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.

 

A Freakishly Warm Day

We have had rain and cold for awhile now, but the past couple days were WARM!  It felt good to go out without sweatshirts and coats and bundling up.  We took advantage of the nice weather by going to the park with friends while Ingrid was in school yesterday.

 Today we are back to cold and wet.  And of course right in time for Trick or Treating.  The kids are going as cowboys.  And then Ingrid is yelling in my ear "NO, mama!  I'm the SHERRIFF!!" in case I should forget who's in charge.

iPad Photos

My camera card is full and I've been too lazy to go get another one.  My mom was just asking for more pictures, and these were all I could find.  Silly kids.  Silly mama. 



Falls Past

Ingrid as a baby. Awww.

Ingrid as a toddler.  Sweet.

Me with Otis in my belly.  (Hard to imagine he was born a few short weeks after this!)

Otis a smiley little redhead.

My kids.

Fall is my favorite!

Quick and Easy Breakfast

Now that Ingrid is in school and we have to be out the door at 7:30am, breakfast has become something of a hassle.  I want to feed Ingrid a healthy breakfast, but it has to be quick, as she isn't ready to eat until about fifteen minutes before we leave.  Try as I might, she just isn't interested in food until 7am, no matter what time she gets up.  So, off to pinterest I went, looking for breakfast ideas.  I found some good ones, and this weekend I made a couple.

The first were these amazing Blueberry Coconut Pecan Breakfast Cookies. 

I did have to go to the store to get a couple ingredients, but I will for sure make these again, so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience.  Most of the stuff I had on hand. 

1.5 c oats
1 c coconut flakes
1 Tbs flaxmeal
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c chopped pecans
1/2 c dried blueberries (we used blueberry craisins)
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 c warmed coconut oil
1 Tbs agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla



All that mixed up together made a mushy batter that I patted into heart shaped cookie cutters, placed on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 25min. and you get a whole lot of healthy cookies that are perfect for a quick breakfast!  Ingrid is unsure how she feels about them.  She loved the idea of having a cookie for breakfast but then didn't really eat too much of it.  I, however, crammed about five in my mouth!  I love these!

The other recipe I tried was Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars.  These are super easy and have ingredients I pretty much always have on hand. 

1.5 c oats
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 ripe banana, mashed
1/4 c. creamy peanut butter

Mix dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients.  Mush banana and pb go in at the end.  Spread in a greased 8x8 pan and cook at 350 for 20 minutes.  We just made these today and they are so good!  Just a hint of banana and peanut butter, neither one really jumps out as too strong, which can sometimes be the case.  They are a bit mushy, we couldn't really eat these as bars we could hold, we had to use forks, perhaps I didn't bake them long enough?  But they tasted really good and were a hit with both kids!

There are a couple more I want to try, but for now these two are good to have on hand!  They definitely make me feel better giving this to Ingrid before school rather than a frozen waffle, which is what she usually asks for.  Do you have any favorite breakfast ideas that are quick and kid friendly?

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.

Obama!

President Obama was in Milwaukee today.  We got tickets to go see him, but it was rainy today and kind of cold.  The gates opened at 2:30, but he wasn't even supposed to be there until 5:30ish.  So at 4, we got there, figuring we'd just hang out for awhile, eat some snacks, let the kids run around.  Uh, no.  We saw a line, went to get to the end of it, and kept walking.  And walking.  And walking.  It was insane!  The line curved around one museum, around another museum, and then along the lake.  It was never ending, we just kept seeing all these people, where was the end of the line??  By the time we got to the end, Ingrid was already complaining she wanted to go home.  *sigh*

But we made it happen.  We walked along the lake, around the art museum, watched people getting their wedding pictures taken, made it to Discovery World, saw another wedding party getting off their trolley, made it around Discovery World, thought we were getting closer to the gate, only to find out the line went around Summerfest grounds (where Obama was going to be) all the way to the back entrance.  It took forever.  By the time we got close to the gates we could hear people cheering and music playing.  As we were getting to the metal detectors they were saying "the President is on stage now!"  Well Jesus, we didn't stand in line for over an hour to miss it!! 

Of course it had started to rain.  We had to leave our stroller and hoist the sleepy, crabby, hungry children on our shoulders.  Otis wouldn't keep a hat on, Ingrid was whining about wanting to go home to her cozy house.  Brendan and I are like "This is exciting!  The President is HERE!  He's right there!"  I guess to a little kid, what the hell does that mean?  We couldn't actually see him, we could barely hear him, but it was exciting anyway.  To me and Brendan. 

I think it actually worked to our advantage that we got there just as he was going on stage.  If we'd had to wait I think the kids would've lost it for real.  Brendan got kind of mad that they were being wimps and said we need to toughen them up.  For real!  I never thought I'd have kids that whined that much about being cold or being tired.  What a bunch of babies.

Bay View Bash

This weekend was Bay View Bash, yet another street fair with tons of beer, music, and assorted junk to look at.  We went with our neighbors and immediately found the bounce house, the only reason Ingrid wanted to go!  Along with the bounce houses, they had bean bag toss games, mini golf, a place to make your own buttons.

 And they had a place where you could get a tattoo!  Otis got an anchor with a mermaid.  He is tough.  Rogan, our neighbor and Ingrid's best bud, is obsessed with Spiderman, and of course chose a spider.  Ingrid got a puppy.  She didn't like it, she made me take it off as soon as we got home.

It was kinda trashy, lots of junky things for sale and a LOT of drunk old people cramming the street.  At four in the afternoon.  It is Milwaukee, after all.  But nonetheless, it's a fun way to spend a couple hours on an otherwise boring Saturday. 

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.

Girl's Weekend

 Last weekend Ingrid and I had girl's weekend.  Brendan left on Friday morning to take Otis camping up north, so it was just us gals until Sunday afternoon!  I picked her up from school and we went to McDonalds and got a happy meal.  We did puzzles and played games without a little brother stealing pieces and putting them in his mouth.  We went to dinner Saturday night and got frozen yogurt.  Just the two of us, out on the town.

 

In all reality is was not as fun as I thought it would be.  I never realized how much Ingrid and Otis play together.  I focus so much on the bickering and hair pulling (Otis has a death grip!) that I don't realize how much they actually keep each other entertained.  Ingrid would get bored really easily, she wanted me to play non-stop, where usually she can find something to do no problem.  We had a good time, but we definitely missed the dudes.

 

The reason we didn't go with them was because Ingrid's school picnic was that Saturday.  She really wanted to go, and since she just started there, I thought it would be fun to meet other kids and let her run around.  It was pretty fun, they had a few bounce houses, a little station to make bracelets, a hair spray station where they sprayed you with colored hair spray, which made me sick just being a little down wind from it.  There was food and popcorn and sno-cones. 

 

She loved the race bounce house!  It was a little obstacle course, going through a tunnel, over a little wall, up a ladder thing, and down the big slide.  She would've stayed on that thing all afternoon but it was so fun there was a huge line all day.

Can you tell she liked it??

 

We had fun, but we sure did jump on the guys when they came home and gave them both big hugs and smooches.  I kinda like my family!