The Story Of Our Card

I have gotten a few questions about our Christmas card and if there is a story behind the picture.  Indeed there is.  Since most of you have gotten the card by now, here is the story.  And here is the picture from our card to bring you up to speed if you don't have one (it was cropped in the card but this was the whole shot).

I saw a Christmas card photo that had kids blowing snow at the camera and it looked so neat.  Here is the picture I saw.

Pretty cool, right?  Like so many things I pin, this didn't quite go as planned.  For one thing, you probably need better equipment than your iPhone camera.  More cooperative and older subjects would undoubtedly help as well.  Here is the closest I got.

I'm starting to think the kids in the perfect photo aren't actually blowing real snow.  That probably added to this Pinterest fail.  Anyhow, we were doing this a few times and then the last time, Wyatt ended up getting his snow all back in his face.  I didn't see it happen but all of a sudden he was bawling and you can see that little bit of snow under his chin.  That was the end of the photo shoot.  When we got back inside and I got the photos off the camera and onto my computer, Rob and I were just laughing so hard at the one of Wyatt crying.  It isn't an unfair characterization of him either- he looks like that a fair amount of the time.  Probably because he is the little brother and always thinks he is getting picked on or missing out on something.  So Rob and I talked about it and decided to use that photo, hoping everyone else would think it was as funny as we did. And someday when Wyatt gets older and finds this card in our 2013 scrapbook, he will probably be mad all over again.  I don't care though because I am sure I will still think it is funny!

Shelby's Busy Life

So I've missed the last two Mondays but I was on vacation in LA for one and then taking a monster exam on the other.  Hoping to be better in the future!

Usually, I'm the last one to have anything going on.  Ok, I probably have more than Wyatt but it doesn't take much to have a busier schedule than a 3-year old.  The first half of November has been all about me though.  I kind of like it ;-)  It started on November 1st when I flew out to Los Angeles to visit my good friends Nanette and Tricia.  They live within 10 miles of each other but weirdly, I know them from different points in my life.  Just a total coincidence that they both live in the LA area and not far from each other.  Things got a little crazy and I almost called off the trip due to a shooting at LAX that morning.  Fortunately, for me and for Tricia who was picking me up, things were mostly back to normal by the time I got in.  I was a little delayed because a huge Delta airplane ran over a luggage truck and blocked our gate when we got in.  But that's just funny.  We had to wait an hour on that stupid plane which wasn't so funny but every time I'd get mad about sitting there, I'd think about that plane and luggage truck crash and I would start to giggle.  I had so much fun with both of the girls.  Tricia and I shopped at Third Street Promenade, stopped by to look at the beach in Santa Monica and perhaps most importantly, she took me to get Mexican food at El Cholo AND to In-N-Out.  Love that girl!

Nanette and I started out our portion of my trip with free massages that she won from Bliss Spa via Twitter and Paypal.  A massage is great but a free one at a swanky place?  Even better.

We also went shopping at The Grove and ate at the Farmer's Market, Rush Street, Brooklyn Water Bagels (they seriously taste like New York bagels- I couldn't believe it) and Versailles.  So much good food.  I would totally recommend every single place I ate at during my trip. But then it was time to go home and I realized something- I still love to visit California and LA, but I don't want to move back.  I love Iowa.  Everything went great with my flights home, just as they did on the way out there. I came home loaded down with so much stuff.  I'm really looking forward to this being an annual trip! (Please Rob?)

Once I was back in Iowa, it was time to buckle down and study every second I could for my AICP exam (so that I could be a certified urban/community/city planner) on November 11.  I had already put in a lot of time studying, including while traveling on my trip, but I needed more.  As much as I could get.  I have no degree in planning and I took exactly one planning class in college, 15 years ago.  I haven't even worked as a planner for almost seven years!  Rob took care of everything in the evenings and over the weekend so that I could study my brains out.  And thank goodness I have him because I needed that time.  I would guess I spent between 80-100 hours studying for the exam.  The test is really hard and draining- it is 170 questions and multiple choice.  But nothing is a simple, trivia-type question.  It is all critical thinking and lots of times there are several right answers but you have to pick the best one.  Tons of them were set up where you have four options and then you have to pick the right combination of those four (I and II; I, II and III, etc).  It was crazy and as soon as I was done, a monster headache set in.  I think my brain was just hurting and tired at that point.  Seriously.  They give you your score right away, while you are still sitting at your testing station.  I could feel my heart just pounding in my chest as I waited for my score.  I passed- YAY!! It's expensive and very time-consuming and I did NOT want to go through it again.  So now I am an AICP certified planner (though I can't use the designation until I get my first bill and pay my dues)!

