Winter!

I've been a blog slacker for a while now, haven't I? I always feel like I should apologize that it's been so long since I posted, but at this point it's obvious that I'm never going to get back into the 2-3 posts a week schedule I used to have.

Anyway, winter finally came to Wisconsin!

Sledding!

Buddy got a sled for Christmas, and has been begging me to find a time to use it! Well, since he goes to school all day and I work until 7pm, (plus he has just happened to be at his dad's the last 2 weekends in a row) we didn't get a chance to try it out until this week.

We went to my grandpa's house to sled in his backyard, since he has an awesome hill and I didn't feel like dealing with people at other public hills. (Plus, he's a fantastic cook and I was kind of hoping I could score a meal...)

Anyway, my friend Amber met us there and we had a good time breaking in the new sled!

Facewash!

Can you tell he was excited?

Give Thanks

No words necessary.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

... you look like a monkey, and smell like one too!

The last week of October/first week of November is always a stressful one around these parts! It means that we have to do Halloween and Birthday within a span of 3 days, which is always tough on everyone.

So, Buddy decided (much later than usual, since he usually picks out his Halloween costumes by mid-summer) that he wanted to be a vampire. And it was really fun, since he was super excited about the accent and the fake teeth, and he kept fake biting everyone which was hilarious.

Also hilarious was the fact that there are apparently no fake vampire teeth that come in children's sizes. At all. So this was his face the whole time he wore the teeth! Also also hilarious, trying to spray paint a squirmy blonde kid's hair black. As you can see, it SORTA worked. Also also also hilarious, trying to put makeup on a squirmy kid. Anyway, the whole thing was just funny!

We went with his new "best friend" from school and the best friend's father. And oh man, that family is a whole 'nother blog post, because I'm having some serious issues with clinginess (theirs) and I don't know how to get out of it all! But again, that's for another day.

After Halloween (a measly 3 days after) comes Buddy's birthday, so he decided he wanted a costume party so he could wear his costume again. And I got all perfectionist-y and decided I had to have all sorts of fall themed treats, and fancy cupcakes, and cutesy organized activities for the kids...

None of which I needed to do. The kids showed up (sort of) in costume, then proceeded to run around the backyard playing "good guys vs. bad guys" and chaining each other to trees for the majority of the party. None of my preplanned activities happened at all! Basically, the kids ran around outside, the grown-ups sat inside drinking beer and gossiping, and great fun was had by all. Never again am I stressing that much about the perfect themed treats, since it obviously doesn't matter AT ALL!

The "vampire cupcakes" that Buddy begged for got finished literally 5 minutes AFTER the first guest arrived :)

Nice picture of the boys

Obligatory silly picture

Birthday presents! You have to wear the hat if you want to open the presents :)

Shadows on the Wall

As usual, it was a lazy Sunday around these parts. And lazy days are always the days I can get Buddy interested in crafts, so we worked on a really cool one today!

This idea, as usual, was found online, though obviously the idea of paper silhouettes is a pretty common one. But to tie-dye the paper with markers and coffee filters was definitely a new spin!

Anyway, first I used a really bright lamp to help me trace the shadow of Buddy's profile. It took me a few tries to get right, so the paper got a little bit wrecked, but since I knew we'd be cutting it out eventually I didn't care.

Next we colored coffee filters with markers and then placed them on the profile, spraying them with water to transfer the colors. (Just a warning, I had to pre-select Buddy's colors for him. Otherwise he has a habit of using only black and brown and it wouldn't have been pretty.)

Once it seemed like the colors had successfully bled out of the coffee filters and onto the paper, we removed the coffee filters. It took about 10 minutes for the colors to bleed this well.

Finally I just cut out the profile, put it on some black paper for contrast, and wrote his name in the corner with some of the extra tie-dyed paper.

Oh, in case you didn't know, Buddy's real name is Shiloh. Guess the secret's out!

Phone-y

I was planning on having a really relaxing week with Buddy this week. But instead, we ended up going out and doing things like every day! We had friends over, rode horses, went swimming, went to concerts, participated in artwork...

But of course, I have no pictures. So please accept my apology for that, and as a peace offering I give you: crappy pictures I took on my phone in the last few months!

How I found Buddy sleeping a few nights ago.

Buddy taking good care of "his" horse, Dolly

Painting a door at the 400 block!

Riding Dolly

More riding Dolly, that's my friend Amber who is helping him :)

Buddy loves his uncle.

And his grandpa.

Up, Up, and Away!

As I've mentioned, I looooove Pinterest! And so when I saw this super awesome jet pack, I obviously wanted to make it for Buddy immediately.

