adios, summer!

adios, summer! i won't miss ya! will might. but not me.

another rainy day

but a very fun one. today was such a fun morning! turns out the frowny cake was actually kind of delicious. so that's good. mom came over and brought abby her present, some new clothes and ***5*** new pairs of shoes. 4 for dress up and 1 for real. she LOVES them all. then mom proceeded to paint my hallway (thanks mom!). then destiny and baby christian came over bearing gifts for me for no good reason (thanks des!). and the kids played in the rain. and will went home with nana. and the new tv shows start tonight. isn't that all fun?! it's a good day. i'm about to bake some sugar cookies. me and jorja have a cookie painting play date tomorrow. oh, yeah.... and on the baking front, the pie contest got moved back a few weeks. now it's in mid october. yay! so that changes the game. i was going for an icebox cake, but i specialize in fall-ness. so that's why i'm going to win with a fall pie. first up, apple cranberry pie with an oatmeal struedel topping. yum.

september is officially bad baking month

my kitchen looks like this. my cake looks like this. my face even looks like this. not really. i'm actually kind of laughing my butt off at my own misfortune. this month has brought on a round of wild baking. i love baking in the fall. but this just isn't it. i've got a few more adventures in baking in the next week, and after that.... more pumpkin creme pies. i'm a one trick pony.

but just to recap said misfortunes, the month started off with the announcement of the annual pie baking contest. this is the one time all year that i make a pie. that pie clearly should not go in a competition. but alas, i have spent hours scouring the net for innovative recipes. thus far i've tried a coffee and peanut butter craziness, a regular peanut butter mediocrity, a strawberry lemonade pie, a buttermilk pie, and a peach cream pie. some of them more than once. i just want a ribbon. if i had a ribbon i would frame it or wear it or something! but that's not going to happen this year.

today i thought i'd make my mama a birthday cake. this is the result. it was supposed to be a red velvet cake. but did you know that there is all kinds of insanity involved in those. there's actual chemistry. you have to bubble vinegar and baking soda. and you have to make this whacked out paste of cocoa and red coloring. and apparently the only reason red velvet cake is red is because someone just decided it should be that way. next time mine is going to be a blue suede cake. anyhoo, the frosting was weird. and i'm just not liking it. so the frowny face. it made me smile. :)

abby is 2!

can you believe it?! now i'm one of those annoying people that says, "it goes by so fast". well, it does. i can't believe it's been 2 years since i met this child! she's been around for a while now. so here's how her birthday morning went down. she woke up to find her big toy, a cozy coupe, and loved it! unfortunately so did will. then she opens her gift from will, a little puppy with a wiggly tail. she loved it. unfortunately so did will. then they watched a new movie. nobody liked it. bummer. but cake time.... that was a hit. she's been wanting this barbie cake forever. let me explain a few things:

1. abby doesn't want much
2. this cake is on display at target so she sees it almost daily
3. abby doesn't talk much
4. she still manages to get all excited and point and get all animated when she sees it yelling "wook! wook, mama! wook!"

so we got it. and they called yesterday to say they only had a mexican barbie. sure, i say. well, abby was so excited. it seems that quincenera barbie is clothed modestly until you take her out of her cake and she's wearing this trashy get-up. it's hilarious! anyway, happy birthday abby!!!!

stuff this week.

the kids are just doing their kid thing this week. naps are getting fewer and further between. i've retreated to the kitchen to test out one million pies to find one suitable for a contest entry in two weeks. so far i've made 4 completely mediocre pies that don't really warrant a second slice. will ate a whole slice of peanut butter pie today and then announced (as he headed to the fridge to drink a gallon of milk straight from the carton) that it "taste-es a little bit disgusting". and my ever supportive husband is doing his best choking them down. and now for this week in pictures.

pico is getting some true real flight feathers. see those blue ones? that means he can fly! but he doesn't really know that yet.

mr. man playing on the tire swing (undies, of course). our fantastic neighbors, the serokas, have once again blessed us with their boys wonderful hand-me-downs. will thinks they are so cool and he always loves having something that belonged to adam and austin.

this one represents abby turning into a female. she's dressing up a bit now. i'm not going to lie. it's fun. i was never really all that big on playing with dolls, but i could get into playing dress up with my girl.

