Fall Party Fun

Whewy!
We had a really fun night.
Friends, food, dessert, candy, games, kids all over the place, adults all over the place...
...a great way to spend Halloween!

Sydaleigh brought home the prize for best costume for 3yrs. and younger-booh yeah Alice!
...Isaak laid down the law in his 'Sheriff'' getup..
I made sure no one crashed from all the sugar rushes...
and Marvelly was just a really cute pumpkin.
Fun safe night, just our style.

I just love 'hand me downs'

Last weekend I was rummaging through Sydaleigh's closet, getting ready to reorganize it, because it was atrocious, and I looked up and saw this computer box...

"hmmm, what's in there?" I thought...

I pulled it down from the top shelf and low and behold it was full of clothes and shoes from Victoria (my neice, the girls' cousin) that I totally forgot I had.
We are talking 10+ pairs of shoes, boots, sandals, church shoes, 3T and up clothes, everything that I was getting ready to have to buy Sydaleigh for the winter but won't have to now!
(thanks Abby!)

What made this discovery even better is that Sydaleigh was over the moon thrilled that Victoria had given her all those shoes to wear, particularly these black strap church ones.
Victoria is the cool older cousin (she's in the 1st grade) and just couldn't stop raving about all the "butiful" shoes.

She loves them so much she wears them to bed.
Actually sleeps in them.
Her feet are probably going to get stunted from sleeping in shoes, but at least they are "butiful"shoes.

paintings finally here

I have to say that at 26, almost 27 years old I still get
excited about receiving something in the mail.
(bills don't count)

It's fun....the anticipation.

So this week was very special for me because we were waiting to receive two paintings by Isaak's dad, and a custom purse that I had ordered almost six weeks ago.
All three came!
(yes, I was very excited because these things, though they sound trivial, really excite me!)

Our paintings are finally home.
And I got my cute new purse.

Anyways,
The first painting is Isaak's and is called Sunburst

this second painting is mine, no title.
I'm not entirely sure how Isaak's dad felt about painting me this. I asked him months ago if he would paint for me an abstract christian genre type painting. I don't know exactly where he stood spiritually but it really blessed my heart that he agreed to paint it for me even if he had mixed feelings about it.

I know it means a lot to Isaak to finally have some of his Dad's artwork in our home, to look at. Brent was an exceptional artist and I hope with these hanging in our home it will bring Isaak some extra comfort, help him to remember his dad in a cool positive way.
Now we just have to find a place to hang em! These suckers are big!

Lovely...

...simply lovely

Up to no good

CHARGES.....
conspiring with your friends to dump leaves on another friend's lawn and
thinking it's really funny!

VERDICT...

GUILTY

GUILTY

definitely GUILTY

(teaching kids at an early age to be mischievous, oh we are bad.)

caught in the act -GUILTY!

SENTENCE...laugh laugh laugh...

BUAH HA HA HA HA!!!!!!

Treat-Street

This morning we took the girls to Treat-Steet at the Mid-America Center in

Council Bluffs for a safe and friendly alternative to trick r' treating.
They had bounce houses, candy, prizes-loads of stuff.
Adults had to pay to get in so you know I was milking that event for all
the free stuff I could...
candy-you betcha!
balloons- how many can I have?
cute american flag tote bags- can I get more than one please?
stickers, popcorn, and more free stuff-bring it on!
( I know, I'm lame, but also thrifty!)
The girls got to get dressed up in their costumes, which until last night I had no idea what Sydaleigh's was going to be, and they were both so cute.
Marvelly was a pumpkin.
Sydaleigh was Alice in Wonderland/me when I was three.
( that was my dress when I was her age).

probably shouldn't have laughed

but I just couldn't help it!!

Sydaleigh bit her lip this morning while we were at Treat-Street- it bled a little, swelled up a little, but she went right back to playing-so no biggie.
When we got home she told Isaak that her lip hurt and asked for a band-aid.
A band-aid on her lip.
Isaak obliged and put it across her top lip as she wanted.
When I walked into the kitchen and looked at her I busted up laughing!
She looked so cute and silly with that band-aid on the top of her mouth, how could I not laugh?!?!
But apparently that was not very well received because she started to cry and got very upset at me, for laughing at her band-aid.
Ahh, I just love kids, they think of the funniest things.

