Helping

Today was Extra's at Hope. It's the last get together until January so I really wanted to girls to go today even though that meant bumming a ride off my mom. She didn't really mind. She got to hang out with some pretty great kids ;) 

I have been having Izzy help out with Locke. Today she fed him all by herself (well, HQ helped...). I ended up having to change his outfit again before leaving because she managed to get food all over his clothing yet the bib appeared untouched. She is some kind of wizard.

Feeding Locke some breakfast.

Extra's was great as always and we had the added bonus of my mom being able to see a little bit of what it was like today. Locke really liked having Gramma there too. Afterwards we hit up Target to get a birthday gift for a little friend of ours. HQ thought he would like sparkle Play Dough and a stuffed Elmo. Which is so weird because those are some of her favorite things too...

Tomorrow is the last game of the season for The Pink Unicorns. Izzy is ridiculously excited to get her first trophy. "I'm so glad we still get trophies even when we're terrible". She always makes me laugh!

"What?"

Busy Day

With the weather around here starting to make park days few and far between we wanted to find some other fairly inexpensive indoor places for the kids to expel some energy. Today we checked out a place called Scooter's Jungle. 

We LOVED it. First, it was $11 for all 5 of us. That's an awesome deal! Adults can play on everything there too (well, provided you don't weigh over 250lbs). There were slides, bounce houses, a zipline, ping pong, table hockey, a very large jungle gym, and other kids to play with. It was very clean, had a great atmosphere and it wasn't crowded, but I have heard that it does get pretty crazy in the summer. I suppose everyone wants to play in the air conditioning. Our only complaint was the music choice. They played mostly pop songs which included things like Outkast's "Roses" and Gorillaz's "Feel Good Inc" durning "Toddler Time"... They did bleep out the expletives, but really?

This slide was the girls favorite.

Ty and HQ up in the giant jungle gym.

Locke enjoyed the smaller bounce house where he could watch the zipline and giggle.
 

He also enjoyed these giant green things.

Waiting patiently for her turn at table hockey.

 When we got home, HQ went down for a nap and Izzy got down to business. Some serious homework business. Our Proverb this week is, "A fool always loses his temper, But a wise man holds it back." Proverbs 29:1. Izzy said she can't wait until she has learned all the Proverbs because then she will be "super wise". I gently reminded her that knowing them doesn't make you wise, living them does.

Homework!

 Today was Izzy's last soccer practice for the season. To be perfectly honest I am excited about soccer being over. The start of the season and the derogatory competitive parents (not our team) left a bad taste in my mouth. You don't see people acting like that at tennis, swim, dance, gymnastics, or volleyball! Perhaps we'll just stick with those.

Our "super delux oh my gosh it's coming towards me" stoller. 

We walked to soccer practice today. Our car has ben stalling and with the school being only 2.4 miles away from our home seemed it like a good healthy walk. I checked the GPS to see how long it would take walking and it said 45 minutes. So we left an hour before practice time... We were 20 minutes late! Apparently where we live was not meant for pedestrians with kids. Especially if you use a stroller. The sidewalk randomly ends and leaves you on the side of one of our busiest main streets. Parts of the road where covered in with tree stumps, weird looking shrubs I've never noticed, and weeds that we had to lift our stroller over. I know we had to look crazy to the people driving. Locke found the bumpiness excited and laughed the majority of the time, but HQ would yell, "HEWP!" and hang on to the sides of the stroller for dear life. Fortunately for us a couple of the mom's offered to bring us home after practice. Phew!

Looking for her balloon...

Tomorrow is Extra's day! Izzy asked to go to bed early tonight so that she will be really well rested for tomorrow. I wish I were that smart...

Bunny Ears

So every morning and evening I have my "get ready for" routine. Like getting ready for the day, going out, or bed. For this process I have bunny ear hair clips (I got them on clearance last Easter) to keep my bangs pulled back while I wash my face etc. Ty calls them my "Playboy Bunny Ears". He says this in jest because I am usually in sweats when I have them on. Anyway, part of this morning routine I added some spot treatments, so I had a few green polka dots on my face. To top everything off I was wearing my Victoria's Secret pj top. It isn't risque or anything, but it does say "Sexy Little Wife" on it (which is obviously how I was looking this morning). I don't look in the mirror to check anything half as often as I used to, you know, with being so secure with how fabulous I always look what do I have to check on?  Still looking like this I get a knock on the door while I was making HQ and I some breakfast. I answered it, shame be darned and I was greeted by our maintenance man. I had completely forgotten how I must have looked until I was actually standing outside... Ty's so lucky.

After the maintenance man left I immediately went to look in the mirror. I seriously lol'd at myself for a good minute. I then thought heck, why stop here. I grabbed my wedding veil, put it on behind my bunny ears, slipped into my old salsa heels (well, more like shoved my fat feet in my old salsa heels) and went to do the dishes. I just prayed Ty wouldn't come home early and wonder who the crazy person in the kitchen was. Locke liked it. Between the veil and bunny ears he had more stuff to try to grab off me. And HQ actually looked me up and down once and said, "no"... it was a good day.

 

Cutters

Boy do I feel swamped at work! (hehe) Not much house work got done in the past week with sickness and resting going on. So I tried to play catch up today. A few days worth of dishes (gross!), some bathroom scrubbing (which I still don't mind as much as dishes!), and some clothing organization. The floor really could have used some more TLC, but my mom lent us her Kirby to clean the carpet and we can't figure the thing out. 

