The kids and I did something fun this year that I think will become a family tradition for us. I came across the Samaritan's Purse website and I thought my kids would really enjoy preparing shoe boxes for their Operation Christmas Child project.

I was a little nervous that they might have a hard time picking out a bunch of stuff they liked and then giving it all away, but I didn't need to be. Other than one isolated incident involving Noah trying to take a Jolly Rancher from one of the boxes after they were all packed, they were really excited about sending presents to little kids who wouldn't otherwise be getting very much, if anything, for Christmas.
Emma, Noah, and Allie each got to send a box to a kid in their own age group, although we helped Allie with hers, of course. We went to Target and the dollar store and picked out a bunch of fun goodies to fill the boxes. After we bought the stuff, Emma and Noah drew pictures to put in the boxes, along with photos of themselves.Yesterday we brought our boxes to the drop-off place and watched as hundreds and hundreds of shoe boxes were loaded onto a truck. I'll be getting an email that will tell us where our boxes went and possibly some info about the kids who received them, so we're all looking forward to that. I already marked this on my 2010 calendar and am excited about continuing this tradition every year!

Ta-DAH!I mastered the granny square, so on Saturday morning Steve and the kids dropped me off at the yarn store and drove around while I browsed and picked out yarn for an afghan. I take my kids a lot of places, but going into a yarn store with a five year old, a two year old, and a one year old is not something I am willing to do. I can just see the employees ringing up hundreds of dollars worth of expensive yarn that my kids managed to unroll, tangle, and destroy in a matter of minutes.

Since I picked out the yarn, I have been granny square-ing as fast as I can, which is admittedly not that fast. I have stayed up way too late the past two nights, working on my squares, so hopefully it won't be too terribly long before I have a completed afghan! Hooray!

A couple weeks ago I had to run into an Eddie Bauer store to check and see if they had something, and while I was there I stuck my hand into a fluffy-looking slipper. The inside of it was so wonderfully, incredibly soft and fluffy that I immediately considered buying the pair. I talked myself out of it, mostly because I always prefer to have bare feet and therefore have never been a slipper person, and also because the slippers looked like they should be worn by someone who is about 98 years old. Several times in the next week or two, I realized that my feet were a bit chilly and I thought longingly of those warm and cozy slippers that I hadn't bought. Saturday evening I couldn't resist anymore, so we went back to Eddie Bauer and I purchased the slippers. I am telling you, these slippers are absolutely heavenly, and I've been wearing them nonstop since I got them. And if I happen to look like I should be shuffling around in a nursing home, so be it. That's a small price to pay for comfort of this magnitude.

Well, I never got the basement cleaned and organized (which probably shouldn't be a surprise to anyone) but I did make some progress in other areas. After studying various youtube videos last night, I made my first attempt at crochet. Are you ready for this? It's going to knock your socks off!Impressive, huh? Not sure why my stitch count seemed to be decreasing with each row, but it doesn't matter anyway, because I today I started another piece and apparently I corrected whatever I was doing wrong the first time. I know it's hard to believe I could create anything that would surpass my original work, but here you go:After that I was feeling confident enough to attempt a granny square. You might notice that there is absolutely nothing "square" about this at all, but don't let that bother you because I think I've figured out what I was doing wrong.Today I also managed to drag out and work on an old unfinished project,
as well as something new.Be ready for more crochet excitement to come soon! (And if you're asking yourself if crochet and excitement belong in the same sentence together, just wait!)

My mom came to visit this weekend, and just left this morning. Her visits are always so great that I feel a little down in the dumps when she leaves, but today is not so bad. Right now it's chilly and yucky outside but warm in here, I have soup cooking on the stove and bread rising on the counter, and (best of all) both babies are sleeping. We will also be seeing my family again in less than two weeks so that helps too!

The only bad part about my mom's visit is that she played Candy Land with Noah, and now that's all he wants to do. I strongly dislike Candy Land to begin with, but Noah's version mostly involves a lot of throwing the cards around, and guess who is usually stuck picking most of them up. For that reason, Candy Land is now hidden back in the game closet, and hopefully soon forgotten.I have not done any sewing or knitting in quite awhile, but lately I am itching to start doing those things again. My goal this afternoon is to get the basement cleaned and organized so I can at least get to my sewing machine without having to wade through mounds of toys and clutter. In addition to new things, there are many (many, many, many) unfinished projects that are calling my name. I also need to learn how to crochet because I want to do this. Of course, it's so easy to sit here at the computer and be inspired by other people's projects; the problem is actually finding the time to work on projects of my own. However, today I am vowing to make that a priority, so hopefully I'll have some crafty things to show here pretty soon.

