Phones Are Great, Just Not For Blogs.

My mother in law asked why I hadn't updated the blog lately and I realized it's because I am never down in the basement on my computer anymore, I'm always doing things on my phone.  Which is great, but I haven't been able to post anything here from my phone.  SO...here we are.  Brendan is off today and the kids are up coloring Bubble Guppie pictures and I snuck away to the computer.

 

So what has been going on lately?  Last weekend I took the kids to my sister's.  We played with cousins and saw Gramma Pam.  We ate at Russ' which is a kid favorite, we thrifted at Bibles for Mexico which is a mama favorite.  It was fun!  The kids were awesome on the four hour drive and Chicago traffic was smooth sailing both ways.

 Other than that, not much has been going on.  Same old life of school, thrifting, sewing, and playing.

Ooh, wait, no, we got new appliances, thats's fun!  We had ordered a stove from Home Depot and when they delivered it, it was damaged.  Two weeks later we still didn't have a new one, and then it was a hassle to get my money back, it was just such a pain in the ass.  Finally we ended up going to Sears Outlet where they have all the scratch and dent ones, where we found our new stove AND ended up getting a refrigerator because they're such low prices, why not?  So we still ended up with dents in our stove, but we got it for way cheaper.  Ha!

 And...we got a new vacuum.  Life is good.

Days Off

Ingrid has had some days off lately, mostly because I'm lazy, ha!  Last Friday she wanted to play with the babysitter, whom she hadn't seen in a month or so, so I let her stay home.  She had Monday off for MLK day, then Tuesday we had a HELLISHLY cold day, I can't believe we even had school!  It was -5.  Wind chill of -22.  For you Celsius peeps, that's -20 and -30!  Super freakin' cold, it was not fun.  I did not feel like bundling up two kids, driving and doing drop off, then getting Otis home, debundling him only to rebundle him a couple hours later.  So...we stayed in.

We did puzzles, we made a tent and the kids pretended to go camping in the living room.  We colored, we played with stuffed animals, we napped.  We watched Yo Gabba Gabba, which has seen a rise in popularity in our house over the past week.  

 Luckily the cold only lasted a bit, the next day we were back to normal frigid weather, which is about 7 degrees (-14C)  

Today I took Otis to the thrift store while Ingrid was in school, and on the way home we passed the Krispy Kreme.  Oh god, I used to love those things!  I haven't been there in years, so I had to stop.  Of course, right?  I can't fit in any of my pants and am constantly saying I need to get a gym membership again, but let's go eat 1000calories worth of donuts.  Jeez.  They were good.  Otis promptly fell asleep on the way home, leaving a drooly sticky mess all over himself.

 Oh, I forgot!  Yesterday we got the loveliest little care package from my friend Brooke in Ireland.  It even came in a cute box!  It had some little thrifted things for the kids, their favorite being a baby book in German about a bear that goes traveling in different things.  You can stick the bear in each mode of transportation.  They thought it was the coolest!  Thanks, Brooke and Pearl!

 Tomorrow is another day off, which means another day of...what?  I don't know how much more coloring and Gabba I can do, to be honest...

Crisp

Yesterday was so crisp and fallish!  After picking up Ingrid from school, we made lunch and had a picnic in the front yard.  Which, of course, turned into the kids picking leaves from the tree and running along the sidewalk to play restaurant.  Because, naturally, playing restaurant involves leaves and sitting in front of the neighbor's house on the sidewalk, right?

 Oh my god, Otis needed a hair cut so bad.  He hated it, but after taking these pictures I sat him down on the sidewalk and butchered his sides.  I couldn't take it anymore!

