This is definitely too much cute for one post.

And this is when my heart melted...

Miss Trudy took our pictures today and made this mama a great big mess of tears.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE that little boy!  And we big pink heart Miss Trudy!

"85

+55555555555555555555. "

Love, 

Newbie

Blame it all on the burritos.

This is where my mind has wandered this Wednesday...

*If you don't hear an interesting cocktail of a staticy baby monitor, Opie whining, the faint sounds of a video game, and my stomach gurgling, then you aren't really picturing it right....are you there?  Ok.  Good.  Now you're in my head.  Commence random post:

This morning I made Pioneer Woman's breakfast burritos, and I am happy to report I have one fat and happy husband on my hands now.  Gosh, those things are goooooood.  A little heavy, but good. We're talking, unbutton your jeans, can't walk for 30 minutes, don't eat again for the next three days kind of heavy.

Why do I cry during every Biggest Loser episode?  It was on again last night, and there it was, the BL tears.  There's just something about the way the people on the show care about each other.  And darn, if that Jillian doesn't get me going every time she sits down to counsel one of the contestants.  For all her crazy spider monkey moves on the treadmill in the gym, she's one cool cat. 

Why do I cry during every Parenthood episode?  I also laugh my buns off.  But I cry too.  There's just an authenticity to it that the Hubs and I really appreciate.  Except he doesn't cry.  That's my job.

We are hitting up Lowe's and the Family Christian Bookstore today for some Christmas shopping.  I know.  Lowe's.  You can only imagine what Santa is going to drop into your stocking if he's shopping at Lowe's.  A drill?  A few baseboards?  Maybe a rake?  It is going to be a ho-ho-HAUL.  And as far as the bookstore goes, how is one suppose to choose between a billion fantastic Christmas CD's?  It's like trying to choose between Lucky Charms and Christmas Captain Crunch and Fruity Pebbles.  They are all so good, it's nearly impossible.  And sometimes you just have to buy all three.  Or forfeit all three and go for the Christmas Oreos.  Or just get all three and the Oreos too.  Just keepin' it real.  It didn't happen.  But don't think I'm not dreaming it might.

Why does my husband have time to workout?  I am going to make him take Newbie next time and see how much he can accomplish.  Just sayin'.

What do 5 year olds want for their birthdays?

Who wants to buy an apron?

I just got an email saying my 6 Snapfish books have been shipped and will be here by Saturday.  That blessed news makes all the sweat and blood and tears and emotional eating I put into them last weekend totally worth it. 

I hate the way sausage makes your hair smell after you cook it.  It's almost as bad as bacon.  YUCK.

I've got to get on my Advent calendar ambitions.  They are big.  I'm making a crafty calendar and filling it with family activities for every day of December like my friend L did.  And I'm going to post it here so you can steal it.  And use it. And love it.  And then you can thank me for making your holidays merry and bright.  Just kidding.  You don't have to thank me.  You can thank L. It was her idea, I'm just tweaking it to fit my OCD tendencies and my desire to make everything on God's green earth a teachable moment.  Except this time I will be teaching the Christmas story, and the power of serving and the joy of making a wreath out of hand prints.  These lessons should prove to be far more valuable than the one I taught Newbie yesterday about how it is probably a bad idea to leave squash puree within a 100 mile radius of Opie.  So stay tuned for a bunch of Christmas family fun all packed into one easy-to-print-off-and-use post.  It is going to rock your socks off.

This is a long post about a bunch of garble nobody cares about.  In a nutshell, I can't get out of my chair because I ate Pioneer Woman's Breakfast Burritos today, I am making an awesome Advent calendar to share, and please somebody get me a box of Fruity Pebbles.

Here's wishing you all a happy Wednesday! 

Like Kings, I tell you

Can we take a moment and have a round of applause for this woman?

 She came to my house today (with lunch!!!) and played with Newbie for three hours while I scrubbed my kitchen floors and cranked out four loads of baby food.  She's a grandma extraordinaire, and she loves my sweet little boy to pieces and I love her for that. It is such a blessing that my son has two sets of grandparents who love him so so much.  I am so grateful! Thank you, thank you, to my MIL for making my day!!!  xoxoxo

And you heard that right.  This happened:

I felt so domesticated.  Now take a deep breath in through your nose....can you smell that?  No?  Well, me neither because my sense of smell was rendered dead on tile 5 of about 40 I bleached this afternoon.  But if I could smell, I'd guess my floors are giving off an aroma like that of an indoor swimming pool.  I love that smell.  It burns the nostrils and it burns the germs.  Mmm.....

And you know what ELSE happened?  I will tell you.  But it requires a little history first.  Two summers ago I bought this wicked awesome Weebles Castle from a garage sale for 5 bucks.  You know, "Weebles wabble but they won't fall down!" ....it's the same song the Hubs would sing to me when I tried to get out of bed at eight months pregnant.  CHARMING.  Anyway, I bought this castle for any future kiddos that happened to come around. I was so excited because it sings and the mote around the castle spins and so does the dance floor.  This toy had the potential to entertain my future children for hours. In my infinite wisdom, I took it home and hosed it down.  BRILLIANT.  The sand and dirt came off, but the song just gurgled and the mote wouldn't move.  In a fit of rage and depression, I stuffed it in a closet and mourned the loss of what could have been.

