Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from all of us:

 abby caddabby

{no one had a clue who she was, which surprised me.  aren't all kids sesame street junkies?}

elmo

{with the dorothy treat bag.  there are elmo hands, but they aren't very popular with my busy boy.}

macgruber and rosie the riveter

{obviously no one gets us.  people didn't get the macgruber thing.  didn't even guess macgyver.  what you can't see in the pic is the wires and paperclips hanging out of this pockets, and dirt all over the place.  i still say it was a great costume.}

Hallway Age

For a few months now, Little Dude has been what I consider 'hallway age'.  That means that while at church for our three-hour block of classes/meetings, we spent most of the time in the hallway.

He's too old to be satisfied with sitting and playing with toys, and too young to go into the nursery {consider this my request for nursery to begin at 12 months}.  We can't sit in a meeting for more than 5 minutes without becoming a very large distraction.

So into the hallway we go.  We walk around and get drinks from the drinking fountain every 3 seconds.  For a few weeks in a row, the Primary was practicing in the chapel, which mesmerized the dude.  He just wants to be big.

As a side note, the Sunbean was awesome in the Primary Program.  She knew all of the words and sang most of the time.  And even spoke into the mic for her part!  That's a big deal for my shy girl.

Of course, I didn't get to see much of the program.  I was in the hallway.

Rainy Days and Mondays

We had both today.

After the crazy weekend we had, I feel like we need another weekend to recover.  On Saturday, we cleaned the church, had 4 photo shoots, baked and decorated 4 dozen cake pops and 2 dozen donut holes, MacGyver worked for a few hours, and we went to a Halloween party/hayride.  Sunday was church and another family gathering + home teaching.

My photography has exploded.  This is not a complaint.  Let me know if you'd like to schedule a photo shoot!

Our house is for sale.  We've had a fair amount of interest, especially considering the time of year.  Two couples are awaiting financing.  We're doing for sale by owner for now, and then we'll list it with MacGyver's mom in the spring if needed.  We're staying in the area, just wanting something a little bigger.  With a basement.  And high ceilings.  And odd angles.  And lots of bedrooms.  And a big kitchen.  And a big garage.

I'm sick of politics taking over the television.  

Suggestions for Netflix shows?  Or hulu+.  We have both.  I'm not sure why.

For your viewing pleasure, here are my cuties:

Like always, a labor of love but totally worth it.

Give 'Em the Ol' Razzle Dazzle

Great musical, better city.

Last weekend, I took a very big step as a parent.  We dropped the kids off with my parents on Friday night, and then headed up to Chicago with our good friends.  Six adults, no kids.  It.  Was.  Awesome.

We were so high on being alone without our kids for the first time in um, ever, that we barely noticed the torrential downpour that graced Chicago the entire time we were there.

It rained pretty much all day Saturday, though we did get to enjoy dinner outside, sans rain.  If you're a Chicagoland-er, please eat at Brick House Tavern.  Seriously delicious.  We got to talk to the owner, and he was pretty jazzed about the menu.  He over-explained everything, and we ordered just about everything and shared it.  It did not disappoint.  In fact, it was so good that we found the three large rats running past hilarious.  It was right on the river, though, so I guess that's just part of the experience?

This cute girl celebrated her 30th yesterday!

We've been friends with these 4 people for years.  It was so great to just hang out.

We had some Chicago-style pizza for lunch.  Everyone else wasn't super impressed, but mine was delish.  Yummy stuff.

We also hit up Nordstrom Rack, where our big purchases were an umbrella and socks.  Next was Target {ya, I'm totally the girl who drives to Chicago and then shops at Target}, where I got a cute new jacket.

We of course snacked on Garrett's popcorn and walked up and down Michigan Avenue.  I kept trying to convince MacGyver to take me shopping at Tiffany's for these, but he didn't.  ;)

We also made the requisite stop at American Girl Place.  The Sunbean had a gift card from her birthday, and sent us with a detailed shopping list.  I was just happy to have a valid reason to visit.

See my new jacket?

The best part of the trip was just spending time with this guy.  We've never done anything like this without our kids, and it was seriously great.  Can't wait until next time!

I Felt Like the Fun Mom

To save ourselves from a day of the grumpies, we decided to bust out the playdough.

Except the playdough was hardish and weirdly crumbly.  Which is actually no surprise, since I rarely have the patience that playdough requires.

Well, we took it one step further and made our playdough today.  We used this recipe, and I'll use it again.

I got out the cream of tarter, only to find that it was empty {who does that?  me, apparently.}, so I omitted it.  I didn't see any ill effects.

And all I keep in the house is whole-wheat flour, so our dough was pretty brownish and had a distinct 'wheaty' smell that I doubt the white-flour versions have.

