3:21 ... big ole victory

yay me. i made a stocking. i started it anyway and i'm over the moon. i've been wanting to make stockings forever. so today i traced one and made a template out of it. now, i know sometimes i make some freaky looking stuff, but this one is just a practice. i'm not going to give any of you this wild and wacky printed stocking. i just love this print and i had plenty of it. tomorrow i'm going to do the pretty part. i know i can do that. it's the functional part that hangs me up sometimes. so i'm all excited about tomorrow. this baby's all nice and thick with layers and batting and everything. 

and on the home front... will didn't take a nap today, making him an absolute nut case. he's just sort of freaking out. he's being a beast to his baby so he got landed in time out in his room. he still managed to terrorize her from there, so i had him close the door. next thing i know they are PLAYING under the door jam. both of them cracking up. this lunacy while crafting, while brandon is on nights, while amy is LEAVING TOWN TOMORROW for a peaceful weekend sans husband and children (shopping, eating, drinking wine, and being spoiled by her dear sister), has inspired me to crack open the screw top, unbreakable, individual sized, pink wine bought in a gas station. i've been saving it for a special occasion. 

2:21 Slow Going, but ok in the end

i was pretty creatively uninspired today. craft-wise. ew. did i say 'craft'? i'm not fond of that cheesy word. anyway. we've been painting the house and it's essentially blue and white now instead of brown and brown. i love it. really loving it more each day. we have big arches in the front of the house that are begging for some kind of artwork and we thought that some blue and white mediterranean tiles would look just perfect in those niches. so that's where my mind was when i came across some pretty fabric samples in a sewing magazine. so i cut them out and mod podged them onto a cheapy little ikea frame. tada. now what in the world am i going to do with this? probably throw it away. the point was to create. not create something worth anything. good news is i did come up with some cool ideas for stockings. hopefully i'll actually implement them this year. 

and family, i know you so don't care about this. so here's you update on what you do care about. the kids. will spent the whole day in time out. abby cried her head off because she's decided that she needs to be held always. always always. and i actually cooked dinner with a vegetable. go me. 

1:21... i'm a joke

today starts a 21 day challenge that another blogger friend does and i thought i'd jump on board. and give it a shot this time. i'm supposed to do one thing and record it every day for 21 days. we'll see. 

my challenge is pretty simple. to create something with my hands every day. today i was WAY too ambitious. you know how i get. i thought it would be this great thing for the kids to do as well. i thought it would be fun to make some bread. i set it up. waited for stephen to get here. we start getting it going. about 30 seconds into the project the kids are goofing off. go figure.

will's sifting flour onto stephen's head. stephen's pulling all the flour out of the bowl. we start kneading. i say 'we' like we were doing it. I was. and i still was yacking away about yeast and kneading and nutmeg. i thought they might learn something. i thought at least stephen would take me seriously! nope. it just played out like this. and the kids looked like this.

and my kitchen looked like this. 

 i wonder why the bread looks like ET's stomach flesh when he's all diseased and freaky at the end. obviously, i don't even need to say, that this is not edible. i can't eat ET. that's sick.

so i thought i would instead, just pretend like the bread incident never happened and act like i'm really going to make quilt squares for 21 days. i thought i'd go for a simple 9 square pattern. when i turned it over to admire my handiwork i see this. 

it's a Y. y is for....you should stop right now?... i'm sticking with it. see you tomorrow. 

a few shots from canada

here's a few pics from the trip. i took pictures of the gorgeousness, but somehow they don't look anywhere near as gorgeous as it was. so you can mostly see the prettiness in the background. so here's what we got. 

this one's one of my new faves. they were playing down by a river. 
some fun at the campsite. will ran and climbed and wrestled. abby ate grass and dirt. it was great. 

this place was one of my favorite spots. we just pulled over on the side of the rode while we were driving and hopped out. this lake was just about this shallow all the way across, so it was the perfect stop to let the kids burn some steam. of course, will's a happy camper any time water is involved. 

here, we're getting close to the glacier. we're all smiles now, but the kids were too cold and didn't like to do the serious hiking. good to know before we attempted the mucho serious hike (which, of course, never happened. we're not that dumb).

Welcome Home, Little Man

I got the pleasure of meeting Amy's running buddy yesterday. They have just adopted a beautiful little gem of a boy. He's got about 100 different smiles. 

I love this leaf. I've never seen a child so excited about a leaf! But man, we got some great shots out of it. 

We Need Some Uniforms

I have been baking hundreds of cookies for days now for the single purpose of promoting a Back to School event. Doesn't everything look adorable?! You can have some cookies if you help us buy school uniforms for some local kids in need. We need 100. We got 2, so.... I'm not great at math... Anyway, if you feel so inclined to buy one, some, or send me some money to get some just email me. On the side, I'm also collecting donations for the charity cause of improving my bakeware, which is most heinous. 

My Blog Looks Funny

I need a clean slate on the blog so I can get a little creative with it. Sorry it's boring right now. It just needs a change. I'll get it lovely when I have time...HAH!... get it? when i have time?! 

Our Day Today

We went to Discovery Green to snap a few of Abby. Jen did some and they'll be way gorgeous, but here's what I got today. 

Cow Appreciation Day

Today is officially Cow Appreciation Day. And to celebrate we went to Chick-fil-a to mooch some free dinner. We got a full out free meal, with the fancy lemonade and everything, and all it costed was our dignity. There was some joking going around about ripping up the cowhide rug and going in that way. Everyone thought it was just a joke...oh, no...it's happening. Here's my beef: I'm the one in front with a cow nose on. Nobody wanted to go in with their face showing. So Anne and Will are hiding under there. Free food, people. 