Yesterday I decided to resurrect it.  I took that thing out and went into the BOWELS of that toy.  I unscrewed 5 different layers underneath until I came to the motor, where the pulley had come off line.  I feel so handy and engineery describing this to you.  I wrapped the pulley back around the gears (this is the simple machines unit I studied in 5th grade kicking in here) and screw all 5 layers back together.  Then I pressed the button.  AND IT WORKED! 

BEHOLD....what could have been, and what now IS hours of entertainment for small people:

 

I like to think I tapped into my inner "Grandad" because my grandad can fix ANYTHING.  I think some of that fix-it talent might just run in my blood. =)  (Love you, GD!!!)

Newbie loves the new castle.  He spent all afternoon yesterday laughing at it and playing with those little Weebles.  Such fun.  Such satisfaction.  For the rest of the afternoon, we lived like kings.

But now it's back to the peasant life.  There are dishes to wash and carpets to vacuum, and I'm thinking I should probably squeeze a shower in there somewhere because I'm not convinced this bleach isn't eating through my skin. 

Y'all have a great afternoon, and don't worry about me if things get a little quiet around here the next couple days.  The Hubs has a slew of days off and we have big family plans including, but not limited to, Picture Day, Flu shots, Stouffer's lasagna, and the potential for a date night.  I am hoping to spend a lot of time over the next couple days being completely present with my two boys.  We need some family time, and I am so excited that we're getting it.  But if the video games and football take over, I'll definitely stop by and say hello. =)

You won't believe where I am.

The Hubs is working 'til 9 tonight.

Newbie went to bed early.

I have 45 minutes all to myself for the first time since....I don't even remember.

[deep breath]

[content sigh]

...and suddenly, I am here:

Cue warm Caribbean breeze...

Cue quietly lapping ocean waves...

Cue endless supply of soft serve ice cream (don't judge me)...

Wait!  What the?!?  Who cued in half of a way too tan male with rippling pectorals and a neon Speedo?!?  Speedos freak me out!  Get him outta there!  He's not a part of my happy place!

Ahh....that's better.

All I wanted was some burlap.

I have a new plan this year called don't put out every decoration you own this Christmas including your husband's tacky dollar store decor used when he was a bachelor.  I am expanding my horizons and hoping to move into a fun burlappy, funky simple, country jingle bell, pinecone and burlap...did I say burlap already?  burlapish kind of Christmas vibe.  You get the picture right?  I mean, that's super easy to picture.  Especially because I said burlappy".  Anyway, I'm ditching the mismatched all kinds of crazy Christmas stuff sitting on every flat surface plan this year, and hoping to get my Katie Brown rustic Christmas decor on.  I don't know. I'll probably switch it up again next year, but this year it just feels right.

So I get online to Google "burlap Christmas decor" in hopes of finding some fun crafty projects to take on that will make my search for new decos cheap and do-it-yourselfy.  My Google search takes me to a Target web page full of tiny pictures of Christmas trees.  Like, THOUSANDS of them.

And that's when I have some sort of disabling flashback to the year of my wedding when wedding planning was my name and artificial Christmas tree finding was my game, and I spent hours picking through Target's website looking for the PERFECT fake tree to use at my reception that would then grace my living room until I felt like I wanted to be all traditional and get a real one and spend my holiday and the 11 months afterward vacuuming pine needles out of my carpet.

It was a dark time for me.

Finding the perfect tree by sorting through thousands of little thumbnail pictures of plastic trees on the Target website really sucked the fun out of Christmasing that year.  My retinas bled for months afterwards.

So you can imagine why I went all fetal position when the page randomly popped up during my burlap decor search.

And now I can't bring myself to keep searching for DIY burlap Christmas decorations because I have regressed to the fall of 2007 when I spent hours online staring at decorations and scratching my eyeballs out because there are only so many artificial trees one can look at without going postal.

The story has a good ending.  It's called my mom walked in on my gnashing of teeth one afternoon and told me she'd take care of it.  She waltzed into Lowe's and back out with the gorgeous pre-lit Christmas tree that is chilling in my basement right now.  Why are moms so great?

Moral of the story: let your mom pick your Christmas tree and don't Google burlap decorations or you might find yourself curled into a ball in the furthest corner of your house until January.  I'm just saying.

On a lighter note, this morning I successfully whipped out mass quantities of acorn squash puree for Newbie.  My only problem is, the stuff tastes GNARLY.  We're talking, eww, gross, this tastes worse than beets, kind of gnarly. I can't decide if it was just a bad batch of squash or if vegetables are just nasty.

I think I'll take veggies are nasty for 500, Alex.

Just don't tell my son.  Because he's going to be scarfing that stuff down for lunch today while I munch on my Sun Chips and artificial apple sauce.

