Cowabunga!!

I suck at life documentation. Tate and Tanner found our old ninja turtle movies at the end of August, and it was love at first sight. They wanted to be ninja turtles for Halloween the moment they saw the 1980s film.  Here is our take on Ninja turtles:

I found the main parts of the boys costumes on 2 separate Goodwill trips, but had to make the accessories, as well as mine and Chris' really fancy costumes. Every day they would as me, "Mom, what's my name again?"

"Tanner, you're Donatello the purple one."
 "Tate you are the red one, Raphael"
"Mom is the orange one, Michaelangelo"
and "Dad is the blue one, Leonardo."
Repeated 12x each day.

 There was a couple of days there where they wanted to be Indians, but in the end the Ninja turtles prevailed.

 I think i had the best weapon overall, the nunchuk .  It was definitely the most dangerous, as Tanner can attest. (He hit himself) :)

So Halloween was grand, and the weather was beautiful the entire weekend. (No jackets!)  and Chris and I are still eating their Halloween candy. :) 

 This next bit of info deserves it's own post. I am a little frightened to say this prematurely, but we no longer have diapers in our house!! I only started potty training Tanner 4 days ago, but he has had no accidents for 2 days. It is AMAZING. I have been putting off potty training because my first experience (Tate) was less than desirable. But this is seriously miraculous. He is the man!!

I guess I never blogged it, so I should also say that there is a legitimate reason why I have a pot belly in the above photo. We are expecting a GIRL at the beginning of Feb!!

The best date ever :)

Check out my handsome date, Tate P. Smith. My friend Alecia suggested that we take our two oldest kids to Chic fil A for the mother/son date night last Friday. IT WAS SO FUN! 

Tate was so cute. I came downstairs ready to go in my jeans and tshirt and he gets this dissapointed look on his face and says, "But I wanted you to wear a pink dress." So I run up stairs and rummage through my closet that is virtually devoid of anything pink and I try and convince him to let me wear a black skirt.  He says again,  "But I want you to wear a pink skirt." So I hold up this purpley number and I said "What about this one?"

"Yes."

Whew. So I come back downstairs and he is wearing these lovely swimming goggles. He really thought that he looked good in these and that he needed to wear these out on our date. And he did. FUNNY. Where he got the notion that I needed to wear a pink dress/skirt I am still trying to figure out. I thought it was so cute though. 

A hostess seated you when we walked in and presented me with a rose and Tate with a toy. They took our order at the table, and I had the most delectable oreo milkshake EVER. 

They had two members of "the herd" there that Tate HAD to hold hands with and take pictures with, and the night ended with balloons and a limo ride. It was a blast. I don't get out with just Tate hardly ever, so this was a treat. I am constantly amazed (as I am sure all parents are) at how smart and funny and witty he is. I cant believe the things that he says sometimes. He comprehends so much. 

Oh, and he said his first naughty word this week. I am so proud. (Not really) He has this motorized car that he got from our neighbors and when it wasn't going the way he wanted it to he said, "this d*** car" Yes, he did. Sorry, mother, if you are reading this. I am ashamed. I do find solace in the fact that I know he did not learn the word from me. We have, however, narrowed it down to three people.  It was John Wayne, Tate's father, Chris, :) or the movie Shrek which he watched the same day. Chris seems to want to blame John Wayne, but I am not so sure. I really am embarassed to blog about this, but I think in a few years I will find it quite comical and will want to recall the details. 

Here's the little buddies, Tate and Tanner. They got into a huge fight last week when Tanner hit Tate on the head with a toy gun because Tate was trying to take the gun from him and Tate's head started bleeding. Tate was mad so he gouged a chunk out of Tanner's nose with his fingernails and then luckily I intervened. Tate truly needed a band-aid, but then of course Tanner wanted one too. This was taken about 2 minutes after their huge fight. They play (and fight) so well together. 

Last week it hit 100, so went swimming a couple of days. Tate and Tanner loved it, even though the water is still cold. I am excited for the summer swimming days. Here is Tate doing the "monkey walk" around the pool.