Maybe she's a tomboy

Abby looks like this all the time. I was a preschool teacher for 6 years and have cared for literally hundreds of infants and toddlers. But never ever ever have I encountered such a dirty child. She's like Pigpen. There is a cloud of dirt and dust (and sweat, too) all around her. All the time. She leaves a path of destruction where ever she goes. If Will is a hurricane, wild and sometimes surprising, Abby is a severe rainstorm. Slow and steady, but mellow and incessant. She's quiet and content. Usually just mild destruction... a little crayon on the table, easily wiped up if you scrub a little. A broken glass, a pain, but easy enough to clean up. But while you're cleaning up the glass she's removed her diaper and pooped in the driveway. And while you're cleaning up poop she's quietly drawing with chalk on the front door. Little things. But constant. She's happiest when she's quite messy and messing something up. Someday I'll look back on this post and laugh. Maybe she'll grow up to be a tomboy and we'll say 'we knew it from the start' or maybe she'll be a pageant queen and we'll say 'you should see how you were when you were a toddler'. Time will tell.

Sleepy Will Pics

Almost exactly 4 years later...

Homework

With school exactly one year away we figured it's time to get serious about learnin'. Will has been sort of resisting education. He doesn't generally like being persuaded to do anything. But we got a workbook that he really loves and now he's all about it. He's gotten really good at tracing and coloring. He finally wrote his name. He did it once and we were so proud. Then he did it ten more times. He even read a few words this week! Crazy. I think Abby's right behind him. She practices homework with Will every night and is starting to learn the sounds that go with the letters. So that's kind of creepy, but cool I guess. I just hope she doesn't get smarter than us. That would be embarrassing.

Day 4

I'm over it. :P

Day 3

Ok, I told you I'd tell you how I'm doing this, but you've got to follow me...
Today's Day 3, so I should be at $30.
Dinners for Days 1, 2, and 3 cost $14.39. So that left me with $15 to spend today on what we're running out of. I got more milk, canned fruit, pancakes, cereal, pierogies, and some brownie mix. Stuff like that. That was $15.55, but I had $8 left on a gift card, so I totalled $7 at Target for all that. So... for 3 days, $30, I've spent $22.51 on feeding the fam thus far. Pretty impressive, actually. Tonight we're having pork chops, crash potatoes, green beans, and brownies for dessert. The rest I'll carry over and get some real produce and healthy snacks tomorrow.

And for the Random Pic of the Day, Will when he was a wee little baby. Remember his duck obsession? He's presently agonizing over the whereabouts of these ducks. I'm rolling my eyes.

Day 2

Today's meal is costing $3. Pancakes with cooked apples and sausage patties. Cheap, but tasty. I've diced a few green apples and threw them in with a little sugar and cinnamon. That's our pancake topping. Tada. Fruit, carb, protein. $3. We weezed lunch at mom's house. She's on vacation. ;)

And The Random Photo of the Day is a picture of Miss Molly, Jason and Kara's little one. She's turning one this month. Don't you love the cheeks?

Day 1

We're starting a new 21 day challenge! It's $10 a day again. I like a challenge. Last time people wanted to know wanted to know how I did it, so this time I'm documenting. :) The catch is that I am too lazy to take and edit new photos everyday, so you're getting rare, never before seen photos just for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

Last night was a practice in creativity. At lunchtime Amy and the boys ended up here at lunch time. I had nothing to feed the mob so I pulled out dinner and figured I'd just get more at the store in the afternoon. It was penne pasta and marinara sauce. We had quite a bit left over, but not enough for dinner. So that's when I got clever. I bought some Italian Sausage and cooked it and threw it in there. Then I heated up some frozen broccoli. And that's that. I had the broccoli, pasta, and sauce. I just bought the sausage. My total for three days of food was $14.62. More details on that later. But milk, sausage, and bananas costed me about $5.

And the Random Photo of the Day is me, mom, and Anne stuck to a velcro wall in velcro suits at Brandon's 30th Bday party.

more water fun

the kids can't get enough water play these days. will and stephen both have created their own great wolf lodge in the backyard. sometimes in the sink. today we found a tutorial for this cool little water feature and decided to build it. so brandon hit home depot and spent about $10. then he built it in the time that it took me to whip up a steamin' hot pot of mac 'n' cheese. they are having a blast! i don't expect to see will in this house until dinner time.

ps. check out how his feet rarely touch the ground!

