Happy Halloween!

bean and sprout want to wish everyone out there

a happy and fun filled halloween!

with LOTS of candy. (the good kind!)

kinda looks like the boy already had plenty of the good kind- check out that buda belly!

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!

Good Grief

sprout has pulled himself up to stand three times today. i guess we get to lower the crib mattress again tonight. i'm not sure i'm ready for this......

on a completely different note, i've got the cold from h-e-double hockey sticks. our trick or treat party is tonight. i so want to see my cuties in their costumes and see people's reactions to what i made for them to wear but i'd pay any amount of money to just stay home and sleep. i don't know what to do. sprout obviously doesn't care but bean does- oh boy does bean care. this is all she has talked about for weeks. she has even practiced trick or treating. i suppose i'll have to suck it up and take them out..... sigh.

Cookin' Cookies

don't got a lot to say today. sprout was feverish (ooooh, 102.8) all day yesterday and was up most of the night last night (even though his fever was gone then.... grrrr!) so i'm dead tired. just thought i'd share some holiday baking pictures.
what??? you don't consider halloween a baking holiday?! all holidays are baking holidays- duh!

cutting the shapes and showing mommy that the dough is in fact sticking to your fingers.

putting on sprinkles..... lots of sprinkles.
(bean has never heard of too many sprinkles)

posing with her "artistic" (and hopefully edible) creations.

and yes, there are orange pumpkins, green ghosts, and purple cats. why? we had an educational decorating session- we learned about mixing colors. bean guessed that red and yellow would make orange (yay!) but thought that red and blue would make green (oops!). educational and yummy- you can't go wrong!
yeah, yeah, some days i'm an "overachiever" but then other days i can't get it together and we are all still in our jammies at dinner time. the latter happens more than i'd like to admit.... ;)

The Return of Crafty Me

so, saturday i was a little panic-y. i had no costume for the sprout-man. eeek! so i ran around. i bought a black turtleneck onesie here and 5 squares of felt there. i came home and that evening i created this....

bat wings on back of black onesie

bat head "hood" (sitting on a blue ball)

once again sorry for the less than stellar photos on the poker table! ;) but i think i did a decent job for less than $6 and one nights work. ok, little lie. i had to wait for the glue to dry on the ears before i attached them, so technically they weren't attached until the next evening. but hey, close enough!
i learned something that evening- i stink at hand stitching. oooooh boy i'm i BAD. we'll be lucky if this thing holds together! he he! i guess i need some practice before my next crafty project. :)

so now what you've all been waiting for. what the kids look like in these get ups! here's sprout as the littlest bat.....

and bean as his side-kick, the pinkest flamingo!

and here is the ONLY shot i got of them anywhere near each other.neither child really wanted their picture taken. sprout alternated between screaming his fool head off and smiling his sweet little grin. bean just couldn't stand still. so my photo shoot plans went all to heck. (plus it snowed the morning i took these and was gray and icky outside the whole rest of the day which led to horrible lighting for taking pictures.) luckily there is still several days before halloween and i may have a second chance at my desired photo shoot.... maybe. you never know with a three year old and a 7 month old!

so that is may trip into the world of craftiness. i actually really want to make something else. it was so satisfying. i have no ideas on what else to make but if i come up with something i'll be sure to let you know! ;)

Best Shot Monday

this monday i don't have beautifully artistic shots or anything like that. but i have something i find quite lovely- my children playing together. there really isn't anything more satisfying that watching your children play together, is there? sweet, adorable, heartwarming... that is until the bigger one "hugs" the smaller one too hard. seems it is hard to know your own strength when you are three.
unfortunately bean was not at all pleased about having her picture taken on this particular day. i only have one shot that shows her face! ok, lie. i have 3 more where she is making absurd faces. oh well, what can you do? like i mentioned before she is three. (does anyone else find the age of three, um, "challenging"??? because, good grief! but that is a whole nother story....)
ahhh, enough chatter! on with the photos!

bean and sprout playing "tea party".

sprout likes his with extra sugar.... he stole the bowl and spoon!

mmmmmm, tea and cookies!

and as an extra bonus i'm giving you this shot, which i find rather amusing. sprout with the pretend ice cream cone!

he seems rather confused, don't you think? ;)

i promise tomorrow will bring cutie cute shots of the kids in the halloween costumes i made. promise! :) in the mean time, go visit tracey and see everyone elses best shots.

