Thankful

Our Thanksgiving week and weekend was spent...

enjoying the beautiful fall weather...

Lucas discovering a love for olives on Thanksgiving...

searching for the perfect Christmas tree....

finding our tree...

enjoying our little guy...

and decorating for Christmas! 

Yes that's Lucas under the ladder. He loved playing under it, and who I am to stop him when he's so happy?

I'm thankful for weekends like these that turn into great memories. I hope your weekend was as memorable as ours! 

xoxo

Finger painting fun!

I wandered across a recipe for homemade finger paints the other day (on Pinterest, where else?!?), and was dying to try it out for my Bug. I have wanted to buy him finger paints, but I knew he'd try to eat them, and I wasn't sure I was ready for the mess! Once I saw this easy recipe I knew I had to make them.  Everything I needed I already had in my kitchen which made me that much more excited. Plus, if he eats it I know there is nothing that can harm him! Once L went down for his nap I went to work, and it literally took me all of 20 minutes. 

Homemade finger paints:

3 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup corn starch

2 cups water

1. Combine ingredients in a small saucepan 

2. Warm until mixture thickens (I added some more water to thin it out a little.)

3. Cool and pour in containers (I used the containers I had used when I made L's homemade baby food.)

4. Add food coloring to create desired colors. 

5. Create masterpieces with your little one(s)!

Recipe courtesy of easiepeasie.blogspot.com

What an artist!

Concentrating hard!

Loving it! 

What a fun afternoon! 

xoxo

Sacramento Children's Museum

Last week we took Lucas to the Sacramento Children's Museum which he loved! It has only been open since August, and is perfect for young kids. Everything was right as his level for perfect exploration.

Dropping the golf ball down the raceway.

Making the gears go with Daddy's help.

 

The water tables were his favorite. No surprise there! 

He loved using this little stool. He kept adjusting it to where he wanted it, climbing back up, and splashing away.

Painting on the window... what a great idea! I'm thinking this would be great on the outside of our sliding glass door! 

   

 

I loved this little area that is just for the younger ones. Lucas was in heaven climbing all over this! The stairs were just his size!

Giant Lite Bright! Yes please!!!

He had a wonderful time! I have a feeling we will be spending many rainy days here this winter.

xoxo

Cookie Cutter Pancakes

While Lucas is napping I thought I'd share with you my effort in using cookie cutters to make shaped pancakes this morning. I saw it on pinterest the other day and thought, "That looks simple enough." Simple it is... if you do it right the first time, which of course, I didn't. I didn't look up any instructions... looking at the picture it seemed pretty easy. The minute I poured the pancake batter into the cookie cutters I immediately thought, "Probably should have greased those!" I'm sure if you looked up a tutorial on this the first thing it would say is, "Make sure to grease the cookie cutters!" Well... I didn't, so the first round was a flop... but as for round two, greased the heck out of those suckers and what do you know? It worked like a charm. 

So here's how to do it... make up your favorite pancake batter, choose a couple cookie cutters, GREASE those bad boys, and poor in some batter (not too much, since it can't spread, it rises and makes for some thick pancakes). Once you can tell the edges are no longer runny you can lift the cookie cutters off, then flip your pancake to let it finish cooking. 

Of course we have a Mickey cookie cutter... I had already taken it off. 

The tree and heart turned out swell.

Mickey on the left is without the cookie cutter being greased, Mickey on the right is you know, the correct way. 

These were fun to make, however I won't be making them again until Lucas is old enough to request cookie cutter pancakes himself. Until then, I will stick to making Mickey pancakes the old fashion way...

Not as pretty, but Lucas loves them! See...

The face of approval! 

Happy Tuesday! 

xoxo

Future Firefighters

A couple weeks ago the whole family made the trip up to my older brother's place of work to get a quick family picture for my parent's Christmas card. Ryan works for the US Forest Service, and during fire season, which seems to last forever these days, he works the weekends. My mom had been trying to figure out a time to get us all together, but with Ryan working the weekends it seemed impossible. I suggested we just all go to his station, and take a quick picture there. On the plus side I knew my nephew and son would love to see the fire trucks. Uncle Ryan was proud to let them climb in and on the fire truck, and even let them shoot the water out of the fire hose. (Is that even what it's called? I should know this considering my dad and brother are both fire fighters.) Gavin and Lucas had a blast, and my wonderful sister in law, Susan, snapped a bunch of awesome photos for us! Thank you sis! 

