Planes, Tractors, Combines...

Today was heaven on earth for Caleb.  It all started with a plane ride first thing in the morning to Saskatchewan!!  I'm not going to lie... I was a bit nervous about being outnumbered by kids on the plane.  But they were great!

Caleb pretty much looked like this most of the morning.  Cartoons, earphones, snacks ... perfect.

Here's Emerson at her most awake state on the plane.  Not a peep out of her.  Why was I so worried?

After a nap, we went to the field to visit Uncle Joel hard at work.  During harvest he drives this tractor with a grain cart that unloads the four combines on the field and then loads the grain into the waiting trucks.  Caleb and I went for a ride in this bad boy.

We spent about a half hour on the field bouncing around in the tractor.  It was a dream come true for my little boy.

Here's the combine unloading the grain into the grain cart... Joel drives alongside the combine while it's unloading so that no one has to stop-- everything must be done as quick as possible.

As you can see, this was quite fascinating for Caleb...

After collecting the grain from all of the combines (or once the cart is full) Joel unloads the grain into one of the trucks.

Thanks for the fun day Joel!

Lately...

This blog has been sorely neglected over the past week.  Our house has been a bit crazy over the past few days.  In an effort to keep you all updated, I've put together a quick recap!

PLAY TIME

Caleb continues to entertain himself with lego.  He's become quite the creative lego builder.  For months he would sit and watch us build him cars and machines (anything... as long as it had wheels) and now he's been creating his own vehicles.  The other day he came running up to Doug and I with his latest creation... legos in the shape of an "X".  "Look Mom and Dad!  I made an X!"  Then he proceeded to give it a quarter turn... "Now it's a "T".  It's all in how you look at it."  Then he went on to turn it into an "X" car.  Hmm.

Hours of fun building things with wheels

Every so often he still wants us to come and join him on the floor.  The other morning he really wanted me to come build something with him... I was being a somewhat neglectful mother (enjoying my coffee while checking my email) and kept saying I'd be there "in another minute honey."  Caleb persistently kept asking me to come build legos with him... finally I stopped and asked him what he wanted me to build... an airplane?  a helicopter?  Caleb stops, looks at me and says so innocently, "Those ones might be a little too tricky for you."  In seconds I was on the floor building a helicopter determined to prove my three year son wrong.  In hindsight I'm wondering... was I playing with Caleb?  Or was he playing with me?

Caleb's "X" car

ENTERTAINING TIME

My little Emmy continues to entertain me... with her cute little outfits, with her persistent little mohawk, with her big bright eyes, and now with her first smiles.  She is such a happy little girl.  Her day consists of eating, sleeping, and smiling.  That makes this mommy smile too.

JUST BOYS TIME

On Friday I was hosting a baby shower at my place so the boys were forced out of the house for the evening.  Hours later, they made their way home after quite an eventful night.  It started with pies at McDonalds and continued with a round of mini golf and Castle Fun Park.  They then went hot tubbing at Grandma and Grandpa's and headed home.  They did a quick drive by and found that the baby shower was still going strong, so off they went to Walmart for play time in the toy section.  Needless to say, I had two tired boys on my hands that evening.

Mini golfing fun

 PROJECT TIME

I pulled our my sewing machine this weekend and whipped up a few more baby blankets and re-hemmed my dining room curtains after Caleb decided to "un-hem" them during a time out (that IKEA iron on hem just doesn't hold up in my house).

You can never have too many cute swaddling blankets.  And really, with flannel this cute how can I resist?  I even got a little crazy and rounded the corners of the cherry blanket.

Even Doug managed to get in on the sewing action.  After watching me struggling to cut the flannel evenly-- Doug began to look worried.  His mathematically oriented, cabinet installer, perfectionist driven brain went into overdrive.  Suddenly he's asking me if I know how to make it square, starts reaching for a tape measure and begins to throw around words like "hypotenuse ".  Before I know what's going on the scissors have been taken from me.

My blankets have never been more square.

And here's Emerson modeling the cherry blanket.  I think her brother was entertaining her at the moment.

EATING TIME

Meal time has been going great in our house.  Caleb continues to ask for fun lunches and I continue to make them.  Caleb's never minded vegetables, but all of a sudden he really, really likes them.  If the cucumber is in the shape of a star, he'll eat 10.  Last week he actually got mad at me for putting the broccoli away after dinner.  Apparently he wasn't finished.

We've all been enjoying these two meals, so I thought I'd share them with you!

