My Valentine's

I love looking at other people's attempts to make a holiday special for their family, and usually I think that is awesome I could totally do that next year or the next holiday and then before I know it the special day is upon us and I have done nothing in preparation.  Same goes for this year.  Monday I was really dragging, a combination of winter and pregnancy.  So I did not come prepared Tuesday morning for Dane's last tumbling class and party where most of the kids brought treats.  He seemed rather disappointed and confused, though he bounced back quickly and tried to cut in on his friend and hand out their candy for them.  So we headed to Target afterward so he could at least bring treats to his Cubbies party on Wednesday.  As we were walking through the valentines section I saw some sprinkles.  And by the way I have always loved Valentines day.  I love the hearts, the pinks and reds, the decorations and all the cheesiness involved, and really why not have a day set aside to do something extra special for those you love, if we treated everyday the same then life would be boring.  After grabbing the sprinkles I decided we should make some sugar cookies, which in my mind is almost a must, but after going mostly gluten free around here it has really taken the joy out of baking and I hardly do it anymore.  But I remembered I had a GF sugar cookie mix in the pantry and a can of frosting which is very unusual around here since I much prefer the real stuff.  But for this last minute idea it worked out perfectly. 

The boys helped me mix them up.  After naps Dane helped me decorate them and then we ate them together in the tent for a little party. We each had two, quite the sugar buzz, I tell you.

I had to bribe Dane with a cookie to get him to wear that shirt, then he insisted on the tie.

I had to continue to use the cookie as leverage in order to get a few pictures.

 While we were making cookies I remembered Andy was making us a special dinner, and thought maybe I would try and decorate and make it a special valentine's party, so it wouldn't all be on Andy to make the meal nice. I went in search of anything red, pink or white that I could use to spiff the place up.  I found a red streamer, and some Christmas wrapping paper to use for a table cloth.  Some heart shaped bowls and pink flowers.  And Dane found a red punching balloon that I confiscated until after dinner.

 

On the menu was: 

Gnocchi with bacon and a white wine sauce

Asparagus 

Spinach Salad

Creme Brulee

Trying to flag down our waiter for a refill

It turned out to be a fun filled day and the boys were bouncing off the walls excited for most of it.

Lastest project- a must read **with edit

For the past three months I have been putting all my efforts into growing a new baby!  And let me tell you it is hard work. Exhausting actually.  Hopefully I will get a second trimester wind here soon.  So far I feel pretty much the same as I did with the boys.  The morning sickness hits at night, I don't get sick but I feel disgusting most evenings.  And I walk around huffing and puffing like an obese person trying to exercise.

Here is the new little gummy bear

The most repulsive thing this time around is mint- in any form. Including toothpaste and gum.  Yup, I share Dane's tooth paste, actually I bought my own bubble sparkle toothpaste and it's pretty much fruity gum here on out.  In my other two pregnancies my mouth needed to be minty fresh at all times, though I did have to change flavors of mint on a weekly basis.  Dane, the little stinker, Andy told him one day to be careful and not blow his minty gum breath in my face.  So what do you think most three year olds would do?  Yup, at every opportunity he will get in my face and blow his minty gum breath on me. Gag.

Another weird repulsion.  This past summer and fall I was obsessed with mustard yellow.  I wanted a pair of ballet flats that color, a scarf, a purse.  I had one mustard yellow tank top and a necklace I wore with about everything.  For Christmas I received a yellow scarf which I loved, and I used some money to go purse shopping.  I found what I thought was perfect and it was yellow and a great size.  Well, not a week later the very sight of it became repulsive.  But now I am stuck, because I don't really feel like shopping yet. Maybe a purse in grey is what I will look for this time.

such a pretty color, why does it make me want to barf now?

**I forgot to add my due date is August 7th, and I don't think we will find out this time but I still have time to change my mind on that one :o)

In with the new, out with the old

What do these two have in common?  Answer:  They both suck.  One in a good way, one in a bad.  The one on the left is old news.  Finally.  We have had it since we got married over 8 years ago.  And it was fine in our first 1 bedroom apartment, then in our mostly wood floor house.  But now, since we have carpet and a disgusting dog that lives in our house, well it just wasn't cutting it.  The new purchase was long over due.  I mean that old one smelled like dog butt, I couldn't even keep it in the hall closet anymore because it made our coats smell like burnt dog.  It was banished to the garage.  But really who wants to spend money on a vacuum?  Not me.  We found this wonderful Dyson at a refurbished vacuum shop for about half the price of a new one, plus they put a 1 year warranty on it.  My new best friend and I vacuum almost everyday, not because I like to but because of the dog.  And I can say it is quite satisfying to see how much that vacuum picks up every time.  There is even one entry way that I was getting ready to call the carpet cleaners in for and that has seemed to lighted up too.

