Maybe just a teensy bit overboard?

So as I was sorting Jenna's closet tonight getting ready for the Fall & Winter weather, I realized maybe, just MAYBE, I went a just a teensy bit overboard with buying Jenna jeans!! :) I counted about 18, plus there are 3-4 pair in the wash right now! :) Hey - what can I say! I have a hard time passing up a garage sale bargain! The most I paid for any of them was $1. Some were 50 cents or even less!

Plus, you have to remember some are size 18 months, some are 24 months and some are 2T. That helps justify it a bit - right?

I am definitely going to have fun dressing her this Winter!

Awwww! What a precious little cowgirl!!!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We're very proud to be Hawkeyes after the big win on Saturday!!!

Caught in the Act!

We've all been there.... You're singing in the mirror, dancing in the kitchen, talking to yourself, etc and all of a sudden someone walks in catching you in the act! Bryce & Jenna were doing a little dance for me in the locker room before swimming lessons and in walks someone causing them to get embarassed & stop!! :) It was funny!



And for those of you who read the title and thought I was talking about something else.... shame on you!! :)

Have a good day!

Wipin' Butts

I picked up Bryce from school the other day and he said "Mom... I went poop today and the teacher said that teachers don't wipe butts at school!!" (He said it so matter-of-fact-like and in a tone like - "can you believe this?!?!") It was so funny and I could not stop laughing!

Ahhh - the old "Mmmmmooooooooommmmmm I'm DONE!". Do you ever wonder when we will stop hearing that? We had Bryce doing it all on his own for awhile, but apparently he was tending to use TOO much toilet paper at daycare and clogged the toilet twice!! :) Hmmmm!

It's funny to think about this - but being able to wipe your own butt is a requirement for school! A humerous requirement, but one that definitely makes sense!! I guess we need to work on this and proper toilet paper amount usage!! :)

To tell you the truth though.... I would be happy to wipe butts for many years to come if it means I get to keep my kids small and cherish all of these funny things they say!!

Shitter's Full!

SHITTER'S FULL!

This weekend we had a progressive party with our neighbors and each house chose a movie or tv show as a theme. We chose Christmas Vacation! Here's Cory as everyone walked up to our house! HeeHee!

Perry playing Clark, Darcy as Ellen, me as Catherine and of course, Cory as Cousin Eddie. :) Notice the cut off tree? Remember in the movie how the tree has to be cut off b/c it's too big for their room! :)

Somehow Cory always gets himself in situations where he is posing in GREAT blackmail pictures!! :)

Watch out for the squirrel!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Go Hawks!!!

Homecoming Parade

It's Homecoming week here in our hometown. We gathered some friends and went to the Homecoming Parade tonight. The kids had a great time waving at the firemen, police officers, football players, the band, etc. And OF COURSE collecting candy!

Jenna was in my arms most of the time. She was actually a little scared by the parade and all the huge firetrucks with lights & sirens that were so close to her. I could feel her cling on tight everytime one would go by!! :)

Bryce had a great time and was so excited to see one of the neighbor boys walking with the Junior High Football team!

Cuties from down the street! :)

The mascot came over and gave the boys a High Five! It was the first thing Bryce told Cory when we got home!


I hope everyone has a great weekend!
GO HAWKS!!!!!!

Homemade Playdoh

Tonight Bryce & I made homemade playdoh for the first time! It was fun! And it actually turned out pretty good! We got the recipe from preschool... they have a bunch of it there that the kids play with.

I'll include the recipe along with a few others at the bottom of this post. Bryce dumped all the stuff into the pan!

Next we added food coloring. I thought he said he wanted GREEN, but he decided after we put green in that he wanted BLUE! :) So we added some blue to the green and came up with this teal color!

The playdoh turned out great and we had a lot of fun with it last night.

Here's one more picture of the kids being sweet tonight. On the way home from daycare Jenna wanted to hold Bryce's hand!! :) How cute!

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Cooked Playdoh

2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
2 teaspoons of alum or cream of tartar (these can be found in the spiece section & will make your playdoh last lots longer)
3 Tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 cups of cold water
(optional: add food coloring or unsweetened Kool-aid to water for color & smell)

Stir ingredients into a pot and cook over medium heat until the consistency of soft mashed potatoes - don't overcook! (Stir while cooking) Knead while cooling, and store in air-tight container (will last longer in fridge).

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Flubber

In a large container combine:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups white glue & food coloring

In a second, smaller container, combine:
1 & 1/3 cups warm water
3 teaspoons Borax (found in laundry section)

Mix ingredients in each container thoroughly. Pour contents of smaller container into large container. Gently lift & turn mixture until only about a tablespoon of liquid is left. Flubber will be sticky for a moment or two. Let excess liquid drip off and the Flubber is ready!

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Air-Hardening Play Clay

1 1/2 cups of salt
4 cups of flour
1 1/2 cups of water
1 teaspoon alum

Mix dry ingredients together. Knead until smooth. Add more water if it is too crumbly. This clay can be baked at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until hard.

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Cornstarch Dough

1/2 cup water
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup cornstarch

Mix together the soda, water & cornstarch in a heavy saucepan. Cook over a low heat and mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes thick. Cool and knead until smooth. When air-dried, this dough is very smooth, and takes well to being painted. Store unused dough in plastic bag in the fridge.

(Use to make hand or foot prints, etc.)

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How to Really Love a Child

My kids LOVE to dress up! Here are a couple new costumes they got! Jenna is REALLY getting into the whole dressing up thing. Tonight a friend and I went to Goodwill to pick up some stuff for a party we're having this weekend... did you know that Goodwill has a whole Halloween section - and a GOOD one at that!! The kids scored a few new costumes! :)

Jenna makes a cute cowgirl!! heehee!

