Poor Mr. Pumpkin

When we went to light our pumpkin last Tuesday I noticed a funny dark spot on it's face.

When I turned on the porch light I saw this:

Seriously nasty.

By Thursday, the dude was pretty much a big ball of mold and parts of it looked like a dead Fairydog.

I'll save you those pictures.  Ask Amber, they weren't pretty.

What was pretty was my little Peacock. 

Err, I mean, Blue Fairy.

The girls got to dress up for ballet on Thursday and it was mighty cute!

Check Me Out!

I'm a Guest Poster over at ABC's and 123's today.  Head on over to check out my favorite activites I've done with Josie and a brand spankin new one!

Cocoa'a Waffle House

Josie is full of imagination lately.

If she isn't telling us a story about her daughter or conducting a meeting in the living room, she is playing server.

Playing server has become her new favorite ever since she found my stash of throw away plates and spoons.  So instead of her digging through my drawer all the time, I put together a basket of supplies for he to use.

To say it was a hit would be an understatement.

Her favorite part? 

Making the menus and receipts.



Somewhere over the Summer she dubbed herself "Cocoa."  Anytime we are having a meeting she insists that she only be called Cocoa.  (Andrew has to be called Slim Jim and I have to be Jelly Bean.)

So naturally, she named her resturaunt Cocoa's Waffle House (cause in her mind, everyone works at Waffle House).  I asked what she wanted to serve there and how much everything cost.

   

I was too scared to ask her what Waffle Meat was!

What I Wore Wednesday

I meant to say last week that I'm joining up with The Pleated Poppy's What I Wore Wednesday Party.

I'm doing it for the same reason she started it, motivation to get out of my PJ's!

I've gotten better about getting ready at least before Andrew gets home, but this may help me do it a little earlier!

Wednesday - Church

Top - Target

Jeans - Ann Taylor Loft

(Notice the weird pokey outs where the buttons are?  I got these jeans for $10.  I love them.  Only problem is they are about 2 sizes too small.  So I enlist the Pregnant Lady Trick - rubberband them together.  This was taken when I got home from church and needed to be able to breathe!)

Thursday - Little School

                            Freezing (AM)                                                     Sweating (PM)

                         White Top - H&M                                             Grey Top - Old Navy

                     Blue Sweatshirt - Target                                               Jeans - Gap

                             Jeans - Gap



Friday Night - Date Night

(Amy made me confess I did wear my PJ's until 5PM when I had to get ready for my Hot Date.  Why dirty 2 outfits?  That was my justification!)

Dress - JCPenney

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Tights - Target

Boots - Stolen from Amy

Cutest Little Girl Ever - Clearance Rack!

Saturday - Festival Hopping & Dinner With The Besties

White Tank - Target

Striped Cardigan - Target

Leggings - (you guessed it) Target

 

Sunday

                        Bishop Appreciation Service                                     Scarecrow Celebration

                              Dress - Franchescas                                               Shrug - Forever 21

                           Belt - My Mom's Closet                                            Brown Tank - Gap

                                                                                                                  Jeans - Gap

Monday - Whole Foods and Free Day

Teal Turtleneck - Target

Jeans - Banana Republic

Belt - Urban Outfitters

This was also the day that Andrew broke our cardinal rule of waiting until a phase has past before declaring his dislike for it.  Turns out he hates the bangs.  So I did him a favor and pulled them back and promised to start growing them out!  The things I do for him.

Tuesday - Dr Appointments

White Ruffle Shirt - NY&Co.

Grey Cardigan - Target

Bleach Stains - My Own Stupidity

Jeans - Banana Republic

Tuesday Shoes - Gap

And I love them!

Tutu Dress

I want to be a Mom that supports the things her kids are into.

Really, I do.

But I have a hard time with the little things.

Like letting them pick their Halloween Costumes.

I've been planning Josie's costume since before last Halloween.  We were going to a family party so we needed to all go together.

Andrew and I were going to be Tourists, Baby V was going to be a Pilot, and Josie was going to steal the show with her custom made, tiny replica of my Mom's uniform, Flight Attendant!

I was even going to make her candy bag out of a diaper box and wheels so it looked like her luggage.

Adorable, no??

But then she turned 3 and with 3 came all these opinions and ideas that no longer matched mine.

Somewhere along the line she decided she wanted to be a Blue Fairy.  And there was no getting her to budge.

Finally one night, Andrew was listening to me try to bribe her into being a Flight Attendant and he said, "Seriously Nicole.  It's Halloween.  Let her be a Blue Fairy."

And of course, he is right.  It's just Halloween and the whole night is for her to have fun dressing up.

So I agreed that she didn't have to be a Flight Attendant.  But she couldn't be just a Blue Fairy.  We needed something more creative then that.

So I made her a Peacock!

I loved the idea. 

Josie?

Not so much.

So if she asks, she's a Blue Fairy!

And it turned out so cute I threw together a Tutorial.  Dresses like this were selling for over $50 on Etsy.  Mine rang in at about $12 total.

You'll need:

3 rolls of tulle (about 25 yards each and 6 inches wide)

Elastic

2 yards of satin ribbon

Measure your "Blue Fairy" from right under her armpit to where you want the dress to fall.  Add on a couple inches for the knots.

