Paging Dr. Rex

We had another emergency this morning that required medical attention- George hurt his foot.  At least that was Rex's diagnosis.  It's snowing out today and it didn't seem like a good idea to drive in this kind of weather so it was up to Dr. Rex to get the monkey's foot fixed.

First he had to clamp it_




Next a little suction-


Then the drilling began-


I guess things got a little dicey at that point because he reached for the phone to consult with "Dr. Flimp" (which is what he calls his pediatrician, Dr. Smith).


I'm not real sure what they discussed but apparently George needed to relax on a monkey pillow pet and have Turner the screwdriver shoved up his nose.  Not sure how this fixes a monkey's foot but clearly I'm not the expert here.  Looks like Rex was expecting it to get a little messy at this point since he decided to add the full face splash shield.


So that was our morning.  I'm thinking doctor set for Rex's birthday because the medical treatment one receives here is pretty sketchy.  Would you want your doctor coming at you with a welding mask, power drill, Black & Decker clamp, and a Handy Manny screwdriver?  I sure wouldn't.

Getting Pinteractive With My BFF

Like Nanette, I love, love, love, love Pinterest.  I think it is wonderful because I can take all the fabulous ideas I come across and store them all in one place.  Oh how I love organization!  No more thinking, "I loved that paint color I saw in that one living room- now which website was I looking at when I saw it?"  Even when I could remember where I saw it, I sometimes had trouble finding the exact photo/recipe/craft/whatever it was I wanted.  It is also so helpful with the hubs.  Sometimes I have ideas in my head of things I want to do to our house and I use Pinterest to find something similar to show him.  It works much better than explaining- he doesn't always seem to get my vision.  And I can't draw for anything so Pinterest is oh-so-helpful.

Nanette has started a "Pinteractive" link-up party where she is challenging people to make or do things they have pinned and then share your projects.  I thought that would be good motivation for me to tackle some things I have been wanting to do.  I realized though in going through my pins, that I do a good job of following through- especially when it comes to the recipes.  I didn't get a chance to make anything for this inaugural Pinteractive edition but I thought I could go through some of the things I've done so far.

Crafts:

I have tried only one thing exactly and it came out rough.  I'm not very artistic but found a project  (inspired by another Pinterest challenge) where you stick stickers on a canvas and then spray paint over to do some artwork.  I thought it would be great to try this for some cheap Christmas artwork for the house.  It turned out so bad.



The paint got under the stickers and kind of glued them to the canvas and it just turned into one big hot mess.  The silver background one wasn't so bad and I actually did put that one up.  I had much better success using some Halloween wreaths I found on Pinterest for inspiration and then making my own.



Decor:

I have pinned a lot of things for seasonal decor inspiration but am now moving onto bedroom decor for all 3 of our bedrooms.  First up is the master bedroom because there have been some attempts at the boys' rooms already and we deserve something next.  I love this color scheme:

Source: bowerpowerblog.com via Shelby on Pinterest

We already had stuff in the room in a similar green so now I'm just trying to add the navy blue.  I want to paint the wall our headboard is on too.  I plan on making this one of my Pinteractive projects but it's going to be a while still before I'm ready to share I think.  Mostly because it's going to be a while still before it is warm enough so that we can paint.

Recipes:

I have found some really good things on here, some interesting and some not-so-good.  First of all, this pizza dip is so incredibly delicious.

Source: closetcooking.com via Shelby on Pinterest

I had two chicken dishes that didn't go over too great in our house- baked fried chicken and country farm chicken casserole.  I love this list of chicken recipes I found though and I'll keep trying things from it.  I'm sure I'll find some winners.

I really want to try the homemade twix and homemade pop tarts so be looking for the results on those soon in one of my upcoming Pinteractive posts.

Source: notwithoutsalt.com via Shelby on Pinterest

Source: bakememore.com via Shelby on Pinterest

Hair:

I am going to get my haircut on Wednesday so I think I'll save this one for next week's Pinteractive post!  But here are my ideas.

