May is almost over and it's been such a busy month! I've tried starting blog posts multiple times, but was having a lot of trouble uploading photos so I gave up. Apparently all I needed to do was restart Firefox. Anyway, here is a mismatched collection of events from life around here in the last couple of weeks.
May 14th - Greg's 29th Birthday
So even though I haven't hit it myself yet, twenty-nine feels like kind of a big birthday. Like you only have one year left of the fun life left. Which is slightly ridiculous since we decided to have kids so young and I often feel like we're waiting until our early forties when the boys are out of the house to finally live that fun life. But still, it sort of feels like a doomsday birthday to me. Greg doesn't feel that way, though, so I guess I'll expand on this subject more in five months when my big 2-9 comes around. :)
To nobody's shock, Caden wasn't in the best of moods that night. Maybe it's just from the busyness of the last month combined with staying up later every night (my kids suddenly realized they could talk and joke as long as they want before falling asleep), but he's been over the top emotional and cranky lately. He really can be a very sweet kid sometimes, but he has a lot of days like this. Anyway, I thought this series of photos was fairly amusing.
Nothing like some presents to bring out a smile. :) Greg was pretty lucky this year. He usually gets a lot of clothes, shoes, and practical gifts for his birthday because he doesn't shop for himself any other time of the year. This year I decided to do all fun presents for a change. Above is an A1 Dry Rub that Caden picked out himself to give Daddy. (Caden is OBSESSED with A1.)
Against my better judgement I gave him three Nerf "blasters" to play with together.
And the big one - a 3DS XL.
Greg decided instead of a birthday dessert he wanted two homemade pizzas that would more than fill him up. So I made an ultimate bbq chicken and buffalo pizzas. So delicious.
Yummy, buffalo. The BBQ was awesome, though. Always my favorite.
That night there were some crazy storm clouds rolling through. I don't think it ever actually rained by us, but the clouds were incredible. We sat on the deck and watched them for a long time.
Jumping on the Bed
Jumping on beds has become a new favorite past time for my kids. We've also reached that time of year when they never ever wear clothes.
Fun pictures. :)
Minnesota Mini Vacation
Last weekend, my best friend Dianne, who lives in Washington DC, was in Minneapolis for a few days visiting her mom and grandparents. I haven't seen her since Christmas and was itching for a reason to go back to my favorite stores in MN, so I took a little two day mini vacation. It was great doing some shopping and just hanging out with Dianne. We've been friends our whole lives and even though we email almost every day, actually being together in person is always a lot of fun. I think my favorite part of the weekend was going thrift shopping with the ladies. I made out the best with lots of super cheap Annie supplies, books, jeans, and actual Raggedy Ann dolls! It was fun. The worst part of the trip - realizing our car needs some serious help. I was totally freaked out that it was going to permanently break down at any moment while I was on my own. Definitely not fun!
Caden's Last Day of Preschool
Another big milestone - Caden finished his year of preschool! I can't believe how fast the time went. He seemed like such a little boy when he started last fall and now he's writing words, counting to 300, asking eight million questions a day, reading the clocks, and always informing me about things he's learned each week. He's grown so much this year and I'm so incredibly proud of him. Even in just the last month I've had so many people tell me how much he's been coming out of his shell. Even though he has NO problem talking at home, he's always very self conscious of his speech problems and had a super hard time finding the confidence to join in with other kids at school. But he's finally coming out of his shell and is a lot more comfortable being himself. I'm so happy for him. :)
He was pretty excited to take pictures with this sign. I don't usually get so much cooperation from him at photo shoot time!
So Much Sewing!
As you know, I started Heartstring Annie a few weeks ago and continue to at least be thinking about doll making pretty much all the time. I'm having so much fun (maybe a little too much) finding interesting vintage accessories that I can put on themed dolls. I now have enough accessories for probably two hundred dolls, so I better get sewing!!! The second half of this month was mostly spent working on more gift dolls, though. Hopefully next week, when life settles down again, I'll start on more for the shop.
Here are the dolls I made for Caden's preschool teachers. Two of them have vintage alphabet cards in their hands, one has a vintage number playing card, and one has an apple in her hand and an apple charm on her dress. So cute! I love the one on the far right. :)
Then I made a slightly bigger doll for Caden's speech teacher, who he adores and has done so much to help him in the last two years. She seems to really like cats and has pictures of orange cats in her classroom, so I decided to make more of a cat themed Annie than teacher. I was so excited to find an orange cat C card to go with her!
When I started this sewing thing all I was interested in was making Annies. But now that I pretty much have that process down, I'm starting to get a lot more excited about what other possibilities are out there. Pretty much anything, right?! I picked up a few sewing magazines and have been madly searching pinterest for easy sewing projects that appealed to me. The thing I liked the most was a journal cover. I love journals and have two sitting on my desk at all times, so this seemed like the perfect project. I was finally able to do it last night and I love the way it turned out! I see a lot of journals with covers in my gift giving future... ;) Next on my project list are stuffed animals. I have a pattern for a very simple giraffe and then a more complex dog. Hopefully I can start on those this week.
Memorial Weekend
Which finally brings us to this weekend! Greg decided to have his own MN mini vacation and headed up there with some of his friends on Saturday morning. I wanted to have more of a fun day with the boys, so we decided to check out this huge weekly flea market in Princeton. It was a pretty cool thing, but probably something you shouldn't take young children to. They were actually much better behaved than I expected, but it was hard to really look at things when I was constantly checking to make sure they were still next to me. We finally gave up, bought some mini donuts, and played on the playground for awhile. Then we stopped at another playground on the way home for a good hour and a half. And finally, dinner at Burger King.
Oh yes, on Saturday night we also made Fluffernutter Bars (above). I kind of improvised a recipe and combined a bunch of peanut butter sandwich cookies, peanut butter cups, and mini marshmallows with melted marshmallows and peanut butter chips, topped with milk chocolate. They were delicious. I ate WAY too many.
On Sunday the boys went with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Mel to Cedar Lake for Dock Day. I decided to stay home and get A LOT of stuff done. It was probably my most productive weekend in years!!! Not as relaxing as I had hoped, but the house is much cleaner, I got a big project done, I learned to sew a book cover, I baked a few things, and I watched two movies. Pretty successful day!
This morning I went to get the boys and we headed to the Memorial Day parade. It was a cold and misty morning, but I'm glad we went. It's good to honor the veterans that show up for those things. They deserve it.
The Upcoming Week
We have one more busy week until things will settle down a little bit. Tomorrow is mine and Greg's 7th anniversary! We're going to Madison for a nice dinner to celebrate. Then this weekend we're going to Chicago for a little getaway. I've been really excited about it, but still have so many details to figure out. It should be a ton of fun, though. :)
Besides that, Caden has just three more speech sessions left and then it is officially our summer! I've got my list going of fun things to do this year and I plan to make the most of it. My kids are growing up way too quickly and I want to do as much as I can with them while they're still interested. It should be fun. :)
Happy May! Hopefully my next post won't be so busy and long!
