December photo dump

Christmas stockings are doooooone! It is so wonderful to have a mother who can teach me how to embroider, then sits down at does it herself. Thank you!!

Speaking of embroidery, Grandma Jacobs made adorable felt cat ornaments for each of the kids. Since they have a ton, and we don't have any, this is happily as close as we'll come to having cats in our Christmas tree.

Parker trip!! It was FRIGID, but we went sledding in 0 degrees and the kids loved playing in the snow for very short periods of time, followed by gallons of hot chocolate.

Barricades are useful when babysitting a one-year-old

The New Pajama Crew is ready for Christmas eve! Sadly, I bought Carolines pajamas according to her age, not her actual size, so those 6T monkeys will go straight to her cousins. 

 

November photo dump

Poof! Eli turned 6!

When the birthday boys asks for an owl cake, you bake that boy an owl cake!

A surprise tea party with cousins! The Phelps came down just for the day to help Jonathan's mom and step-dad paint their new house. They moved just a couple blocks away... AFTER Kari and Jonathan had already moved to Denver! Saaaaaad. 

                                

Warm fall days are best enjoyed in the leaves, with cousins. Isn't life magical when the leaf pile is big enough to swallow you whole?

I just got Gaffiganed - I turned the kids down from eating those chocolate cupcakes in the back, in order to serve them "fried cake, with syrup on it!" "Pancakes.... how did those slip through?"

While observing the elementary school Halloween parade, I enjoyed random kindergarten projects on the wall. This particular project made me laugh! 

Patrick (with his art teacher) was awarded 3rd place in the Pueblo City School District-wide contest for a peice of art on patriotism, and given this plaque in recognition for his placement in their First-annual Pride and Patriotism night. What a night! What a kid!

This was not Patrick's art, but he seemed to enjoy practicing his eagle at home. On a scale of One to America, how free are you tonight?

Chop chop! We just shortened our morning routine by 10 minutes and infinite amounts of whining.

Cleaning out behind the boys bed, these socks are straight-up stuck to the wall with sweat and foot funk. Grossss!!!

6:30 am. orange slices. Safety first!

Watching a movie with grandpa. Safety first!

Home sweet House Paint

We've never been crazy about the outside of our house, but painting a house is a big and kinda pricey job (I am always boggled by the price of paint!) so we've put it off. Until now! After participating against his will in yet another Project Paintbrush Joe, where people come together to paint a house in one day, Joe was raring to paint our house! But then he was hunting two weekends in a row, then I had some crazy busy weekends, and then we found ourselves closing in on the end of November but still! Determination and a lucky few days of nice weather won out.

Our beginning. The paint scheme was fine... but dated. And the paint was old and chipping so it needed new paint anyway. We came up with THIS:

 Two people. Two weekends. Two coats of paint, and a wholes new house!

 We like it.

October photo dump

The kids are reviving Joe's childhood through carefully saved childhood toys! This week it's a Hot Wheels blanket his mom hand-drew, and they're parking many of his bajillion childhood Hot Wheels and Micro Machines on it. It's SO dang cute.

Why yes, this is a Spinosaurus eating a turkey dinner! #generalconferenceart

The school picture place was a little optimistic about those smiles

Having "carve pumpkins" off my to-do-list is my favorite part of Halloween

Twins!

 

Dresser refinish

A few weeks ago we took a weekend trip to Parker to visit Kari and Jonathan. Kari had been bitten by the furniture refinishing bug right about the time they moved because new furniture is crazy expensive and generally has no personality, but their new home was significantly larger and would need plenty of new furniture! So she purchased and sanded and painted to her heart's content but when the house was done the projects continued - it's just so much fun to breath new life into an old piece! So while we were visiting I sanded and painted right alongside her, and had SUCH a good time. We agreed that we were both sad and glad this hadn't been a mania when she was our next door neighbors - we would have been able to do much more together, having unlimited time to do such cool finishes! But we also agree that Pueblo has no market for selling beautiful refinished furniture, and we would have ignored the kids SO much it's probably a very good thing it didn't happen here!

So the weekend finished, and back home I had a new critical eye of my own furniture. Specifically I looked at a dresser from my bedroom that I had previously loved but had been banished to the guest room until I could figure out what to do with it. It was purchased from (of all the random places) K-Mart, about 6 or 7 years ago. It was on clearance for super cheap ($20 or $30),  made primarily of particle board, had wood-on-wood drawer slides, finished with a cherry gel stain and pretty outdated drawers pulls...

