marshmallows

Don't make a mess in my house, or I'll make you clean it up...the hard way.

are you smarter than a one year old?

I am!  After last night I decided that it was finally time to change the door handle on the boy's bedroom from a handle style gold one (which I have despised since we moved in) to a knob style aged bronze one.  One that he can't open, which means that even if he gets out of bed, at least he can't get out of his room.  And it worked, for nap time anyways.  He tried, he failed, and he got back in bed and took a nap.  We'll see how tonight goes, but at the very least I had an excuse to begin the project of slowly changing out the door handles in the house.  One down, nine more to go.  

perfect timing

Jon is in Denver this weekend with Derrick and Abbie to see a Rockies game.  I stayed home with the little ones to get some school work done and enjoy a "relaxing" weekend of smaller messes and early bedtimes.  Except Reid apparently didn't get the memo, picking today to master climbing out of his crib.  No nap.  No early bedtime.  In fact, he is sitting right next to me at this very moment as I swat his hands and feet away from the keyboard.  I hate this particular transition, big enough now to thwart my attempts at keeping him in bed, but too young to be reasoned with.  At least the older ones aren't here to encourage him yet!

celebration

We had a pretty quiet 4th this year.  The highlight for the kids had to be the breakfast that we went to on Saturday morning, hosted by a family in our ward.  With the holiday falling on a Sunday this year, it was a little more challenging to celebrate in true style.  We did manage some fireworks in the street in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house, then on Sunday night we discovered that we can actually see the town fireworks really well from our driveway.  Who knew?

independence day

halloween 2009

I'm not biased or anything, but I'm pretty sure I've got the cutest Halloween crew around. So cute, in fact, that two of them won awards in two different categories at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. That's right, award winning cute.

These lovely costumes were purchased, not hand sewn, and after my sewing marathon producing penguins I am again reminded of the lunacy of spending so much time and pretty much the same amount of money to get an outfit that will only be worn for a couple of hours during one night of the year. Yet, I can all but guarantee I will forget this logic again at some point in the future and embark on another Halloween sewing mission. Because sewing Halloween costumes is like giving birth. In the middle of it all, you are like "What in the world was I thinking. I'm never doing this again." And before you know it, you have a creation all your own (costume or baby) and you forget all about the hours of torture it took to bring them to life. And some time passes, and suddenly you think "Hey, let's do this again." Remind me of this post in a year when I start to flip through patterns books, although I might ignore the advice. In summary, my kids are cute, and store bought costumes are great.

first kiss

I've been kissed by a boy for the first time. A handsome young thing with copper hair and brilliant blue eyes. I've kissed him too many times to count. But today, for the first time, he kissed me back.