On our first Valentine's Day together, Steve and I had been dating for almost a year. For his present, I made him a scrapbook of of our first year together. (I obviously didn't know him very well then because Steve doesn't care about that kind of stuff at all and, although he didn't say so at the time, I'm sure he thought it was a lame present.) Still, I really liked making it and I wanted to keep scrapbooking after that. I had good intentions and I still worked on scrapbooks after Emma was born, but by the time Allie was born five years later, I had about two years worth of scrapbooks and three years worth of photographs shoved in a shoe box. My last scrapped page was before Noah's birth, and the task of trying to catch up seemed pretty daunting - especially when I thought about the huge mess of scrapbooking stuff I had to drag out to do it.This summer I started looking at my friend Christina's blog, in which she posts pictures of her digital scrapbook pages. Her pages were so cute that I was inspired to give digital scrapbooking a try. It's cheap, fun, and best of all - no mess! I started scrapping current pictures and worked my way back and it didn't take me long at all to get several months finished. Once I had eighty pages complete, I ordered a photo book. I was so very pleased with how it turned out! The quality was excellent.
In addition to the first book I had printed, I now have almost two more complete. I am completely up to date, and have gone all the way back to when Allie was born. It's a great relief for me to get these pictures scrapped, and making the pages is a lot of fun for me as well.Right now, I'm feeling a little stuck because the next pictures I need to scrap are of Allie's birth. My friend Deanna took over 500 wonderful pictures during her birth and I need to go through them and pick out the ones I want to use. Mostly though, I am not sure how to create pages that can portray the emotions involved in her birth. I want to make them special, something more meaningful than just another typical afternoon-at-the-pumpkin-patch type of page.Anyway, I guess the point of this post is, if you are considering trying digital scrapbooking, I highly recommend it!

Here's a tip. If your baby learns to spit her water and thinks it's funny, don't encourage her because she might never again take a drink without spitting it out afterward. Really, don't do it, no matter how cute it might have been in the first place.

Emma apparently can't get enough of school, because every afternoon she sits at the table and draws and writes, and writes and draws, then draws and writes some more. She is very into learning to read and she spends a lot of time trying to sound out new words and writing them down. Yesterday afternoon she was working on something that she wouldn't let me see and she only asked for my help once, although I was kind of confused about why she was asking me to spell "ing".

Last night when I went to bed I found this on my pillow."Thank you for love ing me very much."

Thank you, Emma, for making it so easy.

We spent the weekend at my parents' house and, as always, we had a great time. After Trunk or Treat at school the night before and then a day of general Halloween festivities, the kiddos were plum tuckered by the evening when it was time to go Trick or Treating. Noah, who has never ever ever in his entire life admitted to being tired, said that was too worn out to go on after only about two houses. Allie fell asleep in my arms a few minutes later, so it turned out that Emma was really our only Trick or Treater.

Every year we spend Halloween at the house of some good family friends, and I wanted to bring some sort of cute Halloween treat to share this year. I stumbled across Bakerella's Halloween cake pops, and I thought they would be perfect. While all of hers are super cute, I thought it would be a good idea to make mine a little simpler. Not only would they be way less trouble, considering I have three less-than-meticulous helpers, but they would probably be more pleasant to eat, given that there would be no black licorice or anything like that to pick off before eating them.Emma and I rolled the gooey cake mixture into many, many little balls. I thought that was the messiest job ever, but no. The part where we dipped them into chocolate was much, much worse, probably because we also enlisted the help of Noah and even Allie. You would not believe the huge globs of chocolate that were flying around my kitchen. Note a couple of those globs in the picture below.In the end, the cake balls were absolutely delicious, and I think everyone liked them. We also wrapped each one in cellophane and tied them with little orange ribbons so they were cute too, although not quite on par with Bakeralla's. Still, have you ever seen anyone look more excited about a cake pop?