Help!

everyone wants to know what sprout wants for christmas. first of all sprout doesn't know he is supposed to want anything and second we have TONS of toys in our house already. and they aren't just "girl" toys- we have trucks and cars too. i have no idea what to get him myself, what am i to tell other people?
do you know of any great thing that a little one sprouts age (he will be 9 months old on christmas day) would just love? com'on help a mommy out! ;)

She gets what she wants

when mommy says "no finger painting today. let's just use regular paints, ok?" it doesn't mean you can't paint with your hands......
yeah, sometimes she manages to get her own way without me giving in. i really don't think that's fair.
;)

Observation

while lying in bed this morning, sprout offered me his binky. practically crammed it in my mouth!

i suppose i should feel grateful that he wanted to share something that is so precious to him. hmmmmm, let's call it a sign that he really loves me best! ;)

Big Day for Sprout

so, it was a big day of firsts for the sprout. ya see i woke up this morning to the sounds of his delightful babble. i just stayed in bed. i figured if he's not crying there is no urgency, right? so, now it is babbling with random vocals by the glow worm. it sounds happy and it was warm in the bed. i stay put. then bean wakes and demands her breakfast so we go in to collect sprout. this is what we see when we get in there....
who told him he was allowed to sit up all by himself?? honestly!

(and please ignore the fact that his sheets clash terribly with his crib bumper- the sheets were too cute to pass up. oh, and ignore that i have a bumper on the crib. i guess that is supposed to be a no-no. oh and the pile of stuffed animals too. i never said i was a good mom, did i??)

then we had a wonderful day with some friends. yay for friends!! when we got home i made dinner and we all sat down to eat. sprout finished his food so i gave him some puffs. would you check out that pincer grasp he has going on here?!?he has never done that before! it was always smashed up in his fist. he managed to get all kinds of them in his mouth tonight. :)

(please ignore the total gross mess of his highchair tray. my son is a super messy eater and often steals the spoon and bangs it on the table allowing food to splatter every where. what can i say- i like him to enjoy his meal!)

so after dinner we are playing in the living room when sprout just starts clapping. we have no idea what made him decide to do it but there he was clapping away. bean was SO excited! she was even more excited when she realized that she could get him to clap by clapping herself. it was adorable. i wish i would have had the video camera.

you know, as much as i love to see him succeed at all these milestones i really wish he would spread things out a little more! let's give mama a break bud! ;)

Crafty Me!

so, let's say you have a three year old little girl. she adores the color pink. she decides that she simply must be a flamingo for halloween.
yes, that is right- a flamingo!

ok, this is not a costume that you can just drive down to the local costume shop and buy. you can't even find much on the internet. (well, you can IF you want to pay $40 or more)

i seriously considered trying to change her mind. but i really didn't want to crush her little halloween dreams. so i sucked it up and decided to make her costume.
i had lots of ideas swimming around in my head but nothing concrete. so i went to the store and saw a little pink jumper. it was dar-ling! and suddenly i thought, "i could use that to make her costume!" so i bought it and brought it home. then i sat and thought about what to do next. as i stared at that jumper i started to get this crazy idea. something in my head was saying, "you could make that jumper and it would be cheaper!"

make a jumper???? had i gone mad! i've never sewn an article of clothing in my life. how was i going to make a jumper? sure, i thought. just use the one you bought as a pattern. hmmmmmm.
i decided i better go to the fabric store before i talked myself out of it.

i went uber cheap- i bought felt. baby pink and hot pink felt for $2.99 a yard. i bought more than i thought i would need, just in case i messed up and had to start over. i also bought some black and white felt squares and a pink baseball hat for the head. i was suddenly quite inspired. i actually believed i could make an adorable costume. who took pessimistic blueberry and left this optimist in her place?????

i had a few false starts. i was near tears a few times. i very nearly made the jumper too narrow to fit bean! i managed to work through all of it. i also managed to make a cutie pie flamingo costume for less than $10. no joke.

presenting blueberry's first ever sewing success and bean's 2008 halloween costume.....

front view

back view

head*

she is wearing a pink turtle neck and black tights with it. the wings are sleaves that slide over her arms- i wanted to make sure she could still wear the turtleneck as regular clothes. i also made black felt feet that go over her shoes.
you have NO idea how proud i am of this. NO IDEA. :)

you will have to wait a little longer to see bean in it though.... mommy is a little afraid that something might happen to it so there is no playing around with it yet. don't worry, there will be a full photo shoot and you will have a front row seat!! promise!


