Nate is a good big brother, and he really tries to help his little sister out. He loves her quite a bit, you see. The event sequence that I'm going to show you below was not at all malicious.







She's thinking: Mommy, I don't want to go down!



Nate, "I can give you a hand!"



And what do you think happened next? (No, I don't have a photo of that. That would be cruel.)

Labels: home life, outdoors, random

On this past Saturday we dropped off the kids with their Aunt Christa and her boyfriend Javi in their new apartment, which of course meant the kids had a wonderful weekend of debauchery with much spoiling. Meanwhile, Aaron and I plus our friends Jake and Julie, Paul and Patti, and Brent went off to celebrate Aaron and I's upcoming marriage with a joint bachelor/bachelorette party. First, we saw a matinee of Iron Man. I really liked the movie although I think it is a typical comic book-to-movie type of flick. Next, we ate at a restaurant in Ames of Aaron's choosing. Aaron went to college in Ames, and that is where we held the majority of the bachelor(ette) party. Unfortunately, this particular Mexican restaurant no longer gives you a t-shirt if you drink their two of their mega-humongous margaritas. It would have been nice to get a couple of commemorative shirts... We followed up the food by visiting Aaron's favorite Ames bar, where we played darts. My favorite memory of that was when the person who was kicking all of our butts (Patti) accidentally threw the dart OVER the dartboard, and her and Julie had to crawl around on the floor trying to figure out how to get behind the machine. I think that cost her her lead, because Brent ended up wiping the floor with all of us. We finished off the night by driving 45 minutes to see one of our friends play in a band in some obscure bar, where my friends Sara and Eric met up with us. All in all it was a smashing good time, and I'm glad I had such wonderful company at our party.

The next day was my day, and I chose to spend it at Living History Farms. I can remember visiting the outdoor museum when I was in elementary school. We were instructed on how to make brooms and set type for newspapers. Even though Nate is not yet four, and Sammi is not yet two, I thought they might enjoy it and maybe have some memories in the future. Also, Aaron had never been, having grown up on the eastern side of the state. My sister helped us out and came along with us, and we all had a lovely time (I think).

Living History Farms has two major parts. The first is the "Farm" section where you go on a tour of an Ioway site with a bark lodge, tepee, and winter lodge. They tell you how the Ioway farmed and talk about how they went on the great buffalo hunt in the summer months. They show some of the utensils they used and how they lived. You walk on a trail through some nice woodlands to an 1850's farm complete with a log cabin, barn, smoke house, and other exhibits. There are real people completing tasks that would be done on such a farm such as wool spinning, field clearing, etc. It's a working exhibit. Next up is the 1900's farm with a barn, house (hey, our house was built in 1900...), animals, and all the necessary buildings. You end this section by seeing an exhibit of today's agriculture. The second part is an 1875 town with over ten different buildings, each manned by someone talking about how people lived and worked in that time period. The entire trip is extremely fascinating and one of my favorite places to go.

You can see all of the pictures at our Flickr site, but I'll highlight a few here.


Sammi's very first drink from a water fountain. She succeeded in getting a lot of water on her face and very little water in her mouth. Maybe next time?


A creek on the walk between the farms.


Some fencing at the 1850 Farmsite.


Aunt Christa & Nate, walking the trail. Someone is getting spoiled rotten...


This duck looks like he is drooling all over, but really it is water from the trough below.


Daddy & Sammi having a good time.


Windmill at the 1900 Farm.


The kids on the drive back home. I think they had a good weekend - and they are definitely exhausted!

My favorite part of the entire trip, however, had to be near the end of Sunday when Aaron went to change Nate's pull-up and the surprise he found. Nate had not been changed for nearly seven hours, and he was dry. That's right: I think my boy is finally toilet-trained. I asked Nate what he wanted to eat for celebration. The answer? Pizza. Num, num.

Labels: random

Why is it that stuffed animals are so prolific in my house? Are they running around doing the nasty and having babies? All I know is that everywhere I look, I see stuffed animals, and currently I have no way to corral them. For over a year now I've wanted something similar to Boon's Animal Bag. I've scoured ebay on a sporadic schedule, searching for the elusive "cheap" animal bag. Alas, I have not found anything. I've searched via google for a cheap knockoff, and that too has not gone well.