This is a random cute picture I took the other day. Emma likes to play games on the computer and Noah will sit there, watching intently, for a surprisingly long amount of time.

Yesterday Emma was asking me about saints, and what sort of things people have to do to become saints. I told her that to be considered for sainthood, someone basically has to spend his or her entire life doing really nice things for other people. "What about me?" she asked hopefully. "I obey the Girl Scout Law at all times!"

Last night at dinner, I think I qualified myself for some sort of bad mommy award. We were eating at Spin, and Noah and I were sitting in a booth seat that stretched along the entire length of one wall, well past our own table. He kept running along the seat, which was not such a big deal until someone else sat at one of the other tables along the wall. I didn't want him disturbing their meal, so I asked him to sit down and stay at our table. And I asked him again. And again. And again. Like a typical two year old, his impulse control is not the best and he just couldn't stop himself from running along the vast expanse of seat that stretched before him. I was getting so sick of chasing him down, and I really just wanted to sit and eat my delicious eggplant and goat cheese pizza. He is pretty sensitive these days to things being scary ("hairy"), especially dinosaurs, so without really thinking about it, when he started to take off again, giggling hysterically, I just casually said, "Well, watch out for the dinosaurs." Screeeech. I've never seen him stop so fast and stand so still. "Dinosaurs?" I didn't even say anything else, but immediately he was back and asking to sit in my lap. A few minutes later when I asked him to move, he said something about the dinosaurs coming for him. I told him that I was just teasing about the dinosaurs, but he still seemed a little nervous. I did feel sort of bad about it, but not bad enough to keep me from enjoying myself for those few peaceful moments!

Our last week was really a drag, due to a sick baby. Allie was sick pretty much all week and I was up with her what seemed like all night, every night. When she gets sick her temperature gets so high and it kind of freaks me out a little bit. One night she was all the way up to 104.7 and I found myself wondering at what point I should take her to the hospital. Luckily, she seems to be a lot better now, which means a much happier baby and a much more well-rested mommy. I'm sure everyone in my family is thankful for that!
This weekend we raked leaves in the yard, just so we could have the opportunity to jump in them. Emma and Noah loved it. I've never seen two people more thrilled about having yard waste thrown at them.I thought Allie might like it too, so I put her in the leaf pile. I don't know if it was because she wasn't feeling well or if she just isn't into playing in leaves, but she apparently didn't enjoy it nearly as much as her brother and sister!

Noah's latest trick:

Well, the kids made it back from my brother and sister-in-law's house without any trouble, and they apparently had a great time while they were there. Noah woke up a couple times the first night and cried for a minute or two, and the second night he woke up once but went right back to sleep as soon as my brother carried him into their bed. Amazing! I am so happy that it all worked out so well.Noah's hair had been getting pretty shaggy, and I was getting a little tired of paying $14 once a month or so for him to get a haircut. My brother owns a set of clippers so I asked him to give Noah a buzz cut while he was there. I had forgotten about that, so when I saw Noah Monday morning, I was a little shocked. He looks like a completely different kid!He's been home for three days now, but I still do a double take every time I look at him. I think he looks adorable, but definitely more like some other stranger kid than my Noah. Of course, two seconds with him will confirm that it is definitely him. He thinks its a hoot to close his eyes when I'm trying to take his pictures, so most of the shots I have of him lately look like this.

Well, this is weird. I'm sitting here at the computer with a baby sleeping on my lap and no one else is home to bother me. Meaning, I can sit here peacefully for her entire nap and waste time doing whatever it is I want.

My brother lives two hours away in Columbia, but he works here in Kansas City, so he usually stays at our house a couple of nights a week to save himself many hours of driving. Yesterday his car broke down and wasn't going to be fixed until today so he stayed here again, and offered to take Emma and Noah back home with him until Monday morning when he goes back to work.

Now, Noah has never been away overnight before, and he still isn't completely night-weaned (although we've been working on it lately) so right away I said no. Two hours away, for two nights? That seemed like way too huge of a step all at once. Still, Noah said he wanted to go, and Emma wanted to go, and Steve said he thought I should let them go, so I mulled it over a bit and I decided to let them go.

