Thursday, November 3, 2011
You're Welcome.
This was us cleaning her room yesterday. Pay no attention to all the piles of crap as they are no longer there. Oh and no Pipey's were hurt in the making of this video.
Warning: This WILL make you laugh. Do not watch while eating or drinking.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Halloween Recap
We like Halloween. A lot. The first couple of years with Fisher we bought costumes and that was fine. But then he started wanting to be things you couldn't find in stores. So we started making costumes and we've never looked back. It's so much fun for us this way. And way cheaper too. I'm usually out the cost of a few cans of spray paint.
This year Fisher wanted to be an excavator.
This year Fisher wanted to be an excavator.
(Special thanks to Jeff and Sasha of Substratum Excavation for the use of their logo! It was perfect.)
This was actually not as hard as I had thought it would be. Cardboard, duct tape, nuts and bolts for the arm, electrical tape, wire mesh for the windows, and spray paint. To keep it on him James build a brace out of wood that we were able to rig a harness to. It just sat right down on his shoulders like suspenders. And in case you're wondering, that arm does move.
Miss Piper did a little flip flopping on the costume this year but finally settled on a purple lady bug.
(Singing and dancing through our photo shoot)
This was the second generation lady bug...
...and the only real changes we made to the original we're in color. (Pipey doesn't look that great in red) Oh and we added the hat! (It's colder here.) I made her that hat for Christmas last year but it was perfect for this!
(The original! This is my sister Carly when she was about 3.)
We went to James' old neighborhood for their "Trunk or Treat". We had never done the trunk or treat before and it was really fun. I think we'll do it again.
Action shots.
We didn't know it ahead of time but they were having a costume contest. Guess what?? Both my kids won! Best Girl and Best Boy costumes. They won gift cards to an ice cream place in town. Which is really perfect considering we frequent ice cream places when the weather turns cold. Weird? I know, but it's how we roll.
Another super fun Halloween in the books! Hope you all equally enjoyed yourself and are eating candy for breakfast. :)
JKFP
Friday, October 28, 2011
A Day in the Life...
A few random peeks into our daily life.
Pipey watching Jeff carve.
JKFP
Coloring with Johnny.
Pumpkin carving with friends.
Pumpkin eyes.
Pipey watching Jeff carve.
The end results.
Bike rides.
Little sister getting in on the action.
First kitten experience.
Dance! Dance! Dance! Man this girl loves to dance.
And last but not least - Daddy snuggles!
James is now working in town!! Like the same town we live in! Yes, it's awesome. We are so happy (and sorta still can't believe it) when he comes home EVERY NIGHT. It seems like it's been years since we had him home. Knowing it'll end soon helps us focus on enjoying the little things. It looks like it could be January before he leaves again. Which it's kinda good really. We get more time all together! I'll let you know.
I'm linking up to Happily Home Sewn and her Peek of the Week! Go check it out.
JKFP
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Snow
In case you didn't see (most of) these on facebook...
We had a snow day yesterday. (Daddy too) It was so super fun! Wish you were here.
JKFP
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Horn tooting for Pipey!
For my growing up big girl...here we go. I almost titled this "I do it by I self Mommy!!!" but went with horn tooting instead. Miss Pipey has moved into a big girl bed!! She is beyond proud and excited about it all. As seen here.
She is such a hoot! This transition has been a complete breeze. I'm not sure if you remember how terrible it was when Fisher went through this but trust me, it was awful. In fairness to him, he was much too young. (I should have just bought a crib tent when he started jumping out.) Anyway, Pipey and I talked it over and she decided she was ready to try. So we got the bed from a friend (thanks Megan!) and set it up. I told her several times throughout the day that if she didn't stay in bed I would get the pack -n- play out and make her sleep in it. Well I NEVER had to bring that out! From day one she was staying in all night. Even now she wakes up in the morning and asks if she can get up yet?!?!? Which is just crazy talk. Girls are SO different from boys. (I still have horribly vivid images of the "game" getting out of bed was with Fisher.) We are super proud of Miss Pipey around here. There's just not much "baby" left when looking at her. She's all big girl now. TOOT!
