Happy Halloween!

Some super scary pictures to celebrate this most wonderfully fun holiday!

Do you see it yet?

How about now? This icky thing was in our old house and caused me to scream, run, and drop a glass of soda that broke all over the floor. But it also made the Bohemian scream like a girl while he tried to annihilate it so it's all good!

Kids, sometimes while you're napping, Mamma gets goofy and uses your toys!

My father-in-law getting beautified by my niece, yep, pretty scary!

Us last Halloween. This year we are in N.C for my friend's wedding and are going to her rehearsal dinner on Halloween. Kind of strange but we're going in costume. What can we say, we LOVE Halloween! Coming soon: pictures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

On Holiday

Yep, again! Only a few short weeks ago we were off to Florida and back, now we're heading up north for a wedding in North Carolina. I'm so excited, this is a really good friend of mine, a sister really, and I think it'll just be gorgeous. Not to mention just a relaxing and wonderful time. This time the Bohemian gets to join us, yea! Say a few prayers that the boys do the beautiful job on this trip that they did on the last one, they're becoming quiet the professional road trippers and I love having them along!

Just A Perfectly Simple Day

These are some of my favorite days. Boring days not filled with too much running around and crazy to-do lists. Ok, there are still those things but I ignore them and am actually ok with that. That's not a common occurrence for me!

The boys being dramatically eaten by the giant snake sculpture at the park. Well, I guess Lil' Spitfire isn't being eaten since he's on top of its head, maybe his is a war cry.

The boys doing the coolest see saw. It just bounces on a spring and never hits the ground so no one can be thrown from it and they can even use it if the other brother gets distracted by, oh I don't know, a little kitten that keeps searching us for food. That's what they both have their eyes on in this picture.

After the park we headed to the Post Office where, before we entered, I thoroughly threatened both of their lives if they were to be rude and pitch a big 'ole fit because the nice lady behind the counter took time out of her day and delayed the rest of the line to stamp their hands but somehow it turned out to be the wrong stamp even though it's EXACTLY the same stamp as last time. And my threats worked! Mark one up for mothering by fear tactics! After the P.O. we picked up the Bohemian and headed off to yon local Chinese Buffet where we ate the greasiest Chinese food ever and loved every bite and complained at the end of the meal that fortune cookies no longer have fortunes in them but words of wisdom and how "back in my day" they had actual fortunes inside like 'you may want to just stay in bed tomorrow'.

Our "fortunes":

• Mine: "A smile is your personal welcome mat." Maybe they meant doormat
• Bohemian: "A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works." Um, Ok Big Brother, kind of a creepy one there!
• Mr. Golden Curls: "A man's dreams are an index to his greatness." Sounds pretty important to me, not a fortune.
• Lil' Spitfire: "Enjoy yourself while you can." That sounds like a fortune to me! A pretty creepy one for a 2 year old! I finally had to read it with "...because soon it's nap time." tacked to the end to feel ok with it.

Mamma vs. Crafter

Sometimes it can be pretty tough to get much of anything accomplished around here, as most of you can imagine! Many of you don't have to imagine because you live it too. The other day I got asked if I was going to list more of my Jesus Saves cards. I was tremendously flattered and of course set about to oblige. Yesterday and today I worked way harder on finishing such a meager number of cards than is healthy for the maintenance of sanity. Good grief, I thought I wouldn't get them finished until the boys moved off to college!

I felt a little guilty being frustrated with my precious angels with a dozen or so smiling Jesus faces staring at me. Soccer goalie or not, He's the baddest cat on this block!


Part of my frustration stemmed from the fact that I was working at the kitchen table, just like the olden days. Why was I doing this when I have a fantastic new craft room at my disposal? I think the next picture might answer that quite nicely!

The whole room looks like this! It's like a paper bomb went off and ever since creating my lovely light box I've been lacking a work table. Ok, I know, if I would take a moment to reorganize and tidy up a bit it would be functional. That's the first thing on my to-do list for tomorrow! Sometimes it's hard to do that part when all you want to do is make stuff!


Some of the interruptions while creating cards today:

• Lil' Spitfire getting up from nap 4 times
• Dog needs let out as soon as my bum finally hits the chair
• Delivery guy brings a delivery, as they're prone to doing (the boys' Halloween costumes, yea!)
• Mr. Golden Curls tries on his costume
• The dog "needs" out again
• Too late for napping now, I let Spitfire get up
• Spitfire sees his costume so he has to try it on
• I pin the arms and legs on his costume while he's wearing it. Sort of along the lines of trying to put a sweater on a crazed Chihuahua I imagine.
• Help Spitfire on/off the potty
• I rue the decision to let Spitfire get up as he throws a massive tantrum about anything and everything while I frantically try to glue card parts together between (or during) outbursts and timeouts so they'll be finished by the time we leave for church where, for some unknown reason, I've taken on co-teaching the Jr. High Girls Bible Study.
• I have to referee several fights between two boys, neither of whom took a nap or really even rested and therefore are grumpy and impossible to reason with.

