Friday funny - Listen to Your Kids

This week when I was dropping G off to his class at school he kept messing with my skirt saying "mommy, mommy" as I was talking to another mom from his class (his BFF Lucy's mom) . I thought he was just trying to get me to pick him up as he does most mornings (stalling) and kept saying "one second please", "G, please don't interrupt", "G, please put my skirt down" and brushing his hands away to prevent him from showing my trade secrets to his entire class. Well next thing I know he has wiped his nose on my skirt!!! And when I asked "G, why did you do that?" His response was "well mom, I asked you for a tissue!" So, who taught who a lesson that morning!?!

Fall happiness!

There are many things that I love about Fall...the cool crisp air, being able to sleep with the windows open, the fall colors, cheap school supplies, pumpkins, mums, turkey for Thansgiiiiving...I could go on.  But, one of my very favorite things is the beginning of "specialty coffee" season.  All the coffee shops and creamer makers bust out the Pumpkin Spice Coffee and that usually makes me happy.  HOWEVER, this year I am serious about being 40 and Fabulous! so the 60+g of sugars in the Starbucks version just doesn't compute.  Well, butter my biscuit and call me Sally, look what showed up in the breakroom at work today:

and look at the nutritional info on it.  0.3g...woohoo!!! Happy :-)

In case you didn't click the link above, Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving song is definitely worth a watch/listen.  Cracks me up!

Kindergarten Preview

This morning G couldn't decide between his Car and his Caterpillar to take to Show and Share (letter C) so I let him take both in his backpack.  When he put it on I almost cried thinking of the day I'll have to ship him off to Kindergarten.  He just looks so GROWN UP!!

 

Bubble Craftiness

Today we're headed to Cate's birthday party. What 3 year old doesn't love bubbles, right? (One of these days I'll figure out a good place to take pics of my crafts!)

Kids Together Walk for Inclusiveness

We're very lucky to have a wonderful park just around the corner from our house. Inside the park is the Kids Together Playground that is accessible for children with physical disabilities. Saturday was their fundraising walk along the Hinshaw Greenway that connects Marla Dorrel Park to MacDonald Woods Park and the Comptons came to join us.  It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time.  Maybe one of these days I'll remember to bring a real camera and not just my phone.

Poor Porter, stuck in the wagon with all the gear!

Wedding Shower Craftiness

Many of you know I love a diaper cake and have made one for most of the baby showers I've been too in the last 10 years. Well, since THAT type of shower will never happen for my friends Charles and Christine (100% by choice) I knew I had to make this Towel Cake for them when I saw it on one of my blogs (I can't find the original post or I'd totally give credit, but I did follow this tutorial).  Their wedding has a nautical theme so I used their colors and copied the knot that was on their lovely wedding invitations. I think it came out pretty cute!

The REAL Amazing SpiderGman!

G is all about some Spiderman lately.  He got a lot of neat gifts for his birthday, but I do believe his favorite was a Spiderman glove the makes spider web shooting sounds.  He mimics this often, with or without the glove, but it took us a while to figure out that's what he was doing. The last time we were at the lake Grammie asked where he learned his new "karate" moves.  Jimbo and I just shrugged and said "must have been from school". But then when he combined his "karate" moves with "I'm Spiderman!" we obviously figured it out. Fast forward to Saturday when we discovered that our friend Gina has a new hobby!  She says she got tired of paying to get Ella's face painted at every even tthey went to, so she bought a kit and taught herself.  She did every kid at Peter's birthday party with a different design! (except for Porter because I couldn't deal with the idea of the mess he'd make) AMAZING!  Thanks Gina!

Beer Friday

I love my new job for a lot of reasons and today I found another reason.  BEER FRIDAY!!!

We also had a football themed dessert contest and guess who won?? ME!

Special thanks to JMKG and Pinterest for the assist with the recipe:


Peanut Butter Football Dip

Ingredients
¼ cup butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup peanut butter (your choice; crunchy or smooth)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups powdered sugar (up to 2 cups if needed)
½ cup mini chocolate chips
Chocolate sprinkles or chocolate chips for the outside of the football
White chocolate or frosting for the football laces

Instructions
1. Cream butter, cream cheese, and peanut butter until mixed (using a hand-held mixer). Mix in vanilla.
2. Add powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, and mix until combined. (If you want a stiffer mixture, add the
extra ½ cup of powdered sugar.) Mix in chocolate chips.
3. Turn out mixture on a large sheet of waxed paper. Use your hands to form into a football shape.
(This would also be cute as “lips” for Valentine’s Day!)
4. Place the waxed paper onto your serving plate. (It helps if the plate has sides…less mess!) Cover
in sprinkles or chocolate chips, pressing them into the surface a little so they stick. Pipe on the
laces using melted white chocolate or some leftover frosting and chill until ready to serve.
5. Serving suggestion: pretzels, animal crackers, cookies, a spoon.

Notes
If your mixture is too soft to form into a football shape, chill it for about 15-30 minutes. (The length of
chilling time depends on how soft it starts.) The freezer will speed up this step

Here is the picture of mine after folks had dug into it a bit:

Happy Birthday Michelle!

We celebrated our good friend Michelle's birthday tonight at Kanki.  Graham and Kennedy had a blast!

If only I had the before picture!

I'm a sucker for a sale or a clearance rack so as a result I have a nice stockpile of toys for the boys and their friends. I also love to reuse gift bags.  Please tell me you do too!  This closet was a total disaster and in fact, spilled out a couple of feet into the office.  With the help of some leftover bags from G's bday party and a little rearranging I ended up with a much improved gift closet.

One for fun!

Downtown Raleigh

VROOM!

If Jimbo has his way this is a preview of things to come.  However, given recent trips to the ER I can't say that i'm in agreement.  They are pretty darn cute on them though!

Cousins

Sometimes the saddest of occasions can make for some of the best times of your lives.  Ryan's cousins are a ton of fun and we had a great time while in North Dakota for Grammie Jean's funeral.  I think that's just the way she would have wanted it - a celebration of her life!

Leaving...on a jet plane!

 We headed up to North Dakota for Grammie Jean's funeral.  Not the reason we wanted to visit the Dakotas again, but a very nice trip despite the circumstances.  It was G and PJ's first trip on an airplane and they were troopers.  It was stressful, but given the circumstances they did really really well.  G even got to meet the Captain on our flight from Cleveland to Raleigh.  He was so excited!  We had a very nice visit with the cousins as well as GG and Papa.  More on that later.

If only he had been this still the whole time!

Ditto!

G wanted to ride on the cart so bad he went up to the driver and asked him
all by himself to take us.

Pirate Pool Party!

I can't think of a much better way to celebrate a late summer birthday than being IN the water.  This year we were able to take advantage of our wonderful neighborhood pool and hosted a pirate themed pool party for big G.  Here are some of the highlights.

Pirate buddies!

The details:

Shark Bait!

I tried to keep it easy and healthy!

Cupcake ships...that melted shortly after arriving!

Treasure ready to be plundered.

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