** Side note. Yes, I made the quilt on her bed. It's honestly one of the best quilts I've ever made. I'll probably feature it one day on the craft blog. Oh! I started a craft blog! You can email me to be put on a mailing list, "follow" me with Google, and I'll still post on facebook. But here's the link Sewtastically Made.
JKFP
Watching her pretend to sleep is so funny! She kept "snoring".
And fake yawning.
She is such a hoot! This transition has been a complete breeze. I'm not sure if you remember how terrible it was when Fisher went through this but trust me, it was awful. In fairness to him, he was much too young. (I should have just bought a crib tent when he started jumping out.) Anyway, Pipey and I talked it over and she decided she was ready to try. So we got the bed from a friend (thanks Megan!) and set it up. I told her several times throughout the day that if she didn't stay in bed I would get the pack -n- play out and make her sleep in it. Well I NEVER had to bring that out! From day one she was staying in all night. Even now she wakes up in the morning and asks if she can get up yet?!?!? Which is just crazy talk. Girls are SO different from boys. (I still have horribly vivid images of the "game" getting out of bed was with Fisher.) We are super proud of Miss Pipey around here. There's just not much "baby" left when looking at her. She's all big girl now. TOOT!
** Side note. Yes, I made the quilt on her bed. It's honestly one of the best quilts I've ever made. I'll probably feature it one day on the craft blog. Oh! I started a craft blog! You can email me to be put on a mailing list, "follow" me with Google, and I'll still post on facebook. But here's the link Sewtastically Made.
JKFP
Friday, October 14, 2011
The Drive: Repost
I have never reposted before but I thought we could all use a reminder of what NOT to do...road trip with small children. It was one year ago today that we were driving to NC. Cause we were stupid. I say again...sorry Carly.
So I decided to put my big girl panties on today. I'm gonna write about the awfulness that was ...The Drive. That picture up there. The one of Piper screaming. Pretty much sums it up. I'm going to do you all a favor right now. Should I EVER come up to you and say, "I had a great idea. Two words - ROAD TRIP". Run away. Seriously, run away. Stupidest idea ever. Carly will NEVER let me forget that this was my idea. You can read about her side of the story here http://carlybirdsnest.blogspot.com/2010/10/series-of-unfortunate-events.html. And that's just the trip out.
So yeah. I had the awesome idea that Carly and I should drive to NC and take the pop-up with us to stay in. The real flaw in this plan was when I said "and the kids will come too". I like to think it may have been fun if it was just us. We do have road trip history after all. And that one was fun. (When she graduated from high school we drove me out to Philmont that summer) Anyway, three kids five and under. Plus my 9 pound dog Bob. (Honestly, Bob was the least trouble. But he WAS on antihistamines for an allergic reaction and was still pretty depressed about LeeRoy. So he slept a lot.)
Turns out young active kids don't really like being in a car for 12 hours during the day. Or any other time for that matter. We drove for 12 hours that first day. Probably 10 of those hours someone was crying. And when small children cry, my dog howls. Oh yes, I said it. Carly has an awesome video of it that I hope she posts sometime. In that first day, we only made it about 300 miles. In. Twelve. Hours. Middle of Kansas. Just the middle. We gave up and stopped at a campground. (hours away from where we actually wanted to get that day) It took me maybe half an hour to set up the camper. Piper followed me around the entire time - screaming her head off. I can only imagine the panic everyone around us felt when we showed up. We decided we'd have better luck driving at night when everyone was asleep. So we stayed at that campground all the next day. We unpacked and repacked the car. And the kids... played in the car. Yep, roam a campground or play in the car that is your prison for the next 30 or so hours. We choose the car!
It was around this time that stuff started going wrong. Huh? Wasn't it already wrong? Not really. A word of advice, don't let a two year old play in the car. Thank me later. While Carly and I were unpacking and repacking, Piper shoved approximately $3.87 into the cd player. You've got to be kidding! Nope. Do I need to tell you that cd players don't really like having $3.87 shoved into them? Do I need to remind you that we were only in Kansas? We still had like 6 or 7 more states to go. With. No. Cd. Player. (This part of the story got even worse for the ride home. Daddy fished out quite a lot of that money - but not all of it apparently. We put in a cd to test it out and the radio quit working. Thank goodness for Carly's phone. We were able to listen to the radio through her phone on the way home. And I still don't have that fixed.)
