Washing Chewbacca

We bathe our children in our bathroom because we have a huge wonderful old tub in a room where every wall is covered in tile almost five feet up. It is perfect for splashing and sudsing. They take a bath together every night and despite the fact that they have plenty of room to spread out, they usually sit touching knees or backs the whole time. They really love taking baths together and the being right next to each other rarely ends in tears. I am touching everything wood while I write this. In fact they have started playing together a lot lately. They make up games and chase each other squealing with delight. It is the greatest thing ever.

Otto is obsessed with STAR WARS lately. He hasn't seen the movie but he has some of my brothers old 12" figures and lots of plot stories from Eric. He has given it his own twist, fx. in his role playing c3po and the stormtroopers are friends. Today I over heard this conversation while Luke and Obi-wan were chasing each other.

Obi-wan(mette)- Oh no, my light saber is broken
Luke(Otto)- that's ok, I can fix it
Luke fixes K-Nex homemade light saber we now all carry
Obi-wan- thanks Luke

Running like crazy people continues

They are too much sometimes.








Last night in the bath Obi-wan (who is now Otto, you have to stay on your toes with the roll playing and who is who though Otto is quick to correct you) wanted to give Chewbacca (mette) a bath. Washing Otto every night is often a challenge as having water poured on him is more sensory input then he can often handle, Mette does not have this problem. I told him it was fine as long as Mette liked it.

She LOVED it.








She let him pour repeated bowls of water on her until she was soaked and laughing!


Even when the whole was dumped on her face, she was cool. I love how you can see Otto, I'm sorry, Obi-wan's, tongue sticking out and a hint of the huge smile he had showing he was loving this too.


He then asked Chewie to stick out her tongue so her could make a waterfall.


She kindly obliged.


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A picture is worth a 1,000 words

For over two weeks now Otto has not been napping. We are working on quiet time and some days are more successful than others. He spends quiet time in the library with a few toys, many books, comfy blankets and cozy places to snuggle. After a crazy morning and hectic lunchtime I was very much looking forward to a quiet quiet time where i could get something done. That didn't happen. Mette had a hard time falling asleep and Otto was bouncing off the walls. He was quiet for a while and I madly threw something together for dinner and prepared to fold laundry and clean downstairs, that's when I smelled it. Our living room is directly under the library and down the open stairwell was wafting the unmistakable smell of nail polish. I should say that i paint my nails axp. three times a year and have a few colors stashed here and there. I pay no mind to where they are since i never use them. Until now. I followed my nose and found Otto in the library looking like this.



I did a quick survey and found the carpet, couch and chair all to be free of paint. Then I started laughing because what else can you do at this point? My biggest regret is the fact that the color is a fleshy color and you can't really see it in the pictures. Trust me, the better part of his face is covered. Both cheeks and a big swipe across the forehead. When I asked him how he thought we should get it off he responded with "mommy, I don't want to take it off, I think i look stylish". I am going to ply him with netflix and attempt to wipe it off with warm water and a washcloth.

It should be noted that two days ago while I was taking mette to the potty Otto dumped an entire container of Gatorade dust on the kitchen table and made a dessert complete with cacti. He was so proud when I came in to see him.

Why do I have the feeling that this is going to be a long winter?






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Thanksgiving

Back again. Last week was a whirlwind of activity but we are starting to get back into normal life again. Thanksgiving at the cabin was fun and crazy all together. There are a lot of ways two small people can get into trouble there and the adults all seem to be busy with something else. That my friends makes for a deadly combo. Luckily nothing was broken and no permanent damage was done. Due to the craziness I managed to take almost no photos. The camera would have to have been strapped to me in order for me to have it when I needed it, and then it would have been in the way for all the baby slinging I was doing. I did manage to get a few shots of mette playing grandpa's tuba. Both kids were able to make some amazing sounds with it. I think it must make you feel pretty powerful to make a big tuba sound when you are three feet tall!





The tuba sits on the floor in the living room and is at the perfect height to sneak a few notes in here and there.





This is sadly the only picture I got of any of the food, but fear not, the food was amazing and plentiful. This year we turned the living room of the old cabin into a dining room and ate under the watchful eye of the bears in the fireplace. It was quite lovely.





