Tuesday, March 23, 2010

FINALLY!!! IT'S A MIRACLE!!!

I am all caught up!! YES!!! Feel free to take your time reading through my million update posts... or feel free to skip over them all together. I wish I could've just skipped past doing them to finally get back to present blogging, but if I didn't do it now, it never would've happened, and all those cute pictures would've been wasted. So... let's just hope that the next time you hear from me will be sooner than two months.

Rewind: Caleb's Song...

(February 2010)

All afternoon I've listened to this. He's gotten a lot better. At first I couldn't even recognize the song.



(This is the song he was singing.)

Rewind: Soccer Playground...

(February 2010)

Caleb used to have soccer practice at the other end of the neighborhood. There is also a playground there. To distinguish between the one by us and the one over there we have 'our playground' and Caleb calls it 'my soccer playground' (in my head I can hear his little voice "Which playground? My sotter playground?"). Today we rode our bikes to the soccer playground.












Rewind: Girl's Night...

(February 2010)

We had a Girl's Night at my house and watched this:

http://heyrickie.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/lost-in-austen-dvd.jpg


I love Love LOVE this movie. If you are a Pride and Prejudice fan I highly recommend it. (If you have Netflix, it's one of their Instant-Play movies) It's the P&P story with a whole new twist. We also had lots of tasty treats to munch on while we enjoyed our movie:


(No, those are not brownies. They're peanut butter bars. Thanks Kacey)

(Cupcakes from Pollyanna)

(Avocado Truffles)

(Turtles, recipe found here)

Rewind: Mini Luau...

(February 2010)

It was my turn to host playgroup this week. I decided to have a mini luau. We strung paper leis, ate fruit salad, and made an ocean-in-a-bottle:







(I love this photo. This is the classic Caleb face he gives when you ask him too look at you. He raises his eye brows really high and then looks out of the corner of his eye where he wants to be looking.)

Rewind: The Ball Pit..

(February 2010)

Caleb has a ball pit that's never been pulled out since we last moved. I decided to just sell it since we don't use it anymore. I put it up on craigslist using a standard product image I found online. Someone emailed me back asking if I had any real pictures of it. So I pulled it out, blew it up, and threw some balls in to snap some photos.

No pictures were taken. Just video...





Needless to say I'm not selling it. The sound of those giggles are just too precious. Marcus especially loves it. I moved it into Marcus's room one day to get it out of the way and I kind of forgot about it. While working around the house I could hear some type of screaming sound coming from the other room. I thought they were screams of distress, but as I got closer, I realized they were squeals of delight. Many squeals of delight, with grinning from ear to ear, and lots of giggles. Makes me feel guilty for even thinking of getting rid of it.

Rewind: Darren's Birthday...

(February 2010)

So I tried to plan a little get together for Darren's birthday, but what I didn't realize was that evening was when the Superbowl was on. Whoops. But we had a good time anyway. We had good food (including teriburgers and sweet potato fries to name a few), and for dessert we made MALASADAS! We had a bit of difficulty finding the right temperature for the oil (because the numbers on my skillet are all scratched off), but there was plenty of dough (and then some) to experiment a little before finding perfection.

I wasn't thinking and didn't take any pictures. Here's one that Darren snapped of the malasada-making. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the birthday boy on his birthday. Whoops again.


The one success of the evening, no "whoops" required, was Darren's gift. I compiled a book of letters written to Darren (not old letters, but letters written specifically for his birthday book). Thank you to all who contributed! I'm so pleased with how it turned out!!!


Rewind: :)

(February 2010)

Smiley faces all around... that is what I love.


Rewind: To Nap Or Not To Nap...

(January 2010)

Pretty much all of Caleb's friends his age stopped napping over a year ago, but Caleb definitely still needs his. Otherwise this is what happens:



Rewind: Marcus's "Baby" Quilt...

(January 2010)

Remember this post? Well, only now have I finished Marcus's "baby" quilt. And I say "baby," because my big boy is not a baby anymore. I wanted to do something a little different and I wanted to use a few different fabrics, so I decided to do an argyle style quilt. It really shouldn't have taken me so long to finish it, but for some reason it did. I think one reason it took so long is because I kept running in to problems and instead of just persevering, I'd put it away for awhile. One of my problems was that I sewed all of my diamonds together and realized I should have put some type of interfacing on the back. In order to do my yellow and white embroidery stitch I needed something to stabilize my fabric... hence the packaging tape. I'd run a strip of packaging tape where I was going to sew. Then I'd crease it down the middle which held a line that I'd use as my guide. Then I'd rip it away when I was done. This worked quite nicely, except I'd definitely recommend Scotch brand packaging tape. I had some other type I used in the beginning and it left a lot of gooey residue all over my quilt. And to explain the peach jar, I learned this trick from my grandma. The embroidery stitching used a lot of thread so I bought a big spool of thread (like the ones you use on a surger), but the spool is to big to sit on the top of my machine. If you just sit it inside the jar and then thread your machine as usual, your problem is solved. I'd never heard of anyone else doing this, but I recently saw this on Martha Stewart.com. Funny.



Rewind: Caleb's Campfire...

(January 2010)

I let Caleb on the back porch to play and I noticed he was making a rock pile. I don't like him playing with rocks (for obvious reasons) so I went out to tell him to put them back, but he was adamant that he had to have them. He was making a "campfire." I thought it was so cute so I asked if he wanted to roast marshmallows. I gave him a skewer and some mini-marshmallows and there he sat...


Rewind: Robots...

(January 2010)

For Christmas Caleb got these really cool block/lego thinggies called TRIO by Fisher Price. They're really fun to build with. It also came with this book that gives you instructions on how to build different things. I kind of ignored the book and thought Caleb probably wasn't old enough to use it yet. Well, the boys found it and then came to show me their 'robots.'

This is from the book:


And here's their robots:


Pretty darn good for three year olds!






Rewind: What do you think???

(December 2009)



It's probably time for a trim.

Rewind: Can't resist...

(December 2009)

Our coffee table in the living room seems to be the favorite baby spot:




Even other babies who come to visit can't seem to resist.

Rewind: A Mother's Touch...

(December 2009)

A mother's touch, no matter how hard I try, could never have this result:


I'm definitely jealous!

Rewind: We Have Playgroup Everyday...

(December 2009)

At the end of November I started tending a couple of boys. One is Caleb's age and one is Marcus's age. Now I have a little taste of what it's like to have twins... two sets! It actually has been really good. Caleb loves having a friend to play with, and it's a great learning experience. Now he has more time to practice sharing, and other social skills.

Today we went to the playground:



(aren't these the cutest socks ever!)