I sent them off this morning, although not without reservations. They both adore my brother and sister-in-law and I know they will be in good hands, but I'm just wondering what's going to happen tonight when it's time for bed and Noah realizes that he is not going to be able to nurse. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I certainly hope that it isn't too traumatic for him.

In the meantime, did you hear what I said? NO ONE IS HERE TO BOTHER ME! Steve is working today and going to the Chiefs game tomorrow so it will mostly be just Allie and me for the weekend. I'm not sure what we'll do, but with only one easy little baby to care for, the possibilities are endless! Hurray!

Some random things...

~ I was able to get the beet stains off the floor using Magic Eraser. I love that stuff!

~ Emma is joining Daisy Scouts, and I volunteered to be in charge of cookie sales for her troop. I had to go to an informational meeting about it earlier this week, and I left feeling a little dazed and overwhelmed. They told us that the goal for each girl was to sell 125 boxes! Luckily, when I talked to her troop leader, she said I could keep it as low key as I want, which is a big relief. Still, if you get a hankerin' for some Girl Scout cookies in the next couple of months, keep us in mind.

~ I love fall! Love, love, love it! We've been going on lots of walks, during which the kids collect a multitude of leaves, acorns, twigs, etc. Their favorite thing to do of late is paint those objects with fall colors. I am plenty happy about that because it keeps them busy for a long time. Noah is surprisingly meticulous and will spend a good ten minutes painting a single acorn.
~ I made a great discovery today. I love banana bread, and because we often have overripe bananas that no one will eat, I make it a lot. I particularly like this recipe because it uses a lot of bananas - six bananas for one loaf! - but I don't like all the butter that goes in. Today I did a little experiment and replaced all the butter with peanut butter and then added about a tablespoon of oil, and it turned out great! I had to cook it a pretty long time, but it's really good. There is quite a bit of of sugar, but I feel much better about eating 1/2 cup of peanut butter than 1/2 cup of butter, and since I use whole wheat flour, I'm telling myself that it's actually pretty healthy!~ Last week one morning we woke up and it was 59 degrees in here so I turned on the heat. Where do you keep your thermostat? Right now ours is set on 64. It's fine for me (although I am usually hot when everyone else is comfortable) and no one is complaining, but sometimes Allie's little nose feels really cold. I can't remember where I set it last year.

~ Noah discovered our return address stamp, and he now he likes to be covered with our name and address at all times. Yesterday he got out of the bath and immediately ran to the kitchen and stamped up his legs again before I could get his clothes on.~ I still love Emma's lunch box and am having fun packing her lunch, but the novelty of taking pictures has worn off, so these will likely be the last ones you will see. (I can just see my brother heaving a big sigh of relief!)

Banana slices, celery with peanut butter, pistachios, and black-eyed pea salad.Orange slices, green beans, Yakisoba Chicken (this was SO good!), and home fries.
More black-eyed pea salad, raspberries, mashed sweet potatoes, and olives.

Here is a lesson for you: If you are peeling beets and a baby comes along and flings the beet peelings out of the trash and all over the kitchen floor, do not wait until you are finished peeling (and after that another hour or so while you try to get said baby to fall asleep) to clean them up. They will absolutely stain your tile.

Quite awhile ago, I started reading a blog called Vegan Lunch Box and then later bought the book from the same author. She packs really great lunches for her son in super cute, compartmentalized (Is that a word?) little lunch boxes. Recently Mothering magazine had an article about moms packing healthy, cute, and waste-free lunches for their kids using this same style of lunch box.

I finally got around to ordering one - from Laptop Lunches - for Emma, and ever since I placed the order, I've been stalking the Laptop Lunches Flickr group, ogling all the pictures of lunches packed in this particular lunch box. The group has almost 1200 members who have posted 8,484 pictures of their lunch!

Emma's lunch box came last weekend and so far she loves it. (I do too, maybe even more than she does.) Every day I've been really excited to pack her lunch, which probably makes me a humongous dork.The first day I packed her some Chickpea Salad with Roasted Red Peppers, raspberries, a kiwi, and carrots with ranch dressing for dipping. Doesn't it all just look so appetizing in there?The second day she got White Bean Roasted Red Pepper Dip, multi-grain pita chips, and glazed carrots and green beans that were both leftover from dinner. I realize that these two lunches are a little redundant, but roasting red peppers is kind of a hassle so I like to get the most for my efforts. Plus, Emma is a huge fan of anything with red peppers in it, so she was happy with it anyway.

