Happy 2012

I know I've totally slacked off on the whole blog thing this fall and winter, but I figured I'd better get one more post in before the year ends.
2012 has been a year of changes and same ol, same ol. Brian got a new job and started commuting to superior, but we are also in the same house since it hasn't sold yet. I quit doing daycare, but I'm still hanging out at home with my boys. We still have our same routine of playgroups, story times, and shopping.
My boys have grown leaps and bounds. I cannot believe that Everett is four years old. He is a little smarty pants who loves to help with everything, take care of us, and is beginning to tell jokes. It is awesome.
Callum is hitting the terrible twos and letting some new sides of his personality out. He's also the sweetest, snuggliest little guy ever.
I've had a sort of rough fall with this whole medical mystery thing that I can find no explanation for besides that it seems to be my body cannot handle any kind of stress without severely impacting my digestive system. It sucks and I can't figure out how to fix it but there are definitely worse things in life.
We're looking forward to a 2013 of happiness. Maybe we'll be able to sell our house, move closer to Brian's work. Maybe we'll be living in a new city, going to new playgroups. Who knows. :)
I hope you all a safe and happy 2013 and I will hopefully be a bit more consistent about my posting.

Pirate Party Invitation Tutorial

I know I said I would do this post a while ago, but.......oh well!  Here it is now!

E has been into pirates lately and I thought it would make a great birthday party theme, so I asked him and he agreed.  I looked up several ideas for making invitations, but ended up just doing my own thing.  Here are the steps I did.

First, print off half sheet sized invitations.  I made the invitations in microsoft publisher and created the little map on the bottom with a dotted line, clip art, and a letter X.  Simple!
Then we used a jolly roger stamp from walmart and some ink (couldn't find my black until we were completely done....so blue it is!)  You could also just print a jolly roger on the invitation, but isn't this more fun?

 Then, crumple up all the invitations.  Nearly four year olds think this is pretty awesome.  :)

Next you need to warm up a bowl of water and get out some regular tea bags.  E also had a lot of fun with this next step.  Take a tea bag, dip it in the water for a few seconds (maybe 10?), squeeze out a little bit of the water and then rub the tea bag (gently!!!) along the top of every invitation.

I liked crumpling the invitations first because then there were definitely areas that received darker tea stains than others.

Let them air dry and voila!

We also rolled up our invitations and tied them off with ribbon.  If you're really ambitious, you could put each invitation in a glass bottle or something, but really?  Four year olds and glass bottles?  No.

I'm Back

I apologize to my loyal fans (aka sisters in law) that I have been absent for nearly the entire month of November.  It's because I hate giving thanks.  Kidding.  It's really because I was kind of depressed about my health recently and just didn't see blogging as a priority.  I was still present on facebook so everyone knew I was alive, but blogging just seemed like too much effort.
This whole health thing is just a mystery.  At the end of September I started getting a general feeling of illness, stomach aches, etc. and it went in cycles of a few days.  Well, around the 12th, I felt horrible and it lasted for a full week.  I have had all kinds of medical tests done, all come out fine.  I have been to a chiropractor twice (who was a friend in high school.  Awkward?  A little.) with no real obvious reason for my malaise there either.  But.  I have been feeling fine for the past week so I'm holding out hope that I'm done feeling bad.  I've cut caffeine from my diet and had cut out a bit more for the two weeks after I started feeling bad too.  I'm also taking probiotics and drinking lots of herbal tea.  Interestingly enough, the thing that has obviously helped me the most?  Drinking lemon water before breakfast.  Don't ask me why.  ANYWAY.  Since I know no one reads to hear about me, that's that!

We had a nice thanksgiving, splitting the day between my parents and Brian's.  The boys loved spending time with Auntie Christy for a few days.  We also celebrated Everett's birthday with Brian's side of the family since Christy was visiting.  He got some awesome presents, including a giant rc construction site and a Tag reader, complete with books and carrying case.  We'll be having a friend party for him this Saturday and hopefully I'll get a little tutorial up on how we did the invitations before then.

Callum just transitioned to a toddler bed this week.  He's done great!  We tried it once this summer and he wasn't ready, so we went back to the crib.  This time, he was fine.  The first night, he woke up and needed some snuggling, but since then it's been smooth sailing.  Even for naps, he's stayed put.  He doesn't flop down and go right to sleep like he did in the crib.  He's generally sitting up as I shut the door now, but maybe that's somewhat just the newness of the bed.  We'll see.

We have snow!!!!  The boys love the snow (except falling in it with bare hands and having a mean tree dump it on your head.).  We played outside a bit today and they had a great time.  I'll try to get pictures up soon!

TAT: Christmas Wish List

This time of year/Christmas shopping lists are nearly IMPOSSIBLE for me since we all have our birthdays around this time of year too.  So I just shop and then I have to figure out how to distribute presents among the right dates.  I've accumulated some shirts for Everett's birthday and a stuffed owl for Callum's, and then I've gathered combo gifts for Christmas.  We're not going to go crazy this year since we're trying to save more money and really, we have too much stuff.  I plan to get Everett one new "toy" for his birthday; likely some more Trios or spelling games and I might get/make Callum a Jakey (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates) for his birthday.