As we were leaving, I just had to open my mouth and joke "now all we need is for the car to break down". Maybe ten miles down the road (TEN MILES - I kid you not) the car started acting weird and the engine light came on. Still not kidding. Carly has a super funny version of this on her blog. (see above) To sum it up, picture Carly, (complete with yoga pants, a head lamp, and a Sigg bottle of water) getting ready to pour cold water into the engine that was turned off. A man named George Busch (no lie) took pity on us and saved us from making costly mistakes. Turned out we had no antifreeze at all. I don't think that's why the check engine light came on - but it was a blessing. George helped us get the anti-freeze in and told us where to go to have the diagnostic for the check engine light. So 3 hours after we had tried to leave (and decisions involving all husbands and our Dad) we actually left. Again. I can't tell you how happy we were to get out of Kansas.
So then, in a "rip the bandaid off" kind of mood, we drove 28 hours straight. (Stopping only for food and bathroom breaks. And to check the anti-freeze.) Arriving in our parents driveway at ten o'clock friday night. Not too far past our original arrive time. Exhausted, and in serious need of alcoholic beverages, we put the kids to bed and tried to unwind enough to get to sleep ourselves.
We did have a great time with everyone there! I have a post about that coming soon. Midway through our stay in NC we started dreading the trip back. Carly told her husband that the boys could just pack up all our stuff and meet us there. "Cause we're not doing it again." For your information, 4 hour plane rides (even if they cry the whole 4 hours and you get the stink eye from everyone on the plane) are way better than driving a million hours to get anywhere. I've decided that if I can't get there in ONE night of my children sleeping (cause they don't like it during the day!!!) I'm not going. That limits me to 10 or 12 hours MAX. Ya'll can meet me in the middle.
JKFP
Back when we were still optimistically stupid about this idea. Just east of Denver I believe.
A cute one - not crying. Cause he thought we were there no doubt.
I still can't get the button to work but the link does. And oh my goodness you HAVE to go see her peek. HAVE TO.
So I decided to put my big girl panties on today. I'm gonna write about the awfulness that was ...The Drive. That picture up there. The one of Piper screaming. Pretty much sums it up. I'm going to do you all a favor right now. Should I EVER come up to you and say, "I had a great idea. Two words - ROAD TRIP". Run away. Seriously, run away. Stupidest idea ever. Carly will NEVER let me forget that this was my idea. You can read about her side of the story here http://carlybirdsnest.blogspot.com/2010/10/series-of-unfortunate-events.html. And that's just the trip out.
So yeah. I had the awesome idea that Carly and I should drive to NC and take the pop-up with us to stay in. The real flaw in this plan was when I said "and the kids will come too". I like to think it may have been fun if it was just us. We do have road trip history after all. And that one was fun. (When she graduated from high school we drove me out to Philmont that summer) Anyway, three kids five and under. Plus my 9 pound dog Bob. (Honestly, Bob was the least trouble. But he WAS on antihistamines for an allergic reaction and was still pretty depressed about LeeRoy. So he slept a lot.)
Turns out young active kids don't really like being in a car for 12 hours during the day. Or any other time for that matter. We drove for 12 hours that first day. Probably 10 of those hours someone was crying. And when small children cry, my dog howls. Oh yes, I said it. Carly has an awesome video of it that I hope she posts sometime. In that first day, we only made it about 300 miles. In. Twelve. Hours. Middle of Kansas. Just the middle. We gave up and stopped at a campground. (hours away from where we actually wanted to get that day) It took me maybe half an hour to set up the camper. Piper followed me around the entire time - screaming her head off. I can only imagine the panic everyone around us felt when we showed up. We decided we'd have better luck driving at night when everyone was asleep. So we stayed at that campground all the next day. We unpacked and repacked the car. And the kids... played in the car. Yep, roam a campground or play in the car that is your prison for the next 30 or so hours. We choose the car!