Project Time

January came and the doldrums set in.  I was trying to figure out what I could do or where I could go, short of a warm sunny cruise to snap me out of feeling boring.  And I had a nice little simple project pop into my head that I had spotted on a blog a while back.  I remembered I had picked up these lovely cloth napkins like five years ago because I liked them. 

They usually sat in my buffet table rolled up, taking up space in the unused wine rack.  Until a week ago, when I found a much better use for them. And I already have a million pillows that need new covers so this project cost me nothing but a little time.

You need 2 cloth napkins to make one pillow cover, and need to obviously make sure that if you have, say an 18" pillow that your napkins are about 20".  Basically you cut one cloth napkin in half.  Flip it so the hemmed sides are together and overlapped.  Pin pretty side of both napkins together.  Sew them together around the edges.  Then flip right side out using the overlapped already hemmed edge to pull it through, and boom you have a pillow cover.  To stop the gappage that may occur you can sew little strips of velcro across the opening.  (that was the time consuming part for me, the detail work).  And if my directions are fuzzy check out the tutorial that I loosely followed.

the pillow at the top shows where the hemmed edges and the velcro strips that hold them.  You can hardly even see it.

I love an easy, free and satisfying project.

Christmas

 Well Christmas has come and gone, I just now remembered to get the pictures off of my camera.  In a nutshell: Christmas was fun my parents and brother were in town for the week and we had fun spending time with my family and also Andy's family during the week.  Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from Christmas Day.

they are playing together!  building a tower together! no one is knocking it over!

Cade is so proud to be building towers like his brother.  Ignore the junk on the couch, that's what we do when we vacuum, and Dane parked his "work car" up there.

Dane helping me with a Christmas gift. Really only the edges and sides needed painted but he was such a good little helper it was fun to work on it together.

The last bit of dough leftover from making cookies.  I let Dane have at it with the rolling pin and cooking cutter, not hovering at all.  After several tries he actually was able to get one more little guy cut out.  We baked him in the toaster oven and Dane got to eat him.  It was a proud moment :o)

Cade looking on, while Dane had all the fun, next year little buddy, next year

Decorating a gingerbread house.  Every year growing up my mom made houses from scratch and we all decorated our own.  Good intentions fell short, but wanting to keep with my favorite tradition I ran to Target and bought a ready made kit, fortunately they were already marked down a little!

Mustaches and Baptism

No they have no correlation except that they seem to be two of Dane's current fascinations.  About a month ago we were able to witness the new Uncle Ryan (my sister's husband, not my brother) get baptized.  It was the second baptism Dane has witnessed and he has really gotten a grasp on the word 'baptize'.  That is he has used it in every context imaginable, from baptizing his french fry in ketchup to Cade sneezing in Mo mo's face and Dane saying "We just got baptized".   He has shown me how when he takes a drink he is baptizing his mouth or tongue.   The other day I was spying on him playing and he was baptizing his little people, pinching their nose and laying them down flat, then bringing them back up in pretend water of course.  He realized I was watching and said "I just baptized my guys.  They trusted Jesus first."  He has told us that in a few years he will trust in Jesus, when he is bigger, he reassures us. I love how he is fascinated and slowly putting some of the pieces together and starting to understand bits and pieces.

Now on to the mustache segment.  The other morning Dane woke up super chipper and ready to get dressed for the day.  We enter his room and he excitedly tells me "First I have to put my mustache on!"  I say "OK" curious as to why he has even thought of doing this. He runs over to his little table and grabs an imaginary mustache and goes through the motions of attaching it to his face.  Then he gave me one to put on.  For the last week or so, throughout the day he periodically put his mustache on before doing something, usually when he is getting dressed, but I haven't quiet figured out what or where he got the mustache fascination.

One more thing since I am writing about some of my favorite Dane moments.  Fairly consistently when asked what he wants for Christmas he will say "paint, so I can paint the walls when I get bigger." I still don't think he quite grasps what is going on with all the gifts and presents.  Though I bet it all clicks once he starts tearing into the presents Christmas day.

he built this giraffe all by himself. (it's the one pictured on the front of the bag)

And to wrap this up, I just wanted to remember how sweet and funny my little three year old Dane can be.  We hit a rough tantrum phase a while back, but I am so glad that that has passed.  Well until the next tantrum phase hits of course.  Lately he has been giving me the sweetest little neck rubs and being my best little helper. One of my favorite moments every day is when he climbs in my bed in the morning with me to 'nuggle'.  Sometimes I will lay there for awhile knowing I would be better off using the time to get ready for the day, but not wanting to miss out on my 'nuggle' time, so I wait till I hear those little pitter patter sprinting steps to my room.  Who needs to shower anyway?