Bryce's preschool sends home a newsletter every week. They sometimes include poems, stories, etc. Here's an insert from this week's newsletter.... I thought it was a neat. :)

How to Really Love a Child

Be there. Say yes as often as possible. Let them bang on pots and pans. If they're crabby, put them in water. If they're unlovable, love yourself. Realize how important it is to be a child. Go to a movie theater in your pajamas. Read books out loud with joy. Invent pleasure together. Remember how really small they are. Giggle a lot. Surprise them. Say no when necessary. Teach feelings. Hear your own inner child. Learn about parenting. Hug trees together. Make loving safe. Bake a cake and eat it with no hands. Go find elephants and kiss them. Plan to build a rocket ship. Imagine yourself magic. Make lots of forts with blankets. Let your angel fly. Reveal your own dreams. Search out the positive. Keep the gleam in your eye. Mail letters to God. Encourage silly. Plant licorice in your garden. Open up. Stop yelling. Express your love. A lot. Speak kindly. Paint their tennis shoes. Handle with caring. Children are miraculous.

Picture Time!

I'm a little behind on pictures this Summer! I finally got Bryce's 4 year pictures and Jenna's 18 month pictures taken today! Jenna was a STINKER! The photographer even said "Boy - she is cute, but she seems like TROUBLE!" Lady - you have NO IDEA! :) She did pull off a few very good pics of her so I'm very happy!

Bryce was a champ and did great with his 4 year pictures! He is growing so fast and it's hard to believe my little man is getting so old!

We TRIED to get a good picture of the 2 of them together, but do you think Jenna would sit next to Bryce for more than 1 second?!?! NO WAY! I still put a few on here though b/c they are cute even if they aren't the perfect "kids looking & smiling" poses! :)

The last one cracks me up! They were spent! Jenna wanted NOTHING more to do with the camera and she was ready for a snack! We'll see if we can get a good picture of them 2 of them together for Christmas!! :)

Happy Birthday Amy!

Here's to wishing Amy a VERY happy birthday! I hope you have a great day and all your wishes come true!! :) Miss ya!


Have a great weekend everyone!

GO HAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOO!!

We got the potty chair out for Jenna. She liked it and was very interested in it, but REFUSED to sit on in. That's fine. We'll get there. She did decide to pee on the floor right next to it!! ha! :)

I took this cute video of Jenna.... can you tell what her favorite word is?? NOOOOOOOO :) ha! She's quite the character and keeps us on our toes. Love her to pieces!

1st Day of School!

Today was Bryce's first day of 4 year old preschool! He's at the same school as last year, with the same kids and a new teacher. (Actually, 1 of the teachers from last year and 1 new one.) He LOVES it already and was having fun before I even left the building this morning!

Last week we had "Easy Start" day and went to school for a hour with 3 other kids and their Moms for an hour. It was just to get used to the room again, the teachers, etc. Here's a few pics from that...

The kids are looking at their new classroom pets! They got 2 geckos. They aren't named yet, the kids will be naming them this Fall! :)

Jumping right back into things without missing a beat! Bryce was pointing out what he remembered from last year and showing me all the fun things there are to do at school!

Picture op - standing outside of the school! :)

A cute picture of me and my little Prince Charming!! :)

Good-bye Summer! Welcome back to School!!

Love Long Weekends!

It's been awhile since I've blogged!! Sorry! Things at my house have been hectic the last few weeks. We dealt with a couple weeks of sickness and once we got over that I felt like I was playing major catch up! I'm back though! And rejuvenated from the long weekend!! My Dad and Sheri came up this weekend to help us fix our backdoor. Here's the before pictures...

As you can see, the door frame started to rot around the bottom of the door.

Here's a close up. The flap under the door also needed replaced b/c it would always leak when it snowed in the winter. The wind would whip right through this door. We decided to get a new door instead of trying to fix what we had. The end result...

We also added a storm door. I'm very excited about it b/c the kids spend a LOT of time on the deck as I'm making dinner or cleaning up and now instead of always having the door wide open, I will be able to hear and see them through the storm door.

The main door has the blinds inside the window! Awesome! Love it!

We are VERY happy with the results and are so happy to get this project done! Thanks to my Dad & Sheri for coming up to help! We really appreciate it. Next project will be painting the door (it's just primed right now). Stay tuned as we pick out a color!! :) Any tips on painting doors? We had quite the time when we did this at our old house. Not a fun project by any means!

There was a festival in a neighboring town this weekend, so we hit the carnival rides! Here's Bryce & Jenna getting ready to ride the race cars!

We made a big mistake by doing the "speedy" cars first. We didn't realize how fast these cars whipped around the corner and Jenna DID NOT like it at all. In fact, she screamed the whole ride and I felt so terrible b/c they do not stop the rides for crying kids. It was bad.

We weren't able to get Jenna on another ride all night! She wanted NOTHING to do with it! So Bryce went on the rides by himself. He still had a blast though!

We actually saved a lot of money by scaring Jenna on the first ride. Each ride was $3 per kid - so that was $6 a ride! Hmmm... maybe that should be the plan of all parents... scare the CRAP out of your youngest on the first ride to save money on the rest of the visit! Totally joking! I felt bad she didn't want to go on the rides. Next time we will start her on these MUCH slower airplanes!

Jenna rode on Daddy's shoulders! That was enough excitement for her!

After the festival, we went over to a friend's house for a Labor Day party. There were 29 kids there! Wow! Talk about craziness!

We stayed till about 10 and watched the fireworks. The kids loved it and had such a great time!
They also did a pinata, here are the Moms trying to get the kids to line up by age! Ha! That was quite the chore!

Nice swing Bryce!

We hope everyone enjoyed Labor Day weekend. We had early bedtime tonight b/c tomorrow is Bryce's first day of school! Yay - he can't wait!