It was around this time that stuff started going wrong. Huh? Wasn't it already wrong? Not really. A word of advice, don't let a two year old play in the car. Thank me later. While Carly and I were unpacking and repacking, Piper shoved approximately $3.87 into the cd player. You've got to be kidding! Nope. Do I need to tell you that cd players don't really like having $3.87 shoved into them? Do I need to remind you that we were only in Kansas? We still had like 6 or 7 more states to go. With. No. Cd. Player. (This part of the story got even worse for the ride home. Daddy fished out quite a lot of that money - but not all of it apparently. We put in a cd to test it out and the radio quit working. Thank goodness for Carly's phone. We were able to listen to the radio through her phone on the way home. And I still don't have that fixed.)
As we were leaving, I just had to open my mouth and joke "now all we need is for the car to break down". Maybe ten miles down the road (TEN MILES - I kid you not) the car started acting weird and the engine light came on. Still not kidding. Carly has a super funny version of this on her blog. (see above) To sum it up, picture Carly, (complete with yoga pants, a head lamp, and a Sigg bottle of water) getting ready to pour cold water into the engine that was turned off. A man named George Busch (no lie) took pity on us and saved us from making costly mistakes. Turned out we had no antifreeze at all. I don't think that's why the check engine light came on - but it was a blessing. George helped us get the anti-freeze in and told us where to go to have the diagnostic for the check engine light. So 3 hours after we had tried to leave (and decisions involving all husbands and our Dad) we actually left. Again. I can't tell you how happy we were to get out of Kansas.
So then, in a "rip the bandaid off" kind of mood, we drove 28 hours straight. (Stopping only for food and bathroom breaks. And to check the anti-freeze.) Arriving in our parents driveway at ten o'clock friday night. Not too far past our original arrive time. Exhausted, and in serious need of alcoholic beverages, we put the kids to bed and tried to unwind enough to get to sleep ourselves.
We did have a great time with everyone there! I have a post about that coming soon. Midway through our stay in NC we started dreading the trip back. Carly told her husband that the boys could just pack up all our stuff and meet us there. "Cause we're not doing it again." For your information, 4 hour plane rides (even if they cry the whole 4 hours and you get the stink eye from everyone on the plane) are way better than driving a million hours to get anywhere. I've decided that if I can't get there in ONE night of my children sleeping (cause they don't like it during the day!!!) I'm not going. That limits me to 10 or 12 hours MAX. Ya'll can meet me in the middle.
JKFP
Back when we were still optimistically stupid about this idea. Just east of Denver I believe.
A cute one - not crying. Cause he thought we were there no doubt.
Again. One of the rare moments without tears.
I'm going to link up to Happily Home Sewn and her Peek of the week first thing in the morning so go check out her peek. And seriously, friends don't let friends road trip with little ones.
**For some reason I'm having trouble with the "Peek" button. I'm sure it's user error. I'll try again in the morning. But for now...
I still can't get the button to work but the link does. And oh my goodness you HAVE to go see her peek. HAVE TO.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Biker Boy
Oh yeah.
Fisher is officially training wheel free! He picked it up quickly this past weekend. He and his Dad went out for about an hour and then it all clicked. I don't doubt he could have done it quite a while ago if we had a good place to practice. As you can see we only have the street in front of the house. He's been practicing every day since. He's getting to be quite the pro. He's even started trying some "moves" and only skinned his elbow once. I can't believe how tiny that bike is now...may be time to ask Santa for a bigger one.
Good job boys!
I'm linking this up at Happily Home Sewn and the Peek of the Week so go over and check out her peek too!
JKFP
Fisher is officially training wheel free! He picked it up quickly this past weekend. He and his Dad went out for about an hour and then it all clicked. I don't doubt he could have done it quite a while ago if we had a good place to practice. As you can see we only have the street in front of the house. He's been practicing every day since. He's getting to be quite the pro. He's even started trying some "moves" and only skinned his elbow once. I can't believe how tiny that bike is now...may be time to ask Santa for a bigger one.
Good job boys!
I'm linking this up at Happily Home Sewn and the Peek of the Week so go over and check out her peek too!
JKFP
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