When I told my brother about the Flickr group, he totally scoffed not only at people who are lame enough to take pictures of their lunches, but also at people who are actually interested in looking at them, so I won't torture you with any more pictures. If, however, anyone reading this is just dying to see more pictures of Emma's lunches, just let me know and I'll be happy to oblige!

This baseball season, I think we went to eleven or twelve games. The beginning of the season was pretty fun because we were thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Royals might not be so awful anymore. But nope. Still terrible.Last Thursday we went to what will probably be our last game of the season. I think Noah really actually likes the baseball aspect of being at the game, but I'm pretty sure Emma is mostly in it for the junk food. Although I'm usually a bit of a stickler about not letting them eat crap, the regular rules don't apply at the baseball games. Hot dogs, for example, completely gross me out in my regular life and we never eat them, but we get them all the time - and LOVE them - at the ball park. Look at these two scarfing their cotton candy. They are complete savages!Even though the Royals are no good, I'm still sad baseball season is almost over. And even though their fielding is terrible and they can't hit and they have no speed, I'm still looking forward to next season. Because maybe, just maybe, that will be the season when we finally aren't terrible. Go Royals!

Last week I was trying to think of something to order from Netflix for the kiddos, when I remembered Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. I saw that when I was little and really liked it, so I figured my kids would too. We watched it Wednesday afternoon, and both kids surprised me by being really scared during the movie. Noah started crying way before anything actually scary even happened, and pretty much continued to cry fearfully throughout the rest of the movie. Even though he was apparently so terrified for the pets' safety, he wouldn't let me turn it off. He continued to torture himself for the entire movie, completely unable to tear himself away. Then yesterday morning he begged me to watch the "scary dog movie" and even though I tried to talk him out of it, he insisted. I turned it on, and returned to the living room a few minutes later to find him hiding behind the couch, peering around the corner to watch the TV with one little frightened eye. I suggested we turn on Mary Poppins instead, and the relief on his face was evident as he shouted, "Yes! Watch Mary Poppins!" Unfortunately, I forgot to mail it back yesterday, and this morning he was again pleading to watch the "scary dog movie". Reluctantly, I turned it on. He wanted me to sit right next to him so I did, and he still sat there and watched the movie like this.About ten minutes in, he couldn't handle the terror anymore so I talked him into turning it off. Believe me, today I will not forget to send that movie back!

Well, I was all set to abandon this poor blog but apparently some people are missing it, so here is an update, lest any of my readers think we all fell off the face of the earth. After such a long break, I think I should be able to manage at least semi-regular updates now.

Let's see...Emma started kindergarten, and I think so far it's a raging success. I am very pleased with her school so far, and she seems to love it there. I posted this picture - from her first day of school - on Facebook so everyone reading this might have already seen it, but it's the only one I have of her so far that relates to school.
Noah is pretty much the same, still busy busy busy, except now he is also quite the chatterbox. I love listening to him talk to me all day long. He is really into shoes these days, and is very particular about which shoes he wears, when. He never lets a single raindrop fall from the sky without pulling on his rain boots and running outside to play. Today, pretty much an entire day of rain, was no exception.This beautiful baby is still wonderfully sweet and cheerful. She has a new trick that she'll show off with enough coaxing. I wouldn't call her an honest-to-goodness walker yet, but it probably won't be too much longer until she is.

Emma had her preschool graduation ceremony last night, which included receiving a diploma and singing a darling song about summer helping to recharge her batteries and getting a little "R and R". When my brother asked her what R and R meant, she said it means "when you go to sleep, in the night time". Personally, I am looking forward to sleeping in somewhat during the next few months. Hopefully my children will cooperate.

We've been staying home a lot lately, mostly because I've been trying (somewhat successfully - finally!) to get Noah to be a little more reasonable about nap time. I've also realized that staying home more has helped us settle into a comfortable routine and I think those relaxed, pleasant days at home are more enjoyable for everyone than rushing around to a bunch of activities. Anyway, now that Emma is going to be home every day, we will probably have to start getting out more again so she isn't bored silly this summer. When I asked her what she wants to do this summer, she said, "play school and learn gymnastics". I think we can handle that!