Now I'm asking you, yes -- YOU, to help me. Have you heard of another version of the stuffed animal bean bag chair? I think this is the best solution, as the children love to steal any of chair or pilates ball they can get their hands on to lay and sit on, we have plenty of space in the playroom for two bean bag chairs, and yet I don't like the stuffing they put in those chairs. I have too many stuffed animals (and I've pared down the pile many times), and nowhere to put them.

Do you know if it would be cheaper to make this chair by hand? Would it be hard for a novice to make? (I don't even have a sewing machine yet, but I could purchase one for less than it'd cost to buy two of these chairs). Do you know of anyone who makes these chairs for cheaper than the Boon price?

Help a woman out, here. Please.

Labels: random

I have a love affair with the color blue. The more bright and nearly electric-like, the better. When I was a kid (probably around 10 or so), my dad built a room in the basement for me. He asked me what color I wanted the walls. I'm sure my parents expected pink or some other fluffy bunny color, but no, I wanted electric blue. I think my mom was not in favor, but my dad argued on my behalf that a girl should have what a girl wants.

When Aaron and I bought our house, I took pictures of every room.


This is our bedroom when we bought the house.


This is our bedroom now. Eventually, the nightstand will go and be replaced by something else, or at least moved over next to the bed. Right now we have a rickety old ceiling fan that shakes and wobbles and makes me scared it's going to fall down. We are going to replace it and then we won't need the monster fan at the foot of the bed. There is a book on the left side of the picture, laying on the floor next to the bed. That's Calvin and Hobbes, volume two. Aaron reads it to me sometimes before we go to sleep. It took us over a year to get through volume one, so I have high hopes of lasting entertainment for the next year and a half or so. The glow-in-the-dark star hanging from the ceiling is my way of creating a pull for the light. The light switch is BEHIND the door when you open the door, which is exceedingly annoying. We leave the switch flipped up and we pull the star to get lights.

The white spot on the wall is where Sammi and Nate got into the paint cans and poured paint all over Sammi and the floor, then left perfect brown foot prints on the carpet all the way to the bathroom as well as a perfect Sammi hand print on the wall. I'm keeping that sucker on the wall and framing it in some color of paint. No, I'm not kidding.


This is the other side of our bedroom when we bought the house.


And after. Eventually I'll be redoing the closet to the point that we will have no dressers at all. So that will move out of this area, and in its place I want to put a rack for hanging used-once suits or other clothing items we plan to rewear, so that they don't get wrinkled laying on the floor or use up my chair space. I am also crocheting an afghan that is the color of the walls that will be over that chair for when I want to read in the winter. Last, I need to put a floor lamp in that corner.

Once I get a sewing machine, I want to create curtains for all the windows that are the brown color with a matching blue lace over the top.

Apparently our closet was too hard to get a picture of, but it was the same color scheme with absolutely nothing on the walls.


When you stand at the door and look in. Aaron built that shelf for me and there is a closet rod smack dab in the center of it for hanging clothes. Right now all of our blankets are on the floor, but I want to build a blanket box/window seat that will stretch along the left wall (from this picture). Then those blankets will go in that box, which will double as a cushioned place to lay down, read a book, and look out the window. Or a place to sit to try on shoes, etc. Under the clothes will be an open-faced shelving unit with baskets of clothes. On the shelf housing the closet rod will be more baskets of clothes.


This is the wall you see on the right side of the above picture. The two (originally shoe holders) wall containers are housing my socks and other delicates. Between them are hooks for jewelry and a ribbon which I've put my earrings on. Smack dab in that middle area there will be a long and tall mirror to see what we're wearing and how it looks. A last check before we walk out the door to go to work, if you will. On either side of the mirror will be hooks for belts. This utilized that space the best way I could think of, beacuse it lies flat against the wall which is good because the doorway is nearly flat against that wall, and we didn't want anything we'd bump into when we walked into the closet. (Also, I have no expensive jewelry or earrings, so don't get excited.)


Here's the doorway and wall leading back into the bedroom. There is a dresser there which will eventually go to make space for more open faced shelves with baskets of clothes. Also, the blanket box will stretch all along the base of the floor and wrap around. (In this picture, the window is on your right.) On top of that dresser is my prized coca-cola lite bottle that I brought home from Germany. :D

So, now you've had a tour of Aaron and I's bedroom and how we've changed it and plan to change it more since we bought our house a year and a half ago.