In more Shelby career-related news, I attended an open house for all potential graduate students in the Masters in Community and Regional Planning program at the school I am applying to for Fall 2014.  The day was actually for anyone applying to the College of Design for post-grad work and it was pretty funny for me to be mixed in with a lot of artsy types.  I can't even draw.  It's sad.  Anyhow, I spent a lot of time talking with current students and professors and learned a lot and made some good connections with staff and professors.  When I introduced myself and gave a little info, I mentioned that I had just passed the AICP exam this week.  The professor in charge of my program looked at me and said, "Well I don't know what we are going to teach you then!"  I assured him I still have plenty to learn.  I am super-excited about the program and next August feels about 100 years away.  I wish I could have started today.

Now that all that is over with, I need to get back to my house because it needs a lot of attention.  Not only does it need regular maintenance, but my parents are visiting for Thanksgiving and will be here on Wednesday so it needs the company-is-coming treatment!  I suppose I have stalled enough this morning and should get to my chores.  Yuck.

Quick Recipe Share

I don't have any family news to share and this will be short but I've tried a few recipes that were so good and I just had to share them.  And I'm proud to say a lot of these are things I pinned.  I'm a doer, not just a pinner!  However, I'm not a good food photographer so all the photos below are from the recipe source.

Sunday Night Stew from The Pioneer Woman.  No comments to add, no changes- just deliciousness.



Southwestern Chopped Chicken Salad from Greens and Chocolate- I added a little milk to the dressing because it had more of a dip consistency as the recipe is written.  I ate it for the lunch the next few days after I originally made it because I couldn't get enough.

Apple Brownies from Allrecipes- I would say this is a cake and not brownies so be prepared for that.  I followed some of the comments from others and added nutmeg, chopped the apples rather than sliced them and added a little cinnamon-sugar mix to the top as soon as I took it out of the oven.  Some people added a streusel-type topping which sounded delicious but I figured it was bad enough for me as is, no need to cover it with that too.

Creamy Au Gratin Potatoes from Allrecipes- I added some ham in between the layers of potatoes to make a main dish out of it and it came out great.  I have a few comments on the recipe.  First, use a sharp cheese and it will taste much better.  Don't use the bagged cheese; make sure you grate your own.  Finally, the recipe starts by making a roux with the butter and flour and it says you only need to whisk them together for one minute.  No way.  I whisked for about 5 minutes before I added the next ingredient and it came out great.  If you only whisked for a minute, it would still have that raw flour taste and probably be pretty grainy.

Massaged Kale Salad from Food Network- I had a kale salad while visiting friends in Portland last year and I thought it was great.  I'd been thinking about it a lot lately and decided to try this recipe.  I loved this but I was the only one.  Rob said, "If I had to eat grass, this is what I would want it to taste like."  It kind of sounds like a compliment, but it totally wasn't.  The boys wouldn't eat it if you offered to buy out a Toys R Us for them.  But if you have a little more open mind than three of them (which wouldn't take much), you will probably like this too.  I had no luck getting a picture of it so you will just have to follow the link to see a picture if you are interested- sorry!

Homemade Applesauce from Cooks.com- No picture this time either but we all know what applesauce looks like, right?  I wouldn't change anything on the recipe, just add that I took a potato masher and smashed them all up when it was done cooking.  I like it with some chunks of apple in it and I don't have a food mill to make it all smooth anyhow so that's what worked for me.  It made a lot and I thought I would need to freeze some of it but I didn't need to after all.  Because we ate it ALL.  In just a few days.  It was so good.

Visit to the Apple Orchard/Pumpkin Patch and A Missing Tooth!

It's been exciting around here the last two weeks, especially while Rob was gone to California.  He missed a lot of cool stuff.  There is a really awesome apple orchard/pumpkin patch in the area that I've been wanting to go to.  Rex went with his preschool class last year.  It is kind of expensive and more so on the weekends so I decided to take Wyatt one day while Rex was at school.  This is a balancing of the scales, as Rex got to go last year while Wyatt and I stayed home.  At least, that's what I tell myself so I don't feel bad that Rex missed out.

I couldn't believe how much there was to do there- I allowed about 3 hours for the driving and time there and that wasn't really enough.  We could've used another hour.  Here are some pictures of our time there.

