'Twas 6 Days After Christmas...

And I finally got to my Christmas recap.  It was a really busy, and sickly (for me), Christmas season around here.  I started off the month with a trip to Portland to visit Nanette and less than two weeks after I got back, we threw a Christmas party at our house.  It was pretty much all Rob's friends from work that we invited and a lot of them showed up.  It was open house style with lots of food and drinks and I was so busy, that I didn't even get a picture of the house during the party.  You would just see wall-to-wall people though if I had gotten the chance.  It was a good time and I'd like to do it again next year but Rob was so worn out, he said we could do it in about 3 years.  We'll see.  I did a lot of decorating around the house and I have two favorite projects.  The first one I didn't get a picture of either.  I am bad about that.  I got the inspiration from Pinterest to do an advent calendar out of a over-the-door shoe organizer.

Source: modernparentsmessykids.com via Shelby on Pinterest

This one is a lot cuter than mine.  I will have to see if I can spruce mine up for next year and make it look like this one.  The other thing I did that I loved so much came from another pin.  I got so many compliments at the party on it too, which was great.  On our gallery wall, I swapped out the photos I could change with all our different Christmas card photos we've taken over the years (that part was my idea) and then the ones that I couldn't change, I just wrapped them up to look like giant Christmas gifts.

It was kind of a lot of work and definitely took a lot of wrapping paper and ribbon, but the result was totally worth it.  The whole house was totally decked out because I love to decorate and with the party I had a good excuse to go nuts but these were my two favorite things.  And we took everything down this weekend so that is all the photos I have of that.

We had a lot of fun on Christmas morning.  Santa brought Rex a "space station" that he was asking for (actually it is a space shuttle and launch tower) and Wyatt got a V-Reader so he will stop stealing his brother's all the time.  At least that is what I was hoping for and now we have two so there are a lot less fights over that toy.  They got all kinds of things from us and family and friends- pretend camping gear, Mobigo games, boats and trucks of all kinds, books, clothes, puzzles, play food and cooking stuff and more that I can't remember right now.  Because it was a LOT.  Here are some photos from that morning.









I have to point out the matching Christmas elf pajamas.  This is the one time of the whole year when I insist on dressing them the same and I will keep doing it as long as I can get away with it- they are so adorable!!

Cooking With What You Have

Rob and I were pretty proud of ourselves tonight when it came to making dinner.  We made dinner using only what we could find around the house.  The menu planning was all Rob- he is really good at figuring out what to make with what we already have.  I have a sinus infection and I wasn't planning on assisting with any of it.  So Rob decided to make cornbread muffins, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and sort of a chicken a la king dish that he was going to use up a bunch of our turkey lunchmeat with instead of chicken.  When he called me out to help, he already had the cornbread made, the carrots were boiling and so were the potatoes.  I am the mashed potato queen though so he asked me if I could check if they were done and finish them up.  He also had the cream cheese and butter sitting out so that I could make them Pioneer Woman fatty-fat-fat style.  Don't get me wrong- they are the most delicious mashed potatoes I have ever had.  I just usually only make them that way for Thanksgiving.  As I was taking care of the potatoes, I watched Rob starting to make the gravy for the turkey a la king.  And I got concerned.  Making a roux or gravy is about one of the hardest things to make in the kitchen and he was going about it all wrong.  I am no expert but I have had some success with making a roux before (thanks mom and dad for the lesson!) so I jumped in and took over.  I also told him he did not have "gravy clearance" which we both laughed really hard about.  He was just dumping the flour right into the melted butter and onions and was about to add the broth before I stopped him.  The flour and butter have to be stirred constantly and cooked together for quite a while to make sure you get the gritty, raw flour taste out of there.  Anyhow, it turned out really good and I think we will have to add that recipe into the mix for future meals.  Like Rob said, "It's like really, really good cafeteria food."  I got a picture of what was left of it.



Not that I am enjoying the sinus infection at all, but it is kind of nice to have Rob take over the menu planning for a while- he does such a great job!