 So the cutest thing happening around here right now is picking up Ingrid from school.  The teacher brings the class down to the playground and they have to wait in line until she shakes their hand and dismisses them.  One by one.  It takes awhile, and Otis is sooooo excited to pick up sister ("di-dur, peek up!" he says!) Eventually he can't take it anymore and he runs pell mell across the playground and gives her a huge hug.  She loves it, but yesterday the teacher actually put him aside and gave me a dirty look as if I should be corralling my children better.  Look, lady, I enjoy seeing my kids get along, so no, I probably won't be trying to stop him from hugging his sister...They love each other, that's for sure!

 

And one last picture of Ingrid being silly.  She is so damn expressive!  Always entertaining.

Felt Dolls

Yesterday in a burst of creativity, I finally made some felt dolls for Ingrid.  I'd seen on mamasmiles and it looked super cute.  Ingrid has the magnetic ones from Melissa and Doug, but I have so many felt scraps that she loves to play with, I thought I really should try to make some of these dolls.

They were a hit!  I drew out a shape onto cardstock paper, along with shapes for pants, shirts, and dresses, and then we used those as templates for the felt.  I made different hairstyles, bows to put in the hair, and we had random scraps that Ingrid used to add to the shirts and dresses.  It was super easy, just took some scissors and a bunch of felt.

 Of course I couldn't just have them sitting around in a ziploc bag, nor could I have Ingrid putting them on another scrap of felt.  I had to make a little carrying case, with a pocket for the clothes, right?  Of course.  So I put two pieces of cardboard in between two pieces of felt.  I'd put on a name tag on the front, then a pocket on the inside first, then I sewed everything up into a little folding book.  Portable and functional! 

 They do not look as fancy as some I've seen on Pinterest, but Ingrid loves them anyway.  She has seriously been playing with them nonstop since I made them yesterday while Otis napped!  And that, my friends, is a thumbs up in my book.

Favorite Things To Do

Around these parts, our favorite things are:

Coloring (with or without pants)

Eating ice cream

And making play doh.

It's been a great week so far!

The Perfect Saturday

Yesterday we had friends over for a cookout.  I was a little worried about how hot it's been, thinking we'd end up hanging out inside in the air conditioning, but luckily the heat wave broke a bit and it was in the high 70s instead of the high 90s.  And there was a nice breeze blowing, it was perfect!  We got outside bright and early, of course, to clean up the backyard and set stuff up.  Ingrid moved all the chairs into a train for her dolls, just like I used to do.  Otis helped by singing Rock a bye Baby to Ingrid's doll.

 Our friends came after naptime, and we had fun being out in the now cooler weather.  I made a tent on the clothesline that all the kids liked to play in.  They had some little pony toys and Goldfish crackers and were in heaven.

Ingrid loves her friends Camryn and Ellie.  They had so much fun together, we didn't have to watch them at all, they just ran around and played all day long.  For some reason, they decided to dress up in Ingrid's pjs and bring out musical instruments to give us a concert.

 Poor Otis tried to keep up with them, but he just couldn't.  They would run up and down the stairs while he was trying to crawl his way up the first time.  Then he'd sit there and cry, go back down, and watch as the girls ran back up the stairs again.  Oh, just you wait, Ingrid!  Next year he'll be able to keep up with you and you won't be able to get rid of him!

The party lasted until bedtime, when both my kids passed out from sheer exhaustion.  Honestly, I may have also passed out soon after.  In fact, I may or may not have gone upstairs and gotten into my pjs while Brendan was still saying good bye to our friends.  When your kid gets up at the crack of dawn, I think you should be excused if you want to be asleep by 9pm, am I right?

Paper Dolls and Baby Butts.

Once upon a time when I worked at Borders, I bought a book of paper dolls.  Ingrid found them and loves to play with them!  They are so amazing, a family from the 1950s.  The fashions are great.

 I also have a couple random shots of the Fat Man standing up.  He loves to stand up to everything!  Both Brendan and I were saying how he is way more mobile and has better balance than Ingrid did at this age.  He is exactly 11 months old today and I think he might be walking by his birthday!!  He takes the rolling office chair and walks behind it, it's suuper cute.