1. Crayola Kid's Art Club and Tunnel Play Tent : around $43 on amazon.  I got it on sale on kids.woot for $25 with shipping and it includes dry erase crayons!

2. Thomas Wooden Railway Emily with Coal Tender : around $15 on amazon.  I got it for $10 on woot.

3. Thomas Wooden Railway Straight And Curved Expansion Pack : around $24 on amazon.  I got it for $12 on woot.

4. I got these Sugarbooger Silverware Sets for stocking stuffers for the boys at a local store for under $7 each.  Amazon has them for $8.50.  They come in a plastic case that will be awesome for picnic lunches!

5. I'm considering this Melissa & Doug See & Spell  for Everett's birthday, but we might get the Trios for the birthday and do this for Christmas so he has his own present to open.  It's $14.00 on amazon.

6. We won't be buying this LeapFrog Tag Learn And Love To Read Set for Everett since it's over $80, but I think he'd like it.

7. I've been debating getting this OK to Wake! Children's Alarm Clock and Nightlight for a long time, but I just can't bring myself to spend $30 on an alarm clock.

8. My boys would flip for this Jake and the Neverland Pirates 7 Pc Figurine Set for around $20 on amazon.

9. I'm almost done with these socks for Callum and I'll probably knit/crochet up some more things for them so they get to open more.

And me?  I just want this:

Lodge Dutch Oven
and this:

Weelicious cookbook

Halloween!

We had a fantastic Halloween!  The boys went trick-or-treating until we couldn't move our frozen fingers anymore and I promptly stole all good chocolates from their buckets.

Thomas the tank-o-lantern

Nemo and Everett's version of Jake and the Neverland Pirates

One woman ran to her kitchen to get our little monkey a banana!

Monkey butt

Me and my monkey

My zoo animals

Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Keweenaw Cup

This past weekend, we headed up to Brian's favorite place in the world, Copper Harbor, MI.  We were there for him to participate in the Keweenaw Cup cyclocross race.  He had a good time.  Although he apparently should have entered in the B class initially, he figured that out for the second day.  :)  Oh, and I think this weekend was the most beautiful weather I've ever experienced in Copper Harbor excluding one camping trip in the summer.

Start of the A race on day 1.  Those guys are crazy fast.

Day 1 Sand pit

We prettified Nora.  Have I mentioned we're dog-sitting for ten days?

The boys down on Lake Superior on Sunday morning

Day 2 race

Day 2

You know you're cool when you have a "num!" while riding your bike.

Here are a couple videos:




Everett's "race":

Preschool: Letter F

Last week, we worked on the letter F, and I think it's safe to say that Everett picked up on it faster than any of the other letters (except maybe E).  He was even explaining to me yesterday that F has two lines and E has three.  Nice!

Here is one from the week before when he was making his letter E for the wall.  (I'll take an updated pic of the wall when we do our letter G.)

He had fun using his workbook to make squares.  Regarding the pencil holding, when I hand him the pencil, I help him put it between his thumb and index finger but he invariably changes the position while working and I don't correct him.  I want him to get used to using a pencil before I harass him about how he's holding it.

And this is what I do during preschool work time:

Here's our updated flashcard display:

And here's one of our newest items.  Auntie C brought fun new dry erase markers, crayons, workbooks, and flashcards when she came up for the Whistlestop (I've added some of them to our amazon link on the side there).  Can you tell he's a little serious about his schooling?

I also got a little braver and did something we'd normally do during school time (aka Callum's nap time) while Callum was awake.  They had so much fun with their sensory bin:

WhistleStop Half Marthon Recap

Well, I officially did it and did it well!  I ran my first half marathon last Saturday.  The weather was cool and drizzly, which could have been better, but at least it wasn't downright raining.  Brian's dad was nice enough to drive us out to the start so we didn't have to stand around freezing for an hour before the start.  In fact, we barely had time to make it to the potties before it was time to go.
Brian and I started off together at about an 8:30 pace and once he warmed up, Brian decided he needed to do an 8:00 pace and sped off.  My typical pace for long runs has been around 9:15-9:30, so I was hoping to keep it closer to 9:00 for the whole race.  Running in a group really is inspiring.  I would find someone that I wanted to catch and work at it for a mile or so.  Amazingly, while I remember getting bored during the 10k last year, I was never once bored this year.  Maybe it's just more experience running, maybe it's that I managed to keep a faster pace, I don't know, but I had a great time.  The farther I'd gone, the faster the miles seemed to go by too.  However, when I hit about 10.6 miles, my legs started to realize that I'd never gone that far before.  Around 11 miles, my right ankle started hurting.  Well, there's no way I was going to slow down with 2 miles to go, so I changed my stride, sucked it up and kept going.  I loved having the garmin so I could keep my pace consistent.  I noticed a lot of people slowed down around 10-11 miles and I think I naturally would have too had I not had the garmin to keep track of my pace.  Getting into town was fantastic because I'd run that path so many times.  I knew exactly where I was, exactly how far I had left to go, and I was ready.  I even managed to sprint at the end and was flying into the finish, passing the girl ahead of me.  I finished with an average pace of around 8:35!  (Looking back at my post from last year, I see that I did the 10K with a 8:33 pace.  Wow am I consistent, eh???)