A White Christmas for 2012

Last year, we didn't get hardly any snow and this year has been off to a pretty slow start too.  Until last night that is.  I'm not sure how much we did get- I usually measure by the amount I see piled up on things like fences and outdoor toys so let's say we got about this much.



If I had to guess, I'd say we got around 8 inches of snow last night.  That's a pretty significant amount of snow for us.  The boys were so anxious to go out and play in it this morning; it was all they talked about from the moment they got up.  I was dreading it because I knew what would happen- so here it is.

Mommy opens the door and they rush out-



Wyatt's boots get "dirty" from the snow and he wants right back in-



Wyatt decides to watch us play from inside the house where he can stay clean and dry-



Rex plays in the snow with me and tries to throw snowballs at me-



Then he makes a snow angel-



Then I make one-



And then I decided we were both too wet and cold and needed to go inside.  I chased Rex around for a while and finally got him back in the house where we got into some warm and dry clothes.  It was a lot of fun though while we were out there.  Rex was asking all day to go back out but I had enough for one day.  I took a few pictures of our street from the front porch- I was all warm and dry again and didn't want to venture too far out so this was the best I could do.





It looks so beautiful but it is a little scary out there still so we didn't go out anywhere today.  Rex's school was canceled so that was good.  Rob took the bus to work so he didn't have to worry about driving.  Rex's last day of school before Christmas break is tomorrow and they are having a party so we'll have to go out for that but it should be a lot better by then.  I'm so happy to have all the snow in time for Christmas!

Lowering the Weirdness Level in Portland

I said goodbye to my husband and babies last Thursday morning to catch a taxi, shuttle and two airplanes to go visit Nanette and her family in Portland, Oregon.  It was the first time I had been away from the boys for more than just a couple of hours so it was a big deal.  I cried a little here and there throughout the day I left but was also looking forward to some me-time.  Something I have only had very small doses of for the last 4.5 years.  So it was a fun, but kind of difficult, time for me all wrapped into one.  Anyhow, moving on...

I noticed even at the airport gate in Chicago that if you are a guy from Portland, you probably are sporting one of these things- a beard or skinny cords.  If you don't have either, you better at least have a cardigan sweater on to make up for it.  I hate going places and being obvious that I am a tourist.  I have very few pictures of my trip, in fact, just because of that reason.  I think though that there was no way to hide it in Portland.  The motto is "Keep Portland Weird"- don't believe me?



It is painted on the building right there by Voodoo Donuts.  I think I'm pretty normal and not-weird so I'm sure the weirdness level dipped a bit over the weekend.  Sorry Portland.  Speaking of Voodoo Donuts, it is a must in Portland so we went there for breakfast Friday morning.  I love donuts so it wasn't hard to convince me.  I decided to step out a little and try something different.  Now they have a lot of crazy donuts so maybe it wasn't so different but I got the "fritter of the day" which turned out to be strawberry-pineapple-banana with sprinkles on top.



It was good but a little too much sugar for my breakfast.  I ate half and threw the rest away before I gave myself a stomachache.  From there, we cruised over to Powell's City of Books where I loaded up with books for the boys for Christmas presents.  We shopped around downtown a little more and then headed over to the Clackamas Town Center.  I had requested a visit to one of the H&M stores and the mall provided that along with lunch and a showing of Silver Linings Playbook.  The movie was great and I was just happy to see any movie in a theater because that rarely happens these days. I picked up some Molasses Chips for Rob at See's Candy, bought the boys some more clothes at a super-duper sale at Gymboree and then we headed back to Nanette's place.   Brent picked up dinner for us at Killer Burger which was fantastic.  Such a good burger.  Thursday night's dinner was also a big winner- we went to Hopworks and the soft pretzel sticks were amazing.  I felt like I didn't really get the whole Portland experience since it is beer-heaven and I don't like beer.  In fact, no one ordered beer at Hopworks.  Lucky they didn't kick us out.