*sorry about the crappy quality of these photos- my basement is not photo friendly. and yes, the costume is sitting on a poker table. what can i say, it was the perfect size to piece together my project!

Best Shot Monday

we went to the pumpkin farm this weekend! it was a lovely fall day- sunny but still a bit chilly. a perfect afternoon for picking out your jack-o-lantern to be. i took tons of pictures, of course! here are some of the highlights....

first the hayride out to the pumpkin field! and bean LOVED that hayride! who knew that a wagon filled with hay pulled by a tractor could be so fun and exciting? :)

she found the perfect pumpkin.
she was a little disappointed that she couldn't pick it up!

daddy helps her carry it back to the spot where the hayride will pick us up.
(i love this shot!)


here comes the tractor!! hooray!


sprout was very serious the whole day.

even when he was standing amongst all those pumpkins


maybe it was all that hay he ate!
blech!

we came home with 2 pumpkins, 6 pumpkin donuts, 1 caramel apple (with m&m's on it- YUM!) and a very happy family. hooray for great weekends! hooray for fall! :)

stop by tracey's and check out what everyone else has been up to this past week!

Sprout Makes Friends

bean and adam are best friends. maybe matthew and sprout are going to be too...
i suppose it is too early to tell. :)

Crawling- Ahhhhhh!

so, in the course of about 4 days we went from a barely moving army type crawl to a full on army crawl. he can really get going and it is freaking me and bean out. see bean likes to play near sprout but not necessarily with sprout. now sprout decides, "hey those markers look good" and he just takes off. bean starts shrieking of course because - OMG sprout can't have her markers!!! sigh. this is so much fun. ;)

here is a video of sprout crawling. it is a very, very dark video but i think that you should be able to tell what is going on. (this is the fist time i tried to tape him that he didn't immediately stop crawling! little turkey!) enjoy!

Weekday Funny!

just a few silly shots from my niece's birthday party this weekend. interestingly i got zero pictures of the birthday girl but i did get these of bean and my other niece wearing the eyeball glasses that came in the goody bags. i find them amusing- hopefully you do too!!

"oh my! let me check you out!"


"lovely music, my dear, but please excuse me a moment. the camera is calling!"


"look at me! i'm gorgeous darling! simply gorgeous!"

this last one is a wee bit blurry but it is too funny not to share. he he he! i love that face!!

Best Shot Monday

here we are- monday again! how does monday keep sneaking up on me like this??

here are my best shots this week. sadly i have been in a funk when it comes to taking pictures and don't have many to choose from. but i did find something to share!

sprout was sitting on the couch with daddy. suddenly daddy calls for my attention and we watch as sprout falls backwards in slow motion. he has fallen asleep and can't keep himself upright any longer!

don't you wish you could just fall asleep anywhere? :)


for more best shot's head on over to tracey's place!!

OH i'm Famous!

go visit christina at momology to see one of my lastest stories! it's like being published or something- i feel SO cool! ;)

Playing Together

we are reaching the point where the bean and the sprout can sometimes play together. yes, i have to be right there to make sure no one gets hurt but i can just sit back and watch. i've found a few "games" that are perfect for them to do together. one of the best is bubbles!


sprout was fascinated by the bubbles and bean loves blowing them. they just had the best time. it was really great to watch them do something together!

