make these for about $2.70 per teacher, which is awesome! 

What You'll Need: 

• 1 box of Betty Crocker brownie mix, per teacher (found on sale at Wal-Mart for $1 each) 
• 1 Betty Crocker spatula, per teacher ($1; available at Dollar Tree)
• Valentine gift bags (found these for 2 for $1 at Dollar Tree) 
• 1 package of Valentine's tissue paper ($1 at Dollar Tree) 
• Red card stock
• Plain white printer paper
• Twine
• Regular tape
• Double-sided tape
• Glue gun 
• Scissors
• Edging Scissors 
• Paper guillotine
• Hole punch

What You'll Do: 

• Use a few dots from the glue gun to attach the spatula to the brownie mix -- this gift capitalizes on the red on the product/packaging and the brownie pun, so I wanted to make sure to highlight this

• Type up a quick message to your teacher - I went with "I'm aiming for brownie points!" before jumping into saying Happy V-Day. I also found a cute graphic online to use to tie into the message. Print these out on normal printer paper 
• Use your paper guillotine (or scissors if you can cut a straight line, unlike me) to trim down your messages to a standard size 
• Cut down the red card stock to frame out your message on the white computer paper
• Attach the message on the white computer paper to the red card stock by using double-sided tape
• Punch a hole into the top center of each card 
• Use the twine to tie the card to the gift bag and use regular tape to secure the ends of the twine to the bag 
• Put some decorative tissue paper in to make everything even cuter

Ta-da! You have a really cute teacher gift that won't break the bank!

Happy Valentine's Day!

white elephant exchange, dollar store style.

I started a new Christmas tradition with my family a few years ago, one that is slowly evolving, but ends up with lots of laughs and memorable moments. Each year we do a white elephant swap, but with a few twists:

• I buy all of the gifts instead of everyone bringing one - I have so much fun doing this that I coordinate everything so that the family just enjoys the hilarity that ensues 
• All of the gifts are purchased at the dollar store and I pick items that will be a.) good for pictures, b.) misleading when trying to figure out what they are while wrapped, and c.) have a funny factor 
• We draw names out of a hat (or this year a Santa mug) for who goes first (which is the worst position to be in) 
• Every person, except the person who goes first, has the ability to 'steal' a gift that has already been opened once they open their gift; however, they have to pose with the original gift for a photo

Over the last few years, this has been a hysterical start to our family time together and we have done this before opening presents.  Since I buy and wrap everything, I wanted to make some tweaks this year to revolutionize this little exchange.  For all of the items and wrapping paper/boxes, I spent less than $20!

So, first I went to one of our local dollar per item stores and bought some very random, funny things.This year's selections included plastic grapes, a ninja mask, participation mini-trophies, and a pretty princess ribbon. In years past we've had other 'unique' items like pink bedroom slippers, hemorrhoid cream, and fake hair.

Next, I put all of the items into the same size white clothing boxes (also available at the local dollar per item store with 3 boxes per pack!) 

After that, all of the boxes got wrapped in the exact same wrapping paper. While I may remember (or not!) what I originally bought, by the time that we got to our exchange, I had no idea which box was which. 

And then we got started and some funniness ensued. Here is this year's line up of reactions and poses:

I hope that everyone had as much fun as I did with this little exchange! It's always fun to pack in a few extra giggles for Christmas! 

elf on the shelf, week 4.

Christmas has come and gone and our elf scout, Rhino, has headed back to the North Pole until next December. As a family, Elf on a Shelf has been really fun for all of us this year! I've had so much fun scheming for daily appearances, N has had a blast finding Rhino every day, and I think my husband has been amused with both of us. I hope to keep this tradition going for as long as possible. 

Want to see some of our other elf adventures? Check these out: 

• Last year 
• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3 

Day 22: 

Some little elf got into our Costco-sized stash of k-cups and built himself a coffee fort and then settled into an oversized Santa mug this morning! 

Daily Cost: Free! 

Day 23: 

One morning after breakfast, N got a not so subtle reminder to brush his teeth from Rhino. I'm not sure what's worse - the fact that my kiddo ate the toothpaste off of the elf, or the fact that I let him. Either way, this was a cute and very easy set up!

Daily Cost: Free! 

Day 24: 

I managed to wrap all of our Christmas gifts in advance, but still needed to wrap some items that we had for our family white elephant exchange. After I finished, I had N help me to clean up the wrapping paper scraps and we found this helpful little elf waiting for us at the trash can. 

Daily Cost: $1. I found this cute little trashcan at the dollar store and picked it up for this elf scene - it's the perfect size! I sometimes envy parents who have little girls with dollhouse toys - oh the opportunities you could have for these daily adventures! :) 

Day 25: 

Ahh, Christmas morning! I will never, ever change the fact that Rhino will be in the Christmas tree when N comes bounding down the stairs to see if Santa came. I did add to the tradition this year by adding some snowflakes to the tree, along with a little note from our elf. I felt that I needed to provide a bit of closure for Rhino just disappearing, so hopefully the note did that justice. Also, I cannot remember the last time that I wrote anything fully in cursive.

Daily Cost: Free! 

Until next year, little elf!