On Saturday we went to the Little T Bakery for some breakfast.  Like everywhere else they took me, this place had fantastic food.  We did a little shopping in the Sellwood area and then were headed to the Japanese Garden when we got distracted by the a food cart pod downtown.  It was lunchtime, after all.  I got distracted by this one, in particular.



Mmm, Cuban food.  I ordered the pork box and it was great.  The pork, the maduros, the black beans and rice- all of it was delicious.  As we were all getting our food from the various carts, it started to rain.  No one brought an umbrella (I was advised not to use one as to avoid looking like a tourist and being snickered at) so we decided to head back to their house where we all took naps.  We hung out there for a while before heading over to Dove Vivi for pizza.  Once again, delicious food.  We all spent some more time at home hanging out before I headed to bed fairly early since I had an early flight the next morning.

Now, about my flights home.  What I had booked was terrible.  I was using a mileage award for the ticket and my choices were poor.  I was supposed to fly Portland-Seattle-Chicago-Des Moines with about 4 hour layovers.  Yikes.  I tried on the phone to get the direct Portland-Chicago flight so I could completely skip Seattle but had no luck.  When I got to the ticket counter, "Sure!  There's room on that flight."  So I got to Chicago way ahead of schedule.  It looked like I would spend 9 hours there before my flight to Des Moines took off.  I figured I would spend $30-40 for a rental car and just drive home from O'Hare.  This was where my plan started to unravel.  I never checked the cost of the rental car until I got to Chicago and then realized it was going to be $140 for a car.  Uh oh.  As I'm talking to Rob on the phone about this, I realize there are 3 flights bound for Des Moines, all leaving at 2:00.  It was 1:40.  I hang up with Rob and run from the L gates all the way over to the G gates to see if I can get on one of the planes.  As it turned out, Des Moines was foggy all morning and no flights had been able to get in there yet.  Bad for everyone else, fantastic for me.  I had to pay a small fee but I was able to get on a flight that left at 2:20.  Woohoo!!  Rob and the boys picked me up at the airport and I made it to my house about 9 hours before I thought I would.  My advice is that if you want to change a flight, keep asking because someone just might tell you yes.  And even more miraculously, my bag made it to Des Moines ahead of me and was waiting at the baggage claim counter.  I wasn't due in until 11:35 that night so I have no idea why that bag was there- it shouldn't have been, but it was.  Everything just turned out perfect.

My boys didn't get more than about 4 feet away from me once we were home, which I loved.  It was a great trip but I was thankful to be home again and see my husband and my boys.

Thanksgiving Recap and Christmas Decorating

I love Thanksgiving.  It is a great day to eat some good food and spend a lot of time with your family.  However, when all your family lives 2,000 miles away, all you are left with is a day of good food- and that is not that exciting.  Thanksgiving is probably the hardest time I have being away from family and it has become not my most favorite holiday.  I really miss our family and look forward to the boys being old enough to travel at the Thanksgiving holiday (when everything is crazy and it all can go wrong) so we can once again spend the day with our family.  We did cook up the whole meal, like we do every year, but I only took this one picture of Rob with the persimmon pudding he made.



On to happier things- like decorating the house for Christmas.  During the summer of 2011, we picked up a Christmas tree at a neighbor's estate/moving-into-retirement-home-and-downsizing sale.  It was a good deal at 5 bucks and it was a good test to see how we felt about going from the real tree to an artificial tree.



I was very anti-fake tree but I found myself growing to like the fake one.  It holds up better with the boys, no watering or drying out, very little needles come off the thing and I can put it up the day after Thanksgiving and it will look the same on Christmas.  To solve the smell issue, Rob found a candle for me that makes the house smell like Christmas tree.  Now I was sold.  The only thing is that I was wishing it had clear lights and was taller.  I started scanning craigslist and waiting.  I missed out on one so I waited a bit longer and found a really nice looking one at a really nice looking house.  I went to peep it out last Friday and it was awesome.  AND it was only $50.  That thing must have cost at least $300-$400 when it was new.  The owner was meticulous about taking care of it and storing it and it is in fantastic shape.  I brought it home and we set it up right away and decorated it.



