black friday--who really wins?

remember here in this post where i mentioned that there was one thing that i really wanted to get on black friday? well, after waking up at 4:40am [and running to one other store first] and then driving an hour to get to another town, then rushing out with the crazies and battling the masses, i got it.

okay, okay. it wasn't that dramatic. while in my head i may have pictured running, possibly elbowing people and tackling others down to get it, it was much more calm. okay, okay, no one else was even there. the store opened at 8am and while i was worried because we {myself and my BFF} arrived at 7:56am, there was no need to be. while i was pulling open the store door, eagerly looking in to try and see exactly what i was hoping for, i realized that while the store was open--it was empty. once stepping into the store i discovered that in place of crazed shoppers, there were 2 sales ladies greeting me; one handing me a $25 gift-card (just for shopping on that day) the other was offering to help me find exactly what i was looking for.

which by now you might be thinking, what the hell was she looking for?

well, i wanted a La-Z-Boy recliner. it was the perfect gift for b and while he's wanted one for as long as i've known him i couldn't rationalize dropping over $400 on a freaking chair. a chair? no way.

well only on black friday can you find one for 51% off, thank you slumberland. for 51% off, not only could b finally have his recliner but i was willing to drive an hour and shop on black friday to get it for him. while he's wanted one for years, the want has only increased since he took my parents old one from their curb after they bought a new one to replace their very worn one adopted one.

so i have to ask, who really was the real winner on black friday? was it B for getting this as an early christmas gift:
me for finally getting rid of this one:
or the kids, who now have the biggest fort/castle/tent that they have ever played in:

yeah, i think they enjoyed it the most!

naughty is the new nice

after a gazillion attempts to get the boys' picture in front of our tree, this was the best i got. good thing i have another 26 days to keep trying!

we did it!

out of the 52 pictures that uncle matt took today, we got two good ones. two out of fifty-two. while i would have loved to have more to chose from, today i'm thankful for the two that we did get.

we had a great thanksgiving, i'll try to post pics later. bubba, peanut and i all have colds...just that miserable congestion/runny nose and feeling kinda blah. hopefully we'll all sleep well tonight. i'm off to take some cold medicine and crawl into bed. for the first time in a long time, i'm hitting up the black friday sales tomorrow. there is ONE thing that i really want to get and we're driving an hour to [hopefully] get one so wish us luck!

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

you know it's close when i've dropped the fall background and broke out the digital christmas trees.

hopefully tomorrow we'll convince uncle matt and/or aunt rachel to help us capture a great family photo for our christmas cards and you know, the blog header. (what your family doesn't take pics for a blog head?) wish us luck! we snagged a great pic on the fourth of july with their help, so there is hope! i've already designed the cards, i just need the perfect photo to insert.

i hope all my readers/followers family members that feel required to read this have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving tomorrow!

i've been slacking, i know

i've just kinda been in a blogging funk. the kids are still doing cute/gross/funny things, i just can't seem to find the time or energy to always blog about it!

peanut turning one was bittersweet; i'm glad that he is healthy, growing and learning and discovering more and more each day but i miss my ''baby''. he is still a cuddler. he would rather be worn in a carrier than pushed in a stroller. he still takes 2 naps and loves his bottle. but he is getting so big! he can now climb the stairs-completely to the top without looking back (and without needing any help). he can point, clap and stretch up his hands when you say ''so big''. he knows how to open the kitchen drawers and can walk across the entire room with his wooden wagon. his personality is really starting to show and he's starting to interact more and more with his brothers each day.

at his one year check up he weighed in at 21lbs 2 oz and 29.5 inches tall. he is perfectly healthy. we're are suppose to wean him off of the bottle but, eh we're working on it. honestly he wouldn't even take a bottle the entire time we were nursing--i think introducing it at 10 months was a mistake [in hindsight] but when he wouldn't take a sippy and i was an emotional mess we did what worked. on a normal day he only has 3 so i'm not too concerned. (okay okay, i'm not concerned at all. call it 3rd time mom syndrome but it doesn't bother me in the slightest).

bubba and pooks are doing great too. homeschooling is going pretty well, somedays are better than others. bubba's attention span is quite a big longer than pooks' so i think he's benefiting from it more but that's to be expected. (sometimes i have to really remind myself that pooks' is only 2.5!) bubba knows all of his colors and shapes. (okay we haven't yet delved into into hexagon/pentagon/trapezoid, etc). he can recognize almost every single uppercase letter of the alphabet when it's on a menu, sign, object, etc. he spelled out 'tomato' at breakfast on sunday. we're really starting to work on phonics and sounding the letters out, as well as introducing the lowercase letters.

pooks does better when it's more hands on activities. he loves painting, coloring, cutting, and gluing but he won't even attempt to write his letters. he can count to 5 all by himself and recognizes a few letters. he knows all of his shapes but not his colors. everything is either blue, pink or orange. maybe he's just being a toddler, maybe he is colorblind i guess only time will tell for now. it isn't really at problem at this age, so for now, we're just gonna keep an eye on him.

