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Cookie Helper

Saturday morning Kevin went van shopping and took Kaden. (We have been actively looking all month, hoping to make a decision um, by today.)  Meanwhile Blue, Toby, and I had zero plans. Zip. Nodda.

Then Blue decided we needed to make cookies. 

Of course he did.

So we got out our fancy cookie cook book (I've had it for years and this may have been the first time I've used it. Usually we're just chocolate chip fans.) and chose a glazed pumpkin thing.

I've said before that I'm not big into these kinds of projects with kids, but I was good about talking him through the ingredients and the measuring and mixing. When it came time to pipe the batter onto the pan, it was a little too thick and tough so this pic is all staged, but seriously I let him help. Not just you know, stand in the kitchen and watch. 

They turned out cute enough. Next time I'll go back to chocolate chip, but the boys like them Blue and Kaden got in trouble for eating HALF THE PLATE while Kevin and I were distracted by our talk about vans.

Grrrrrrr.

(At least they have pumpkin in 'em, so they were eating their veggies, right?)

Marriage Conference and Monster Trucks

A four-day, kid-free trip to Key West - great for a marriage.

A Friday night and all day Saturday, kid-free marriage conference at church - great for a marriage.

The dream I had last night where Kevin failed to make a reservation at the restaurant where I wanted to eat and then acted pissy with me when we ended up at McDonald's - not so great for a marriage. I mean, I'm well into the day after, and I still get annoyed when I think about it.

Emotions. So fickle.

And that connects to monster trucks how?

My mom watched the boys when we went to The Keys but this past weekend our church was hosting a marriage conference we wanted to attend. We weren't about to hit my mom up for extended babysitting so soon. Instead, Kevin parents came over from Tampa. For their long stretch on Saturday we planned a few activities. In the morning Gran brought Toby to My Gym* for the free play hour and Papa made Monster Trucks with the big boys. 

My brother works at Lowes so he collected a ton of the kids-build projects and passed them on to my boys this Christmas. We've been so busy that this was their first go at one of them.

The trucks even have a light that lights up on top. Totally cool. Totally great Gran and Papa time for the boys.

*When I take Toby to My Gym for free play, most of the time he just sits on me and watches the other kids play. When Kevin or Gran take Toby he's off and playing. His class teacher was there this Saturdy and even commented about it. It stinks that I'm so cool, huh? 

A Touch of Valentine

Last night I got out my few Valentine's things after the boys went to bed and what does Blue comment on in the morning? A new bar of a soap I put in the boy's bathroom. Not only did he act excited about this new bar of soap he called Kaden over to see it too. (Who had the appropriate reaction - Um, it's just soap.) I mean, it's not even an exciting scent or color.

We don't have a mantel.  Duh, it's Florida.  Well, I say that but both my mom and mother-in-law have decorative mantels (no fireplaces, just mantels). Instead of a mantel for displaying knickknacks I have this piece of furniture:

My favorite thing I put out is this Valentines picture collage I put together last year.


So this stuff plus Valentines placemats on the table, plus a small Valentine towel in the guest bath and Valentines dish towels in the kitchen. Not exciting but still more interesting than a bar of soap.

Thanks to the kids underwhelmed response I got busy on some heart garland today. A long strand in the kitchen, four hanging in front of the dining room window and more wrapped around the dining room light.

Thank you pinterest for the idea to make heart garland using the different colors you can collect from a paint samples stand in Home Depot or somewhere - so that's what the long one is.  But since the color isn't on both sides I had to glue hearts together (because it turns) and that was extra work. All the other garlands are hearts punched from scrapbook paper I already had where the color is the same on both sides.

As I was hanging things Toby went into the cabinets where I keep all the kids art supplies, got out a coloring book and one orange crayon, brought it to the table, climbed up in a chair, and started coloring.

Um, my baby is acting entirely too big and independent.

Blue decided this was a good idea, got some more crayons, and joined him.

Right under my nose and zero comments on the heart garland. Well, Blue was excited when I stood on the table to put the garland on the light but his comment had nothing to do with the garland just the Mommy table standing. (Because I don't want him to copy this behavior, I told him I was NOT in fact standing on the table. He was imagining it. Think that'll work?)

I saw lots of centerpiece ideas online that use heart candy. I bet THAT would get their attention.