Most of the decorating around the house is done now, including putting the lights and garlands on the exterior of the house.  I still have some more to do, like decorating the tree in the family room but I need to go shopping for some Rex-and-Wyatt-proof decorations because they destroyed the ones I had on it last year.  I love Christmastime!

Thanksgiving Prep Part 1 - Crafts

Rex had a Thanksgiving feast at school today.  They ate a lot of food, decorated their own placemats and made special headwear for the occasion.



I'm not real sure how this would rate on the politically correct scale for Thanksgiving attire but I think I made something like that when I was in school 30 years ago.  I was planning on having him make something similar for our own Thanksgiving dinner as seen below.

Source: celebrations.com via Shelby on Pinterest

I don't know if I can get Wyatt to do it but I might try.  Rex and I could always make one for him if he isn't interested.  Because even if he doesn't want to make it, he will want to wear one on Thanksgiving if his brother has one.  The decorating placemats thing is a good idea too so now I'm trying to think how I want to do that one.  This idea looks pretty good.

Source: jennwa.blogspot.com via Shelby on Pinterest

That is probably too much for Wyatt so maybe this one is a better idea for him.

Trying to paint his little hand will be tricky, for sure, but I think we could manage.  I've only got two days though so I better get on it asap if I am going to get placemats and turkey hats ready in time!

Snowball Jamboree

Last night was our town's Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony and festival in the downtown area so we made plans to go check it out.  Rob asked me what it was called and I told him, "The snowball jamboree or something.  I don't know."  I knew it started with snow but couldn't remember the rest- I think it is actually called Snow Magic Festival but I could still be wrong.  Anyhow,  I love that our boys are getting old enough to go out and do those kinds of things.  A lot of the shops and businesses had refreshments and activities as well as a trolley ride and kiddie train ride.  Rob had to work a little late so we missed the tree lighting ceremony which I realized wasn't so bad once we saw the tree.



We passed by a tree with lights a few blocks away, in front of City Hall, when we were arriving and Rob wondered if that was the tree.  I told him no, that I thought the official Christmas Tree was on Main Street in a little plaza area.  Well, I was right- that's where we found that tree.  It was a little strange though because the one in front of City Hall was way bigger and we thought it was kind of puny.  I think the biggest thing that I'm having trouble with is why there are no decorations on it.  What's up with that?  Hmm.  But they had a sign and stage and microphone all set up in front of this tree so I'm sure that it was the one.  The tree may have been a disappointment but everything else was great, especially the kiddie train ride.





The trolley ride looked like fun too but with our late start, we were running out of time.  We stopped in at a few stores we'd never been in before and found one we will be returning to a lot, I'm sure- the fancy candy store.  Not one with like jellybeans or bottlecaps everywhere but like seriously good chocolates.  They also had gelato but it wasn't really the night to try that.  It looked delicious so we will have to try it another time.  It may have been a little strange to have all the Christmas stuff starting up before Thanksgiving, but with the weather here I understand why.  It wasn't bad at all out there and in another few weeks, it could be mighty cold.  I am so ready to get Thanksgiving over with so I can really start up with all the Christmas decorations and activities!

Where were you before, Monroe Bisque?

When we first moved into our house 5 1/2 years ago, everything had to be repainted.  The living room was peach, some of the bedrooms were pink and yellow and everything just needed a freshening up.  It also seemed like a good idea to keep the colors consistent in the house.  So everything besides the bathrooms is either Churchill Hotel Vanilla (love it) or  Homestead Resort Parlor Taupe (not a fan).  Here is the taupe living room right after it was painted.

