deck the halls

After Thanksgiving, we took the family out and bagged us a tree. It was the first time in a few years that we cut our own instead of going to the tree lot. It was fun and I was picky (not as picky as Jack apparently) so it took a little while but we finally found a nice, yet affordable tree. Sorry, but I'm not dropping almost $50 on a tree we're going to throw away. Not going to happen this year. We got the stockings hung...

and got out the hand-made snowflakes my grandma made years ago. These go on our tree every year. I love them!

Jack took over the decorating early and did most of the snowflakes. I of course filled in where he couldn't reach.

Alex hung about two ornaments then played Wii the rest of the time.

And when it was all done, it looked like this...

It doesn't look like that anymore...Ben likes to throw things into the tree, he's busted at least three silver ornaments, and takes off the lower snowflakes and throws them around. Our tree looks beat down by the time Christmas rolls around :)

Oh, and GO BEARS!!!!

halloween

For the third year in a row, Jackson decided to be Spiderman. Not a huge surprise and I was okay with it because that meant I didn't have to buy a new costume. Score! We talked Alex into being a football player just like daddy was back in the day and Benny fit into the cow costume Alex wore 2 years ago. More $aving$!!

We did the trick-or-treat thing with the downtown businesses on Friday afternoon and later today we will go door-to-door. Gotta love a full weekend of Halloween :)

cuteness

fair time

Last week was the Vernon County Fair and my dad asked us to run the DQ stand this year. Since Chad is sans job right now I figured it would be a win/win situation. The weather was lousy which is typical for the fair. With that and the economy attendance was down and the stand was pretty slow. I didn't take my camera because I worked every day and there's only so much animal booty one person wants to see.

The boys had a good time and Chad brought them to the fair just about every day. Mom and Dave took them on rides and stuff on Saturday and they had a blast! Since the weather was icky everyone got a head cold and for some reason Ben has ended up with rotavirus. So he's been cranky lately.

Alex is just Alex and is adjusting to being without Jack during the day. He plays with Ben but it's not the same. Jack is loving school. He is in love with gym class and art and just about everything. School is so good for him but he is ravenous when he gets home. Man, that boy can eat!

I've made a few more diapers but with Benny having the bugs I haven't been able to try them on him. I need to upload some picts too. Maybe when I'm not elbow deep in poo :)

crafty

I have been busy sewing and making things lately.

We cloth diaper Ben and I like to find out as much info as I can to really know what I'm doing. There are a couple of websites I follow that are cloth diaper related. One is about sewing you own diapers, so I figured I can do that!

The first couple of diapers I made were a few months ago and weren't too great. I've bought a couple of WAHM (work at home mom) diapers and am trying to come up with something as good as they make. WAHM diapers are kind of pricey (usually $20 and up) because of all the work of one person making and selling them on their own. That's why I want to make some super cute ones myself.

It is a little (a lot) frustrating trying to find materials locally. A lot of fabrics I want to use like Bamboo are only available on line and the other cotton fabrics no store in my town has. I have to go an hour away and plan ahead so I can get what I need, which I haven't even had a chance to do yet. The PUL waterproof fabric is hard to come by as well as being expensive! Luckily my mom was awesome enough to get some for me :) Thanks mom! Now she just needs to come visit so I can start using it.

Here are 2 of the 3 diapers I made recently:

Here's a little peek into my 'workspace': the dining room table/dumping ground

Nothing like a little organized chaos to get the creative juices flowing :) I'm also working on some sippy cup leashes to keep the cups hitting the floor when you are shopping or in the car. I have a little more tweaking to do and hopefully it wasn't a huge waste of time.

firsts

We've had a few firsts at our house lately.

First off, (he he) Ben got his first big boy hair cut last week. He really doesn't have much hair, but what he did have was growing over his ears and was long, scraggly old man hair in the back. So we took him to my hair appt. and had his first trim. He held still really well but didn't want to stand so I kind of had to hold him up against me. I hadn't had my hair done yet, so just ignore that!

Jack had his first day of all day Kindergarten last Wednesday. He was not really looking forward to it but after the back to school night he was more ready.

He got up really early that day and got on the bus with no problems. When he got home he had to tell us how awesome gym class was. We told him he'd love it, but he must have had to experience it for himself :)

He took his first lunch today so we'll see if that was a fun as he thought it would be.

Also it is my first post of September. Hopefully there will be more :)

beans and corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini and lettuce and carrots and potatoes OH MY!!!

Holy crap, people we gots ourselves a huge garden! That doesn't include the watermelon, 2 different types of pumpkins, cantaloupe, and squash that aren't ready yet.

We've been picking cucumbers just about twice a week and I have almost 20 containers of refrigerator pickles to freeze and that doesn't count a bunch we ate ourselves and gave to family. Chad ate so many, he thinks he got gout. Super fun!

I've given up on the green beans. Only got 3 packs frozen, but managed to give a ton away so not a total loss.

We dig potatoes any time we need them. Our supper the other night was all straight off the farm...rump roast from the beef we raise, potatoes and carrots from our garden and pickles that I made. I thought that was pretty awesome.

We froze sweet corn yesterday, but only ended up with 3-4 dozen ears since the raccoons got 3/4 of our sweet corn patch :( Kinda pissed about that one, so we've got a live trap that we're going to set to see what we can catch. I use the term 'live trap' loosely because Chad isn't really a catch-and-release kinda guy, especially when it comes to coon.

I really enjoy the garden and will have one next year for sure. I'll probably make some adjustments, less beans, more potatoes...we'll see.

The boys are doing good. Alex has some kind of virus and is covered head-to-toe with red spots. Not chicken pox, but I guess it is contagious so we'll see how many of us succumb to the spots. Just another day on the farm!