At the sign by the entrance:

Running around the farm:

Bouncing on the jumping pillow:

They set up a bunch of hay bales in a ring and dumped corn kernels in so you could jump and play and make corn angels (the autumn version of snow angels):

Pumping water to make the little rubber duckies float down the "river" at the duck races:

Finally, the reason we could've used another hour- the hay ride:

The hayride takes 20-30 minutes and we were running out of time.  I thought it was just a quick little cruise but it turns out you buy a bag to take with you so you can pick your own apples and they also stop to pick your own pumpkin.  All that picking takes a while and I hadn't purchased a bag for the apple picking so it was best to just skip it that time.  So we got back down off the hayride and grabbed an already-picked pumpkin.  We also grabbed some fresh apple cider, apple cider doughnuts, a caramel apple and then a jar each of apple butter and pumpkin butter.  I'm a sucker for those little farm stores, what can I say.  By the way, we took all that home- all we ate there was one doughnut each.  We had such a great time and honestly, I think if I was to ever run my own business, I would want to have a farm like this.  Wyatt was ready to move in too.

I took a picture of the boys with our pumpkin the next day, mainly to capture Rex's big news- he lost his first tooth!

The tooth came out at school and was, unfortunately, lost on the playground during recess.  Rex said it came loose and he was afraid he would choke on it so he just spit it out on the ground.  In my mind, I see it all happening where he just spits it out and keeps on playing and he never even thinks about picking it up or that he should save it.  We drew a little picture and wrote the tooth fairy a letter explaining what happened and where she could find the tooth.  Luckily, she was very understanding and left Rex some money and a letter for him.  It was all very exciting!

And if you noticed how stylish my youngest son is in that picture above, here is a full body shot so you can see just how good the guy looks.

It takes a certain personality to rock the Converse lizard shoes, striped beanie and orange sunglasses but it totally works for Wyatt.  It is so much fun to dress him because he can make anything
work and look good.  He just has that attitude.  For instance, this was his pose he did when I asked if I could take his picture- he sat down on the ground and looked up at me just like this.  Rex is pretty stylish too, but he is more of a traditional, preppy type.  He does love to sport the hats when he can- here is his blue Kangol-style cap.

 I love having boys.  They are so much fun.  I'm headed to California on Friday for a long weekend visit with two of my best friends and I can't wait.  I'm really looking forward to it even though I will miss all my dudes here.  Hopefully I won't miss out on any of their big life events while I am gone!

Zoo Time

Wyatt and I recently went to Des Moines (while Rex was in school) and I took him to the zoo.  We had a wonderful day together- we saw goats, otters, penguins and a bunch of other animals.  They even had a play area and a train ride too!  There isn't too much to tell about it but we got a lot of good pictures.  I'll let them tell the story this time.

We went out to lunch afterwards then came back home to pick up Rex from school.  We still haven't told him about our special day- no need to upset him!  He has been to the zoo before, by the way, so he isn't missing out too much.  He is usually the one telling stories about school or fun trips he got to go on so I think it was definitely Wyatt's turn.  It was beautiful weather that day and we just had such a fantastic day!

Blogger Funk

So I have had no desire to blog at all for the last month or more.  Sorry about that.  We have plenty going on to share, I just don't have a lot of time to sit down at the computer and share.  I will try to be better and I'm going to set the goal (once again) of blogging every Monday.  Let's see how I do this time.  I should at least blog as practice for typing because without going to work and typing reports for the last five years, my typing is suffering.  I'm slow.  And I make more than my share of typos.

At least one person in our house has been sick for the last month.  Rex brought us home a cold from his second week of kindergarten and we've been struggling ever since.  First mine turned into the most awful sinus infection I've ever had.  Then Rex had a double ear infection which also gave him a bloody eye- he looked like he went a round with Mike Tyson or something.  It was bad but the eye drops from the doctor cleared that part up in like a day.  Now Wyatt has a cold again and his right ear is infected.  He coughs so much, my poor baby.  He is getting better though too.  Hopefully Rob can stay healthy- he's done good so far!- and the rest of us will all be better soon.  With all the doctor visits we've had lately, the boys and I have gotten our flu shots out of the way so that is one good thing about all this.  Here we all are, happy despite being sick (I think Rex and I were both pretty bad at this point).

Wyatt has two big goals he needs to accomplish and we finally knocked out one of them.  I decided probably six months ago that when his current pacifiers (he had four) were lost or destroyed, that was it.  And don't you know, those last four would not die???  We lost one of them but those last three were indestructible and un-loseable.  I finally just had to tell Wyatt, "It's time for the papas (what he called them) to go.  You are a big boy and those are for babies.  Throw them out and I will take you to buy a new toy."  He took one last hit off of them, and they were gone.

