What Happened?!

Okay, really this time, it's been a month and I have no idea where November went or what we've been doing. This is why I need to post more frequently, so I can remember details and daily funny things. Basically two big things happened in November. First Ashlynn got married on November 9th.

The Bash has been apart of my life since she was a teeny tiny baby. She and Alexis were my first baby sitting job ever and I spent many a friday night and summer day with them over the next 8 years. When we moved back to Bakersfield, she became my kids baby sitter and they love her. We all do, and are happy for the new life she and Sean get to build. 

Shout out to the bridesmaids/sisters of the bride. And stupid Ben photo-bombing.

But let's rewind like 3 days and talk about the reception set up extravaganza and how someone thought it was a great idea to drop the ceiling in the cultural hall with hundreds of yards of fabric.  It turned out just lovely, but I think everyone had some serious neck pain for a few days after, from staring straight up all day long trying to align the fabric at every possible angle.

Then of course there was Thanksgiving. We hosted Thad's family this year and it was a lot of fun to hang out with Cousins we haven't seen in a couple of years. I took zero pictures, but there were about 30 of us and it was a lovely day full of food and lot's of laughing. Thad and the Morgan boys are so much alike in some ways it's weird. But I do have a picture of the turkey hand off. We decided Grandma needed to be relieved of that responsibility, but since no one else has ever had to cook the turkey, I went and learned how to stuff and package a turkey for baking. It is precise, and daunting, and we worried all morning while it was cooking that somehow we would mess it up and ruin thanksgiving. But it was delicious!

Also, a few days before Thanksgiving we got an outdoor firepit to go under the pergola. The kids love it and ask every night to have coa coa by the fire.

I know I've mentioned that Peter is constantly getting in to things. But here is just more proof to catalog the daily battle of keeping the house is some semblance of order. I guess the best way to empty a drawer is to climb in  it first and then throw everything out.

We are fully into December and the Christmas spirit around here. The tree and stockings are up, the kids are counting down, and watching a new Christmas cartoon they find on netflix every day.  The shopping is done (thank you amazon), the homemade gifts are coming along nicely, and the celebrations begin this weekend with a grown up's only party. Andi saw it on the calendar and thought we were all going to her friends house. When I told her it was no kids allowed she said, "That's rude. I invite you to my tea parties!"  One day she will understand.

Birthday week and Halloween

Sammy is officially 5, and he had a good birthday week run of it to celebrate. Monday night we carved pumpkins for FHE, and by we I mostly mean me. My kids are wusses about cleaning out the pumpkins, and then Sammy is not quite coordinated enough to do much carving, so I end up doing a good chunk of the work. They did however draw their designs on their pumpkins, so they get creative credit I guess.

Sammy's angry face

 Andi's silly face

His birthday was on a Tuesday, which is a little anti-climactic I think. "Yay it's my birthday, but my party isn't for four more days. . ." and when you are a kid it's all about the party. So we tried to make Tuesday special for him anyway. He got a new bike, because his has been a bit small for a while, plus his handle bars wouldn't stay aligned, which makes things interesting. I made his favorite "green pasta" (pesto) for dinner and he got to blow out candles on a small cake that night after dinner. Here he is sporting the birthday crown he made at school and wore most of the day.

Wednesday night we had our ward trunk-or-treak, which technically wasn't a birthday celebration, but there were games and food and tons of candy, so it was definitely an extra fun night for the kids. Here they are dressed up as a spy/secret agent and a witch (a cute witch mind you.)

Then there was the actual halloween night, which Sammy participated in for the first time ever. He is sick every year on halloween, but this year we dodged the bullet. Barely. So we took the kids out around the neighborhood and I could not believe the hoards of children running around. I had no idea we had that many kids in our area.
Saturday was the birthday party with his friends. He wanted a race car party, so Thad cut out pinewood derby cars that we let the kids color and race in the backyard. It was probably the simplest party we've done, but the kids had fun. And only a few cross words were had over who won each race.

Then Sunday we had family dinner at our house and did more birthday celebrating. He really did get a whole week of fun this year.
Aside from partying, Peter had his 15 month check up this week as well. As usual he is above the 97% for height, but his little dot was so far above the 97% line this time that I had to post a picture. It's ridiculous!

Do you see that dot!?!?!  But the poor little bean pole is only in the 20% for weight. His muddy playtime has become a daily occurance lately. Last week, it got pretty bad.

Excuse the sun right behind his head, but I love his mouth wide open in this picture, like he's roaring or something. The sun also blocks the fact that there is mud all in his hair.

He has a love/hate relationship with his swing these days as well. He likes to swing, but has realized we use it as a bit of a baby jail when we are puttering around the yard. This day he was enjoying it though.

 

And then there is this, and I'm not sure why he dumped all the toys out of it and sat there to watch tv. He wasn't sure it was a great idea either.

October Happenings

I am such a blog slacker these days. Thad always tells me that if it weren't for him there would be no blog, because he's the only one who remembers to take pictures. We've had a few events keeping us busy the last couple weeks, and more in store. October for some reason is a crazy month around here. First we threw Ashlynns bridal shower in the backyard, a bridal tea party to be exact. It was fun and turned out really well. Tenille worked her magic and made some super cute invites and recipe cards for which I am ever so grateful. I gathered a bunch of tea cups and mom rounded up tea pots and we decorated the tables with these cute little centerpieces.

We had little tea sandwiches and salads and cupcakes. And I made a cute sign for the Bash.

And we had a "photo area" set up with some frilly tea party hats for playing dress up.