I had a really good mother's day. I will have to post some details/pictures soon. For now I am really enjoying one of my gifts...a cook book.  La di da. But there really is some good stuff in here, with ingredients that you can find easily at virtually any grocery store. I bought a cook book once that had totally obscure ingredients and I NEVER use it. They have a lot of recipes on their blog...you should check them out! The baked chicken taquitos are AMAZING. 

Go fly a kite.

 Tonight we had some good wind so we decided to try our batman kite again. We tried it a few weeks ago but it was pretty much unsuccessful. Tate has this Berenstein Bears dvd where the whole episode is about them making this big red kite and then flying it so he has been wanting to do the same thing. He told me "I'm just like Papa Bear!" He has an uncanny memory to recall lines from movies. He says some funny stuff. My favorites are:

"Pigs are naturally stupid" (Babe) (I think he likes this one too because he thinks he can get away with saying the word "stupid" because he is quoting a movie. He will say this line over and over and over...)
"Do you want to get nabbed by the police?!" (101 Dalmations)
"Kill the Goat!" (Home on the Range) and
"You indiats" (101 Dalmations) Cruella says "You idiots!" but when Tate says it he thinks the word is a cross between the words indian and idiot.

 He is always saying random stuff and when I ask him where he heard that he always references some movie. Even movies he has only seen once he can recall lines from. Definitely not like me. Exactly like Chris. Maybe its a boy thing??

Tanner...of course wearing his cowboy boots and a carrying a bag of "fishies"

The proud kite flyer.

On a completely different note I had a surprise waiting for me the other day. Tate was using the restroom and I stepped outside to do some work in the backyard. I came back a couple minutes later and this is what I found:

:

I was dying when I walked in and this is the first thing I saw. What a great brother, huh? I think Tanner was enjoying himself a little bit too much, though. (See his face in picture below)  He LOVES helping Tate do anything (put on shoes, pick out clothes, get underwear out of his drawer, share his toys with Tate, etc.) so this was right up his alley. So Funny.  This is the kind of funny stuff I want to remember a few years from now so I am so glad to be blogging again for that reason alone!

On another completely different note I did a "Ragnar Del Sol" last weekend. It was so fun! During it I did not think it was as much fun, but looking back I think I would do it again. Basically we have a team of 12 people and our team ran approx. 200 miles in 1 1/2 days. Each person has 3 legs to run, of varying distances and difficulty. I had a really cool ragnar logo neck tattoo for the event because I am so hard core. LOL. I will have to post pictures when I get them. It was the most I have ever run, (or is it ran??) so overall I feel it was a huge accomplishment for me! 

Sick.

We have all been sick this week. We have had a total of 4 Dr/Urgent Care visits, and have had 4 prescriptions filled. Tate and Tanner both had ear infections and Chris and I have nasty colds. Chris swore he had pneumonia, but no. This surely makes me appreciate mine and my family's health. 

I do a preschool swap with some girls that live near me and this month we are learning about "occupations" Tate got to meet a "real, live" police officer this week. When I asked him after school what police officers do he even told me that police officers "help people and protect them" and "they shine lights in peoples ears like this" and then he demonstrated how to shine lights in eyes.  But when I ask him he is convinced that they shine lights in ears. Maybe he is a bit confused after his visits to the Dr. ?? They made these police hats at school and Tate wears it al the time. 

A few random moments from this week. 

Washing his "piggies". 

Holding his puppy.

They fell asleep like this on my bed last night. 

I found these mugs at anthropologie for $1.50. So excited about it. If i get around to it they will get some type of fake flowers in them!  

I bought these letters at Hobby Lobby on my last trip, and then repainted an old frame that I had.  I covered the cardboard of the picture with fabric and then hot glued the letters on top. 

My favorite valentines decor is this garland.  I bought these doilies at HL last trip as well, and then taped pieces of red yarn in between them. Less than $4. Woo-hoo!

I am all decorated for v-day, but honestly have no idea what I am going to do for Chris. Any suggestions??

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Christmas miracle! And a trip to Hobby Lobby.