Also measure around her under her armpits (bustline).  Cut your elastic to that.  Note that the elastic will stretch when you tie on the tulle.

Look how happy she is that she gets to be a Fairy!

Double that measurement and spend the next 30 minutes cutting all your tulle to that length.

Now you're ready to make your dress.

Double over a peice of tulle:

Then pull the loose ends around the elastic and through your loop:

And pull tight:

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

In the end, you'll have one seriously happy Peacock:

I mean, Blue Fairy!

It ended up looking too, err, grown without straps so I added more purple satin ribbon to make it tie around her neck.

And she can't be a peacock without feathers:

I've added a few more details to it since this, but of course I can't post those until Halloween!

B4FIAR - The Big Green Pocketbook

This week we read, "The Big Green Pocketbook."  It's a story about a little girl who spends a morning running errands with her Mom and collecting parts of her day in her pocketbook.

Josie loved the story and is starting to really observe things in the pictures more and more.

We were able to do a few of the activities from the book, but a lot of our work was crafty or basic preschool skills this week.

And apparently we enrolled her in Night School since most our schooling happened after bath and PJ time!

I introduced Addition this week.  She sorta understood and loved playing with the bears.

The Mom in the book goes to the Post Office.  Josie always loves the Post Office but I didn't have anything to send off.  So we spent time making Thank You cards for some special people.

Josie drew her first person and a dog.  Her Grandpa would be proud!

Fall Wreath

I didn't have a need to go to a lot of the places in the book, but I did have a few errands and thought that captured the feel of the book.  We headed to the Car Wash.

Not Josie's favorite.

And then I enlisted some cheap (aka - free) child labor and made her vacuum her side of the car.  She loved it and I spent the entire time making sure she didn't get her hair sucked off her head.

Then we headed to the Post Office to mail her special letters!

This Parking Deck topped the list of favorites for this week!  Two old cereal boxes, 4 toilet paper rolls, and a couple sheets of construction paper later and we have a mini "Whole Foods!"

The girl loves it!  I love when free stuff is a hit!

For Friday Life Skills we had a little more Child Labor.  Please don't report me!

I swear she thought it was fun!

And we roased pumpkin seeds for our baking project.  Although I quickly learned that nobody in our house likes roasted pumpkin seeds so it was a bit of a waste.

Now That Was A Weekend!

Most of my weekends look a lot like my week days.  Hanging out with my Sister Wives and my family around the house.

But this weekend I seemed to decide to cram in as much as humanly possible into the 3 little days!

Friday Night was Date Night.

I love Date Night.

I'm sad that I didn't get any pictures because we all looked mighty nice.  Not a Waffle Uniform in sight.

I had a good laugh when I looked in my Date Night Purse on our way out:

Pretty empty without the diapers, sippy cups, baby food, and other baby paraphernalia!

We met up with the Mabes in Griffin and went to Angelos.  Holy smokes it was good!  And huge portions which means yummy italian leftovers!

We will be returning!

Saturday we went to the Foster Parent Appreciation Picnic.

And then The Hatch Market Craft Fair, home for naps, then back to Griffin for the Grub Grab. 

The craft fair and the Grub Grab turned out to be duds. 

 A for effor Griffin, but better luck next year. 

We ended up eating at Slices with The Mabes and The Benes.

Sunday we got all gussied up for Bishop Appreciation Day at church!

We love that man!

Then we headed to The Gardens to celebrate this Little Dude's 3rd Birthday.

And stayed for the Scarecrow Celebration!

A lot of fun stuff huh?

I had a blast.  But my favorite part of the weekend???

Andrew finally gave me the OK to buy a new vacuum!

I'm sure seeing the Baby playing with hair balls from the floor helped speed up his decision!

I'm embarassed to admit it, but I haven't had a working vacuum in months.  And after borrowing Darlene's and Amber's I'm convinced mine wasn't working right long before it actually gave out.

This baby will be my new best friend!

The Rock Ranch

This past Saturday (before Josie's First Real Magazine Photoshoot!) we went to The Rock Ranch.

They were having a Hot Air Balloon Rally and Josie is mildly obsessed with "The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Suess.  She named the main character Esther.  Esther rides in a hot air balloon so I knew Josie would flip over seeing them for real.

Which I'm sure she would have had there actually been any hot air balloons at said Hot Air Balloon Rally.

Turns out the balloons would be there until after we had to head back to our side of town.  Josie was pretty bummed, but we did have fun while we were there.

Especially since Andrew actually got a real Saturday off and was able to come with us!  That's a rare treat!

She was dead set on riding the Paddle Boats. 

Until we got on the dock.

And they probably should have advised an equal weight distribution. 

As soon as we got in, Andrew's side sunk way low and started to fill with water! 

Then we couldn't figure out how to steer.

Josie was less then thrilled, but Andrew and I about died laughing.

She did enjoy the train ride though.

But the favorite of the day?

Tiny Town!

I've been mildly obsessed with getting Josie a real playhouse ever since I saw this bad boy. 

Tiny Town did nothing to cure my Playhouse Disease.

 

 

It was a lot of walking and overpriced, but overall it was a fun family day!