Kyle's Favorite Pass Time

Toes! Yummmmmm....

Zach's Urgent Care Adventure

Did you know that a simple mosquito bite can be dangerous? That you can end up making a late night trip to urgent care for antibiotics? I didn't!!

I didn't really think much of it when Zach woke up from his nap Wednesday night and his leg looked like this...

(yes his toes are painted red... he informed me that pink polish is for girls and red is for boys and then insisted that I paint his big toes- but that's not what this post is about so, moving on...)

I just figured it was a nasty reaction to a mosquito and that it would die down. I did notice that his swollen leg was hard, red and pretty warm to the touch so I pointed it out to Jason. He immediately told me to call the doctor and go in that night. Apparently, it's called cellulitus and it's an infection that sometimes can move really fast and be very painful. Luckily, we caught it in the early stages and were able to get some antibiotics in him. that night. Hooray for having a handy hubby!

Peek A Boo!

Kyle is growing up so fast that I end up surprised at him every day. This morning I was woken up by him talking to himself. Not in the "Ah's" and "Oooos" of infant vocalization but the happy babbles of a baby learning to copy the sounds he hears around him. He's picked up all kinds of consonant sound and really sounds like he's carrying on a whole conversation. It's the best sound I could possibly wake up to in the morning, even when it's at 5:30 am!

He has recently started playing his own version of Peek-A-Boo or maybe it's closer to Hide and seek. He will get a hold of his blanket and pull it over his head then start to kick his feet excitedly as he giggles quietly under the blanket. Then when you pull it away to "find" him he bursts out into hysterical laughter like he just pulled the greatest prank ever.

Today he rolled over a couple of times until he was all covered up with the blanket and he started his game with Zach.

So here's Kyle in camoflage...

Bet you can't even see him now...
Where did he go?
FOUND HIM!!!!

bubbles

OH what joy a boy can have with just a few simple bubbles! I LOVE this picture and it turned out totally by accident. It's a bit of a challenge sometimes to take pictures of speedy preschoolers.

We tried to make home made bubbles the other day but they didn't work out. Good thing we still had some regular bubbles to play with.
Zach mostly just spit on the bubble wand.
Or he spit away from the bubble wand. Either way, he didn't produce a lot of bubbles. But he still had a good time and we were both covered in soapy bubble solution by the time we came back inside.

S-s-snake!

We were at the zoo a while back and while perusing their gift shop I spotted these giant fleece snakes. Part of me wished I could buy one because I knew Zach would think it was so fun. Then I thought better of it. Why couldn't I just MAKE one? So when I ended up stumped trying to come up with an idea for a friend's birthday, I remembered those snakes and I got to work.

It wasn't until I finished making that snake that I realized just what a hit it would be.

Zach couldn't be separated from it. We wrapped it around him and he giggled and giggled.

Then he started to run around and around our island trying to attack me with it. (please ignore the unswept floor and cluttered counters, and yes... one of my drawers is missing. High quality I tell you, it's broken into pieces in the other room. I'm hoping some wood glue will salvage it... sorry for the tangent)
So I quickly got to work making another one for our friend down the street. I hope he has as much fun with it as Zach has with his. He has been sleeping with it every night, right along side his 25 cent pound puppy.

Brothers

Here's my sweet boys in the matching shirts I made them.

As you can tell, Zach loves to have his picture taken. Whenever I'm taking pictures of Kyle he says "picture me too!"

5 months old

Kyle was feeling a bit left out from these last few posts and I didn't want to leave the spider at the top so here's some pics of Kyle.

He will eat ANYTHING he can get his hands on. And it's not a casual taste, it is an attack! He chomps down on anything that get's near enough.

He also "enjoys" rolling over, though he's not very impressed with the outcome of being stuck on his belly. This is him before church on Sunday. I found this little baby tux at Goodwill for seventy-five cents! I love it. Now I just need to find a bow tie.
I just realized I need to try to get some shots of him without something in his mouth. He really does smile! I promise! I'll work on that for next time.