Ty got me these food cutters a while back. They are awesome! Especially for picky eaters. All I have to do is cut whatever it is into a cute shape and it magically makes it taste that much better. Well, it backfired at first because then I had HQ cuddling with her heart shaped cucumbers, but she's grown since then.

Izzy watching some home movies. "Wow! These are really good!" .. they are mostly narrated by her. 

Cleaning is boring Mom, play with me!

My hand-me down pile so far. It's so weird to already have boxes of stuff Locke can''t fit in.
I felt like I was washing the same things over and over again that I never saw Izzy wear. I realized that she just kept throwing it in the hamper because it didn't fit... so we broke out the hand-me down bins!

Tonight I caught HQ smearing cream on her clothes. I knew that Ty had it just before she did so I jokingly said, "I don't know who I should beat, you or Dad". She thought a second, looked at Ty and then said, "Dad!" and giggled at her brilliance. I love that little girl!

Checking on the Kids

No more sickness in our home! ... for now. All three kids got the 24 hour tummy bug within hours of each other. Although that meant Ty and I were cleaning up mess after mess for a while it also meant it was over with pretty quick. Once the kids were healed it hit me. Then hours later it hit Ty. I'm so grateful that Ty and I were affected once the kids were fine! Sheesh.

Checking on Locke

When the kids are sick I can't sleep at night. I am constantly thinking what if they need me and I can't hear them? Sure I have a baby monitor.. but what if they are so weak I can't hear it over the monitor? My thoughts can get so weird as to all the possibilities of horrible things that could happen to them in the middle of the night while they are sick I hate it! So that means each child is tucked in with some form of liquid drink to combat dehydration(... which my mind seems to believe can kill a child within seconds) and that Ty or I go in and check on them all night long. If I fall asleep at all for any amount of minutes I feel guilty. I run and check for proof of life for all 3 of them. Are there any other moms that do this, or am I just crazy? I'm not sure if it's normal or if it just stems from the fact that my little sister died in the middle of the night. Regardless none of them ever needed anything or even woke up for that matter. They all survived the night without me, but the following morning I was exhausted. I am so grateful my mother was willing and able to pick the kids up so that Ty and I could rest. Thanks Mom!

Anyway, after being able to rest today things should be getting back to normal. Yay!

This is the fabric I am making Locke and Ty's Christmas shirts out of.
Just trying to locate some little wooden buttons :D 

Friendship Socks

My Pink Unicorn at her game 11/5/11

HQ giving her sister some homework help.

About a week ago I received the sales flyer for Joann. A TON of stuff was on sale AND the flyer included a coupon for 25% off your total (including sale and clearance items!!) anyway, it was a sale I couldn't miss.  I promptly called up my mother and booked her sitting services so that I could hit the sale sans the girls. I located my gift card and counted the days as if I were a little kid waiting for a trip to Disneyland. Sunday arrived. It was pouring down such beautiful rain. Yay! AND! I was surprised to learn that Ty had the day off and was planning on going with me. Double yay! We got there before the store opened and we saw many ladies waiting outside with their flyers in hand. Ty, Locke, and I waited in our warm car figuring out our game plan. I had already jotted down pattern numbers the night before (Simplicity patterns were on sale for $1 each), and we were ready. We found what we wanted pretty quick, but were then stuck at the cutting counter for 30 minutes.  My receipt said I had saved over $350 (we didn't spend anywhere near that). I found 10 yards of beautiful 100% cotton for $10.06. $10.06! It was a good day :)

I hear rain!

Rocking out with Elmo's guitar... and no pants.

Locke making Ty work at feeding him.

Today Izzy and I had some friends over. The girls did a craft and went to a tennis lesson. The girls wore "friendship" socks. Meaning they split up two pairs of socks and wore the opposite ones.  He each wore one pink ankle sock and one calf length black sock. They're so cool. Izzy later told me that she thinks she and her friend would make great sisters. 

Making pumpkin turkeys!

:D

These weirdos stuffed toys in their clothes trying to look like "lumpy old women".

Tonight we discovered all three of the kids got the 24 hour tummy bug. Harley was hit with it last night. Before bed tonight she was over it, but it hit Izzy at dinner and Locke about an hour before her. Let's pray Izzy's friend doesn't get it!

I was just given these stools. They are pretty darn comfy. I'm so excited to recover them!

Heart Shaped Pillow

I finally got some sleep last night! 5 magical hours. A friend brought by a natural remedy for insomnia and by golly it worked! I had no idea what caused my sleeplessness. I'm not anxious or worried about anything, I just couldn't sleep. So it was amazing!

In the afternoon we met some friends for lunch so our kids could play together. The kids entertain each other and the grown ups can get in a little grown up conversation between the "MOM! LOOK AT ME!"s. Play dates are fun for everyone involved!

After dinner Izzy wanted to sew. She had a tough time deciding what she wanted to make. She settled on a heart shaped pillow. She now has excellent control over the speed of her sewing machine, her hand sewing has improved tremendously, and she can use a seam ripper like a pro! I'm sew proud of her! (get it? "sew"? ...I still have sleep to catch up on) I am still super impressed with her little sewing machine. It's adorable and pretty darn sturdy.

She wanted to put a ton of stuffing in that little pillow! She ended up packing the heart until it was sold!

Tonight my mom called and said my little sister needed a Disney themed dress for her school dance on Friday. I was so excited! A million ideas popped through my head, but the excitement wore off when I remembered my sister's style. She is pretty much a tomboy and a minimalist. I can only use what I already have too, so this will be a nice little challenge. I feel so Project Runway.