Starfish Wreaths

Our front door Christmas wreath wasn't nice enough to make the move. Christmas 2009 we were at my mom's. Christmas 2010 we were in our new home but TWO new wreaths (because we have double doors) wasn't in the budget, so our doors stayed naked.

This year it wasn't really in the budget either but...

Oh well. 

I wanted wreaths.

I wanted blue and white wreaths to match my blue and white house.  I wanted star fish on my wreaths but I wanted them to be Christmasy not just every-day beachy.

Surprisingly enough I haven't come across exactly what I wanted in a store anywhere.

So I set out to make wreaths. This was my black-Friday project.

I don't consider myself crafty and I've never made a wreath before, but I bought the plain twig wreaths and figured with a glue gun, how could I go wrong?

I spray-painted my wreaths white, bought a bunch of star fish and two shells at Shell Bazaar, a few blue ornaments and got out my glue gun. The star fish and shells are just glue gunned on. The ornaments are tied together and then on and then glue gunned in spots to be exactly where I want them. 

That's it. One afternoon and done.

Looking around most nice wreaths cost between $50 and $100 and I'd say each wreath cost me about $25. (It's only that high because I spent $29 just in star fish and the two shells!) Definitely a worthwhile DIY project.

Mod Podge Pumpkin Painting

Usually we paint our pumpkins sometime before Halloween and then clean off that paint when we go to carve. This year so far I've bought two little decorative pumpkins for inside but instead of just letting Blue go at 'em with a paint brush I devised a more structured plan.

I Printed off leaves and cut them out while Blue watched the Halloween episode of Phineas and Ferb. (Like how we do crafts in our house?!)

Then we painted the leaves.  After the leaves were dry we mod podged them around the pumpkins. 

By the time we got to the mod podging Toby was up, so he, uh, helped...

Much better than the usual haphazerd paint fest and not bad for an easy afternoon project. 

And I totally recommend doing it with the episode of Phineas and Ferb... the one with the Were-Cow. So funny.

Thanksgiving

Psalm 100
¹ Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! ² Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy.
 
This morning we woke up at 6:45am to Kaden rushing into our bedroom telling on Blue who was "ripping stuff".  Upon inspection, yes, Blue had torn apart all sorts of flash cards in their room.  Nice.  I sent Kaden back to his room to play and made Blue sit in our room in the time out position (criss cross apple sauce, hands on your knees) as Kevin and I attempted to linger in bed a little longer.  Soon came the sound of Blue's whine, "I have to peeee-eeee."   My arm emerged from the covers and I pointed to our bathroom.  The sound that followed was odd then clearly he found the bowl then the odd sound again. "He's peeing on the floor," Kevin said.  I threw back the covers and stomped to the bathroom saying, "I am NOT thankful for that boy," as I went. I'm not sure how we confused the sounds but he'd peed on his shirt, not the floor. 

And so began Thanksgiving in the Stratton household.

I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then Kevin prepared to head over to my mom's because he's painting her house this weekend.  We decided he should take Blue with him.  We want the boy to see his 4th birthday and we figured his chances were better with Kevin than with me.  

Blue. (yesterday in the cockpit of one of MFI's DC3s)

And today en route to giving Gus some bones.  Note that the bone on the left has bites taken out of it. The kid will eat a dog bone but didn't touch a bite of his Thanksgiving dinner.  (Probably because he was so stuffed from eating that dog bone.)

Oh fine.  I'm thankful for Blue.

³ Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.

So Blue and Daddy went to work leaving Kaden, Toby and I to hang out.  And we're good hanger outers.  I cleaned up from breakfast and prepared a green bean casserole.  We went on a walk in the neighborhood.  The boys watched a Christmas movie and snacked while I prepared a cranberry apple crisp. The boys watched the parade and snacked while I cleaned the kitchen again and started on deviled eggs...  We did have one pause in this so I could read Kaden and Toby a Thanksgiving story and then comes my inevitable frustration with Kaden.  When we're just hanging out, Kaden and I are great. Try to actively engage the boy in something and hello frustration.

This book was not a new story.  We read it and talked about it just a few days ago (and many other times in years past). I asked what should have been an easy question and I'll be blunt, he gave me a really stupid answer.  (Yes, there ARE stupid answers and no, he was not trying to be funny.)  I asked again, rewording to make sure he understood.  He gave me a different, but again, totally wrong answer. Down goes the book, out comes the lecture about listening. Fun times, huh?  This is a pattern for Kaden and me.  Ugh.

But then. 