Labels: random

I'm a wet blanket, lately, so I'm going to clue you in to posts that I hope to make soon.

• Taking the kids to the ren faire
• Aaron and I's joint bachelor/bachelorette party
• Faces my kids make
• Living History Farms
• Updates to my garden (filled out all the beds with compost, things have sprouted, and plants are being planted)
• Updates to my yard (fence is finished on three of the four sides, want to put in natural prairie grass near AC)

They don't sound very interesting, but I'll try to make them interesting. After all, I'm sharing my life with you, and sometimes my life just isn't that interesting. Right now it's nearly finals week and I'm struggling to stay afloat with school, work, and life. I've got massive writer's block, too. So I think this week I'll be leaving you with lots of pictures of things that we've been doing lately, while I work on getting the above posts fleshed out, thought about, and written. Maybe I'll even pester Aaron to get on and write one of his extremely witty posts.

For now, though, I'll leave you with pictures of Mount Vernon's Chalk The Walk Festival, held this past weekend. Once a year they close down main street and let a bunch of artists chalk up the street. It's supposedly the largest Madonnari festival in Iowa, and it is lots of good fun.

I apologize for being too lazy to straighten, boost, and crop them. However, you can click on them to see bigger shots. :)

Here the community is given squares to create this huge painting replica.

Labels: random

I think that I would like to blame this on my sister. You see, she and I wear the exact same kind of socks. The kind that come from the PX (What is it in the Air Force? BX?). She lived with us for a few months after she was medically discharged from basic training, and we did our laundry together. This caused problems as I had a gazillion and a half pairs of black boot socks and a gazillion and a half pairs of white PT socks. She also had the same kind of socks.

Before she came, my socks did not have holes. They didn't. I swear. Okay, I should probably admit that I'd had some of these socks for close to six years. However, before she arrived, these socks did not have holes.

Then, she came. All of a sudden our laundry got mixed up and somehow, many ragged holes started appearing in my socks. I know that I didn't suddenly acquire some massive foot acidic-sock-eating bacteria. You'd think I'd notice if I had, right?

My theory is that Christa shoved all her holey socks into my laundry basket, thereby getting new socks without having to pay for them. It's just a theory, mind you. (If she's reading this, she's getting up-in-arms about now. She's denied it vehemently. All I've got to say is, "I think the lady doth protest too much.")

Of course, it could also be that some of my socks are six years old. But shh, you didn't hear that.

I went through our laundry recently and pulled out all of the holey socks: Aaron's, mine (Jen), Nate's, and Sammi's.--

Look! Our names are in alphabetical AND age order! Aren't we cool?

--Anyywaay. So, I pulled out all the holey socks.





The above is the holey sock pile, if you can't tell. The little toy truck is in there so you can see how enormous the pile is. Additionally, I had to go grab that truck from one of the toy bins in the playroom. You'll never be able to find toy trucks, books, or puzzle pieces just loitering in my living room. Nope. Really! (Please don't test me on this; just take my word!)

We were already planning on going into The City (you know, the one I live twenty minutes away from, the stinkiest city in Iowa) for some sandals for the kids, groceries, and other minutiae. We added socks to the list.

I got a wild hair up my-- err, anyway, I decided that I wanted some COLORED socks. You know, ones that aren't white? (Did you notice that there is only one non-white sock in that pile? Yeeaah.) I'm branching out in my wardrobe. My socks are no longer required to be white.

When we got to the store(s), I looked everywhere for some cool mismatched colorful socks. Why? Because when I go out, I go aaall out. I wanted some spastic socks. I wanted some colorful, cheerful, jump up and shout, "HALLELUJAH, WE ARE ALIVE," socks. Like these ones. But, you know, not $2.66 a sock (plus shipping and handling).

...

...

Do you think I found any shocking, eccentric socks?

No. No, I didn't.

So now my plan is just to go barefoot for all of eternity. At least until I find some amazing COME TO MAMA socks.

You know. Because I'm stubborn like that.

Labels: random

I have run out of things to do to avoid homework. Thus, this was born.

Labels: random