And as a hilarious sidenote, Brandon starts eating this free meal. It's the only full grown meal on the table and he's going to town on it. So I have to give him a hard time about it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So you're not willing to dress up like a cow, but you don't have a problem eating my super free meal, huh?

Brandon: *freezing in place with mouth open* Oh, I'm sorry, honey. I didn't realize that this one was yours...

Me: Really, cause I just walked out in public wearing a rug and a paper snout. 

He then proceeds to feel so bad about that silly moment that he insists on going and getting me a meal, and I AGAIN end up eating food that I don't need. It was pretty fun. We all had a good time. Can't wait til next year!

And now I'm just showing off

I was feeling wacky and confident this morning and thought i would take both kids out - in public, mind you - alone. And I was feeling so wacky and also confident that I felt like I could pull of a photoshoot. And I did. My goal was to get at least one 'Abby in a pot' picture to match Will's from his nine month shoot, and I did. She just screamed through the whole thing. But it was a happy scream. Will was nowhere to be found. See the fountains in the background? No way he was sitting still for a silly picture when there was water mischief to be had. 

Countdown to Canada

Camping Moose. Get it? Like we're camping...with moose...es? Meese? 

We are 51 days out from our Canadian vacation. Will is ridiculously excited. When we say "guess where we're going to today?" and we mean Target, he screams "Canada!!!". Then he's a little disappointed when we go to Target. We bought this cool little stroller that has a regular stroller bit on the front and Will can ride on the back. We figure we'll need it for the airport and the mall. We're going to the mall for a whole day. You might think it's just a plain old mall, but no. It'll take all day. If you feel like getting lost for a while on an insane website, check this mall out. Just click on play at the top of the page, Grandpa.  We're spending plenty of time camping and hiking and doing nature-ish stuff. One day we're doing to the Lake Louise Tea House. You make this giant hike and then in the most beautiful place ever, you actually have tea at a teahouse. I hope that's some seriously great tea. And we're even going to a glacier. I asked some Canadian friends of ours what it means when a Canadian tells a Texan 'dress warm' and you're going to a glacier. And they said "you don't need a parka or anything! i think my parents wore shorts and a t-shirt, maybe jeans." Too late. I already bought a gigantic parka for Abs, and though I'll be the laughing stock of Canada, she's wearing it at least for a photo! Anyway, we're super excited. Just got the kids passports yesterday... now, we just have to wait 51 days.

Will's new book

Will got a new book from AnneMarie. It's about this cat that turns into a dog and some kind of mummy business. don't worry about all that. It's a cute book and all, but the important part is the mummy part.

It's summer and we are bored stiff. right? So we bust out some toilet paper to kill a little time. And we wrapped up Argyle like a mummy.

And we wrapped up Will like a mummy. Now he keeps begging for toilet paper. I've created a monster. Or mummy, I guess.
And here's another random book related picture. Remember Max from Where the Wild Things Are? Well, that's him stuffed in Abby's shirt. I don't know how he got there. Do you?

Smiley Abby

Here's a random collection of Abby-ness these days. She's a one trick pony with her waving and "hi" right now. You just look at her and she smiles and waves and says hi. The other day she even did it through tears. It was sad and cute at the same time. So we're thinking about putting her to work at Wal-Mart as a door greeter. It's about time she brings in some money around here. 
Here she is eating her foot at the breakfast table. She pretty much eats everything these day from her toes to my grocery list. 
And here she is walking with Daddy. She's been practicing. Getting those legs ready. She can pull up on anything, including the wall. A few more months and she'll be off. 

Abby's Baptism

Miss Abby got baptized at Moody Gardens this afternoon. It was actually quite pretty and fun, too! She had a great time splashing around. She's happy to be in God's family! 

W is for Will and Watermelon

His favorite time of year. His favorite snack of all time. Look. He eats it with his whole face!

look at this face

do you see this face? this is exactly the pitiful face that she follows me around making. she sort of hums and whines in my direction. she chases my ankles all day, but i'm still faster. if i change my course before she can attempt to pull up on my leg, she cries. look at those eyes. look at that mouth. a straight little line. how can i say no that face? 

Peach Cobbler

Honey, if you are reading this, I have bad news. Grandma says there are not really going to be alot of peaches this year. But that's ok. We still have the awesome peach cobbler recipe that works just great with canned peaches. I'm sure they hung from a tree at one point. 

Grandma, here's that recipe. It's easy and pretty! 

Patio Progress.

Brandon's been working on the courtyard like crazy. He's been making these pavers and painted the dungeon white. Now it's so fun.

See how fun it is? It makes people drink margaritas, hang around, and make pirate faces. Festive!

Random Stuff from Around the House

OK, I know that if you are watching this blog, then all you care about is the pictures of the babies. Here they are:

Will and Brandon jamming out to Itsy Bitsy Spider. That guitar that Brandon is holding is MINE! It's my mother's day present from him. Love it, but taking off to let the blisters on my fingers heal.

This is Abby discovering that at least one out of her two teeth is rather sweet. That's whipped cream.

This is Will eating the cake while I'm trying to take a picture of it. Priceless.

This is the cake that could have been so much better. But I'll tell you about it anyway and how I would have made it a pina colada cake. You take a pack of Jello Vanilla Pudding mix and a 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple and mix it together, juice and all. Fold in a tub of Cool Whip. That's your fluffy business. Then just slice an angel food cake in thirds horizontally, piling up the whipped cream stuff in between and on top. What was so obviously lacking was the coconut. It just desperately needed coconut. If it had coconut I think I would have been soooo happy about it. But it was ok and it was done in 5 minutes. It's good to have a couple of those party tricks up your sleeve. Just think about the coconut, though.