Meal number one... Pork and Apple Fajitas.  I discovered the recipe on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog and after making it once, everyone in our house was sold.  I've created a more simplified version myself-- instead of the marinade I sometimes just use Cattle Boyz BBQ sauce and I've opted to BBQ the pork and then slice it up instead of stir frying.

And now meal number two... green chile enchiladas.  The secret ingredient is green chile enchilada sauce-- so far I've only managed to find it across the border in the States.

They're really easy to make.  I just slice up a couple of chicken breasts and stir fry them with onions, add a tin of green chiles, a block of cream cheese, a little bit of sour cream, and a quarter of the tin of green chile sauce.  Then I roll up the mixture in a few soft tortillas with some shredded cheese, put them in a pan and top with the remaining sauce and more cheese.  Throw it in the oven until it's hot and bubbly and serve with a salad and maybe some spanish rice.  Always a winner in our house!  These cans of sauce are pretty big, so sometimes I'll make two 8x8 pans of enchiladas and throw one in the freezer for another day.

TRAVEL TIME

And tomorrow, I'm leaving on a jet plane with both kids.  We're heading home to the prairies to spend the rest of the week with my family.  Caleb has been counting down the days for weeks now and Emerson is excited about her first trip to the farm.

I pulled out our suitcases this morning and let Caleb pack his own.  After a good hour in his room by himself he rolled his suitcase down the hallway (it was closed), parked it at the top of the stairs, announced that he was all ready to go, and went back to playing.  A few minutes later he all of a sudden got really worried.  "Mommy, do you think Nana and Papa have socks at their house?"  I forgot to pack mine."


After Caleb went down for his nap I opened it up to take a peek.  I was somewhat surprised to find that he actually thought to pack underwear.

Mom, my suitcase is full of green chile enchilada sauce just for you.

See you tomorrow!

Just another crafty morning in our house...

aleb took a little break from our regular morning craft time over the past few weeks, and instead became passionate about his legos.  Today however, we decided to do a fall craft since I had a few new ones to try out!  A friend of mine heard my cry for help a few weeks ago and sent me the link to an awesome website called Kaboose.  They have tons of great craft ideas for kids of all ages, so we had to try one of them out!  We decided to try the fall fingerprint tree craft.  It was a great success-- Caleb loves to try anything messy, so this was right up his alley-- and the end result was pretty cute too...

To make the trunk and branches of the tree we painted Caleb's hand and forearm to make an imprint on the paper.  He could hardly believe it when I started painting his arm not the paper.  I knew a moment of panic when I got up to get a washcloth for his arm-- whenever we tell Caleb not to move (when we're grabbing something to wash his face and hands after mealtime) he has the tendency to bolt into the living room... right towards my clean couches.  I could just see brown handprints all over my white couches... thankfully, he stayed in his chair.

And here's Caleb's craft time masterpiece proudly displayed on the fridge.  He specifically asked me to send a picture of his painting to Auntie Angie and Uncle Tyler.  So here it is!

Caleb has also been wanting to show off his new toothbrush to Auntie Trisha (she's a dental assistant and is not randomly obsessed with toothbrushes in case you're wondering).  He was at the dentist for a check up a few weeks ago and scored a sweet Diego toothbrush.  Here it is Auntie Trish...

[Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hirsche]

Lunch Time Fun Time

Lunch time... snack time... messy time...  Caleb loves to eat.  He also loves to re-arrange his food the second I put it in front of him.  It's as if the way I present it just doesn't cut it... it doesn't look good enough to eat.  In no time at all, he has food in his drink, drink in his food, food on the floor, on the walls, on the windows, sprayed over my curtains all over his face, clothes... you get the picture (if not, check this out).  While he can have his picky moments at times (as all kids do) my biggest meal time complaint is how messy he eats.  Messier than most three year olds I know.  So the other day I was checking out some new blogs (a favorite past time of mine) and stumbled across the blog another lunch.  The blog is written by a stay-at-home mom who makes super creative super fun lunches for her kids and then blogs about it!  I was inspired, and thought to myself... what would happen if I played with Caleb's food first?  Would he be more excited to eat it?  Would he still feel the desire to re-arrange his food before consumption?  Would my house stand a chance at remaining cleaner during meal time?  It was worth a try!

Trial number one... snack time this morning.  My niece and nephew joined us for snack time today... and I decided to spice it up.   If I made it more creative and fun... would they be entertained longer and stay out each other's hair long enough to eat?  Yup.  I pulled out my muffin tins and several finger food snack options and let them go to town... arranging and eating their snacks as they wanted.

Caleb's Creation

Keziah's Creation

Snack time was a smashing success.  They were entertained for quite some time... and there was not a single squabble.  How cute is this little munchkin?