The First ER Trip

Having two boys, I knew I would be making at least one trip to the local ER at some point.  Let's be realistic- it will almost certainly be more than one trip.  Trip number 1turned out to be this past Tuesday night. Rob had bought an apple pie at the store earlier in the day and Rex had been eyeballing the thing all day/night.  He wanted a piece as soon as Rob brought it home but we told him to wait until after dinner.  He kept asking for some and then finally we told him okay, it was time for pie.  Rex took off from the family room and headed for the kitchen like a shot.  In his excitement, he bumbled the one step up from the family room into the rest of the house and hit his chin really hard.  It was gushing blood.  A lot of blood.  We knew it was serious.  There was even one point where his eyes were kind of rolling back in his head and he was hyperventilating.  Rob got him calmed down and then the bleeding stopped.  I think that was the point where Rob and I finally started breathing again.  Now we could get a peek at it but it was a big ol' mess and hard to see what was going on.  Even though it was barely bleeding and we couldn't see the wound real well, we thought it was still a good idea to take him to the ER.  Rex and I changed our bloody clothes and got in the car and headed to the hospital.  We were seen right away, which was awesome, and it turned out that Rex definitely needed 2 or 3 stitches.  He did really good with everyone looking at it, cleaning it and even applying the numbing gel that had to sit there for about 20 minutes.  The actual stitches part wasn't too good- he kept yelling at them "Done! Done!"  The doctor and nurses were awesome with him and got him all put back together very nicely and quickly (though Rex would probably tell you it took forever).



We finally got home a little after 10:00 p.m. and he got his pie.  He really wasn't that into the pie (not surprising) at that point so we put him to bed and he was out.  The stitches will come out on their own in a week or so.  So glad we don't have to go back and have them taken out.  Keeping Rex from playing with the stitches is a full-time job for me now.  The thing I keep thinking about is that step and how many discussions Rob and I had before building it to make sure it was as safe as we could make it.  There was a LOT of time spent designing that step and it still ended up being a danger.  Anyhow, I hope we are done with the ER for a long time now and I am glad it wasn't a broken bone that we were there for.  At least this time.

Five

It's hard to believe it has already been five years since this-



It seems like it was just maybe a year or two ago.  But then I think about all the changes in our lives that we've made since then and I realize it is amazing how much we have crammed into those five years!  New state, new jobs (then quit my job to stay home), new house, lots of remodeling to house and, best of all, two new kids.  Whew.  That's a lot.  I really love being married to Rob.  He makes me laugh every day and I have so much fun with him.  He's a great partner and I can't believe how lucky I am.  I just think he is the greatest thing ever.  He's a wonderful father too and the boys just love him to pieces.  It's amazing that we turned this happy couple (picture from our first anniversary when I was about 4 months pregnant with Rex)-



Into a happy family of 4-



It's been a fun and adventurous start to our life together and I can't wait to see what the next 50 or so years have for us!

Take It Easy

I know I have been a bad blogger this month but I have been on a reading binge lately.  It seems I have spent all my free time reading books this month and very little doing anything else.  I've read all 3 of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series (soo sooo good) and then some from the Rizzoli and Isles series (also good but not addictive like the Stieg Larsson ones).  So anyhow, I would recommend them all and that's mostly what I have been up to for January.

We did take our first family vacation last weekend.  Finally.  We went to Honey Creek Resort in southeast Iowa.  I got us one of their little cottages to stay in for a few nights which worked out really well.



They are basically like a little tract house- ours had two bedrooms and two baths, a full kitchen, dining area and living room.  It was really nice but I had a few concerns.  Wyatt had never slept anywhere besides our house and I was nervous about him sleeping in the pack & play.  And he had to share a room with Rex.  Looks like it went okay.



They both did really good with sharing a room and sleeping in beds other than their own.  The other major concern was childproofing of the cabin.  I brought some doorknob covers, knowing that would be my biggest battle.  Of course, all the doors had lever-type handles and my covers only fit the standard round ones.  Ugh.  Here they are, trying to make a break for it.





And this doesn't look like much of a problem, does it?



What could be wrong with standing on the oven door??  Oh my.  It was a challenging trip but we had fun too at the waterpark and playing around in our cottage.







It snowed a little while we were there and that was kind of fun too.  Everything was fine on the drive there and back.  It snowed some more this week and Rob finally had to break out the snowblower.



