The Cowpokes

Not even October 31st and I'm already Halloweened out.  Last night was Ingrid's school Halloween dance.  So...costume time #1.

 This morning we went with our neighbors/best friends to the zoo, where they were having a Halloween event with Trick or Treat stations and carved pumpkins all over the zoo.  It was fun, but COLD.  So we threw on our winter coats and realized you couldn't even tell the kids were dressed up.  Hmmm.  Costume time #2 was a bust.

Thanks to Jennifer from Oliver's Forest for lending us this amazing vintage Health Tex western shirt!!

 We had a few hours between the zoo and our neighborhood trick or treating, so I came up with a plan to keep them warm and show their costumes.  Which involved many layers of shirts and fleece jackets under their cowboy shirts. And remembering I had a cute vintage Wrangler jean jacket for Otis!  I'm glad I saw it hanging up!  Finally, costume time #3 seemed to work right!

I made Ingrid wear the only pair of tights she owns, which are orange.  She cried that she was going to look like a chicken!

 That was the only picture I think I got of Otis wearing his hat.  For someone who runs around screaming "AT ON! AT ON!" and grabbing everyone's hats, he was not impressed with his cowboy hat.  Oh well, with the bandana on he still looked like a cowboy. 

But now we are exhausted from running around all day and eating too much candy.  Tomorrow there are more festivities, but I don't think I can handle a costume time #4.  I'm done.

 

Snot.

It has started.  The months and months of someone, possibly everyone, being snotty nosed.  My poor kids are raw from nose blows and drool.  And cranky.  I'm cranky, too.  And it's only September.

 So we have been wearing our pj pants a lot during the afternoons, playing guys and cars with Brendan's old Fisher Price set, finding colorful leaves, and today we did an easy peasy Halloween craft I found on pinterest.  Simple paper ghosts and pumpkins taped to a circle to make a little wreath!  It took us a good long time to do but was super easy and not messy at all.  The perfect craft in my book.

Halloween and a Dr. Checkup

Guess who weighs 21 pounds!!

We went to the doctor yesterday and Fat Man checked out completely fine.  He is right on target for everything he's supposed to be doing and has gained a ton of weight and grown crazy big.  Who was born six weeks early? 

Our Halloween was pretty fun, even though we had it early.  Saturday we got dressed up to go Trick or Treating and we had a blast!!  Ingrid was jumping up and down from excitement for the entire afternoon.  She does not need candy to be over excited! 

Two streets away from our house was insane.  Every house was completely decorated and there were about a million and half people there.  It was a madhouse, and it was so fun!  We came back to our house to find our candy bowl empty and decided to call it a night.  People were still knocking even though we closed our door and turned off our porch light and blew out the candles in our pumpkins.  Hello?  Take a hint!  We're out of candy!  Definitely going to buy two big bags next year!

Dressing Up!

Yesterday we braved the children's museum for what I thought was going to be a fun time of trick or treating, Halloween fun.  They advertised this thing like crazy, so I thought for sure it would be awesome!  Trick or treat stations!  Fall crafts!  Yay!

So even though we all have colds and I had to shove a full box of tissue in my purse, we dressed up and went.  Otis in his giraffe costume:

And Ingrid as Little Red Riding Hood.

We got there and there were dressed up workers signing people in, giving them fliers and bags for their treats.  I was so excited!  How fun for Ingrid!  Then we went upstairs to the museum, where there were four thousand kids running around because it was a day off school.  It seemed like every mom had a double stroller that they conveniently left completely in the way (empty strollers just there to carry all their junk.  I HATE THAT!!)  I searched for the trick or treat stations.  Nothing.  As we walked around I saw a big basket of Smarties.  Just sitting there.  No one near it.  Was this a trick or treat station?  Apparently so.  And there were a whopping TWO of them.  TWO!  In the whole effing children's museum, there were two trick or treat stations.  My goodness, how overwhelmingly fun...

Luckily Ingrid didn't care.  She just likes the museum so much she was having fun playing with everything and forgot about the Halloween part of it anyway.  And tonight is trick or treating in our neighborhood, where they close off the street on our block and we can partay and trick or treat for real.  Yay!

Halloween in Milwaukee!

We took a quick trip to Milwaukee this weekend.  Brendan has an interview with a company there, and we thought it was going to be today, so we decided to go as a family for the weekend before.  Then we found out it's actually next week but we had our hearts set on going so we went anyway.  Ingrid was awesome in the car, fell asleep right after we got to Grandma and Grandpa's, and just traveled so well.

We went to the Public Museum, which I've been wanting to take Ingrid to forever.  She liked the butterfly exhibit, where you walk through and they all fly around you. 

In the afternoon we traveled down to one of our old neighborhoods and went to the park.  They have a beach of all rocks, which we figured Ingrid would love.  Yep, she did!  The views of the city are great from here, and she and Brendan spent an hour or so skipping stones.  Ahhh, simple pleasures!

On Sunday we met with some friends for brunch.  The place is on the river, in an old lodge, with gingham tablecloths and a big huge wood burning fireplace.  It was so cozy on a fall day!  And so much fun to see my friends!!  Ingrid was so funny with her new pal, 6 mo. old Poppy.  She was all up in her face and stealing her pacifier and making her cry...We are going to have SO MUCH FUN with a new baby around here!