The 6 Month Sprout

yes, sprout had his 6 month appointment today. he was found to be in good health and good spirits too- he was all smiles and even snuggled on the nurse!

his stats-
weight: 19 pounds, 5 ounces (75th percentile)
length: 28 1/2 inches (95th percentile)
head: 46.4 cm (97th percentile)
(daddy is still predicting that he will be a left tackle when he grows up!)

now i know why i think he looks like a 9 month old- he is EXACTLY the same weight and length bean was at 9 months! how weird is that!

he also got 3 shots and an oral vaccine. the oral vaccine went down much easier this time- no gagging and choking! :) he did pretty good with the shots too. once we got to the car he was fine and he took a little nap.

what is up with him?
*he is trying to pick up cheerios and when he gets one he attempts to put it in his mouth. usually his hands are so wet with drool that the cheerio sticks to him and never makes it to his mouth though. the couple that did go in caused him to make the most amusing face!
*he is making great strides in crawling. i realized this morning that he hasn't gone backwards in about 2-3 days.
*he throws a fit if you take something away from him- especially if it is something he is NOT supposed to have. how does he already know what he isn't supposed to have?!?
*if he drops something he looks for it.
*if he is holding an object in each hand it won't be long before he starts banging them together. the doctor gave him a couple of tongue depressors to play with during the exam and when she started talking to me, he started slapping them together.
*loves to stand but has not yet figured out that he NEEDS to hold on or he will fall. (he can't get to a standing position by himself but if you stand him up he can stay up.... as long as he holds on.)
*he can't get enough of the dog. he loves to watch her. and she is surprisingly tolerant of him- she was NOT that way with bean!
*he is seriously addicted to his binky. sigh.
*he loves the tub. if you are giving him a bath you better be prepared to get wet though. he is a very splash happy child. i got soaked last time!
*he wakes up too early in the morning- pre 6 am, in case you were wondering. he doesn't cry, he just lays there yelling "da da da da da!" and "bah-bah-bah-bah!" and other random sound combinations. so there he stays until i'm ready to get up.

he is just a big ball of sweetness. he only cries when he is hungry and tired. he is always watching things. when he sees me he smiles and sometimes even holds his arms up asking to be picked up. he is just the cutest little man!!

Along Came a Spider...

hey mommee, remember that spider you found the other day? you know, the big one? yeah, did you happen to let it go? no?

just wondering because i found this guy at our house and he looks very much like yours, don't ya think?

but it seems that you found yours in your kitchen. that isn't where ours was. i totally got you beat in creepy spider stories on this one. oh yes i do! where did we find it....

in bean's dresser drawer! ahhhhh!
i was getting clothes out for her to wear to school when he came scurrying by. i sent bean for her trusty bug jug so i could collect mr. nasty. i certainly wasn't going to touch it or anything! and leaving it amongst her clothing was also NOT an option! she obliged AND she insisted on taking him outside to live in the bushes. sigh.

so after taking time to fully check out his hairy legs and stripey body he was deposited in those bushes. in case you wondered, this is where all bugs and spiders go when they leave our house. it seems bean is a very humane child. :)

Sprout's 6 Month Portraits

the day sprout turned 6 months old he had his portraits taken. he did pretty well. i mean, he had no interest in looking at the guy who was taking his picture but we did finally get him to look up and make a few cute faces.
we did fall pictures like these:

and bathtub pictures like these:


sprout was rather into those fake leaves! all he really wanted to do was eat them, but then the rubber ducks may have been more satisfying! ;) all in all it was a pleasant experience. and maybe even more than pleasant because there was no one ahead of us or immediately after us so the guy wasn't rushed at all. this won't happen next month when we do christmas portraits of course......

the 6 month doctor visit is on thursday.... yeah, i know he will be 6 1/2 months by then but our pediatrician has become rather popular/busy and it is more difficult to schedule an appointment when you want it. of course there is a reason- she is AWESOME. my kids LOVE her. i could NEVER go anywhere else. unfortunately a lot of other people have figured this out too.
so, stay tuned for the exciting adventures of the "6 month sprout"!

Best Shot Monday

it's monday already? how'd that happen??

anyways, here are my best shots of the week. they may not be masterpieces but i think they are just too cute! of course, how could pictures of little bean "doing" her daddy's hair not be cute?

i'm not sure what she is doing but it looks a little rough.

i think i'm glad she isn't doing my hair!

i guess it can't be too bad. i think he is smiling here or is that grimacing....
i'm not sure. ;)

hmmm, now she is looking a little crazy.
i wonder what is going through that brain of her's right now?

she's still going at it.
daddy must be a patient man!

i think she may finally be satisfied with the results.
for daddy's sake i hope she is!! ;)

looking to see more great pictures? head on over to tracey's and check out what everyone else has been up to this past week.