Getting what you paid for

Dan offered the boys a $1 to make him his lunch for work the following day (prepping the night before since he leaves at 4:30am!!). I'm kind of thinking when you pay a cheap rate, you get cheap quality:





Mutilated bread, too much PB, ITTY BITTY circle of jelly, with the two slices of bread closed up in opposite directions! LOL!!!! Connor was so stinkin' proud of his attempt though, and both boys loved that they were helping Daddy. Jared was in charge of putting some Pirate's Booty in a bag (a lot of which ended up on the floor in the process), picking out some fruit, and packing the yogurt.

That all said, I ♥ that my little gentlemen tried so hard to help Daddy, and Daddy was thrilled not to have to have to deal with packing his own lunch! Win/win!

Science Fun

Jared's favorite subject in school is science; he would spend all day in the science room, if allowed! I tried talking the science teacher into having an after school science club of some kind, but she said she didn't have time to deal with one (pout!). After researching the Internet and speaking to different people in the community, and still not coming up with any good leads on a science-based program to enroll Jared in, I finally just purchased him a thick book full of different science experiments.

He and Dan flipped through some of the pages and opted to try this one out the other day.


Have you ever boiled water in a paper cup over a candle? Well, neither had we! The end result was that we got really hot water, which steamed a LOT, but never fully boiled. The steam started collecting as condensation outside the cup (something along those lines), which would then drip and snuff out our candle, but it was a fun attempt and we ALMOST managed to boil water in a paper cup over a candle. The boys LOVED the attempt, and were so excited putting it all together and watching as the water heated.

Jared can't wait to go through the book and pick out his next experiment!

Veteran's Day Assembly

I came across some pictures I forgot to share! I attended the Veteran's Day assembly at my kids' school and snapped a quick picture of each them performing. Grades K-2 just sang from their place on the floor. Grades 3-5 got turns up on the risers. It was a really neat assembly. Emily Grace said that at the very end, a female Veteran came up with tears in her eyes and shook Em's hand. I'm so pleased that the kids were able to be a part of a meaningful event in honor of those in our community who serve their country.

Connor:


Jared:


Emily:

Connor Snuggles

Connor invited me on a date to snuggle with him on the couch and watch his new movie (Santa Paws, in case you're interested). He even provided pillows, a blanket, and a stuffed animal for each of us. This kid takes good care of me! ♥♥♥

Baby Hat

In the past, I have totally avoided making baby hats with a cuff, because I really felt they would be too bulky on a baby head. However, the flip side is making a baby hat that may or may not even fit (or won't fit for very long, even if it fits initially), since babies aren't all born with the same sized heads, and then taking into account how quickly they grow...

I recently decided to go ahead and make a hat with a cuff in order to make it more adjustable to various sized heads. Best I can tell, the hat I made is small enough to work for a newborn, but also worked GREAT on my friend's nearly 7 month old baby. Can't beat getting 7+ months out of a hat! I'm in love!




I'm pretty sure this is how I'll be doing baby hats from now on!

So proud

After resisting reading the Harry Potter books for a couple of years, Em's hooked!


I found this on the white board after she finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. To my fellow HP fans, she's one of us! *wipes tear* So proud! LOL!!

Breakfast in bed

I am blessed with two sweet little boys who surprised me with breakfast in bed a few weeks ago, without any prompting from anyone! I love my little gentlemen!!

More Knitting

I knit this scarf over the weekend as a gift for someone, and Emily Grace has been bugging me ever since to make her one as well!

Clean up crew of ONE

In order to earn back something she'd had taken away from her, Dan put Emily in charge of cleaning up the now-rotting carved pumpkins from Halloween. I decked her out in my rubber boots and some dish washing gloves and she got to work!


I jokingly told her to pretend she was going to eat some of the rotten pumpkin, never dreaming she'd actually pretend to do it! haha! Ever the practical joker...


She wasn't overly thrilled with this chore


(I can't say I was overly thrilled by the fact she spilled all the stinky rot slush onto the porch. GAG!)

She was a pretty good sport about it, overall

Better luck next year!

As we bring our 2011 gardening adventure to a close, let's take one last look at our efforts.




The last of the still-growing plants gave us 15 pumpkins and two butternut squash (None of which ever really did fully ripen or grow very big, but it didn't dampen our excitement about the whole process of growing them from seed!).

We'll try again next year, as more experienced gardeners, and we'll see what we can make of it. *Grin* We will plant radish and carrots later in the season than we did this year, we'll plant a lot more bean plants, we'll add in some zuchinni, and we'll do a better job keeping the pumpkin vines from getting too out of control so we're able to force the growth of some larger-sized pumpkins. I'm hoping to add a fourth garden box, but that plan may be foiled by the fire hydrant pipe that may be run through that part of our yard...

Do Not Bend

I think it's time to head down and have a chat with the Post Office... For the entire 11.5 years we've lived in this house, we've had mail frequently end up at the neighbor's house (any variation of three different neighbors), we've had mail and packages turn up missing, we've had a package thrown into our driveway and into a mud puddle (which happened to contain the pictures of Emily and Dan from the Father/Daughter Ball that year), and most recently, we've had Connor's school pictures (which are clearly labled "DO NOT BEND") rolled and shoved into our mailbox. Needless to say, I'm a little disgusted!




Not only is the envelope visibly curved through the middle, but the edges are all crinkled up. THANKFULLY, the picture's edges are not crinkled, and I believe we'll be able to flatten out the curve, but that's beside the point!!

We haven't put in a formal complaint before (minus the time a $50 itunes gift card we'd been sent never arrived) because we've felt the mail person may decide to retaliate by causing more problems with our mail, but this is really getting ridiculous!! I shouldn't have to rely on the honesty and friendliness of neighbors to make sure I get all of my mail, and I shouldn't have to be flattening out my son's school pictures because the mail person apparently can't read. UGH!

Fire Pit Fun

One of the kids' favorite things to do as a family is hang out down at Gram and Grandpa Dan's at their firepit, making S'mores and telling stories. We got invited down over the weekend, and it was a gorgeous (although chilly!) clear night for the event.



Connor got right to work burning his marshmallows


Jared was hot on Connor's heels


Emily and Katie were going for a less burnt look


We had fun taking turns listening to, and telling, stories


Frankenstein even turned up!


Connor got a little spooked at one point, but perked right up in Daddy's arms!


After getting his fill of marshmallows and S'mores, Jared spent a good chunk of time working on getting that tooth out, while snuggled up on the chair with Gram


Thanks for the fun night; we look forward to the next one!

RIP Olivia

Sad news at our house yesterday, when we discovered our turtle Olivia had died. She's been a part of our family for nearly two years.


I knew immediately Connor would be devastated; if you remember, it was his tearful plea in the pet store that prompted her purchase in the first place. ("You can't leave Olivia here or I'll never see her again!" How do you refuse that kind of logic? *grin*). What threw me off was how hard JARED took the news as well. Emily was sad, but her sadness was more from seeing her brothers upset, and the fact that our other pets will someday die as well (she was especially worried about our Yorkie, Charlie, with whom she has a close bond).

Once Dan was home from work, we held a little burial service in the backyard, complete with pictures the kids had drawn to bury with Olivia. It was quite late at night at the point plans were coming together, so the pictures were a bit of a hurried affair, but I'm sure Olivia appreciates their efforts anyway.







Connor wanted to put a rock on the ground to mark the place where Olivia is buried, and Jared suggested we do two rocks because we'd had her for two years. Each boy picked out a rock to place on the ground to mark the spot.


This picture breaks my heart, but I took it because I want to have it as a reminder for them in life, that although they may not always get along (they probably DON'T get along more often than they DO get along!), they will be there for each other when it really matters. Both boys were sobbing, and Emily calmly wrapped her arms around both of them and held them close.


Olivia, you were a pretty cool pet, and you will be missed.

Crime Scene

A small history on Jared before I procede with the rest of the story: When he was barely two years old, in the middle of the night one night, he got the first of what would turn out to be probably at least 150-200 nose bleeds to date (I'm erring on the side of low; I'm sure he's had more). That night, he woke up screaming, I ran in, found him covered in blood, thought he'd been attacked...blah blah blah...turns out he was fine. He now sleeps with a box of tissues in bed with him because most of his nose bleeds occur at night. He's a pro at dealing with them on his own, and they rarely phase him.

As part of the whole frequent nose-bleed thing, he's also pretty much guaranteed to get a bloody nose if he gets bonked, bumped, punched, smacked, etc in the nose.

Over the summer, the boys were arguing over a toy. Connor was trying to get it (it was Jared's); Jared was trying to keep Connor from it; after Jared pulled Connor backwards by his hooded sweatshirt ("and tried to choke me to death!" as Connor tells it), Connor turned around and punched Jared in the face. Next thing I knew, Connor ran back to me at the other end of the house, SCREAMING that Jared was bleeding to death. I rushed out and saw blood POURING from both nostrils (wasn't even dripping, it was solidly running down in "rivers". The drips you see in the picture below are where he was moving around trying to keep the blood from landing on his feet, so the streams were splattering randomly). I grabbed a handfull of tissues on my way over to him and after about 15 minutes, got the bleeding under control.



I wish I'd thought to hold my hand out for size comparison or something because this picture really does not do justice to the reality! That puddle was a good 5-6 inches wide, and all the little splatters spread out more like 4-5 FEET wide. That's how forcfully the blood was pouring out of his nose! (The huge pile of blood soaked tissues in the trash can were very disturbing looking as well, but don't worry, I didn't take pictures of THAT!)

My family room looked like some sort of crime scene.

And in case you're interested, in the last 7 days, Jared has had 9 nose bleeds. I feel so bad for him!

Missing Teeth!

Jared lost another tooth over the weekend. It makes #8 in the list of his teeth lost, and leaves him with only ONE of the top front four teeth in his mouth


Thankfully, another front tooth is VERY close to coming through the gumline!


It's amazing he's able to eat! LOL

Quote of the Week

"Grandpa Jeff, will you sponsor me for the Spell-a-thon at my school? I have to know 10 words, and that will be EASY, because I already know how to count to 10!"

-Connor

(because counting is the same as spelling, you know! hahahaha!)

Halloween Festivities

We started out the Halloween weekend with a mad dash out to find some reasonably priced black boots to go with Em's pirate costume. Scored these $20 beauties at Target:


That evening, we had a themed dinner at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I wish I'd taken pictures of the decorations! We walked through a fog tunnel to get into the house, and then there were "cobwebs" draped down from the ceiling. Lots of other great touches as well!

We were greeted by the cutest little duck ever! (my niece, Eva)


Emily and Ali (my other niece) were lookin' good! Em looks like a shrimp compared to her cousin! LOL


Grandma Marlee and Emily posed for a nice picture


Connor refused to get his picture taken, Jared was too busy making faces, and my dad's eyes came out closed, so my attempt at pictures of the BOYS fell flat!

"Vomit" and "skin slices" for appetizers


Used Goblin Q-tips were one of the dessert choices


The dinner menu. We were allowed to choose two things from the menu


For the record, I chose a pitch fork and the tape worms with monster grease and dandruff!!

After the dinner, Dan and I headed off to the first of two Halloween parties we were attending, and we found these disgusting-but-hilarious-and-delicious cookies set out (bloody tampon cookies, especially set out for any vampires in the room!)


At the last party we went to for the night, Dan met Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers!


On the actual Halloween day, the kids had some fun parties in their classrooms, and then after school, we made a mad dash to visit grandparents before heading off for diner and trick-or-treating with some good friends.

We came by so early, Gram and Grandpa Dan weren't quite ready with the candy (Gram was still on her way home with it from the store!! LOL)


Grandma Marlee had an appointment, but Grandpa Jeff was ready with goody bags for the kids


After taking the LONG way around to avoid the downtown craziness with all the trick-or-treaters hitting up the shops, we finally made it to our friend's house, and the real fun began!

Best attempt at a group photo of all the kids, minus Nicole, who was channeling Connor's evil twin and refused to let us photograph her


Didn't baby Minnie Mouse turn out adorable????


These kids were CRAZY amounts of hyper and ready to get the show on the road!

They needed one short candy break to refuel and were on our way to finish up the last portion of the neighborhood.


There was a nice surprise for the beer drinkers in our group when we came across a house giving out beer to adults, and candy for the kids!

Came back to their house after trick-or-treating, and filled our plates with a large variety of food and stuffed ourselves silly. Good food, good friends, good times!

I'd say it was one heck of a good weekend. Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. We sure did!