Toddler Tales... Play dates for Lil' Turkeys

For the past two weeks on Mondays & Wednesdays, Ethan and I have been hosting play dates with Luke. It has been glorious fun for both of the boys. Ethan gets bored of just his mommy play time while Orion is at school, and Luke has two older siblings that are home schooled and Jillian also has a 7wk old to tend to. So it works out great for everyone! We have decided it will be a staple for Wednesdays and Mondays are more of a play it by ear, depending on if the two older children have Co-op.

Our first Monday play date consisted of

beautiful fall weather for much outside play.

When the older kids finished they came down and joined

us for a snack on the front porch. It was very surreal to me...

handling four hungry, hungry children at once, two of whom

could not operate juice boxes on their own:)

Our first Wednesday play date was

rainy rainy rainy due to Hurricane Ida.

So YAY for crayons and happy inside play.

Although I will say, was very surprised by

Ethan's reluctance to share his toys at first.

He went after everything Luke touched

like he had never seen the toy before.

We also started these guys...

Can you guess what we made?

Older kids had Co-op the next Monday, so Wednesday

we enjoyed some morning outside play. Then came in for

some coloring and a snack, while I finished up the craft we started last week.

Morning Play Favorite Moments

>Luke being such a trooper about sharing Ethan's Lightening McQueen

>How Luke hugged Ethan's Lightening McQueen Pillow

and shouted "McQwen! McQwen!"

>How they get to giggling together:)

>How Luke called me "Christmas", instead of Christine,

when he needed something. This may explain my

Wordless Wednesday from this week.

>How Ethan was so impressed by Luke's equal to,

if not a tad squealier squeal. For a few moments it was a

competition back and forth until... Ethan stopped

and exclaimed, " WOW! WOW!" at Luke's squealing abilities.

And they continued to squeal happily together:)

By far the best moment!

Best Buds in the Making!

So on to the craft... did you figure it out yet?

We made Turkey Rolls:)

Sorry so many photos but they were so cute I couldn't resist!

~Ethan's Turkey Roll~

~Luke's Turkey Roll~

Saw this concept used online for another animal

(can't remember what now) and thought it would be great for a turkey.

Little more 3 dimensional than a paper plate.

We're having so much fun and are really looking forward to more play dates!

Check back to see what else these two lil' turkeys are up to!

We've Been Framed!

Who Done It?

For the past two years plus, I have been staring at this...

Trying to get inspired to fill the blank space,

yet feeling quite timid about it.

Finally, inspired by some photos I took

and then had developed, I filled the

empty frames that have been collecting

dust under my couch and...

Voila!

We've been framed!

It really is like night and day!

(Today:)

Love that I can see it from my sewing area, inspiring!

Not sure why it took me so long,

but worth the wait, because it truly is, "Our Family of Four"!

What do you think?

Toddler Tales... The Talking Explorer!

Ethan has been doing nothing but talking, talking, talking here lately, and I love it! To me this is the best time, he is at the "explorer" and language explosion stage. Curious about everything... how does it work... what happens if I put this in here... does it come apart... what happens when you push this button? I can read every question on his face as he tries to flush and/or put something in the toilet, gets a hold of the remote, unsuccessfully but oh-so-diligently tries to operate the VCR/DVD player:)

He is talking the talk!

Common words & phrases:

>bus, kitty, cup, juice, Blues Clues, Elmo, slide, swing, ball, apple, strawberry, banana, car,

snack, milk, truck, train, choo-choo, bridge, help, eat, hungry, dog...
Will repeat just about anything, when asked.

>Let's Go! (Orion's favorite), I see you or See you later,

>Go outside, in a lil' pitiful tone, as to make you feel sorry for him, & immediately take him out to play.

>Awww-somme, the way he draws it out, wish I could bottle his little voice up!

>Ready, Set, GO! when we are heading down the slide!

>Extreme, which sounds exactly like green bean... too cute!

>O-rye-n (his version of Orion), which he now yells when we head out to play if Orion is already out.

>Points and says, "The Moon!" Like it is the first time he has seen it... every time!