Four hours later I've managed to complete four measly sets of Jesus Saves cards! I know, woe is me! But sometimes it really does feel like woe is me! The amazing thing is that even with all the woe is me-ing I do, being a mamma and getting to stay home with my boys and craft on the side is the most rockin' awesome job I could ever have dreamed of having!

Election Fun

Thank you to my sister-in-law for forwarding this link to me, it will bring me many laughs at Palin's expense between now and election time! If you'd like to have a chuckle and get a glimpse of life if Palin was president, visit PalinAsPresident.com!

Wish You Were Here

I don't think there could possibly be anything more wonderful than drinking my morning coffee while staring at the ocean with my feet buried in the sand. We're back now but I think I can hold this image in my happy place file, something to think of when other things don't feel so great.

While we were there my nephew turned two.

My brother, sister-in-law and nephew open gifts and blow out the candles

Lil' Spitfire dresses up for the festivities.

The birthday boy plays on his new toy

Mr. Golden Curls and Lil' Spitfire join their cousin. The boys were so cute together and it didn't take them long to warm up to each other. Of course my boys have never met a stranger, I blame their Pappa for that!

Good times at the super cool water table. One of these might be in my boys' future in spite of all three boys needing a wardrobe change when it was all over!

Thank goodness there's a moment of wrestling, they always miss that when Pappa's not around. My brother roughs them up good!

The birthday festivities for the day included a trip to the zoo. And for Mr. Golden Curls there's nothing at the zoo for him other than the mini train. The whole ride he was blind to the awesome animals and instead was full of train questions.

I had promised the boys a trip to the beach. We didn't make it while in Destin so we detoured to Gulf Shores, Mississippi on the way home. That's where I finally had my relaxing coffee in the sand and the boys got to see the ocean. They've both seen it before but Lil' Spitfire was only about 3 months old. They were super adorable as usual!

The water was a little too cold that morning to tempt the boys too far in, I was kind of glad since that meant I didn't have to go swimming.

I think what this kid really needs is one more character in this outfit! Buzz Lightyear hat, Batman sunglasses, Curious George shirt, Nemo trunks, good grief! And may I just say this was one of my pre-mamma nevers: I will never put a piece of clothing on my kid that has a character on it. Oh well!

Brother's a close second with Jack Skellington hat, Batman sunglasses and Cars shirt.

My little boy isn't seeming so little anymore. I'm having a lot of those sighing-my baby's not a baby anymore- Mamma moments over my Mr. Golden Curls lately.

On Vacation

The beach at Destin, Florida

Well, I'm off for a spur of the moment trip to Florida! My parents called at the beginning of the week to tell me they had decided to go visit my brother, his wife and my nephew (who's turning 2 next week) and invited me to go along. Of course I said "YES!". That's one of the major perks of being a stay-at-home mamma, vacation can happen pretty much whenever. So in a few hours the boys and I will squish into the Jeep with Grammy and Grandpappa and be on our way to the beach. Wish us luck! I'll send a post card.

The Caped Crusaders

My absolute favorite thing in the world right now is that the boys want to leave the house in the super hero capes their grandma made them. It's just such a classically adorable little boy thing to do! So we roam around the streets protecting our neighborhood from villains and stray bits of trash with our trusty canine sidekick Maya.

Forbidden Fruit

Lil' Spitfire and I took a walk through the neighborhood the other day. I noticed a tree that looked like it had teeny tiny apples growing on it.

Me: "Look, that tree has some kind of fruit growing on it. That's pretty cool"

Spitfire: (with a super sly grin on his face) "I go get one. Eve picked one already."

Me: "Yea and look how well that went! Hey, pick one for me too."

Tag, I'm It!

I got tagged by Stephanie of Three Loud Kids

The Rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are 7 random facts about me:

1. I've lived in 6 different states
2. If I had been alive and old enough I would've been a Doors groupie
3. I am freakishly skilled at picking things up with my toes
4. One of my favorite books of all times is The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall because it breaks my heart
5. I'm a slightly overbearing perfectionist
6. I think one of the best songs of all time (not just my favorite but one of the best ever) is One by Metallica
7. I wish I was the lead singer of a rockin' chick band

Here are the 7 people that I am tagging:
I'm a pretty good sport but not that good! Sorry Stephanie I'm a tagging party pooper!