Brian was done ten minutes earlier, which gives him an average pace of just around 7:50 I think?

I felt AWESOME after the race.  I immediately gulped down a cup of water and an applesauce cup and we changed into dry clothes and headed home.
At home, I finished my nuun (I had consumed four tropical punch shot blocks, 6 oz of water, and about 3 oz of nuun during the run), had some pb toast and more water.  I tried to keep things light and drink a lot of water all day.
We went out to the Blues fest that night, but I was sooooo tired, I stayed for an hour and a half and headed home to watch Shark Tank and go to bed.

The boys also ran the toddler race on Saturday!  Everett did amazing.  He was super speedy!  I'm pretty sure if they had actually kept track of winners, he would have been it.  I mean, the form!  The speed!  :)

When it was time for Callum's race, he wasn't so sure.  He didn't cry.  He didn't even look scared.  Just a little confused.  So he walked.  :)

Preschool: Letters D & E

Oops.  I was not feeling well and training for a half marathon, so I claim that as my excuse for missing a week here.
I swear, we did preschool, I just apparently didn't take many pictures and we didn't do much new stuff.

We did:

- Create a letter D with paint and corks

- Made letters out of play doh

- Created a leaf number matching game (I was pretty positive I took pictures of this but cannot find them ANYWHERE.)

- Made an E out of popsicle sticks (no pictures yet.  It's still drying.)

Here's our weekly letters we make:

(Yes, that is a chocolate chip cookie for C.)

Ev's doing very well with preschool in general.  He is usually excited to do anything I tell him.  One morning, I was sleeping and I looked over to see him standing right next to me, eyes wide and sparkling.  I said hi to him, and he said, "I want to do school!"  uggggghhhh.  :)
Some days he can recite and recognize almost all the numbers 1-12, some days he has trouble with a few (often, 2, 4, and 8, interestingly enough).  Today, he correctly identified the letters A through F.  We're still working on drawing straight lines, but boy is he determined.  He just keeps trying.  I'm so proud of his continuous effort.
Today we ran into the preschool I looked at putting him in and it made me wonder if I was making a mistake by not having him in an official setting like that, but I felt better about it after the work he did this afternoon.  He still gets plenty of socializing, he gets to be on his own and listen to another adult in both his gymnastics class and library story time, and he really is moving along and learning things at home with me.

Oh yes, and on a hilarious note, Ev tells me that when he goes swimming with nana at the college pool, he does cotton balls off the diving board.  LOL.

Mommy Makeover Challenge: Last Day

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I failed yesterday.  BUT.  I wasn't feeling well!  I was in pajamas until lunchtime, when I changed into running clothes for a 9 miler.  After a shower, I was sore and didn't feel like dressing up to go nowhere so, back into pajamas it was.  Hush.

Today was different and it's the last day of the challenge.  So here goes!

Outfit: Jeans, shirt and sweater which were constantly covered by this jacket, orange scarf, hat because it was COLD.  Oh, and some earrings.How long did it take you to get ready: I'd say 15 minutesWhat you did do differently than normal: Curled my hair
.Did you go anywhere outside the home/where: AppleFest, baby!
Did you feel any differently?: I felt like no one was judging me for being a slob.  :)

Mommy Makeover Challenge: Day 5

I'm calling today a quasi win.  I resisted the ponytail.  I also call today's picture a quasi win.  Yes, it's blurry and strange BUT Everett took it.  :)

I didn't get dressed in this outfit until Callum's naptime because at 10, we left for a mom/kids hike in the freezing cold, then it was home for lunch and nap and then I curled my hair and added the jewelry and makeup.

Outfit: Jeans, tank, old navy shirt, necklace from Maurices, earrings (of which I am now down one...)

How long did it take you to get ready? I'd say 10 minutes?

What did you do differently than normal? curled the hair, makeup

Did you go anywhere outside the home/where? Hiking, yarn store, parade, parents', out to dinner

Did you feel any differently?  Meh, I'm feeling very blah.  I think we're all coming down with something.

Now head on over to The Naptown Organizer for the link up!

Mommy Makeover Challenge: Day 4

I'm keeping up!!!  Check out the other mamas at The Naptown Organizer.

Here's today's update.

Outfit: Jeans, shirt from delias that I bought on ebay before Everett was born.  Necklace from....walmart??? Maurices?

How long did it take you to get ready: 5 minutes?

What you did do differently than normal: I actually had a front piece of hair twisted and clipped back this morning but that's long gone now.  at 7 pm ish....oops.Did you go anywhere outside the home/where: Everett's gymnastics class, walmart, co-op, dinner out with friendsDid you feel any differently?: Not particularly.  I didn't really dress up that much today.  Just the normal going out apparel...

And just for your reference, this is my after boy bedtime look: