Goal# 17: Learn the poem "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod"

I have finally memorized this poem. When I was young I watched the movie "Dennis the Menace" all the time. Martha recited this poem to Dennis and since the first time I saw the movie I loved that part. 

As you can tell, Lucas doesn't have much of an attention span.

8 Years of Wedded Bliss

Today is our 8 year wedding anniversary!! I am happier than the day I was married. My husband is the best.

We are getting our bedroom and bathroom painted. We haven't done anything to our bedroom since we moved in so I've bought all new decorations, bedding, window treatments, etc. We talked about it and we were going to have the redecoration as our anniversary gift. I put together an "almost free" gift for Jimmy today.


Date Night in a Jar.

I saw this idea around the internet and Pinterest. Had I not procrastinated this would've looked a lot better. I tried spray painting my craft sticks this morning but it just was not going well so I wrote on plain craft sticks.

Here's what I did.

Supplies:

Glass jar washed and dried

Spray Paint (optional)

Craft Sticks (dollar store)

Sharpie

Ribbon or other decorations

Spray paint the lid of your jar to make it pretty. I sprayed it yellow because that goes with our new bedroom decor. I printed off a label and put it inside the jar with tape. Had I had sticky labels it would have put it on the outside but I didn't feel like trying to glue it and what not.

Come up with all your at home date night ideas and write them on the craft sticks. I came up with 50 things.

Some of the ideas are:


Make a music playlist
YouTube Date
Photo Booth
Minute to Win it Games
Hot Chocolate and Music
Italian Night (Italian Food, Italian Dessert, and an Italian Movie)
Borrow a TV series from the library
Bonfire and S'mores
His Choice
Her Choice
Let's Talk Questionaire
Home Project
Play Wii
Scrabble
Karaoke
Look at the Stars
Popcorn & Chick Flick
Popcorn & Action Movie
Plan a vacation
Play 20 questions
Paper Mache
Play Cornhole
Make "Our Story" book for the kids
Make a map of places we've been
Make a map of places we want to go
Beer Tasting
Make a dessert together
Make a mug for the other person
Paint Party
Paint a Portrait
Make new cocktails
Drinking Games
Go to bed early
New Board game
Penny Can (from Cougar Town. lol)
Workout
Massages
Pedicures (yes, Jimmy likes getting these)
Puzzle
Look through old photos and videos
Photo Booth (set up the camera on auto timer)
Would you rather game
Candle lit bubble bath
and of course I threw in a few that just said "Sex". Yes, a bit personal but you know, that's a very important part of a healthy marriage. ;)


So my idea is that Jimmy and I will pick a night we want to keep as our "Date Night" and we'll take turns picking from the jar each week (pick the weekend before to give planning time). Whatever is picked that person will have to plan the night around the date. From drinks to snacks, etc. Most dates don't really require planning.

Goal #33: Play in the rain with Ryan

Last weekend it started raining when we were eating lunch so I took Ryan out really quick to play. We haven't had much rain lately and I think it only rained for 5 minutes then.

We do this thing when we hear thunder: you have to pose and freeze and stay still until it stops. Ryan likes doing silly stuff and it gets his mind off of what is probably pretty scary to a 2 year old. Don't worry. The thunder was pretty far off. 

Goal#66: take Ryan on a train

Today we decided to ride the Metra to Glen Ellyn where there is a diner called 2 Toots. All the seats are on a model train track and that is how your food is delivered. It was cute and very kid friendly. I did not see a table in there that did not have kids at it.

The kids were good on the train but I think that 30 minute ride was about our limit. I'd love to take the train all the way into the city but it would probably take over 2 hours with all the stops.

We also went and got ice cream and as much as Ryan likes ice cream he still shared quite a bit of it with Lucas.


We saw a sign for a little craft at a bookstore to make a journal. Since we had an hour and a half until our train came we let Ryan do that. We also walked around downtown Glen Ellyn and it was super cute.

All afternoon Ryan has been saying he wants to go back on the train. The good thing is that on the weekends you pay $7/person and you can ride the train all weekend. The kids were free!


*I forgot my camera so you get the fantastic quality of the iPod camera.

Finally Finished!

We moved into our new house in November. I just finished Ryan's room today... It has pretty much been done except the magnetic board. Just an FYI: Do NOT buy the magnetic spray paint made by Krylon. I bought one can and did 4 coats on the attic door (below) and it had zero magnetism. I called the company and they sent me another can and said maybe I needed more coats. How about 4 more coats and still nothing. It was like I had just sprayed a bunch of gray spray paint on it. What a waste. 


Anyway! Thanks to my friend Jess for giving me the idea of using orange as an accent color! It turned out so cute!


Ryan's room used to be a baby blue color. Yuck. We had it painted a nice neutral color that would be good for re-sale. If you know us, you know we move a lot so we have to think a little in advance to save time and money.


The bed, nightstands, lamps and duvet set came from Ikea. The nightstands were just unfinished pine and I got, what I like to call, "Home Depot" orange to match the sheets. I love how all of Ryan's books have a home. Lucas tears them all off for fun but at least there's a place for them to get returned. I got the sheets from Target...I think. Maybe Wal-Mart. I use a white fitted sheet to break it up a little.They are soft though! 

This is above his bed. Just some scrapbook paper in frames. The lowest one is a map of the Midwest-Eastern US. I was going to draw a little dotted line from Raleigh to Chicago but haven't gotten around to that yet. The middle frame has a quote from Dr. Suess "Today you are you, that's truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you." Frames from Target. 

This wall is parallel to Ryan's bed. The shelf is a Ribba picture shelf from Ikea. I put it low enough so he can get the books on and off by himself. I made the canvas above the shelf. I handpainted the chevron print (pain!) and the R in a funky font.

Again we have Ribba picture shelves. The dinosaur is really cool. It's made of metal, screws etc...really it's just a sculpture but I got it at Hobby lobby for like $7! I don't let Ryan play with it because it's got some sharp points on it... And it's heavy... And I can see him attacking Lucas' head with it! "Woooaarrr!" (That's how Ryan says it)

This is on the other wall parallel to his bed. A nice little cube storage unit that we got at Target when Ryan first started getting tons of toys. The picture above is a cross-stitch piece my mom did. Hours upon hours, upon days, upon weeks spent on that! Thanks mom!

And there's that stinking attic door. I just ended up painting it with white trim paint and I got a magnetic white board at Hobby Lobby for $7. :) Love that place. 

And in a corner we've got a KidKraft table that I got at a yard sale for $15! 

And hanging on the wall is the paddle that our friends Rob and Kandyce made. 

I thought I'd just throw in a picture of the boys' bathroom because I think it's super cute. Jimmy painted it when we were visiting my sister. You can't see it but there is really nice crown moulding in there. That little stepstool was made in 1987 by my PawPaw. 

Lucas Turns One!

My baby is not a baby anymore. He's a toddler. A spunky, walking, screaming toddler. He's so cute though. It's fun to watch, over again, the new things that babies learn. He can use a fork and spoon, brush his hair, talk on the phone, and he says "Mama, Dada, ba-ba, and baby". And he uses them in context. If there is such a thing as context with a 12 month old. 


We drove down to MS to visit with family and have a party for Lucas. A lot of my family had not met Lucas yet so it was nice. 


We got to go to the Children's Museum in Jackson and it was and awesome one! The children's museum here is ok... But that one was surprisingly nice for Jackson.


Ryan liked milking the cow. 

And even gave her a kiss.

One of the coolest things was the gigantic Scrabble board.

Lucas wasn't having it. Let me go woman!

Lucas liked fishing even though he couldn't see over the edge.

Time for some spin art.

The music room was one of Lucas' favorites.

The kids climbed to the top of the Capitol building.

We visited my grandparents and Lucas took right to my PawPaw. He doesn't normally like strangers.

We picked up slushies at Sonic before we went. This was the first time Ryan had one to himself and he WOULD NOT put it down until it was gone. 

Ryan LOVED PawPaw. He hasn't seen him since he was 3 months old.

My grandma gave him "Three Billy Goats Gruff" that she found at a thrift store. It was a really old copy! 1982. She used to tell me this story at bedtime when we visited for the summer so of course there's sentiment there. Ryan loves this book. I do voices...

He asked her to read it to him.

Then we saw a lizard going across the rail of the porch and Ryan grabbed PawPaw's hand and took him down into the yard so he could find it for him.

Time for a ride on the golf cart. Guess who loved that?

Ryan was loving on PawPaw. He was tracing his forehead, cheek and nose. It was so sweet. It was like he was trying to remember him by feel. Just thinking about their little 15 second connection makes me tear up.

Well, we tried to get a group picture but one little stinker didn't want to sit still!

My adorable nephew

My gorgeous niece.

Gigi (my mom) playing frisbee with the kids. It involved her tossing the frisbee to them and the kids staring at it as it landed on the ground then running to get it. Or it just hitting them in the stomach/arm and falling to the ground. It was pretty funny.

So now on to the party. It was hot but breezy. We had it at a park and all the kids loved playing on the playground. We had about 30 friends and family attend. Most of whom hadn't met Lucas yet so it was really special.

The theme was sock monkeys. I was so happy with how the decorations turned out. 

There was a small candy buffet that was also the party favors. I got small gourmet food bags and stamped a sock monkey on the front. I put all of Lucas' monthly pictures around the table. I made that table runner and the bunting that was on the high chair (below). Also, there was a picture frame mat for everyone to sign that turned out really nice.

We had Newk's cater and it was delicious!

I had Kroger make the cake but the image came from HERE. 

The monkey's throne!

Another view of the candy buffet. Milk duds and Kit Kats in 90 degree weather was a bad idea. I didn't think about the heat when I planned this because, of course, it's still cool in Chicago.

 Lucas had a not so good time getting ALL of the attention. He was doing this fake cry that was saying "Please stop singing and looking at me!" All he really wanted was his bottle of milk. Thank you very much!

This serenity and contemplation only lasted 3 seconds.

Most of this frosting made it to him by accident. He was not into the cupcake AT ALL.

This was before we even left the parking lot of the park. Poor baby was pooped!

Later that day we rode the four wheeler. Both my boys loved it and Lucas cried when he was taken off.

Ryan rode with Jimmy  most of the time and let me tell you, Jimmy scared me. Ryan is fearless. Me, not so much. Jimmy was only going 7 mph with me on there. HA! Steep hills scare me. Wow, I was looking pretty raggedy!

Rewind a week. We had a small party at our house with our neighbors.

And Lucas didn't have much interest in this cupcake either. White cake with an amazing chocolate Cool Whip frosting!

Thanks to everyone who celebrated Lucas' birthday with us!!