The following weekend was the school carnival, and since I'm the room parent that meant making posters and working the snack booth all night. Thad took the kids around to enjoy the carnival, which was hard to do because all Peter wanted to do was hang out by this.

Yup, the generator was his favorite part of the night. Meanwhile Andi was playing in the jumphouses, and Sammy was jousting.

And they both got their faces painted. We call that a successful night.

Next activity on the list: Pumpkin Patch. Things are going to be busy as we get closer to Halloween so we had to go get pumpkins early this year. Hopefully we'll get them carved before Halloween.

This is how Sammy claimed his pumpkin.

Peter was not quite sure what to think of this place.

And this was the best shot I got of the three of them. They are way to busy to be bothered with pictures.

And in random photo news, I got a bike and trailer and have been riding in the mornings with Peter. He loves going for rides.

He also discovered the joy of playing in the mud, and hasn't been clean since.

What's Going On

Ya, I have no idea where the month has gone. But it's almost gone, and I'm not even sure what has kept us so busy. I actually had to go back through pictures to see what we have been up to the last few weeks. Sammy hit a pretty huge milestone. At least it is huge for him because it took so long. I know boys generally have a harder time with the whole night time potty training thing, but after trying every method we could think of with zero success we turned to google for ideas. And then we went to amazon and ordered an alarm that attaches to the underwear and makes noise/vibrates/flashes lights if it detects wetness. I was pretty skeptical after the first few nights because while it did wake him up (and scare the crud out of him) he was still wetting the pull-ups. But by the end of week two it was like a magic flip had been switched and he has not had a single accident. Amazing! And as a reward for conquering this task Thad took Sammy and Andi to Camelot for some fun. Which included bumper boats, go carts, and video games.

 Sammy also started Karate a few weeks ago, and while he's not totally in love with it, I love him in his little get up.

We've been finishing up little projects, and I managed to talk Thad into a mid sized one as well. I painted the front door, and the exterior shutters to match.  I love it, but now the eaves have to be done, and in case you forgot, there are two floors to this house and I have no idea how the top floor is getting done. At least the door looks pretty!

Also, this happend.

Yep, that's a dead pig. Dead wild boar to be exact, and now it's at the butcher getting packaged up to head to my freezer. Thad went hunting last week with a friend from work and now he's got the bug. Luckily I don't have any more room in the freezer, so he's probably going to have to wait a while before heading out again.

Peter is a terror these days. He started walking consistently a couple of weeks ago, and now nothing is safe. Even while he's watching baby einstein he's walking around the front room in circles knocking things off the shelves just because he can. It's a good thing he's cute!

Oh, but we are finally inching our way to being done with the bottle. He is the first one of my kids to put up a fight when I tried to take it away three months ago. But it was a huge fight, and after two weeks of a fussy cranky baby I finally gave it back to him and realized that he was cranky all that time because he was hungry. Hungry, but too stubborn to take the sippy.  I tried again this week, and while he doesn't love it, he's at least drinking out of it, so that's progress!

A Little Crazy

It's been a while since we have tackled any big projects around here, and apparently the house has been orderly way too long. So this long weekend was the perfect time for us to get all kinds of crazy and install the shutters Thad's dad has been working on for a couple months. Yes, his dad made these in his wood shop. He is super talented and handy. He was finally to the point where it was time to paint all the parts and pieces and assemble them, so he loaded up his trailer full of wood and for two days the backyard looked like this.

100's of louvers and all the frames had to be painted and hung to dry, so naturally we strung a maze of ropes up so they could crank these babies out. Here's where things got fun. Usually when Thad and his dad are working on a project my job is to keep the drinks coming and the kids out. This day however I was told I also needed to "lightly sand everything in between coats of paint" Say what? we are painting all of those twice!?!?! And what actually happened was that I sanded them before painting, as well as in between coats of paint, and had to screw in all the little hooks that allowed them to hang so nicely on the ropes. It felt like the sawdust was ingrained into my skin and I'd never be clean again.
But by the end of day two we had a couple of windows hung and all the work was definitely worth it. They are beautiful, and brighten up the house so much. I just love them, and these pictures do not do them justice, you'll need to come see them in person.

This one was a beast! Did you know that thing is one solid unit that gets put up all at once and nailed in while several people make sure it doesn't come crashing down?

 Only a couple windows left to install and all of the downstairs will have shutters. I think I almost broke Thad's brain when we started putting these in, because then I was seeing all kinds of new projects that would compliment the shutters. Like french doors where the sliding back door is. It would seriously just complete the look, but that's not really what he wanted to hear mid project ;)
It was also Thad's birthday this weekend, and the poor guy spent it working on shutters. But we did a few things to celebrate. Saturday night I managed to pull him away from shutters long enough to go out to dinner, which I think he later appreciated as a much needed break. And Sunday we had all the family over for dinner. Yep, in the middle of our madness with most of our windows bare we had 20 + people over.  This happened at work which I think was awesome, and a long time coming.

And Thad found these treats that he's pretty sure were made especially for his birthday. I mean, they are limited edition. It's like triple layer cream filling. Awesome.

And in non shutter, but house update related news, we got a big bookcase a couple of weeks ago that I love.  We realized when we moved in how small our furniture was and have been working on getting things that are a little more proportionate to our 10 ft ceilings.  There used to be a much smaller DVD cabinet there, and now all our dvd's are in those boxes on the lower shelves.

I'm still working on "styling" the shelves. Definitely not my strong suit. Tenille, you might need to come take care of this for me.