Speaking of Newbie, he's been snoozing for a looong time this morning, probably because he was up forever last night attending an "I don't wanna sleep and you can't make me" party.  I'm going to go pull my party animal out of bed before he decides to pull another all-nighter tonight.

Hope you all have a fantastic start to the week free of an overwhelming amount artificial Christmas tree thumbnail pictures.

Camo, anyone?

I don't know how my life came to a point where this outfit got Mama's stamp of approval.

But somehow it happened.

Because that is the outfit I set out for Newbie to wear for our dinner OUT with his Grandma and Grandpa to celebrate his daddy's birthday.

I know.  He's wearing leaves.  And a bear.  And two mooses (moose? moosies?  moosi? ...How did I graduate with a degree in English?). 

But I could not snuggle him enough.  The cute was just dripping off of him. Opie was licking the cute up off the floor.  He was simply irresistible in his little Deer Camp ensemble. 

And that is precisely why I need a daughter or a niece someday.  Otherwise, I am worried I won't have girls to shop for and I will end up thinking this kind of thing is OK to wear out to dinner when I know that it is not fashionably acceptable.

Then again, some would argue that velour suits fall into that category as well.  In which case, we're in trouble.

We had a lot of fun going out to dinner with the Hubs' parents for dinner Friday night.  We hit up the local Mexican food restaurant where Newbie sat in the big boy high chair for the first time. He LOVED it.

And of course we let him stand on the table, because somehow dinner out always comes to my child standing on the table.  I call the look on Newbie's face in the pic below "salsa and delicious homemade tortilla chips, I am about to DOMINATE you."  Or maybe that's the face I was making after this picture was taken.  My memory on the matter isn't quite clear.

After dinner we came back home for some scrumptious homemade pumpkin pie made by my talented pie crafting mother-in-law, and the Hubs opened his ALL TIME FAVORITE birthday present: a skill saw.  It's like a sewing machine for wood or something.  All I know is, one way or another, it topped the aluminum water bottle and the spork Newbie and I gave him for his lunchbox.  I really thought the spork screamed "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!" but I got it all wrong, because by the end of the night, the Hubs had drooled an ocean all over his new saw.  Something tells me the workbench in the basement is going to get some serious face time.  Anyone need a decorative wooden duck? Or a new pair of wooden clogs?  Or an ark?  Get your order in to my carpenter this week, and we'll make sure you get a discount.  Tell 'em B sent ya.

Newbie was too busy playing with his grandparents and checking out his grandpa's goatee to pay attention to the presents.

 He'll learn.  While facial hair may be cool, birthday presents are way cooler.  He sure does love him some Grandma and Grandpa.  Is it just me, or does his outfit and the chair make a nice Where's Waldo situation?

Newbie and I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at G-Mama and G-Daddy's so I could do more laundry.  Because there's nothing I love more on a Saturday than doing laundry out of town because my washing machine at home is broken.  Not really. 

We did get to see his aunt and uncle when they came over for the Hubs' third celebratory birthday dinner, which was a nice consolation prize.  Newbie thought his uncle was an absolute riot.  Amazing what a difference a week makes.

Last week:

This week:

After he snuggled on his aunt and uncle things got a little challenging due to a little thing I like to call "over-exhaustion as a result of no-naps and over-dosing on the new Praise Baby Christmas DVD".  It. was. ugly.  Not even G-Daddy could console him, and that's really saying something because this kid loves his G-Daddy.  Bless his heart. 

We finally got him calmed down and tucked into bed in time for his mama to pull another late-nighter on the Snapfish website. All I can say is, after making six photobooks in three days, I have seen more uploaded pictures of the past two years than I ever need to see again, and I am looking into laser eye surgery because my contacts are permanently burned into my corneas from computer screen radiation.

I am off to enjoy my first early bedtime in several days and a good bedtime story with my little man because it looks like his daddy has decided there has been enough brew-ha-ha for one evening.  Ten minutes ago I watched him hand a battery-less video game controller to Newbie in an effort to occupy him while the Hubs finished playing his new video game.  I still can't decide if that was endearing and cute or reason for concern.

I hope you get an early bedtime and lots of sleep tonight. Over and out.

The Time Has Come.

I hope you read that in an epic Mufasa voice, because that's the way I hear it in my head.  So if that didn't happen for you, let's try it again:

THE TIME HAS COME.

My sister's website is officially up and running!  And it absolutely rocks my socks off.  You should heavily consider hopping over there and placing a few orders for Christmas gifts.  Or be like me and order one for yourself because there's nothing like rocking some pom-poms in the kitchen when you're burning the Thanksgiving turkey, and these things are TOO DARN CUTE to pass up! 

www.ohsewwhimsy.blogspot.com

Yes.  "Oh Sew Whimsy" is the name of her blog, and I adore it.  It completes me.  And it just might complete you too.  Or at least your Christmas list.  Check it out!

I've got to go burn some baby food puree.  Catch ya lata! =)