Here they are hard at work... 

Poor Silas... looking on from the sidelines.  Maybe when you're 

a little bit older buddy!

Next up... Lunch time.  I don't have all the tricks of the trade for creating fun and creative lunches, but I managed to scrape together a few things to make Caleb's lunch look more fun than usual.

Caleb's eyes lit up when he found his lunch.  It was quite exciting for him... and successful!!  There was very little playing and a lot more eating.  He was so pumped to try everything since it all looked so exciting to eat... and I'll admit, I did have fun playing with his food :)  And while a bit of food still hit the floor, my kitchen didn't look like a disaster zone in the end.  Hooray!

Caleb stopped eating and paused only once during lunch time... all of a sudden he heard the theme song from Diego come on.  He didn't say a word, just sat frozen like this for a good 20 seconds until the song ended.  Then he looked at me and said so seriously... "I think I heard Diego."  Then went back to eating...

I can't really go another post without a few pictures of Emerson!  My sisters would not approve.  Here she is... growing up so fast!  Look at those chubby cheeks :)

Today she's sporting some super cool leggings.  I have legging envy today.

And hair envy.  Yes, my little girl does have a mohawk.

Boys will be boys...

Mom walked out of the room and snack time got a wee bit out of control...

That's right... you should be feeling a little sheepish right now.  Actually, he's probably wondering... why is Mom taking a picture of this?  I thought I was in trouble...

Boys are messy.

But then they are also so cute...

At the park this afternoon... Caleb and his friend Isaiah walking hand in hand on the way to the playground :)

Just down the hall...

*** 2 posts today folks... after this one... keep reading!***

Can't say I didn't warn you about the color...

Whenever people come over to our house and are taken on a tour for the first time they want to know how it's changed.  It's difficult to explain how interesting the color palette was before we moved in.  I've finally come up with the term "condiment colors".  The main rooms of the house were done in shades of mustard yellow, relish green, and as you will soon see, ketchup red/orange-- a BBQ nightmare.  Thankfully we had lots of helping hands when it came time to paint!

Paint made a huge improvement-- as did removing the mirrored bifold that didn't quite close all the way.  That closet door drove me crazy-- it was next to impossible to close, and if you managed to succeed... it was ridiculously difficult to open.  Not so efficient.  Like the rest of the house, flooring was next on the agenda.

Once the flooring was in, the real work began-- the finishing!  When it came to this step-- Doug and I spent more time in the hallway than any other room in the house because there are so many doorways-- meaning lots of cutting, lots of filling and sanding, and lots of painting!  But I think the finished product looks amazing-- I wasn't going to put the hallway in the tour, but sometimes I think it's my favorite part of the house because of all the long hours we spent putting it together last fall!  So, here it is!

When I saw how great the closet looked all trimmed out, I decided that I couldn't put doors back on.  It kind of looks like built in shelves.  Believe it or not, this is my linen closet.  I do keep extra pillows and duvets in one of the basement closets, but all of my bed linens are stored in here.  We did purchase a new bifold door for the closet-- so the day I can't keep it looking like this... the door goes back on.

I'll admit, sometimes I choose aesthetics over practicality.  I guess I'm a sucker for pretty things.

Amazingly... Caleb hasn't bothered to touch my neatly folded linens... and the closet has survived many bouts of hallway hockey.

Here's a few pictures that show off the amazing finishing Doug pulled off.  When we were selecting the mouldings for the house, we decided to go with a mix of modern and traditional-- flat modern baseboards and plinth blocks with more traditional architrave headers and crown moulding.  Whoa-- how's that terminology for you?  All of those art history classes have really pulled through for me!

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made a trip to Ikea to pick up a few things for a project I was working on (see this post).  Here's the finished project... a family photo wall for the hallway!

I don't have a lot of family pictures on display in my house since there aren't many places to display them in my house.  The hallway is the perfect place for my pictures.

I am usually a fan of gallery walls that mix and match frames of different colors and textures, but the hall is pretty narrow and I wanted the pictures to blend in more so that I wouldn't be too prominent.  Ikea's Ribba frames worked out perfectly for me-- they come in lots of different sizes and they're cheap!  We had some of our favorite family photos printed in a variety of sizes, came up with an arrangement that worked for the space, and put them up!  Doug is the master when it comes to hanging pictures.

You'll notice that the big frame doesn't have a family picture... yet.  I decided to keep the boat picture in there until we have a family picture where Emerson is a bit older.

And that's my hallway!  Is it weird that it could be my favorite room of the house?