As promised, we headed out to the store where he picked out some new Thomas the Train stuff to expand his train empire.

Now to get him potty-trained.  I wonder how much that is going to cost us in new toys!!  He is so resistant to using the toilet.  Please say your prayers for us- we need them!

Since Wyatt starts preschool next year, I've been giving a lot of thought to what my next move will be.  Going back to work and making money certainly holds a lot of appeal but I have always wanted to go back to school to get my masters in urban and regional planning.  I've been talking to our closest university that has that program to see if we can make it work and it turns out, we can!  So I'm now in the middle of applying to grad school for Fall 2014.  My application isn't due until February 1st but I want to get it done early and turned in asap.  I need to get all my college transcripts and letters of recommendation too which is proving to be difficult.  My two former planning managers that I would like to write letters for me have both retired and moved on and it is taking a little while to get in touch with them.  It's a good thing I have a lot of time to do this!  Although I've met with staff and faculty already, I'm attending an official Open House event next month that I am really looking forward to.

In other career news, I am taking the AICP exam to be a certified planner.  That test is on November 11th.  So if you say a prayer about the potty-training, please add this request in too.  It's not cheap and it's not easy so I would really like to pass on my first try.  Since I don't have a planning degree, I've had to study extra super-duper hard to learn all the material.  I will sooo be ready on the first day of grad school, let me tell you!  IF I can remember all this material by next August ;-)

In a last bit of news, we have lots of trips to California planned- some soon and one (the big family one) that we are still working on.  Rob will be going out later this month to race and I will be going to LA to visit my lovely friends Nanette and Tricia in November.  I have yet to meet the adorable Mimi (Nanette's youngest daughter who will be almost 9 months old when I'm there) and I couldn't pass up the chance to see pregnant Tricia!  I am way excited.  And I get to eat In-N-Out Burger.  And Versailles.  Oh boy, my mouth is watering already.  AND there is lots of estrogen time and shopping and all that girl stuff.  I love all my dudes, but it will be nice to be around girls for a few days!  Finally, we are all planning on coming out next summer.  I am shooting for around the July 4th holiday but we will have to see how that all works out.  I will be sure to keep everyone posted on that.  Thanks for reading and check back next Monday because (hopefully) I will have more for you then!

Here are a few more funny pictures of the boys just because.  Just because they are adorable!!!

HUGE Milestone Today- Rex's First Day of Kindergarten!

Well, it is finally here- Rex's first day of kindergarten!  Wow.  We have been counting down all summer- literally. We wrote out the countdown on our calendar so Rex could see every day how many days were left.  Two weeks ago, we found out who his teacher was and I had a little orientation meeting to attend.  Then this past Thursday he had kindergarten orientation where he could see his classroom, meet his teacher and see where everything was around the school.

All weekend we heard about how much longer there was until Monday morning.  I would be shocked if the kid got more than 3 hours of sleep last night.  He was that excited.  I was too- I know it took me forever to wind down and get to sleep last night.  It was fun to get out his little firetruck lunchbox last night and make my son's lunch that he was taking to school in the morning (he has half of a turkey sandwich, cheez-its, nectarine, go-gurt, orange juice and a granola bar if anyone cares- and I don't expect him to eat much today but I wanted him to have options).  So we were off to school this morning.  Rob had a big morning at work so he left around 6:00 a.m. then came back in time for all of us to walk Rex to school.

When we got to school, it was a giant cluster of kids trying to line up to go inside and parents wanting to watch every last second before they disappeared inside the school building (yes, Rob and I are included in that group).

I got him over in the right line, told his teacher good morning, gave him a kiss and of course, started crying.  It was just such a big moment- though you wouldn't have known it by looking at Rex.  He acted all cool, like this was just what he did everyday.  No big deal.  No crying or melting down from that guy.  There was plenty of that going around from his little brother though.  I think everyone there heard Wyatt yelling, "I wanna go to kinnergarten!!"  I had to carry him away screaming and crying because he did not want to leave.  That turned out to be not so bad because it kind of snapped me out of my little teary-eyed moment and back to reality and dealing with him.  It was the longest walk home EVER.  Then we took Rob to work and once we got back home, I think it turns out Wyatt is enjoying his time as King of the House.  No one steals his toys, he gets to pick whatever he wants during tv time and, best of all, we are going to the pool later.  That right there really cheered him up.  On to our new adventures!

Where the Wild Boys Are

The wild boys are here.  It's been a long time since I blogged so here is a recap of their latest adventures.