Feasting with us this year were long time friends of the family, Phil and Deb. Deb made a cranberry salad with whipped cream that made mette squeal with delight, each time she saw it. In her first sitting she had four bowls full. Rest assured I got that recipe. Deb gets a special prize for making someone as happy as mette was when she ate that salad.

In true cabin fashion we had a nice coating of snow on Thursday making it that much more festive. Otto, grandpa and I went out for a walk and all Otto wanted to do was eat the snow. We had some good discussions about not eating yellow snow or licking anything that is metal. Basic life skills.

I am working on some more photos to have up later this week so stayed tuned.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. While Otto had a good time, he is SUPER excited to go to school tomorrow.

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Perspective

Today I was wearing:

smart wool socks

felted wool slippers

yoga pants

a tank top

a t-shirt

and a very warm bathrobe

I was warm enough, but I might have even thrown another shirt into the mix.

Mette was wearing:

undies

nothing else. Granted she was spending her time alternating between running in circles, literally, while chanting "i running circles, i running circles" in case you were wondering what she was doing, and sitting on the radiant heat floor in the kitchen. It should be said that the only reason she was wearing undies is because I tricked her into putting them back on while she was distracted with a tea cup. She was so warm her cheeks were flush. It seems a bit silly to harp on Otto for wanting wear a soccer jersey with jammy pants (fleece ones no less) without socks or slippers when his sister won't even wear clothes. The problem with Mette is unlike her older brother, she can actually take most of her clothes off without you helping. This makes the task of keeping her dressed that much more difficult.

We have been having a really good weekend here. Yesterday Mette and I did some downtown holiday window shopping while eric and Otto dug up dinosaur bones at home. More on that with pictures later. In the afternoon my mom came down and we went grocery shopping for the upcoming week of feasting together. I am not one to go on and on about savings, but I have to share, we saved $143.54 at the grocery store yesterday. Eric's first question if you mention saving money, is "how much did you spend?". We spent $314 after the savings which I think is pretty impressive. We had two shopping carts full of food. In addition to the food for the feasts (yes, plural, we start on wednesday and don't stop until the weekend with full blown menus and themes for each day) I also stocked up on staples.

Today the kids and I made some snowflake crafty things for great grandparents doors and baked chocolate chip cookies. Otto and eric also did a whole lot of transporting leaves from our yard to the curb out front so the giant sucking sound can take them all to Mexico, or I mean the mulch pile in town.

I have some pictures to get up soon, but I think there will be minimal posting next week with all the activities going on. I hope everyone has a great holiday week. We all have so much to be thankful for.

Driving Me Crazy!

What do you do when you are stressed? Some drink, run, scream, we all have our escapes. I usually clean. There are worse ways of dealing with stress I realize though admitting it like this does make it sound really lame so "housewifey" which, eewww, I am just not!!! Well I am, I guess, but I never think of myself as a housewife. More like ruler of our small world. It has a much better ring to it. Today I went through half a jar of Bon Ami, a large handful of toothpicks (what, you don't clean with toothpicks?) destroyed a sponge, and have much less skin on my hands. My stove however is sparkling. So much so that now I really need to clean the cabinet doors and mop the floor. No worries, I am sure my motivation for that will wake up any minute now.

The kids have had some good days lately, really good days, but wow, there have been some tough moments too. Like today when Otto was screaming so loud in the car I was afraid someone would call child services. We had the windows up. He was screaming because when he screams I refuse to engage him and he wanted me to talk to him. It didn't get better for almost and hour after we got home. Hence the very clean stove.

When they haven't been destroying my last nerves, they have been complete angels. I am not kidding,

They choose to sit like this. The camera just happened to be close by so I caught it.

This too is not posed.
That is Mette dancing in the background.
Otto has really been wanting to take pictures lately. He is getting really good at lining up his subject. He took this photo and I have not cropped or edited it at all!

During most of this drama, Mette has been very sweet. Today she wanted to keep me company while I cleaned and sang songs to me. Then she curled up on the floor. I just thought she was being cute. On closer inspection....

She had fallen asleep. It was close to nap time, but still. This is the kitchen floor and she was talking to me just a second ago!