I kept hoping I would like it but I have just never warmed up to it.  I was so scared of picking a tan that had too much pink or peach in it that I ended up with one that was basically gray.  And now I know that "taupe" is the codeword for "gray".  Lesson learned.  And it is all my fault; I picked it so I hate to ask Rob if we could repaint it.   So last May, while Rob was in California for a little racing mini-vacation, I thought I would attempt to paint our living room and dining room and the two adjacent hallways myself.  It would be a nice surprise and I didn't figure I would be sleeping much at night without Rob home and I would have time then to paint.  This is how much I got done.

I got my little tester spot on the wall and verified that I loved the new color.  It is perfect.  It has more of a yellow-y undertone that looks a thousand times better with our trim. Where were you before, Monroe Bisque?   After I got the boys to bed the first night, I realized what a large space this was that I was attempting to paint all by myself.  I also realized how tired I was after looking after the boys by myself all day.  Uh oh.  I knew where this was headed- there was no way I was getting any of that painting done.  New Plan- Rob will paint when he gets back to thank me for looking after the boys for several days while he went to California and raced with his buddies.  Rob apparently wasn't on board with that plan because that wall has looked like that for the last 6 months.  Now that it is getting cold, I know for sure that the painting won't get done for another few months until it is warm outside again.  Rob took the old paint to the hardware store and got it mixed up really well and today I covered over my sample.

I was so resistant to painting over it because it feels like I am losing ground in my quest to get that room repainted.  Eventually though the big splotch on the wall was just too much to handle and it needed to get covered up.  I will just have to be extra nice to Rob over the winter and make sure that when the temperatures go up, my Monroe Bisque paint makes its way out of the basement and onto the walls.

Hulk Get Sleepy

I am the first to admit that my boys get a little wild sometimes but when it comes to bedtime and even nap time, they are the BEST.  Often times, they come up to us and tell us when they are ready to go to bed.  Usually it is Rex but sometimes Wyatt does it too.  It is so awesome.  Like tonight, it was about 8:30 p.m. and Wyatt told me, "Let's go bed" and Rex chimed right in, "Yeah- it's time to go bed now.  Let's go."  Well, okay I guess!  What kids do that??  We are really lucky and we know it.  So we washed them up and put them to bed as requested.  They don't always make it to bed though before they crash out.



That's Rex asleep on the couch.  That was late yesterday afternoon, after his scheduled rest time.  He doesn't have to take a nap anymore but he has to spend an hour in his room, playing quietly.  He usually reads his V-Reader or plays with his Mobigo.  He does pretty good though sometimes it is challenging and we have to keep battling the whole time about why he needs to stay in his room.  Anyhow, he probably should have taken the nap yesterday because this was no place to sleep.  A few minutes after I took that picture, little brother got up and immediately began harassing Rex until he woke up.

And while we are on the topic of sleeping and beds, Rex recently realized he is strong enough to move his around his room.  Wood floors + bed on felt pads = easily maneuvered bed.  So he pushed it over to the middle of his room.



Sorry for the poor quality- this is another one of my terrible pictures from my phone.  (Side note- don't buy the Samsung Stratosphere.  It has been nothing but problems for me and nothing works good on it.)   I was wondering what he was up to and it didn't take too long to figure it out.



With the bed right in the middle of the room, he could now pull the chains on the fan/light to operate it. Oh my.  He treated us to a very short light show before we got him down and put the room back together.  The kid is huge and strong like bull.  And way too smart.   We could be in for it with that guy.

Parent Teacher Conference Number 1

Yesterday was my first parent teacher conference. It is kind of a crazy thing for me to think about. I am a parent and I go to parent teacher conferences at my kid's school.  The teacher was still meeting with some other parents when I arrived but she had the kids make a little book with a page about each of them that we could read while we were waiting.  Rex's was great and was just so Rex that I had to get my phone out and take a little picture of it.



Apparently he wanted to be a doctor that day.  He says that a lot but he comes up with all kinds of jobs from garbage truck driver to bank teller to fireman.  He does love to pretend he is a doctor though and work on all of us so I wouldn't be surprised at all if that is what he grows up to do.  Anyhow, Rex may have picked an actual job but some of the kids, not so much.  I wish I had more time to read them all because they were cracking me up.  There were some policemen, firemen, and astronauts in there too but the two funniest answers were a "fish" and a "green batman".  It makes me laugh again right now just typing it.  A fish and a green batman- kids are so funny!!