Cool blog

I am totally doing this.
I love ideas that allow me to reuse items I already have!

Quillows by Rosemary

The first time I met Isaak's aunt Rosemary, we were living in California and went down to LA for a visit so Isaak could see his cousins and hang with his family. Isaak was giving me the scoop on the way down, telling me about his aunt and cousins, and one of the things that he mentioned was that his Aunt Rosemary was an incredible seamstress, sewer, uh, I'm not quite sure what people who are really good at sewing that to be called but you get the idea.
And he was not lying!
Man, can that woman sew!
And quillows is one of her specialties.
I had never even heard of a quillow before ( she was one of the first people to ever make these).
A pillow that transforms into a quilt/blanket.
Isaak just loves these. So when we had Sydaleigh the first thing that he wanted was for his Aunt Rosemary to make her a quillow. And, when Isaak returned from California last week he brought one home for Marvelly that she had been working on.
Both girls have cat quillows-Sydaleigh's cat's are super fancy with purses and jewlery and Marvelly's cat's are classic and old fashioned with aprons and bonnetts-
Super cute, very different ( hmm, kind of like my girls :))
I love that they both have one and it's a special something that they can keep with them forever.
I also love that we have people in our family with special talents, talents and skills that range all across the board. And I'm grateful they are willing to use those skills to bless our family.
Thanks Aunt Rosemary!

A must read if you really want to know

*(if you are reading this and don't particularly want to be in the know about my boobs-turn back now-otherwise, happy reading!)

I'm sitting here wondering if it's physically possible for your boobs to explode from being overly engorged?

Silly?

Well, you haven't seen my boob.
I'm tempted to google it and see.

I decided yesterday that after four treacherous months of constant clogged ducts on my left side I was going to discontinue nursing Marvelly on the left.
For some reason though, I didn't expect all this. Probably because I never had to do this with Sydaleigh.

WOWZERS!!!!!!!

I am like seriously praying that it doesn't explode.
I am clinging to the hope that when the doctors say your milk will just dry up and reabsorb, it will actually do that-before I explode!

I look majorly deformed right now!
I'm hermatizing myself within my home until everything returns to normal-praying that it's sooner rather than later.
And, praying that my next post isn't titled, "What to do when your breast explodes...."

The only fall decoration I've gotten around to putting out

was eaten!
this is all that remains of Sydaleigh's pumpkin.
Those squirrels are gonna be feasting come winter.

Little sickling

Our little Marvelly had another first this week-poor kid got sick Monday night with a fever and major congestion. She literally did not sleep for two nights. Isaak was so worried about her lack of sleep he was ready to take her to the ER (poor guy didn't know what to do). But even in her sleepness nights the past two days she was still such a joy. As I held her at 12:00 in the morning, sobbing, because she wouldn't sleep, she just looked at me and laughed laughed laughed. Even in sickness she maintains her joyfulness. She's better today, no fever, still stuffy, and she sleep 12 hours last night, that's my girl!

Bloom where you're planted

Saturday after Isaak got home from Cali we took the girls to a pumpkin patch out by Nebraska City. The thirty minute drive out there was so beautiful-out in the middle of what seemed like no where, surrounded by rolling farm land, which was a bit brown since harvest season is done, but in no way took away from the awesome scenery.
The pumpkin patch was called Bloom Where You're Planted.
How charming.
It was family owned, super quaint, much smaller than Vala's, way more toddler friendly, extremely inexpensive ($2 people), not too big, not too small, just all in all perfect.
We (adults included) had such a good time. Only had a meltdown when it was time to go home-because she didn't want to go home! None of us did, but nap time was calling. We really had such a good time-can't wait to go back next year.

It was a special agricultural weekend so there were a number of extra animals there for petting.

Syd is not quite sure if she likes the pigs enough to actually touch them, but she checks them out.

The kids got to shuck corn and then put it in that thiny ma jiggy and turn the handle as the kernals came out the bottom and collected in the bucket below. Cool stuff.

a really cool corn 'box'

We buried Marvelly in corn as she ate hay from the bails.

Sydaleigh spotted two grasshoppers 'hugging' while frolicking in the corn fields.

yummy cookies, more animals, a playground, tons of rustic knick knacks for cool photo ops, friends-and the only thing we forgot was a pumpkin. Not too shabby!!