And adding the food coloring after it cooks didn't work for us.  Well, I guess it did.  We just have brown dough with swirls of color.  My littles didn't care.

Ah, and Little Dude.  So sweet.  He was totally getting into this.  He loved mashing it down and using the cookie cutters.  Made him look like such a big boy.  I love activities my kids both actually enjoy.

And he didn't eat much of it.  Actually, I think this is the very first thing that he has ever put in his mouth, and then taken out on his own.  I told him to go ahead and eat it, but he spit it out.  Maybe it was that cup of salt?  But really, this is a major improvement for the boy who eats his own poop {it only happened once}.

Happy Weekend!  We're headed on an adventure without kids.  Pics to come on Monday!

A Serious Second Life

Remember how we inherited a dresser from my grandparents?  Well, the Sunbean's birthday party {two months ago} was the perfect little push we needed to get it done.  When we have parties, people see every square inch of our house.  The way the floor plan is arranged, if anyone needs to use the bathroom or goes back to the kids' rooms, they're also going to see our room.

So we knew our bedroom would have a little traffic, and we wanted her lookin' good.  As a reminder, here is the piece as we got it:

And here she is now:

Wowzers!  Hard to believe it's the same piece.  I love, love, love it.  We got the hardware and legs {LOVE those legs!} at Lowe's.  We sanded it down first, but didn't get too crazy with it.  Then I used 2 coats of a bonding primer and 2 coats of latex paint in matte.  I can't remember the name of the color, but it's slate gray.  Pretty dark, but not quite black.

I just seriously can't believe it was so easy and so cheap to get something that looks almost exactly like really expensive dressers from West Elm or Pottery Barn.  Winning!

I Love Having a Daughter

The Sunbean is always begging me to paint her toes.  She's really sweet about it...I love how girly she is.

I'm also jealous of her toenails....is that weird?  All except for the big toe, her toenails are bigger than mine!  I don't even have pinky toenails.  They're so pretty and easy to paint.

This time, she requested rainbow toes.  We went with red, purple, pink, black, and coral.  I did gray with coral polka dots.

Love it!

Our Weekend

We spent the weekend snuggled up on the couch watching our church's semi-annual broadcast.  In lieu of our regular meetings, we get two days of inspirational talks, singing, and messages.  It's just wonderful.  A chance to unplug, unwind, and be uplifted.

Though it's hard to choose a favorite, this quote {well, the whole talk} really struck me:

"My beloved brothers and sisters, I am not certain just what our experience will be on Judgment Day, but I will be very surprised if, at some point in that conversation, God does not ask us exactly what Christ asked Peter: “Did you love me?”. I think He will want to know if in our very mortal, very inadequate, and sometimes childish grasp of things, did we at least understand one commandment, the first and greatest commandment of them all—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind”. And if at such a moment we can stammer out, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then He may remind us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.

“If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), Jesus said. So we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do. In short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord."
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Mormon or not...that is an inspired message.

Our weekend was great, and our kids loved watching conference.  Who knew?!?

Hope you had a lovely weekend, too!

Choo Choo

I've never fancied myself a 'boy mom', but that's changing quickly.  From the moment Little Dude was born, I've been amazed at how 'boy' he is.  The sounds he makes, the things he likes....it's all boy.

And right now, this boy is obsessed with trains {apparently he inherited my OCD tendencies!}.  I mean, obsessed.

He literally plays with trains all.  day.  long.

And when we go to the store or take the Sunbean to school?  A train {or two} in his hand.

Forget not being a 'boy mom'.  Now I perpetually have the theme song from Thomas stuck in my head.

But with this cute mug, I barely even mind.

On the 31 Bandwagon

I've been in a blogging funk as of late, so when I saw the 31 Days blog theme pop up, I took it as a sign.  I've never participated before, because I don't blog every day, so it intimidated me.  But then I decided two things.  One, who says I have to be done by October 31st?  I can carry this dang thing into November if I want.  Two, I can make it easy.  I get a little carried away sometimes with making blog posts time-consuming.  So my theme is....

Just us.  Back to what my blog started as.  Just a random journal-type log of what we do.  I can't promise it will be interesting to anyone but my mom, but it will get me blogging again.  And I like blogging.

So today, here's a picture of my sweet 4-year-old at her checkup.

The nurse was sweet and let her help with the blood pressure cuff.  She got an immunization {this way she'll only have one next year}, and said it didn't hurt at all.

She's up in the 95th percentile for height, which is funny because she's always been in the 30th.  She has some looooooong legs, though we're not sure where those came from.  Not from MacGuyver or I, that's for sure.

So there you have it.  Real life.