Today is brutal though- freezing rain.  That is the worst.  Driving in snow= not so great.  Driving on ice= crashing and bad things.  So we are staying put for today and probably tomorrow (except for Rob going to work).  Looks like it should be warm and sunny enough on Tuesday to get rid of this crap.  I still have two more books from the library though so I am set!  The boys will definitely be stir-crazy by then so we'll for sure have to get out and do something on Tuesday.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend and Go Niners!

To 2012- More Fun. Less Work.

2011 is over and man am I glad about that.  It was a tough year.  Rob has been working on a multi-year project that is just about wrapping up now but it was a lot of workin' last year for him.  And when he wasn't doing that, he was doing the family room.  In 2011, we went on zero vacations.  I haven't been anywhere overnight away from the house since I was in the hospital giving birth to Wyatt.  WOW.  He's nearly 20 months old, by the way.  No one else has gone anywhere either, it's not like I just got left out.  All we did in 2011 was work our butts off, especially Rob.   Rob and I had a little funtime drinks at home on New Year's Eve and he asked me to make the toast and this is what I said, "To 2012- More fun. Less work."  We have some small projects for the house this year but most of them involve painting and/or organizing.  The biggest thing we need to get done is get a new garage door and garage door opener installed but we will be hiring that out.  Too much work.  So to sum up 2011, good year but not enough fun.  Looking to turn that around for 2012.

The weather this winter has been crazy.  It's snowed twice, maybe three times, and nothing has stayed on the ground.  It is warm here- many of our highs for December and January have been in the 40s and 50s.  Yesterday, according to the thermometer in our backyard, it got up to 61 degrees.  61 degrees on January 5th!!!!  That is nuts.  The boys and I took a walk and ran around in the backyard all afternoon.  It was awesome.







There has been a lot of playing with all the Christmas gifts around here.  It is a lot of fun for me to just sit back and see what they come up with.  Like this first picture here...

Working on Tiny with his Handy Manny tools-


Modeling their Spiderman jammies-



Apparently, Wyatt got the power to scale buildings (and beds) with his jammies-


And here is Rex, using the train table as a desk so he can color on his new Cars coloring book-


It's going to be a busy, busy weekend around here for Rob and I don't think we'll be seeing much of him. My plans for the weekend are just to do whatever he needs us to do and help him so he can wrap up this work project and be done with it on Monday.  And then we can start looking at what to do for a vacation- Yay!!

Christmas Fun

We have had a very busy few weeks around here, just like everyone else I'm sure.  One thing I didn't do too much of this year though was baking.  I just wasn't into making the batches and batches of cookies like I usually do.  Here I am with the boys making my one and only batch of eggnog sugar cookies for the year.



My cookie decorator decided to help himself to a few while he was supposed to be working.



It was fun this year because Rex finally understood the whole Santa thing.  Even better was that we could now use that as a way to get him to behave a little better for a few weeks anyhow.  I only got a few photos of the boys in their matching pajamas on Christmas morning because as soon as Rex saw his new Curious George shirt in his stocking, he took off to put that on and the cute Christmas jammies were over.

Opening stockings and playing with one of the many new Handy Manny toys-


Playing with the new train table from Santa-


More Handy Manny toys (that is Felipe in Wyatt's hand)-


Modeling the new Curious George shirt I mentioned and his brother's new Cars sunglasses-


Opening more presents-


Almost done-

It took forever to get all the presents opened.  Every birthday and Christmas I think, "Okay- now is the time they are finally going to just tear into all the presents and it will just be a present frenzy."  Still hasn't happened.  My boys like to open something and then play with it.  And then after a while, maybe they'll open something else.  Maybe not.  It is tiring and takes so long.  So you will probably notice the still unopened packages on the shelf behind the couch which sat there for quite a while.  They did manage to get everything opened by lunchtime I think but I stopped photographing at this point because I was over it.  We cooked a beef tenderloin for dinner which was fantastic and just had a fun and low-key day at the house by ourselves.  Although we did miss our families a lot, we got to Skype with quite a few people which helps.

One strange thing about our Christmas was not having any snow on the ground.  Our winter has been so bizarre here.  I think it has snowed just twice and both times it was very little and melted quickly.  We have lots of highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s.  It has even been in the 50s this week.  I ran out to get the trash can at the curb today with no shoes or jacket on and I was totally fine.  Normally I think my feet would have frozen to the driveway if I tried that at the end of December.  I imagine our good fortune here with the weather will run out eventually but we are enjoying it as long as we can get it!