But MAN it was functional! It was the perfect height for my nightstand, the 3 drawers were spacious but the piece was small enough and light enough to be useful in almost any room... So I was loathe to get rid of it, but the very basic slides had begun sticking like mad where it just made ME mad. Joe and I went furniture shopping and bought a lovely new 8-drawer dresser (seen in a previous post) and I figured I was done forever with the K-Mart blue light special.

 Until! Until the trip to Kari's. I dragged that dresser back out, stripped the cherry stain off, restained the top, painted the body, and Joe found some metal ball-bearing slides to remove the unbearable stickiness! The dresser would be saved! As with any project there were snafus... Like the drawers slides were actually 1/8th inch too wide, so he had to router out a channel into each drawer. Like the outdated drawer pulls were also cheap and 2 of them broke during re-installation. Like the drawers no longer stuck from bad drawer slides but they stuck because I'd painted around the edge of the drawer front. So more tweaks later, some sanding and some shopping, the drawers glide like a dream and I replaced the pulls with knobs that are to die for! They remind me of sailor buttons.

The dresser is now back in my bedroom (though not as my nightstand)

I Pooky

Halloween is upon us again! I've been working away on a dragon creation for Patrick but was lucky enough to come up with inexpensive yet LOVELY costumes for the other kids, thanks to Goodwill and ebay. The dragon is coming along compliments of Pinterest... Pretty sure I'm never letting Patrick loose on Pinterest again! We've got a dragon head made from milk jugs and paper maché (with a complete tutorial) and some dragon wings (an apt anatomical part, since I'm "winging" it off a picture from an etsy listing).

This is about to be awesome! For Halloween, I may go as exhausted...

 

Painting the dragon head at 9 a.m. for an elementary parade at noon - if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done! 

Whew! My mom claims the kids will be ruined, thinking anyone can just whip out a costume on a whim, but I like to keep it real by throwing in those internet purchases and also making sure my costumes are less than perfect (see how I just pretended I mess up on purpose instead of diving through craftland on a wing and a prayer?).

 I must say, these days have brought out a bit of swagger in my step, though. The cooking time of year is upon us! And I have a jaw jam-packed with sweet teeth, so I've been mixing and baking to my heart's (and teeth's) delight. I always find it rewarding to accomplish multiple creative tasks in one day, and it's even better when one of those crafts can be eaten when the day is done. I've made Kentucky Darby pie, Kansas Dirt, Christmas Crack (my unofficial name for what is essentially Mormon drugs, I'm hooked), and other sundry treats. Treats are great but I love compliments more, so I make massive batches and send them with Joe to work, so I get the best of both worlds!

Ethan is getting in the Halloween spirit - he draped himself in his "white" blanket (it's light green) and walked in the room, announcing "I pooky!" Ahhhhh, you're a spooky ghost! We died laughing.

September photo dump

Ethan is playing hide-and-seek this morning.

He would hear of nothing except for Ramen Noodles for breakfast. Who am I to argue with the breakfast of champions??

Driving up Pikes Peak, we had to stop for a skateboard race coming down. What a crazy way to see some action! 

Joe caught a scorpion at work and brought it home, so the kids put it in a big plastic container with a big spider to watch them battle it out. The scorpion won this round.  

Caroline traced her hand, colored it in and cut it out, then hung it on the wall as a decoration for me. Later in the day I'm not sure I like what her decoration is trying to tell me.

We took to the mountain roads for a cool drive with a cool couple on a cool fall day! I do mean cool day, we were SO cold when we got to the restaurant at the top to stop for lunch, we got hot chocolate so we could fee our fingers again! Jake and Amy Hawken are the neatest, I'm so glad we got to spend a scenic day with them.

Happy 3rd birthday, Ethan!

Another breakfast of champions: hot dogs! Ethan said "I like hot dogs," and I said, "I like hot dogs too" (though I ate pancakes for breakfast like a normal person). He countered, "You don't like hot dogs, you like spiders." Whaaaaat?!?

We went up to Parker again (MAN I like how close Parker is to Pueblo!) and spent a little time spending even LESS money at their Goodwill. These Disney-store costumes were $10 apeice! That is absolutely crazy! So Caroline (along with every other little girl in America) will be Elsa, and Ethan will be Captain Hook.

This small wading creek was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon with the cousins. They laughed, they explored, they all fell in.

Wet Levi's are the cutest thing under the sun!

Jonathan caught a small garter snake - ewwww! The kids were pretty brave to touch and hold it. It bit Amelia on the finger and hung off, like an honest-to-goodness snake nightmare, and she didn't even flinch! Talk about brave.

Caroline made some art for her favorite guy! The whale's name is Sprouter

Eli lost his first tooth! Having a loose tooth is all he's talked about for days, so I am looking forward to a change in conversation, and he is looking forward to $1.00.