Yet ANOTHER huge bug

If you are sqeemish don't look at this picture. I'll leave some space so that you can skip it.

:::spoiler alert.... it's a spider. A really BIG FREAKY spider:::

Don't say I didn't warn you! I showed the wasp before, here's the big MAMA of spiders that Jason found at our front door. Don't worry, it didn't survive.
What is WITH Illinois and their Gigantic Bugs!!!!!!

Seriously!

State Fair Playground

I think it's a bit funny that we went to the fair, paid admission and everything and I'm pretty sure this was Zach's favorite part. A tiny little playground with nothing but a slide. We had just taken him to get his face painted (he requested the ladybug... on his face, not his arm. Oh so masculine) Then as we were leaving he decided he needed to "take a rest" and he plopped down right here with his juice to rest for a minute. I thought it was pretty cute.
He has a bad habit of sucking on his bottom lip so we've been trying to get him to stop by telling him to stick his lip out. This is the face we get...
Apparently he was concerned about something, I love the furrowed eyebrows. ; )
And here's his last slide of the day before we all headed for the car.
(Kyle was in attendance but was, once again, zonked out in the stroller)

The Big Yellow Slide ("with bumps"- Zach)

We went to the State Fair on Tuesday. It was another adventure between naps for Jason. I was so glad he got to come with us and I know it was tough since he probably should have been sleeping. We had a blast though. The big event of the day was that Zach and I took on the GIANT YELLOW SLIDE! I've always wanted to go on the big slide but was always too nervous and the lines were always way too long at the Wisconsin Fair, not to mention we are generally too cheap for such things. This time, there wasn't any line at all. So we splurged and went twice.

It was quite a hike to get to the top but we made it.

Now I realize these are a bunch of pictures that are almost identical to each other but I just love to see Zach's face in each one. Sheer Joy!
And for me, maybe a little bit of terror... I am quite afraid of heights you know!


Worth Every Penny!!!

Picnic at the Park

Since Jason has been working nights we've been trying to make good use of the few hours we have with him. Yesterday, he woke up just in time for a picnic at the park.

(i love the tip toes)

Ooooo! A butterfly!

P.S. Kyle was present but he slept through the while thing in his stroller. Poor kid always seems to be left out of these posts.

Recent projects

I've been working too much on getting our house together so I had to take a break and to some crafting. Sometimes I think I need it for my sanity!

To start with, I made this cute little clutch for that baby shower I went to before. It was to go with the ladybug tutu set. It holds 2 diapers and a wipes pack. I thought it was pretty cute. I got the tutorial here. It was seriously the easiest thing EVER! PLUS... I got the vinyl on a super clearance, can't beat that.

So, when I got another invite to a baby shower I decided to take it up a notch and do a sewn version for a little boy. I even figured out how to add a cute snap closure to it.
And everything tucks in so nicely!
I have one for myself but it was kinda a screw up so I think I'm going to make another one like this one. I love the chocolate brown and polka dots!

I also had this simple project I've been meaning to do forever. I found this cute patchwork monster fabric in the scrap bin at Joann's. I figured it would be perfect for some brother t-shirts.
I even hand stitched around the patches to give it a little extra detail.
Zach actually requests to wear his monster shirt. I realize there's not to many years that they will let me make them match so I'm enjoying it while I can.

PROOF!!

For those of you who heard the rumor but didn't believe it.... Here's Proof!!!

OK, don't look too closely because it's really not my best picture ever. But what do you expect, glamour shots?

This was kind of a spur of the moment thing. I had heard about his "Parade Race" but it was going to be 95% (plus a WHOLE LOT of humidity) so I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. I decided only a couple of hours before the race. So I wasn't completely prepared. You wan't to know my time.... I actually have no idea. It was only 2 miles and I'm pretty sure I made it under 30 minutes but they still haven't posted the results so I don't know for sure.

Ya, it wasn't great. It was my first race though, and I learned a LOT. Like, most importantly, don't drink water before the race because you might have to run into a gas station DURING the race and you might end up having to WAIT IN LINE! Leaving you at the very back of the pack for the remainder of the race.