The Penultimate Family Room Project Update

So, here it is.  Finally.  After nearly 6 months.  The almost done family room.







Ta da!  We still need to stain and paint some trimwork and cover the spot where the air conditioning unit will go and put wood covers over the metal shelving.  But that's it!  We have been enjoying the new space a lot.  In fact, Rex keeps asking to go play in the basement and I just don't ever want to go down there because I love being in the family room so much.  We incorporated toy storage behind the couch as you can see in the last picture so he has things to play with- don't feel too bad for him.  I realize it's not as much fun for him as the basement but for now, I just want to be in the new space that we've worked so hard on for so long.

We moved a lot of the furniture from the living room out there so now the living room looks kind of empty.



It's hard to really get a feel for just how sparse it is from the picture but let me tell you, with only two chairs and an end table (we have moved that old record player out now too) in a room that is about 24 by 14 feet, it feels mighty empty in there.  This morning we moved everything else out and did the super-clean on the floors.  Now Rob got distracted watching The Polar Express with Rex so we will start working on it again in a little while.  We put some new lighting up last night and now we need to bring the dining table and chairs and the loveseat back upstairs.  They had been banished to the basement for storage because there wasn't enough room for everything before the family room was finished.  Once we get that all done, I will put up some pictures of how our new living and dining area turns out.

And before I wrap this up, I would like to follow up on a few things from my last post.  The Disney Store is sending out the Mickey Mouse that I ordered (yay!) though it is questionable if it will be here in time for Christmas (boo!).  They also told me to keep the wall border and donate it to my favorite charity.  Since there are toy donation things all over the place, I plan on dropping it off at one of those.  My disappointing fresh garland continues to disappoint.  A week after putting it up, it is all dried out and droopy and nasty.  We took it all down this morning because it was so bad.  I guess my comment on fresh garland would be this: Only use it outdoors.  Maybe, maybe, if you live somewhere you don't have to use a heater much you could have it indoors.  I learned my lesson though and I will be picking up some fake stuff at the after-Christmas sales.

And here is a funny picture I took of my boys this week in their awesome big and little brother t-shirts just because.

Do you see the problem here?

I have begun my Christmas shopping and would like to get it all done by the end of this weekend.  We'll see.  I'm not doing too good so far though with it- check this out.



So instead of the crocheted Mickey Mouse I ordered for Wyatt, I got peel and stick Fantastic 4 wall borders.  Or maybe it's all the Marvel Heroes, I guess.  It doesn't really matter though because it is not appropriate for my almost 19 month old son.  Someday, it would be awesome.  But not right now.  Now I get to fix Christmas gift orders in addition to trying to finish my shopping.  Geez.

Things around here are really good besides that.  Rob spent the weekend hooking up all the electronic stuff in the family room.



We have the tv and all related equipment out there now as well as our couch, chair and some other furniture.  I need to take more pictures of the family room and what's going on with the living room too but that will have to be for the next posting.  We put up an artificial tree in the family room with some cheap little decorations and hopefully it will all be little boy proof because they were all over it as soon as it went up.



The decorations and tree are holding up pretty good so far.  It is really nice not having to worry about them spilling water out of the tree stand so that right there makes the artificial tree worth it.  Generally, I despise them but for now, it works much better for our family.  I got some fresh garland and put it up around the house hoping that would bring in that wonderful Christmas tree smell but as it turns out, not so much.  It looks good though even if it doesn't have that wonderful tree smell I was wanting.

It snowed the other day a little bit and Rex couldn't wait to get out in it.  He tried to catch it in his mouth and even make snow angels.





I didn't tell him to do either of those things either.  He just went for it.  I laughed so hard when he tried to do the snow angels.  I told him he was going to need a little more snow on the ground for that to work.  We still haven't had too much at this point but I'm sure he will get the chance to do snow angels before too long.

Since I am always the photographer, I rarely manage to get in the pictures but here are some I got lately with my boys.

In the snow with Rex-


Hanging out with Wyatt-


Well, I think I will go contact Disney customer service now and see about getting a Mickey Mouse doll instead of the Marvel Heroes' wall border.  Wish me luck!