Toby went down for a nap.  I took a shower. Unpause the parade (I'm thankful for DVR!) and after a little while out comes a school project. 

Kaden's December project is to make a gingerbread man using the template the school sent home.  I asked Kaden if he wanted to do a fun gingerbread man like a Santa suited one or a pirate.  He chose pirate. I love that Kaden spontaneously put on a Santa hat before starting on the project.

And I also love how it turned out.  (Blue's pirate birthday party is on Sunday so we had a lot of stuff available to use - look hard on the left, he's even wearing a gold hoop earring.) No frustrations, just a good, creative time for us.

 ⁵ For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

At speech this week Toby signed "more bubbles" without any prompting.  The boy just wanted some more bubbles! He signed "milk" for me today.  He's also loving the sound "pa" and does an adorable "papa" when I show him a picture of Kevin's dad, who we call Papa. He has finally started waving bye bye and sometimes he says it too. I am thrilled at his recent language progress.  I am so thankful for this boy, his giggles, his cuddles, even his pouting which often makes me laugh.  

Tonight, Toby was wound up from all the extra hoopla of the evening. When Kevin and Blue returned, my mom and a friend came over and the real Thanksgiving kitchen bustle commenced.  When it came time to put him to bed he screamed and screamed.  Nothing I could do or sing (the singing always works, but tonight only intermittently) kept him settled.  I let him scream.  Then Daddy took his turn. That might have made it worse. Finally I returned and he happily sat with me in the recliner in his room. I kicked it back and he babbled away, and we just sat like that in the dark until he wound down, yawned, quieted, yawned some more.  Moments like this his momma attachment is adorable.  Other times it's exhausting.

Yesterday at MFI, I tried to take his picture but here he is storming me down:

Even so, he did have his times off with the big boys.  He even braved zooming around on a dolly:
 

Thanksgiving was like any other day.  We had the usual frustrations and the usual giggles - just more food around when it all went down.

I am thankful for God's faithfulness to their generation.  That even though I sometimes worry (Will Kaden ever "get it?"  Will Blue ever behave? How will Toby continue to develop?) I can absolutely trust God as their Father, their much more capable parent.  He made them, they are his. (I.E. It's ok to loosen your grip, Faydra!) I'm thankful for reading this Psalm today, for that reminder.

I'm even thankful for these early childhood stages, but I'm also thankful knowing this time will pass. Soon enough they'll be teenagers I can't get out of bed, and I will try to remember that tomorrow morning at 6-something-er-other when, inevitably, Kaden or Blue will come into our room telling us something we don't want to hear probably about Kaden or Blue peeing somewhere we wished they hadn't peed. 

We're not a perfect family but we're... us.  And I'm thankful.

Thankful Turkey

Kaden's November project: cut out turkey and three feathers (add feathers if needed), color, write on first feather "Child's name/family is thankful for," have family write one thankful thing on each feather.

Easy enough.  No way I can turn that into a paper mache project.  (Thank goodness!)

We're thankful for (in case you can't read the feathers)
Blue: Jesus  (We talked about this at dinner one night but we didn't work on it till the next day. Blue's answer did not change either time. Total kiss-up, huh?)
Mom: Anything pumpkin flavored (I had just been wondering where a girl could get a pumpkin milkshake)
Kaden: my brothers
Kaden: playgrounds
Toby: Thomas the train (that's what he was playing with at the time, he seemed thankful for it)
Dad: Three awesome boys and a beautiful wife (Dad was at work when we were working on this, so his got done later. When I went back and saw that he'd completed his feather and what he'd put, it made me extra thankful for him.)

Psalm 105:1
Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.

Another Pumpkin Project

Ever since Kaden did his pumpkin project Blue has wanted to do a project, so today during Toby's nap he and I made a pumpkin.  We talked about shapes and then I asked him what shape he wanted to use for each part of the face.  I drew and he traced.  Then we both ripped, crinkled, and glued.  

Before this project I made pumpkin bread and after this project we picked up Kaden and all went to a pumpkin patch.  It sure would be feeling like fall if it weren't so dang hot and muggy outside!

Pumpkin Project

Kaden is very proud of his pumpkin project due today.  The assignment was simply to decorate the pumpkin, but something textured, so we did paper mache.  It's kinda heavy so I'm not sure how his teacher is going to hang it, but that's her problem!  

(And the attached paper is an acrostic about pumpkins using the word, "pumpkin" which was surprisingly difficult.)