Randomness

here's just a current picture of miss abby. hmmm. an abby update. well, she's almost two. so that comes with some natural weirdness. she's learning to copy her brother. she mostly picks up on the annoying habits. he'll teach her a word (today the word was 'nine') and they just say it over and over until i lose my mind. she also pours stuff in stuff. mostly milk into her dinner, or some decorative piece. she's also figured out that she can get out of her bed. and she does.


on a different topic, jen had her baby. his name is parker grayson and he's stinkin' adorable. he has so much hair you can style it.


and on another topic, vacation at the great wolf lodge was awesome! we loved every single minute. ok, almost every single minute, but you just can't ask for better than that. i was too chicken to take my camera to a waterpark, but amy took some pictures and they're on her blog, so check those out.

cars. cars. cars. and keys of course.

will's obsession with vehicles continues. as his 5th birthday approaches we will be honoring that obsession by indulging him with a car themed party. he's all about hot wheels and i thought i'd just stick a hot wheel on top of cupcakes. but he said he would really prefer a big cake. his ideal car? a red toyota sienna. he told this to a mechanic the other day who laughed his butt off. naturally, keys are part of the deal too. last week he worked his lemonade stand to get a new key from home depot. as soon as he had enough money he shut that thing down and jumped in the car to go buy yet another blank key. the photos you see here are from a book that i'm making for his birthday of all of his favorite cars and why he loves them. that part is stinking cute.since the pages are all fixed up to be printed the pictures look kind of small so click on them to see the pure joy on his face.

Forgotten Blog Pics

There's nothing remarkably super special about this post. It's just a few pics that I forgot to put up here a while back. The kids love love love their birds. Pico is too tame for their tastes though. He's too much like a person or pet. The Ugs (short for Uglies) are wilder. They fly like lunatics when we clean their cage. We do it in the pub so they can't escape, but look at the joy on the kids' faces. They are wild for those funky birds.

PROJECTS!!!

i'm feeling pretty handy lately. overly confident, i think. but here are some of the projects that are up in the air.

the wagon. this little red radio flyer was on it's deathbed. it was will's when he was tiny, and now abby's at just the right age for it. so i thought before we tossed it i'd try to bring it back to life. so i've started sanding and painting it a nice ivory color. i plan to do some nice details and upholster a cushion fit for a princess to go in there as well.

the coffeehouse. this is the first installment to an entire secret village that is going to go behind the garage. i've turned into a carpentry nerd pulling plans from this site, and this is the bottom half of the coffeehouse. tonight we are going to sand and prime it and tomorrow we paint. i've picked out a super fun green and can't wait to see it all come together.

what i'll be doing in the middle of the night is painting will's ceiling. don't tell him. it's a surprise for him to find when he gets home from his chill week with grandma and grandpa.

AFTER pics to come...

Creativity Bootcamp: Ivory

Today I started Creativity Bootcamp, just a fun little thing to get my brain working. Each day there is a word to prompt an activity, an art project in any medium. Today the word was "ivory". There are few things in this world that epitomize the word ivory more than my offspring. So I got Miss Abby in her birthday suit and pulled out the sheepskin rug and the ivory canopy. It was really pretty. I think I'll use that in sessions again.

money talks

Sorry about the total lack of blogging lately. I've been kind of tied in with this other blog that I started. It actually took off pretty quick and even had an article written about it. I'm kinda proud actually. But the point is that after I do all that intense blogging I'm pretty tired of the computer if you can believe that.

But anyhoo, here's what's up with the kids this week. Abby is getting over her freakish people phobias. I think we're on the upswing. That's super good. We managed to make it to church with minimal drama. That's a huge relief. I knew it would pass, but whoa, that was a rough month.

Will has discovered the joys of cash. He's getting a little allowance for doing chores around the house. My windows have never been cleaner. So he picks up laundry, washes the windows, and (get this, it's pretty sweet) gets Abby out of bed in the morning. She's pleased as punch to wake up to her big brother. It's pretty cute. This week he spent his money on french macaroons at the Farmer's Market downtown. I think he'd do it again too. He's playing with Britten this week. She's in town and came over this afternoon to play after they all went to the zoo. They had a blast. So that's what's new in the casa.

Here's the link to the other blog. There are a few more kiddy pictures on it. And here's a link to the article about it. Cool, huh?!

Working Hard at the Farm Today.

Today we expanded the farm. We doubled it's size and besides two people, we did it all Cupitts. Stephen was an excellent foreman. He kept us all busy and safe. :)

Abby got so incredibly dirty that we had to bathe her outside. We filled up the pool with soapy water and she took a long cold bath. All the dirt and, um... other organic matter is still being brushed out of her hair.