We also went trick or treating with Ingrid up and down Grandma and Grandpa's street.  God bless Milwaukee, the guy handing out candy was drinking a Hi Life!  Ingrid was such a nosy little grabber, she wouldn't let people put candy in her bucket, she had to grab stuff for herself.  It was her first time going, she had fun but didn't quite get it.

All in all it was a good trip, and really made us feel anxious to get back there and settle down once again.  Enough moving around, I want to stay put for more than two years!  Everyone cross your fingers for Brendan's job interview next week, we'd like to get back to Milwaukee, please.

Jack'O Lanterns

Yesterday was a great day.  I got some sewing done, and I am loving the fact that Ingrid gets excited when I get out the sewing machine now!  She wants to throw the scraps away, she begs for it!  We made this little number for a friend:

It's this cool sensory "book" that is just squares of flannel with Velcro, so kids can rip them apart and stick them together.  I also added some ribbons to one, and to cover the stitches on the front, I put a little piece of flannel with her initial on it.  I love how it turned out!!  The thing I love most is that the 4mo old for whom it's intended will love it, but so will her 2yo sister!  Ingrid loved the thing, I might have to make one for her today while it storms.

Last night after dinner Brendan decided it was time to carve the pumpkins.  I'm sure glad he likes to do things, because I could care less about carving pumpkins.  Ingrid was not so sure about the goop on her hands.  Where did this come from??  She could be messy from head to toe (and usually is) but once something gets on her hands, she freaks.

And please get a hold of Ingrid's outfit.  We did laundry yesterday and every time I would take something out of the basket, she'd want to put it on.  That's how we got this look.  A stripey shirt, Christmas dress, cookie pajama pants, and orange mary janes.  Good look for you, honey!

Halloween Party!

Yesterday afternoon we went to our friend's for a rip-roaring toddler style Halloween party.  Ingrid was SO EXCITED to try on her kitty costume!  She's been asking to use the face paint ever since we got it last week.  I made a tail to sew on her pants and it turned out so funny.  Brendan and I both thought it looked either very phallic or like a big poo.  And of course Brendan had to say that in front of Ingrid and she kept running around giggling "I pooping, Mama!" 

There were tons of toys and a bounce house and cupcakes and food.  Ingrid was in awe of everything, her attention span was about four seconds long.  And then once she got over it all she wanted to do was swing in a swing that an adult had to put her in and push...The whole point of a nice backyard party is that the parent's don't have to watch their kids!

It was a super fun time and we still have next week for trick or treating! 

Halloweens of Yore

Another post inspired by my favorite ladies over at Modern Kiddo!  They had this great post on vintage Halloweens and it made me dig through our boxes to find the photo albums with kid pictures of Brendan and I.  Luckily I found the one I was looking for:

The year was 1979 (gulp.  I AM vintage!)  That would be me in the middle as Raggedy Ann, my sister on the right as Cinderella, and my brothers behind me as a football player and Frankenstein.  The other kids are our neighbors.  Love that Holly Hobby costume!!

Brendan's were equally fun.  1980 was a plastic number of the Hulk.  No mask, though, wonder where that went off to?

1984 was Darth Vader.  What is that around his neck, does anyone know?  I wasn't a Star Wars fanatic, but I didn't think he had a turntable on his chest...

Someday Ingrid's going to look back and say really, mom?  A ladybug?  What were you thinking?

Ikea is Awesome. Being Sick is Not.

In case you didn't know, I love Ikea. And I live right by one so I get to go all the time. It's so awesome. Yesterday we decided to go after Ingrid's nap because I knew they had paper rolls that Ingrid could color on. We picked up one of those, and they had cute kid chairs on sale, so we picked up one of those, too.

She wore her crown while coloring, it made me feel good.

And we got the greatest fabric.

Yesterday we went downtown Dexter to go trick or treating at the businesses. Ingrid was so tired, as it was naptime when we went, and she didn't really get the whole idea of it.

It was a good thing we went yesterday because today both Brendan and I are getting sick, and there is no way we could take her walking anywhere. Both of us have been popping ibuprofen and laying around, telling Ingrid she has to be a good girl and change her own diaper. She responded by pooping on the floor...I really hope this is a short lived cold and not the swine flu or similar.

Li'l Ladybug

This afternoon our friends had a Halloween party. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for a backyard get together! We put on Ingrid's ladybug costume, which of course looked adorable. She even kept the hood on, which is unheard of!

There was tons of food, goodies, and balloons. Ingrid loves balloons. And goodies. She had an Oreo in one hand and a frosted brownie in the other. I seriously never thought I'd be so nonchalant about sugar with my one year old...She got a good choco-face going.

Kristin and Dave have a kid's paradise in their backyard--swingset, play house, play castle. Ingrid had fun playing with Cowboy Ben and Dorothy Allie. It was a great afternoon!

Carving Pumpkins!

Last night we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. We moved the dining room table, spread out a sheet, and got to work. Ingrid thought it was pretty cool to be standing in a place where our table usually was.


Brendan drew a face on the pumpkin, and Ingrid helped. She really really wanted a permanent marker, but had to settle for a mechanical pencil that had no lead.


She scooped out the guts and helped put the seeds in a bowl. We're going to try to roast them today. Yum.

And this is the finished product! Ingrid didn't really know quite what to think of it. In the dark with the candle lit she was kind of creeped out. However, this morning she kept singing over and over again "pumpkin, pumpkin!" So it's a hit!