Thank goodness it is Friday is all I have to say. Not only that, grandparents are coming down from the cabin tomorrow so Eric and I can go on a real date!!! I am so excited. Are we there yet?

Uncle Benny and Aunt Shannon

Last weekend we had a wonderul, and long overdue visit from Uncle Ben and Aunt Shannon. The kids were so excited to see them!! They arrived at lunch time on Saturday and it is quite the testament to how much they ran around being chased and thrown in the air by Ben and Shannon that they took naps at all on Saturday. But nap they did, and when they woke up, Shannon was there to snuggle with them.

One of Otto's favorite (and I think eric's) parts about Ben visiting is waking him up in the morning. He gets to go into the guest room and crawl all over a sleepy Ben. Even though Sunday was the first day of daylight saving time Otto was nice and waited until 7:15 before waking him up :)
Sunday was a brisk fall day but we headed to the park anyway. Mette was showing off her train skills.

"All ABOARD!!"

I love the colors in this. It was a good choice of jacket I must say!

Otto spent most of the time at the park swinging. Some things never change.


Before they headed home on Sunday night I was determined to get some good photos of then with the kids. Otto of course only came as the STIG. It is next to impossible to get a family photo from these kids at the end of the day, but a few out of the hundred I took look pretty cute.
There is something about this one that I find very charming.
It IS impossible to get a photo of the four of us, when you try to do it after a photo shoot with Ben and Shannon. This is the only one I am willing to share.
It was a great weekend and something we have to try harder to do more often. I would really like to get the kids into NY to see all the Christmas lights this year if the weather is good for a weekend. Hopefully we can meet up with them for that!

Kids Book Guru

Many of you may already know that we have some pretty awesome neighbors in these parts. The kind you can knock on their door and ask them to help you with anything and they do so with a smile. It is pretty awesome. We have the added bonus to living next door to a children's book reviewer. Kendal has for 20+ years been reviewing children's books in her nationally syndicated column. We have benefitted from her massive children's book collection with thoughtfully chosen, age appropriate stacks of books delivered to our door multiple times and year as well as countless recommendations on books. Trying to find good books for children is overwhelming and almost impossible. There are far too many to choose from, many of them are horrible and really, who has time, or access to them, to find the good from the bad. Enter Kendal. We have been lucky enough to have her for guidance and now you can too. She has just launched a website, greatestbooksforkids.com, where you can see what she is interested in and if you would like custom lists for your child, grandchild or friend she is happy to do that too. As the whole site takes off it will have more and more info but it is for sure one you will want to bookmark and check often. Check your local paper too for her column, she always has great books there too!

I will have pictures of our fun weekend with Ben and Shannon soon!

Candy time

Why now that daylight saving time is just moments away are my children deciding to not nap well and get up super early? Ugh.

Oh well, on to the photos from Sunday. Remember how I mentioned Mette and her new love of chicken wings, well here she is in action.


Otto took off his driver suit for a while at the party but wore his helmut and bin jammies. I think it goes further to support the Spaceball quality of the outfit.


Group shot where Eric managed to crop out some of the kids!


Heading out on the town.


He didn't skip a beat this year. He was looking for porch lights and ready to go!


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Halloween photos

Are coming soon. Things have been a bit crazy here and I have fallen behind in the photo department. Tomorrow evening should be much more normal and I hope to get them up then. We did have a weekend of much spooky treats.


Saturday our town holds the adorable small town event that you would think just happens in the movies. There were cupcakes, candy, costume contests and a parade.


Otto found one of his friends in here Ariel costume. They walked the entire parade holding hands. It was beyond cute.



We participated in all of it, to varying degrees. Mette took a snooze through some of it.


On Sunday we went to a neighbor's pre-game Halloween party. We managed to get some food in both of the kids before we went out hunting for candy. We also discovered that Mette loves wings. "I like chicken. Eat it self". Give that girl a chicken wing (dill pickle flavored no less) and she is quite happy and quiet. She cleaned two down to the bone in no time.
The kids had a great time trick-or-treating. Mette refused all costumes saying they were too small but wore her bone jammies from Ben and Shannon and was quite cute. They both were happy to come home and hand out candy as well which was fine with eric and I too! Halloween is exhausting.


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