Rex's teacher said he is doing really well.  He plays good with all the kids, his writing is coming along, he knows all the letters and sounds great but we need to help him with the counting a little more.  She showed me lots of different things he has been working on with the letters, drawing and even how well he is using scissors.  The one thing everyone at the school (so she says) loves about him is how happy and friendly he is and how he is just so excited to be there everyday.  It is all very true- that kid loves people and loves to go to school.  It makes this mommy proud to hear how well her son is doing and it was just nice to have that time to hear all about his school experience and see what he has been working on the last few months and how much he has progressed.  Yay for the future Dr. Rex!

Tasty Weekend

I can't think of much else we did this weekend besides eat.  Not me so much- thanks Weight Watchers- but the boys were grubbing all weekend.  I wasn't feeling well on Friday so Rob made dinner for himself and the boys that night which included sweet potato pie.  I did try a little of that and wow, it was so good!  Last night I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Now I know that might not excite everyone, but we all love it so it was a good night for us.  Tonight Rob cooked up some Italian sausage and peppers and was pretty proud of himself.

He is going to make someone a nice little wife someday!  Rex had been asking me earlier today if we could make "muffins" and I finally figured out he wanted cupcakes, not muffins.  So it turned out my two boxes of cake mix were past their expiration date- not much of a cake maker around here, especially from a box.  I asked if we could make cookies since I wasn't feeling the from-scratch route and he was okay with that.  Then I remembered I had a couple of old bananas that we needed to make banana bread with so we finally settled on that and got to work on our banana bread after dinner.




It turned out we had a guest helper.  I tried to get Wyatt into it too but it is a little hard to find things a wily 2 year old can do.  He was so excited with what he got to do though.  He kept telling me, "I helping!  I helping!" which was so adorable.  I kept getting him a chair to stand on but every time he would use the chair to get on the trash can and then stand or sit on it.  I thought it was so funny so I took a photo of that too.



Speaking of taking photos, sorry for the poor quality of mine lately.  I was already missing a screw from my camera (my fault) and then on the trip to California, I lost another one at some point.  So the camera was literally falling apart and I had to hold the pieces together whenever I wanted to take a photo.  Thankfully that all happened towards the end of the trip at least.  I brought the pieces home in a ziploc sandwich bag and they are still there now.  Fixing cameras isn't on my list of things-I-do-well so I have been waiting for Rob to fix it for me.  Since I am blogging so much right now, I think I better ask him real nice to fix that for me sooner rather than later!

Photography Class

Last Sunday, I led my first photography class.  I should probably be in one myself, not leading one, but this was something even I could handle.  I'm sure I know more than my 4 year old son about taking a picture.  Here is what my student's photos typically look like-



Not so good.  He just randomly snaps photos, usually while still moving and never, ever gets a decent picture of anything.  He has had the camera for at least a year and it is always the same blurry mess.  Nanette blogged last week about taking her daughter on a nature walk/photography session and I thought that was such a great idea.  I also realized the reason Rex always takes bad pictures is probably because I have never really spent any time with him to teach him how to take a good one.  Hmm, bad mommy.  It was time to to fix that so we bundled up and grabbed his camera and headed out.  It took a few seconds for him to find his first subject



It was still a little blurry because he didn't stop long enough to snap the picture.  But we went over the basics and tried again.



Much better.  We headed to a nearby park- apparently I haven't learned my lesson about parks and photography sessions (we took some family photos at a park in CA and Wyatt was a hot mess the whole time because he just wanted to play on the playground and wanted nothing to do with getting a picture taken).  So Rex got this one picture and then it was time to play.



The playing didn't last too long though.  It had been raining earlier in the day so everything was wet and Rex jumped on the slide before I could stop him and this is what he looked like.



