Gus turns 6 months and we made it through Thanksgiving!

Gus turned 6 months old yesterday. It's hard to believe. He weighs 15 pounds. He can alllllmost sit up by himself. He is still the happiest baby EVER. He rarely cries, except when he has an ear infection, of course. He wakes up giggling at 5 am nearly every day, but it's okay, because he falls back to sleep and at least he's giggling and talking and not crying! His brothers adore him and are constantly in his face trying to make him laugh. Porter is the only one that can send him into fits of belly laughter. It's amazing to watch. I think we'll keep him.

There's Grandpa Pat with Gus. Grandpa needs a haircut.....xoxoxo

Isn't he THE cutest.

My whole family was here for Thanksgiving and we and a fantastic time. Because we also celebrated Christmas at the same time since Sara, Lou and Dad will be in Costa Rica for Christmas, Sara named it ThanXmas. It only slightly caught on. We ate and played games and got to go for walks, and ate some more. It was a very happy holiday spent with the family.

Then on Sunday we got most of the decorations put up and decorated the tree. The boys loved putting their decorations up and asking about where we got every single decoration.

It was a great weekend. So happy that we had so much fun!

Family Rules

Here it is. Our family rules board. This whole project started because of this ginormous quilt Tom and I saw in California. You can see the story about that here. Then of course after becoming blogger-savy, I started looking around and found out that other people had already done this! Oh, the horror! My idea really was not my idea! Rats. But, I did use our own rules AND it is huge.

So, I was going to put it on an artists canvas. But a 48x48 canvas is close to a hundred bucks and I just didn't want to fork over any more money for this thing. So, I used hardboard. Which makes it a really heavy project, but at $8.50 for an 8x4 ft piece, it's cheap. So I had Home Depot cut it in half and I gave one half to my neighbor so she could make a chalkboard and I kept the other half. It had been sitting in the garage painted and waiting for awhile and we finally tackled it.

I spray painted the whole thing white and then we really decided we wanted to make it more of an art piece, so we sat down and Tom helped me calculated the spacing for each line and how much paper I would need for each line. He's a pro like that.

Then we laid everything out. 

After it was all laid out, I of course realized I didn't have the right Mod Podge and had to run to Ben Franklin. I got a large bottle of matte finish mod podge. And when I tell you I used the whole bottle, I am not kidding. I was afraid I would run out.

I put the stuff on the board, then the back of the paper, then the front of the paper. After it was all dry, I lined up the vinyl letters (Thank you, Ginger from the middle of nowhere Wisconsin for the cheap vinyl!) and placed them on the board.

After that was finished I brushed on some Ralph Lauren Smoke Glaze. Then cut up, painted, and roughed up some 1x4's and stapled the 1x4 to the board. (On the chalk board we attached the boards together with the Kreg, but this time, I didn't.) We'll see how it holds up. One thing to remember when using power tools - ALWAYS WEAR EYE PROTECTION. Cause if you don't you may end up getting shot in the eye with a stray nail from the pneumatic nail gun. I swear. I must be a true home improvement girl now. First I was shocked putting in the dimmer switch. Now, shot in the eye with a nail. Wait until I tell the story of Tom getting shot in the hand with a nail gun.....

Here's the finished product. I had a spot I wanted to put it, but now I think I'm changing my mind. Once I get it up, I'll take another photo.

(Hi Millie!)

It was a long, fun project and I am totally in love with it. Porter has already read it with me twice!

Oh Jack, how you challenge me so....

So, we're in Target today getting random things like towels for the many guest we have coming this weekend, diapers and dish soap. Oh, by the way they had a small sampling of Mrs. Meyer's products. Love them all. Our Realtor introduced me to it a while ago....it's fantastic. The only other place I've found it is World Market.

So, Jack started throwing a fit the second we got inside because Porter was looking at him. Seriously. Porter. Was. Looking. At. Him. The kid is two and a half and it already is coming to that! So, he's freaking out about absolutely everything. I want a toy, I don't want to get a present for someone else, I don't want that in my cart, I don't want Porter to walk next to me.....blah, blah, blah. And I'm grabbing something and he's screaming and all of a sudden he's crying and says, "I peed in my pants. My pants wet. I peed in my pants." Awesome. Great. Even better - I look on the floor underneath him and there is a huge puddle of pee. Great. Needless to say, we scurried our little bodies out of Target as fast as we could!

Yesterday I was sick, still not feeling well, but I have to get organized for tomorrow. So, at 9 am I called Tom and asked him to come home, of course he did. And he spent the day entertaining the boys. Just so you know, I am not the only person who is crafty in this house. He is quite the crafty one.  Check out these photos:

 

The boys decorated paper and Tom cut them into snow flakes. Then he traced their hands onto paper and made turkeys and they wrote down what they were thankful for. (I know I'm not supposed to end a sentence in a preposition, but I don't know any other way!)

Tom also helped me figure out the "Thor Family Rules" art work, that should be done today. What a guy!

My Favorite Things

A few of my obsessions favorite things.

This guy:

And these guys:

 And some of these:

Addict.