Rex's birthday

Play Pals at city gym on Friday mornings.  Apparently they love it because we are always counting down to Fridays when we can go again!

Swimming lessons for Rex-

We try to go to the aquatic center (our super-fancy city pool) once or twice a week.  It has a lazy river, waterslides and a special toddler/little kid area.  And a snack bar, which is where this picture was taken.

Firefighters are big around here.  The library had one of their story times at a fire station which was so awesome for the boys.  And then there is Wyatt, pretending to be a firefighter in our front yard.

We spruced up the playroom (which used to be Wyatt's room) and now most of their toys are in there.  We even made a little play kitchen for them as seen on Pinterest and, well, everywhere on the internet.  But this way they got a manly kitchen and it was cheap.

They mostly love to pretend to wash things in the sink and turn that faucet off and on.  There was major disappointment that it wasn't a working faucet but they got over it. I bought the old entertainment center from craigslist for $10, spent $5 on contact paper for the "countertop" and $6 for the bowl which became their sink.  The faucet was found by the side of the road for free (someone put out their old bathroom cabinets, countertop and sink so we helped ourselves to the faucet).  Not bad.

I don't have any 4th of July stuff to share because we pretty much skipped right over it.  We didn't go anywhere or have people over- we were busy with our front yard project.  The local fireworks show wasn't even on July 4th, it was the next night, but we did watch the fireworks on PBS and NBC.  We thought about going watch fireworks the next night but Rex was too tired- they don't start until about 9:45 pm here- so we stayed home and put him to bed.  Wyatt was still awake but winding down quickly.  Things have been pretty busy around here but hopefully it won't be another month before I get another opportunity to blog again!

Our Front Yard Makeover

I have never loved the way the front of the house looked.  It had some parts I loved (the orange side door and the stone facade) but there were a lot more things I didn't like when we bought the house.  Let's call them out, shall we?

Plants that were taking over the house
Orange-y/Pink-y rail fence and porch deck
Gingerbread house style screen door
Brick paver walkway
House numbers
Mailbox

The plants were tamed/removed very soon after we moved in because I couldn't take it.  I remember my  mom saying to me, "Oh, I didn't even realize you had all that beautiful stone on the front of your house because I couldn't ever see it!"

So it was a lot better just after that but the screen door, porch and fence had to go and about a year or two later, we got all that done and then it looked like this.

Things were pretty good at this point, especially in the spring with the tulips blooming.  The new storm door looked great as did the new deck/porch Rob built.  We still had the old black mailbox and house numbers which caused me many fits- I had a really hard time figuring out what to do.  I don't want to share our address so I won't put up pictures of the numbers but trust me, they were bad.  I bought some new ones that I LOVED but they were too big for the space above the door.  That didn't turn out to be so bad because our neighbors put up the exact same ones.  That would've been embarrassing.  I turned my attention to finding a new mailbox (which led to a numbers solution) but it was so difficult.  First I painted the black one orange to match our orange door that I love.  Whoa, bad idea.  It looked terrible.  Rob had a cow.  Oops.  So then I bought a cheapy brass one at Lowe's thinking it matched the brass on the storm door and it would look all tied together but I hated it.  I really wanted a statement piece that said, "HELLO!  We like modern design and have a cool 1950s modern ranch house."  All the mailboxes that said that were very very expensive.  This one was my favorite and at $275, didn't seem so bad (compared to the $600+ ones I had been in love with).

I really liked that it had the house numbers on it already (this one isn't ours, just the example from the Etsy listing). I was seriously thinking about ordering it when Rob suggested contacting a local metal fabricator and seeing if I could get it made right here at a cheaper price.  I found someone and it came out great!  And cheaper!!  And they gave me the cutout numbers to use above the door for our address numbers!!!  It is just raw steel so it is rusting a little and looking really cool now.  Once we got that taken care of, then I really had to do something about the landscaping and the horrendously un-modern brick walkway.  We decided to frame out the planter bed area and do all new plantings.  We rented a rotary tiller yesterday to make re-grading and planting go a little smoother.  It wasn't easy, but it was a lot faster.  Here it is after that was completed.

We replaced the brick with a grey paver path and added some lighting and pea gravel around the edges.  And now, it is a million, gazillion times more our style and better looking and complements the house.

There are still a few minor things to be done but that's about it.  We sat out on the step last night and just talked and looked at it for probably 30 minutes.  Then the mosquitos found us so we went back inside.  We are so happy with it though and really love the new landscaping and hardscaping and the change it made to the whole house.