>Love You, every night now when we put him to bed:)

And our all time favorite...

>I'm Okaaaayyyyy!!! Says this just about every time he

falls down, bumps his head, slips unexpectedly,

trips, just to let us know... He's Okaaayyyy!

He is a loving, rambunctious, adventurous, smart, curious, quick, talkative, full blown toddler! Who loves coloring, rummaging, and standing at the bottom of the stairs with a repetitive Mommie, Mommie, Mommie until he is answered. He can be patient and persistent.

Wordless Wednesday... Christmas!

Drip, Drop, No More!

Have you ever heard it, that constant drip... drop... drip... drop!!! It's a form of torture in my book, thank goodness we have enough noise around here to mask it, most of the time! Our kitchen sink has been leaking for the past couple of months and slowly as time has gone by the every-so-often-drip had become an

oh-so-often-drop... drop... drop!

My hubbs tried it all... but the drip... drop... drip.. drop... continued!!!

We continued on this way for a few more weeks.

Until we could take it no more!

Do you see where we're going with this?

Exactly!

New Faucet!

Ain't she a beaut'!

Thank You Hun-e! Love You!

We're Stewing...

HAPPY! Cause on Nov. 7th we attend The Annual 17th Street Brunswick Stew Fest... YUUUMMMMMYYYY!!!! I love this festival, probably my favorite!

The story goes like this...Orion had a soccer game at 10am, we thought perfect, we'll leave directly after and be there right after the festival starts, which was 11am. Running late to game, as we usually are! I told Ken not to worry about putting Ethan's shoes on, I'd grab 'em on my way to the car.

Usually I'm on point, usually I've got my wits about me... on this particular morning I did not:( So there we are driving down Newby's Bridge Rd. almost to Walmsly... I catch a glimpse of Ethan's feet out of the corner of my eye... No shoes! Oh no! I look at Ken, "Did you grab Ethan's shoes?". Ken looks at me a little dumbfounded, gives the car a quick look around, then looks back and says, " No, you said you'd grab 'em."

Just imagine total silence, like you'd hear a pin drop kind of silence, for the next several moments. Then I look at him and say, "If I could yell at myself I would, but I can't." We chuckle, cause we both know good and well if he'd been the one who forgot 'em he'd be getting fussed at up one side and down the other.

My punishment... had to drive all the way back, with Ethan in toe, ya know cause he has no shoes! Mind you, he is anxiously wanting to run and play at this point. Took an hour, by the time I got back I was picking them up right where I'd dropped them off. Too boot, it ended up being Orion's last official game. The last scheduled was cancelled due to all the rain we received from Ida! So shame on me, but a lesson in patience learned by me.

On the bright side, Ethan did catch a little nap on the way back to the game. I attribute his lasting so long at the festival to that. We arrived a little after 11, the music was wonderful, the stew was great, there was Legend's on tap, and deep-fried Oreos!

There were Hula Hooper's!

Orion was able to sit inside this cool car... he loved it!

We did have company join us, Grandmother, Grandpa,

Aunt Rachael, and Connor met us down there.

Connor had his face painted!

~Jump, Connor, Jump~

A festival would not be complete without a petting zoo!

And a few shots of Ethan trying to pick the animals noses...

AGAIN! He is too much sometimes:)

~Cousins~

Orion helped put the animals away.

Ethan takes a lick-in' but keeps on tick-in'!

Somehow in all the running and playing that day, Ethan managed to suffer a black eye!

Left- Day it happened... Right- Sporting it the next morning

He is so incredibly tough!

It was an all day affair... we did not leave until almost 4pm. So worth it!

Funny Side Note: A panic occurred when got home to find that Giraffe-E was missing (that is Ethan's paci basically). We searched high and low for that thing. Ken checked the car twice, I was opening and closing every door and drawer several times over! Then the panic started to set in that maybe just maybe it was lost down town... didn't want to have to go back for it but I would! One last attempt... we got a flash light and headed into the yard, he did run around for a minute while we got everything out of the car. And there he was lying in the wet grass, it was like Christmas morning for us all!