Of course, as with all spur of the moment crafts, I didn't have ANY of the right supplies, so we improvised!

We used:

1 cereal box

2 toilet paper tubes

red and yellow tissue paper

aluminum foil

shoelaces (not shown)

and bottle tops.

So first we covered the cereal box with aluminum foil, and punched holes in the box to string the shoelace "straps" through.

Next we "foiled" the toilet paper tubes, made tissue paper "flames", and taped them onto the bottom of the box.

You could just leave it like this, but Buddy wanted buttons on his jet pack, which is where the bottle caps came in. Luckily I save stuff like that all the time, so we had enough for his design!

Anyway, this probably took us 1/2 an hour, and has provided tons of fun since! Did you know that jet packs are excellent tools to break out of jail? Especially if the mean Mommy Sheriff is keeping you there for no good reason, just twist a knob and BLAST OFF!

Underwater Adventures

So, I looooooove Pinterest. It is my absolute favorite, and I get lots of good ideas for things to do with Buddy from it.

There was this one picture that I found where kids laid down in chalk drawings and then interacted with the pictures, and it was AMAZING!

Anyway, we decided to do the same sort of thing, but with our own twist! Buddy didn't want me to draw the scene and plan it for him, so he picked out what he wanted the scene to be, and helped draw it, and then kept adding and changing it as we went along. It was SOOO much more fun than I had anticipated, and he was so pumped about it, and I think it turned out pretty great!

(Especially since I didn't realize till too late that you kinda have to be up on a ladder to take a picture from this angle, so I had to just hold my camera above my head and shoot blind!)

 The first picture we took, Buddy wants me to point out "Gary the Snail" in the left bottom corner. He's pretty proud of his drawing skills here!

 It was almost as much fun to edit these pictures as it was to take them, since Buddy was really into trying out all sorts of effects and styles! Yay for Picasa making editing easy :)

This pic is included cuz Buddy wants you to know that those houses at the top are the cottages: Grandma Betty's is on the left, the other is on the right!

I love this one the most, since Buddy got so into it! Look, he's even holding his breath "underwater"!

We've been really crafty recently, so expect more craft posts in the next couple of weeks!

Here Come the Waterworks!

So, it's been really hot and miserable in our neck of the woods lately. Like, 90 degrees and ALSO 80% humidity, every day. Which, obviously, means it's time to check out the local pools, ASAP.

Anyway. So I've always driven Buddy 15 minutes away to a fancy "aquatic center" that's sort of expensive and not really worth it. But this year, I realized that there are actually quite a few decent pools within a few minutes of me, and they each only cost $1 per person!

So today, we checked out Schulenburg Pool. It was perfect for us! Not too crowded, a shallow end deep enough for decent swimming, but shallow enough that Buddy could touch if he got nervous, a slide, and a diving board! Pretty good for just $1.

right after going down the slide!

mid jump!

we're cute!

he's ridiculous.

this is only included so you notice the guy making faces in the back.

Coming up for air!

We did a cool project today too, but I'm going to save that for another post :)

Wedding

You guys, I have the most embarrassingly lame problem to admit:

My new camera is too fancy.
I like it, I covet it, and as such, I don't want to throw it in my purse to capture 'potential' moments! I don't want to throw the strap around my wrist and drag it with me onto the playground. I worry about carrying it around, because it's too nice to get dropped, scratched, or bumped.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I went to a wedding in Ohio last weekend, and all I got was just a few pictures.

Trying out the lighting on my poor daddy  :)

 The first dance between bride and groom!

My grandparents, the longest married couple on the dance floor! 60 1/2 years!!! And still madly in love, I aspire to be in a relationship like theirs!

Buddy dancing with the bride for the "dollar dance"

Cheesy smile.

Buddy's older cousin proving that "slow dances can be fun too!"

My dad (the one with the cheesehead) may have had a few beers by this point :)

Anyway, the wedding was fun, especially the dancing, and although the 11 hour drive to (and from) Ohio sucked, I think I had a good time!

...I only say "I think" because we left Wausau during a thunderstorm/tornado (storms are one of my anxiety triggers) and then had to sit in a car (driving is another trigger) while following the storm for quite a while, and then I got sick on the drive down... which made me feel miserable and cough-y and exhausted and tense for way too long once we finally got to our destination! And the ride home, though not quite as bad, was still painful.

...but I should say, Buddy was a champ for the horrifically long drive! He was pretty much polite, kept himself entertained, and slept well when it was time :) last year's drive was WAAAAAY worse!