Oops.  He played around a little more but we had to head back home pretty quick since it was cold out and his pants were soaked.  He got one more picture on the way home and it was his best yet.



So thanks to Nanette for the inspiration because we had a great time on our little field trip/learning session!

The Belle of The Ball

Being a female registered voter with no party affiliation living in Iowa has certainly made me popular for the last month or two.  I can't even tell you how much mail I get, people knocking on the doors, emails, everything.  I have never registered with any party because I don't really feel like I agree with anyone enough.  Maybe someday I will, but this has worked for the last 17 years and I think I will keep it that way.  But that is enough about me and my views.  It is very interesting living in Iowa when it comes to politics, especially a presidential election.  With being a swing state and the first in the nation to caucus, politics are a big deal here.  We have had political ads on the tv for the last year and a half.  Let me tell you, that's a long time.  I heard on the news last night that the last ad is scheduled to run at 5:26 pm tonight.  It can't get here fast enough.  I do enjoy but I'm also ready for it to be over.  I like feeling like my vote actually matters.  When I lived in California, it always felt like voting was useless because you know all the electoral college votes would be for the democratic party.  It makes voting a lot more enjoyable when you feel like you are having a say in something.  I cast my vote early this morning on my way home from the gym.  It took about 25 minutes to get through there so not bad.  I won't tell who I voted for- not because I am ashamed or anything just because people get brave online and feel free to leave rude comments.  I hate talking politics with anyone, even my husband.  By the way, my degree is in Political Science so I do like the subject matter, I just don't want to talk about it with anyone.  Even grannies get crazy about their politics so I prefer to keep my mouth shut.



So get out there and vote everyone and no spitting!

The Art Studio Is Now Open

So I've already missed a day.  Oops.  That didn't take long.  I was even going to blog this morning and this evening to make up for it but that didn't happen either.  It seems it is always busy around here and sometimes it is just hard to find that 20-30 minutes to myself for blogging.  And sometimes when I can find the time, blogging isn't on my list of things I want to do with those precious few quiet moments.  But I'm back on track now and will try to finish up this NaBloPoMo without any more misses- but don't be surprised if I fall off the wagon again!

Yesterday we spent some time setting up an arts and crafts area in our basement, in the kids' play area.  I've been wanting to do this for some time but I had to take down the tent in order to do it.  The boys love to play with the tent and we will still use it, we just can't have it set up all the time now.  Rob started building a table for them to use then realized it would probably be a lot easier to just use a folding table we already had.  We also had 4 IKEA chairs, 2 of which Wyatt had already colored on, so we didn't need to spend any money on that either.  My favorite part is the light fixture above the table.  I got the clamp/shade part at a yard sale and we just had to get a light socket piece from Ace to make it into a pendant light.



We have two bulletin boards to hang on the wall above the table and I bought an oil drip pan from Wal-Mart to use with magnets (inspired by this pin- and yes, it did only cost $12 and it is huge) that will also have to be hung somewhere.  The set-up didn't cost us much but I have spent some money on supplies.  We had an okay stash of art and craft supplies but now we are getting to look like a mini-Michaels.  With all the new and old supplies, it was time to get it all organized.  I cleared out a shelf in their toy closet and designated that space for art supplies only.



With that shelf so nicely organized, now it makes me want to clean up the others!  Another day, I suppose.  Rex is really loving the new space and couldn't wait to use the new stuff.  Glue stick? Check.  Feather? Check.  Wood sticks? Check.  Markers and paper?  Check.  And that is how a 4 year old comes up with this.



Not real sure what is going on there other than an overload of new things and the burning desire to use it all.  That took place in the afternoon and so after dinner we tried again and had a little more success with our turkey project.



And today they both colored, play-dohed, and I was even brave enough with Rex to try a little painting while Wyatt was taking his nap.



It is so nice to have a designated area to do this kind of stuff in and have all the supplies lined up and ready to go.  Yay for basements!!