Heirloom White spray paint. I get mine at Home Depot.

Psych. One of the best shows on television. USA Network. I like lots of others too....Friday Night Lights, Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, The Mentalist,  Grey's Anatomy....

Get it here. Love this stuff. It rocks.

Love it. Most comfortable clothes, ever. http://www.lucy.com/

 

Love a good ABC Family Movie!

I eat one for breakfast every. single. morning.

Love this thing! Can't believe I did it with my own two hands!

And finally, this:

Love my camera!

Go check out 320 Sycamore for more favorite things!

Wreath

Everyone is doing it. I know. I'm a joiner. Of course I had to TRY. But here's the thing. This is not the easiest craft everyone says it is. Seriously.

First you have to FIND a wire hanger. Thanks to a fantastic friend, and her NEED for wooden hangers, which turned into my NEED for wooden hangers, we had ONE wire hanger, in the entire house. And I'm pretty sure it was left here from a relative, because I found it in the guest room, in addition to about 345 plastic white hangers. Need a plastic hanger, anyone? Anyone? You won't once you go and get a crap load of these:

www.ikea.com  Bumerang, set of 8 for $3.99

On task, on task. Stay on task. I should list that as one of my favorite things. I think I will.

So, if you know me, I am a tiny bit OCD. Line-up-your-m&m's-and-eat-them-by-color-OCD. So, when I started this wreath I had to have a plan. I had no idea how many balls I needed, which totally bugged, but I went with it. Dollar store balls, and a few that I just had to have from Target and I finished with this:

So, I needed a plan - and I tried a few methods, big, little, medium...medium, big, little...until I found one that worked. It was big, little, medium.

But first, I spray painted the hanger, it was blue before:

Of course, this wasn't a regular hanger and it was thicker. Also, I had to wait for the paint to dry! Argghh. So impatient.

I also spray painted some of the balls because in the packs I got were some ugly brassy balls.

(Hey, there's that Give Thanks centerpiece again!)

So, I had to wait for those to dry too! So, paint then wait. Then glue the little hook piece of the ball to the actual ball. You really want to do this part! They pop off if you don't.

Then I wriggled the balls onto the wire, dropped a couple when the dog barked at the other dog, ran out to the garage grabbed a couple more from our tree collection and painted them. Waited for those to dry....wait, wait, wait....And that was it. You have to move the balls around and make things tight without breaking any of them, give it a little shake and a shove and there you have it. A gorgeous wreath. Swoon worthy. Not as swoon worthy as Edward....but, close...

If you look closely at the shiny silver balls you can see my reflection. I love that.

Does it compare?

Photo courtesy of Eddie Ross.

Oh, final note. Make sure that the door can close. Ummm....our wreath doesn't fit. Too fat. Can't close front door. The storm door gets in the way. Good thing we're safe in our little town, because I'm not taking this wreath off the door. Guess we'll have to sleep with the door open....

Guster and a photo opp

 

 

Can you believe this little dude is suffering from a DOUBLE EAR infection!!!! Gosh is he cute. He wasn't sleeping very well for the last few nights, which is quite strange as you know, since he's been sleeping through the night since two weeks old (I know, we're lucky).  So, on Friday morning instead of going to the Y to spin, we headed to the doctor. I called at 7:50 and got an appointment for 8:20. I was shocked. I thought for sure that I would be dragging all three boys to Urgent Care where they would pick up the swine, chicken pox, lice...just kidding it's not that bad there, well, not really.

So, the doctor says, "the bad news is his ear drums are as red as Santa's suit." And I said, that's not bad news. That's terrific news! Thank goodness there is something wrong with my perfect sleeper and he will get back to normal! Hooray! Now if this kid is not allergic to penicillin I will be shocked and ecstatic.

I'm going to tell you something. I know some of you will think this is absolutely crazy and cooky, and I don't care, but I have to say, when I look at that little guy, there is just something about him. I don't know what it is. There is something about him that makes me just warm inside. His eyes, his heart. I swear if you look in his eyes you would think that you could see his actual soul. It makes me cry. Happy tears of course. Has anyone felt that before? My mother-in-law says the same thing. There is just something about him. It's an amazing feeling to look at him.

I took these pictures today of the boys. We've started calling Jack hambone. You will see why here. We've noticed that Porter has become very shy when attention is paid to him, especially in public, as evident in the story about his preschool program.

Porter didn't seem to shy away from the photo opp today though. In fact he tried to get his brothers together to pose.

Okay, first, please don't pay attention to their hair. They refuse to go to a salon, our neighbor is a stylist and hasn't been able to cut it, so I have been doing it. Shame on me for 1 - doing it myself and 2 - taking their pictures like that!

Look at Jack. Seriously. A mirror in front of him and he would see me. Or mom. Or Uncle Steve at his age. Wow. He is such a character. Completely different than Porter. CRAVES attention.

Who does Gus look like? It's hard to tell.

Did some Christmas shopping today. Obsessively spent time on ebay and got a fantastic deal on a cricut for myself. I guess that's my Christmas present! Can't wait to get it!

Christmas Ball Wreath for next post. For all that is holy, it was not easy.