After a long absence I am doing a blog post. My first one in almost a year. Truly a miracle. I think I just got tired of posting "last week we went to the zoo, and the week before that we did this or that" blah. blah. blah.  It just got a little boring to me I guess. And I never wanted to take the time to upload my pictures from my camera. I have a new phone and I can email the pictures to myself, so I think that will help. So the picture quality will be decreased, but I think that crappy pictures are better than no pictures, right? At least for me. Plus, I got to looking at past blog posts and pictures that I have on my computer and I was really sad that the lat year has been virtually undocumented. So I plan to just blog about everything and nothing, with no rhyme or reason. :) And how about these new fonts on blogger? Long time coming. I am quite happy about it.

 And now to the point. Hobby Lobby! Ever since my first accidental encounter with the store several years ago  at the I-10 and 99th ave,  (I just thought the name "Hobby Lobby" sounded interesting...so I went in.  It was the only AZ location at the time. ) I knew that Hobby Lobby and I were meant to be a part of each other's lives. Sadly,  I have not been there in several months, but I ventured in yesterday. A trip, mind you, that is not for the faint of heart with 2 boys ages 2 and 3. But oh, so worth it despite the   "you know if he breaks that you are going to be held responsible" and "you may not climb on that, where is your mother" comments that we received from employees. And, yes,  I will admit I do get a little distracted, and lose track of them for a few seconds at a time. There are just so many great ideas and tons of inspiration there. But honestly, what am I supposed to do, get a babysitter while I go to Hobby Lobby? (Although that would be a fabulous idea.) Tanner refuses to stay in the cart, so I figure I either try and make him stay in the cart and he ends up falling out and cracking his head open or I just let him walk around with Tate. I usually give it a good effort for the first 2 minutes we are in a store and make him stay in the cart but after that I give up. During those first 2 minutes Tate always asks me, "can  you put Tanner down?" They are seriously so funny together.

Exhibit A: the Wheelbarrows

Tate discovered these wheelbarrows, and naturally Tanner thought it was a great idea. They pushed these around the entire store, loading them up with their little treasures. I kept making them put the things back that they put in but after awhile I remembered when I was little I would have thought I was so cool to be able to put things in my cart, so I backed off a little.  

As a side note, Tanner demands to wear this Cowboy hat every single day. As soon as I get him dressed he says, "cawboy hat" I have even tried to hide it a few times, you know, just to see if we can change it up a little one day and not wear the hat. Doesn't work. That and his "boooots" every day of his life. He is the cutest little cowboy, though. 

Exhibit B: The unidentified crumbs

And then a saw them both laying on the floor. They are looking at crumbs of chips, I think. I couldn't really tell. When I picked Tanner up off the floor his breath smelled like chips, so I am betting that's what they were.

I took a few pictures of things that i liked or gleaned some inspiration from. I seem to just take more pictures than purchases, though. My mom gave me a gift card for my bday in September, and when I have gift cards I make them last so long. I think my $40 dollar gift card has lasted me 4 trips now! I just don't want to squander any of it.

I made an apron like this a couple years ago, but  I have been wanting to make another.  I love these colors. I want to make a valentine's one. 

I love this mirror. Especially the color. Actually, I really like the shape, too. 

I like the way these letters are arranged.  

I found this in a book. I love this quilt! I think I am going to try it-soon.
 I am a sucker for polka dots every. stinkin. time. 

A project I finished yesterday. I think I am going to update it a little since the pink letters are hard to read.
La La Love you! (that's what it says)
It is super cutesy and girly, but that is what I was going for. 

 This is my favorite project lately, these banners. (I have a Halloween, birthday, and Christmas one!) I like them because they go pretty fast and they are easy to start and stop and then pick up again when you have time. Since I don't have a fancy schmancy machine to cut fabric letters, I just print off my computer whatever I want it to say and in what font, and then I cut the letters out of the paper . Then, I iron "heat 'n bond" (pretty cheap, available at Joanns, hobby lobby, etc.) onto my white fabric,  and then cut the fabric letters out, using the paper letters as a pattern. Then you just iron the fabric letters on the the banner.

I have a few other Valentinesy projects underway, I will have to post when they're done. Happy Friday!