The plus side to that is that I got this schnazzy picture taken of myself by some pro guy that was standing at the 1 mile mark. My friend commented that she was bummed she didn't have any pictures of herself. I told her it's a whole lot easier for him to take pictures of the slow people at the end. He had plenty of time to set up his shot, focus, yada yada, as I mozied past him at my snail pace.

I guess it made for a good memory and a great learning experience. I am actually totally Jazzed to do another one. This time a 5k and no gas station pit stops. I've been running 2 miles almost every morning but I think I want to start pushing myself more for speed. It won't be hard to beat my results from this race but I plan on blowing them OUT OF THE WATER!

Who'd have thought that I would find a new hobby at 27, let alone a CRAZY hobby like running. I used to make fun of the runners for being completely insane. Who would run on purpose! For fun!

Guess what... I do!

Brothers and our broken table

Aren't my boys cute!

We did have a bit of a tragedy this morning though. Here's the backstory...

We have this really ugly kitchen table. It was given to us for our wedding 8 years ago. It was actually kinda cute at the time. We registered for it at Walmart. So you know it was quality, built to last. (said with just a tinge of sarcasm) It has taken a beating though, Koolaid stains, scrapes, or rather, GOUGES, scribbles from 2 year olds. We just ended up finally covering it with a table cloth. Then when we put our house on the market in Milwaukee Jason took a saw to it and cut off all the sides to make it smaller so that our kitchen would appear larger. More recently the chairs have started to actually fall apart. The seats have a tendency to sometimes slip through the chair dropping the sit-er down the middle like a toilet seat. Very embarrassing. We've been just giggling about it and sitting very carefully.

This morning though, the chair trap caught poor Zach. He was in the middle of telling all about Dumbo being taken away and missing his mommy when the seat fell through. The poor kid somehow actually ended up under the seat with a good sized scrape under his chin. If you look close enough in the picture above you can see his bandaid. He was a trooper though and after some cuddling, Tarzan, and a large sippy cup of chocolate milk and he's as good as new. (except for the bandaid)

I think it's time to get a new table! Or at least some heavy duty bolts to fix the chairs.

(I may or may not have shed a few tears right along with Zach. Mommy sympathy pains can sometimes be worse than the real thing)

Zoo trip

We were so excited to learn that there IS a zoo here in Springfield. It's just a small zoo but it's actually perfect for small kids. We can walk the whole thing pretty quickly and still have enough energy to play on the playground. Our old Milwaukee zoo pass was good at this zoo too so we hurried to check it out before our pass expired. So it was free for all of us! We love free!

We got to go with some friends from church and it was so cute to watch Zach and his new friend interact. They kept holding hands and running around as fast as they could go. Zach could not stop giggling.

I realize this picture is out of focus, but they were running so fast this was the best one I could get.

There is also a place at the zoo that you can feed the goats. Notice Zach's mouth open as wide as he can possibly open it? I have about 30 shots in a row with that exact same expression.
See! There it is again!
He obviously enjoyed himself. I think we'll have to go again.

Yay for baby showers!

With all these boys running around I was SO excited to get invited to a baby shower for a girl. I set to work on a cute uber-girly gift.

Embellished burp cloth. (It's one of those cloth diapers- they are by far my favorite)
And a cute Lady bug outfit. I just LOVE tutus! My poor boys have both had to model for me on more than one occasion. I also have visions of a matching card "Welcome Little Lady(bug)" HA HA! Yes, it's cheesy I know. But I'm rolling with the theme.

Illinois has some HUGE bugs!

I thought this guy was going to eat me!

I've never seen anything like this thing before in my life, and he stood between me and my babies. I was SO brave. I dashed bast him like a bat out H*** to rescue them. I seriously thought I was going to die!

**If you must know, I've never been stung by a bee so anything that remotely resembles one absolutely TERRIFIES me. So, when something that makes a bee look like a knat shows up, you can only imagine how I might feel about that. AHHHHH!!!