we're learning all about thanksgiving this week. turkeys and food, fall and autumn, what we are thankful for, scarecrows and farms, etc and then incorporating numbers into that as we can.

today we made turkey's from painted handprints, then talked about the turkey's 4 feathers and what we were thankful for. i explained that being thankful for something meant that you were happy to have it. it might be something that everyone has or something that no one else has. it can be a person, place or thing, etc. i didn't want to coach them too much--i knew they would have some pretty interesting things to be thankful for. so without further ado, here is what they came up with:

we'll do bubba's first-
just in case you can't read it (i scanned this btw) he is thankful for: our house, cars, Kansas City, Matt and Rachel and...bugs? hmm, okay bubba!

pooks was equally strange unique
he was thankful for family, trains, glue and carrots. he doesn't even LIKE carrots but apparently he is thankful that they are there, you know, to look at.

aren't they just the cutest? i love this age!

it's my party and i'll cry if i want too!

on saturday, we had peanut's 1st birthday party. i was so pumped for a great day and while it all went well, the birthday boy was pretty tired/grumpy/fussy. i'm not sure he really smiled at all that day but he did have fun and he sure likes playing with his toys now! even though this was his initial reaction to opening presents:
yeah, more on that in a minute. i wanted to share pics of the decorations as well as the actual party. apparently robots aren't a hugely popular theme so we had to wing it and i really had to power up my creativity to get things done. since this is the internet and other people might also google ''robot party theme'' i thought i'd post a few of decorations that might inspire someone else.

first and foremost, way back in july i found some robot party stuff on clearance at Target. i'm talking like .38 cents per pack of plates so we ran with that. we bought the plates, napkins, candles, stickers, goody bags and a pkg of invites/thank yous. so once i had those for inspiration, i used my paint shop program to remake digital versions of those robots. first i made invitations, then had them printed through vistaprint.com after those went out, i worked on the other decorations. using the same robots to decorate everything! the cups, labels for the food, labels for paper-weights (for the balloons) etc. i printed them using the poster setting on my home printer to hang big posters on the walls and printed them smaller on cardstock to make little table sized 3-D robots, an iron on t-shirt transfer and coloring sheets. overall it was very cost efficent and i think it turned out looking cute as well!

his autograph picture frame w/goody bags

coloring station for the kids using melted crayons that we made here

here is a shot of the whole room, i thought the red, blue and silver really worked well

the grumpy birthday boy with his nanaw

and with mommy and daddy

and the cake that nanaw and i made turned out just awesome!

i also made a smash cake for peanut and cupcakes for the little kids

going with the robot theme, we had a ''fuel station" set up. sub sandwiches became ''sprocket sammies'', the toppings and condiments were dubbed ''nuts & bolts'', all the drinks were ''machine oil" and lastly the chips and cheetos were called ''computer chips''. that is pretty much where my creativity ran out; i couldn't think of anything clever for the veggie tray, fruit salad or cake. oh well, i gave it a shot!

everyone enjoying the ''fuel''

uncle matt with great great grandma and aunt nathalie

peanut with his BFF, we'll call him Lando. they are less than a month apart in age. can you tell who is older??

we made sure to capture a new 5 generation photo with all 3 toddlers

as you saw from the first picture, peanut wasn't super excited about opening gifts. okay okay, he threw a downright fit. the only thing that calmed him down was his binky, so that is why he is happy in the following pics. thank you Gerber :)

he loved the ball popper from auntie jude

and the racecar from nanaw and papa was a huge hit with all the kids!

we bought him this walker-wagon. he's actually gotten pretty good at pushing it around!

soon opening the gifts because an ''every kid'' event. they had fun and with all the kids being under the age of 4, it was pretty much expected!

in true one year old fashion, peanut seemed to show more interest in the simple red nerf ball that grandma great gave him

taking the car for a spin and picking up the ladies, lol

after presents we moved on to cutting the cake. this is pretty much the only time peanut smiled the entire party--he loved people singing happy birthday to him.
i can honestly say that as far as the whole ''smash cake'' went, it was a FAIL. peanut did not want the cake, he did not care about eating the cake (even after tasting it).

he enjoyed digging at it with a spoon but that was about it.

even after daddy messed it up (thinking he would eat the pieces) he just stared at it

yep, honestly not all that exciting

after cake the toddlers went outside to break the pinata that i had made:
apparently i made the pinata way too tough for this age group. after several toddler sized whacks, uncle matt had to break it. they loved scooping up all the candy (although i didn't get a pic of that)
speaking of uncle matt, here is a the goofball with all the balloons after the party. the boys sent the balloons "up to the birds."
overall it was a great day with good friends and family, food and fun. even if a certain toddler wasn't impressed. it was his day after all!

sneak peek!

just a small sample of the fun to come tomorrow! nanaw and i made his cake last night, using fondant for the first time and couldn't be happier with the results ;)

Happy Birthday Peanut!!

happy, happy birthday to you!

happy, happy birthday to you!
you're good to grow,
so count the candles and blow!
happy happy birthday to you!
to you!
happy birthday peanut, we love you!!