 

A Much Needed Break

Brendan and I had a wedding to go to in WI last weekend.  My mom came to get Ingrid and take her back to the horse farm, and we took off in a snazzy rental car for a 7 hour drive.  We got to lay around in a hotel, take multiple naps, and hang out with friends!  We cleaned up pretty nicely for the wedding:

The next day we lounged, ate, napped, slept, rested, didn't play with blocks or crayons, and napped some more.  We visited Brendan's parents and just relaxed.  Did I mention I didn't play once with a wooden block all weekend long?  And I didn't load or unload a dishwasher.  It was heaven.

We got home Sunday afternoon and my mom still had Ingrid.  It was so strange to not have anything to do!  I'd slept so much, I didn't feel like I should lay down again (although I did, ha!) I did some puzzles in a book, watched some TV, and felt bored.  What did we used to do without Ingrid?  Sure she makes me frazzled, but she's also so damn entertaining, it was so wierd to not have her around!

My mom called this morning and said Ingrid had been asking for me, so we each drove half way and met in the middle of nowhere for lunch and to switch.  I was excited to see my dearie, and she was pretty huggy with her ol' mom.  Considering we were at each other's throats before the weekend, I'd say we both got the break we needed.  When we got home it was raining and we played outside with the umbrella.  She kept saying she was looking for "paper leaves" which I figured out much later meant leaves to press between wax paper.  We played blocks and colored and made bread and it was great to get back to our lives again...

Springtime This and That

I am so happy it's nice out lately!  We have been doing a little of this and that lately:
Wearing rain boots and splashing in puddles.

Making flowers out of Ingrid's paintings.  We did this with her coloring pictures at Christmastime, making them into snowflakes and a paper chain.  Since it's spring, I thought we should make butterflies and flowers.  I love how they turned out!

Dragging out every single toy she owns and bringing it out to the porch.  She loves doing this!  All her kitchen ware and stuffed animals have enjoyed some sunshine the past few days.

It  has been completely enjoyable the past couple days, just lounging around with my little one, basking in the sun, and going for walks to the park.  It is so nice to just hang out and not have to entertain her, as I had to in the winter.  Everyone feels so much better with all the daylight and sunshine!!

And tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and we are off to a party at Jami and Ben's house.  Hooray! 

Thrifting with my Lady

Ingrid and I went thrifting yesterday and had the best time.  Usually she's very whiny and just wants to go, but yesterday she was into it.  We pretty much stayed in the kid's section, as I was scouring the racks for some vintage finds.  A friend is starting up a kid's vintage shop and I love a reason to buy the things I don't have a need for.  Ingrid found lots of toys to play with and they even had a ride on horse that kept her entertained, so I was able to do all this pretty smoothly.  So, we spent about an hour going over ever little piece of clothing in the kid's section, piling up things in our cart, looking them over, decided what was worth the money and what wasn't.  Here's what we came up with:

Pretty cute indeed.

Yesterday was a good day overall.  We started out by painting out in the cold morning, which didn't bother Ingrid in the least.  Mama, on the other hand, needed a hot cup of coffee to keep her warm and kept asking "are you SURE you don't want to do this inside?"  After lunch we took a nice long walk to the park, let Cody run, let Ingrid swing, and we all got to enjoy the weather.

I was just telling Brendan last night how funny it is that every year at spring time I get so unbelievably overjoyed at the first nice weather.  It's like over the winter I forget that there can ever be a day over 25 degrees, that the sun can shine and actually make you warm!  You'd think it would be old news after 33 years of living this way, but alas, each spring it's like I've never experienced it before.  I love spring.

And, one more funny anecdote from Ingrid:  This morning she had a glass of plain milk.  She asked for pink milk, I said not right now, she asked a few more times, I said no a few more times.  She left the room, rummaged around in the kitchen, and brought back the can of strawberry powder!  And then she asked again "pink milk, please?"  That kid does not take no for an answer!  I have to respect that!