Gavin and Lucas playing in the fire truck.

I love Gavin's look of determination in the picture, and Lucas' look of awe. 

He thought this was the coolest thing.

My little stud of a nephew.

We had to try to get a picture of the two of them, so we sat them on the front of the fire truck. Here are two of my favorites.

Lucas' face in this picture just kills me! This is the face he makes when he does what we call his evil laugh. His hands crack me up too, like he is up to something... this is double trouble right here! 

Maybe they will grow up to be fire fighters?!?

xoxo

My first sewing project!

For my birthday this year my parents got me my very first sewing machine. After finding so many cute ideas on Pinterest, I decided I really needed to learn to sew. I thought I'd ask for a sewing machine for Christmas, but my mom insisted I get it sooner. I was so excited! I had my first lesson with one of my mom's best friends, Rosie, while we were in Boise. She happens to be an amazing seamstress. She can make anything, and she's so creative. I had emailed her what I wanted to do for my first project, and I was so happy she could help. Thank you Rosie!! I have never sewed more than a button onto a shirt, and I definitely had no idea what do with my new sewing machine. So for my first project I make Lucas these two shirts... well I bought the shirts at Target, and made the football and L to go on them. :) I found the idea for the L shirt here, and there is a great tutorial. I just had to make it for Lucas. I came up with the football on my own. Simple and cute. In this family football is a must, and a boy could never have too many football shirts! 

My happy guy! I can't wait to make him more things as I learn to sew! :)

Now off to finish watching the CMA's with my hubby! (I love that he's willing to watch it with me just to make me happy!)

xoxo

Surgery is over, all are happy!

Surgery day has come and gone, and we are all so relieved. Well, Matt and I are. I can't really speak for Lucas, but if he could tell us what he was thinking I'm sure he'd say something along the lines of, "I don't want to do that again until I'm old enough to enjoy the sleeping gas!" I say that because as Lucas was waking up crying and freaking out, Matt told him, "Don't worry buddy, you'd like this feeling if you were older." The nurse gave him the stink eye, and I couldn't help but laugh. All and all his surgery went  great. He now has tubes in both ears, and hopefully we won't have anymore ear issues and our bug can be pain free! Here is a picture from tonight in the tub... happy as can be!

This was about five minutes before he pooped in the tub! Haha, always keeping me on my toes! 

xoxo

repurposed plastic pool :)

For about a month now I've been staring at Lucas' little five dollar pool sitting behind our couch waiting to be moved to the garage. I moved it inside before it started raining earlier last month and it's been housing some toys since then. Every now and again Lucas goes over to it, crawls inside, and plays with whatever toys are in it. Since then, I've been telling myself (and Matt) that I want to go to Target and buy the big bag of plastic balls so Lucas could have his own ball pit. You know, like the kind at McDonalds that I never wanted to go into because I was scared of what could be at the bottom, but a lot smaller. So yesterday we went to Target and I convinced Matt it was a necessity. We got home, dumped the balls in the little pool, and Lucas went to town! I had to take a few pictures! He was cracking up, pushing the balls all round, and kicking them out of the pool. Seriously the best 15 dollars we've spent lately! I will say the balls end up all over the family room, but so far he enjoys putting them back in his pool too. It makes me so happy how much he's enjoying his new toy. What an easy way to turn a summer toy into winter fun!

Loving it!

So happy. (Don't mind the snotty nose!)

Scooping the balls out.

Oh, and here is a little video of him playing this morning. He is too funny. Plus here is proof that when I try to get him to say "Mama" he laughs at me! He says "dada" or "da" like it's going out of style... but laughs when I try to get him to say mama. I try not to take it personal... :)

xoxo