Friday, February 24, 2012

morning snack

I found Weston helping himself to the leftover cake.  Too mobile and too independent.  Cute though.

Cub Scout dinner

We went to a cub scout blue & gold dinner yesterday evening.  Part of that involved a cake decorating contest.  I forgot to take a picture before we dug into the cake, but this was what Alex and Nathan decorated.  I was not allowed to help.  The theme was "In and by the sea", so they had to decorate according to that.  They did a tent and campfire by the sea, with a little stream/estuary (?) running into the ocean (in case you couldn't tell).  :)   It was tasty.


And my new "wolf" cub scout!  He loves it!  He has scouts once a week, so we added that to our schedule this year.  I think the family lasagna dinner with a toddler wasn't so fun, but I'm glad that Nathan is enjoying scouts.  This is the first of MANY scouting events for us, so I better get used to this!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Sparse blogging...

...because I've been using my free time for scrapbooking.  I completed a 68 page digital scrapbook of our Australia trips (2005 & 2007) and our week in New Zealand.  

 And now I'm working on Owen's baby book - a traditional scrapbook of his 1st year.  I've got about 28 pages done - about the first 6 months.  I'm hoping to finish Owen AND Weston's baby books in the next couple of months.  Then maybe I can start working on blog books?  I love doing this stuff.  I just don't like being behind...

pipe cleaner doll


For activity days last week, we started making these pipe cleaner dolls.  Our theme for the month is "Be positive", so as part of that we talked about being flexible.  One of my favorite sayings is "She who is flexible never gets bent out of shape."  (I think of that a lot when trying to be a calm mom.)  Anyway, I found these really cute bendable dolls made out of just 2 pipe cleaners, a wooden bead for the head, 2 flower petals, ribbon, and embroidery thread.  You might have some fake flowers lying around - just pop off a couple of the petals.  The original link did fairy dolls.  The tutorial is there too.  I thought they were easy, but they were a little bit hard for activity day girls to wrap the pipe cleaners.  It took them at least 45 minutes just to do that part.  Hopefully we can finish them next time.  Anyway, the fun thing about these is they're totally bendable - a good reminder to be flexible.  I had fun experimenting with the hair!  I bet these dolls are much easier to work with than REAL girls!  :)   I bet you could do all kinds of little accessories or other clothes if you're good with felt or fabric.  They're mini (they fit in the palm of your hand) but cute!  Try it.

A few LOVE-ly things


Do you love Valentine's Day?  Me, not so much.  It's another one of those over-commercialized holidays where you express the love you should be showing every day.  Nevertheless, it is good to have an occasion to do something special and not feel guilty about eating a bunch of chocolate.  Alex and I gave up giving each other gifts a while back.  It just wasn't very meaningful.  Don't get me wrong.  I love gifts and love giving gifts to others, but I don't like gift giving just to say you did something.  Alex and I have a little pact not to spend money on each other (except maybe on random days), and we like it that way.  I would rather have Alex bring me flowers on a random day other than on the obligatory ones like V-day.  (When we were dating, I told Alex that I appreciated that he didn't try to "buy my love" with teddy bears or jewelry or fancy meals.  While those things may have their place at times, at that point in our relationship, I didn't want my love to be won with money.  Luckily for Alex he didn't have that money to spend anyway, so that worked in his favor.)  Anyway, that's a little tidbit about our relationship.

Alex did write me a love note on V-day.  I made chocolate chip cheese bars and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.  (We delivered some of those treats as well.)  I also did heart-shaped pancakes, sausage, & eggs for breakfast and homemade rolls, strawberry jello/pudding and penne pasta for dinner.  (We also took dinner to someone who just had a baby - it was a busy day!)  Jared made his class valentines - butterflies for the girls and owl-monster-looking things for the boys.  :) I put together a little snack mix for their class parties.  You're not supposed to bring in cookies and cupcakes and such, so I was trying to think of something a little bit healthier.  I ended up finding heart shaped cereal and then adding pretzels, craisins, and red fruit loops (yes, I picked out all the red loops).

Anyway, I had to include a picture of Owen in his armor - he put that on in the morning.  I thought it was appropriate as my "knight in shining armor".  I've got 5 of those around here, and I love them all!

monkey-ing around


Weston was clinging to this monkey one morning recently.  Since he had on his monkey jammies, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.  I guess the title is deceptive.  There wasn't much monkey business going on here, but there's plenty of monkeying around going on at other times.  This was one morning where he wasn't feeling very well.  Owen and Weston had a week or two of running-like-a-faucet noses.  They both had ear infections as well.  Despite a few nighttime wakings, they've been real troopers.  Sometimes they're cute in a way in their "sickie" state.

Here's another picture of Weston, with Dad.  I love how he put his hand in Alex's front pocket.  


And I couldn't resist taking a picture of him sleeping.  Can you see Weston in there??  

He likes holding this "Rex" dinosaur - it has a pull string on it with different phrases from the Toy Story movie.  Mostly he doesn't pull on it, but sometimes it's funny to hear coming from the crib, "ROOAARR...did I scare you?  Tell me honestly."

Sunday, February 5, 2012

weekend guest

Uncle Jim made his annual January visit to see us a couple weeks ago.  I'm sure he was completely bored and a little worn out after spending the weekend with our boys.  Plus the weather wasn't great.  We went on a couple of outings, but mostly just hung out at home.  You'd think we'd have more to offer here than a couple of home cooked meals and chilly outing to the wharf and ice cream shop.  Guess he'll have to come see us in July or August when it's 110+ in Oklahoma.  Anyway, thanks for coming to see us Jim!