Two good things

Blogging is the best.

Let me show you why blogging is the best.

The Coupon Goddess picked me as a winner of one of her giveaways and I got all this stuff for FREE!

Yes!! Did I mention that I also won two packages of cookies from another blog? Buuuuuuuut since they weren't so good they don't count as much :)

I love free stuff.

Second good thing.

 Freaking cutest penguin ever.

He stole that bucket from the little spiderman behind him. Being the good mother that I am, I took a picture then made him give it back.

Fall crafts

I had no idea how many fun fall crafts there were out there until I joined the world of craft blogging. And by joined I don't mean I have a craft blog, I just added every crafty blog I saw to my google reader. The sheer volume of pumpkins out there is enough to make my head explode.

With joy.

I love pumpkins.

Tyson and I grew our own pumpkins this year. Out of the 7 plants we carefully tended we got....

drumroll please...

Two. Whole. Pumpkins.

One smallish orange one and one bigger green one. Actually the green one is still on the vine. I was all ready to cut it loose and display it on the front porch but Tyson wants to give it another week to see if it oranges up.

I kinda like the green but that's cool.

Anyway, how about some pumpkins that were vastly easier to create, eh?

A fake pumpkin from the dollar store, some mod podge, a little fabric, and some black sparkle paint for the stem...

cute pumpkins!

 You can totally see one of the seams in this picture, whoops! I just cut the fabric into strips and mod podged them onto the pumpkin. That way I wasn't trying to mold a huge piece of fabric around a lumpy globe which would have been way hard. It was pretty messy anyway but that's all part of the fun! Just don't expect to answer the phone, pick up your baby, or change the channel on the tv while you're doing this one.

Perfect!

Next up, paper pumpkin!

You just cut paper into strips and attach them at the top and bottom with brads. Here's the tutorial from the blog, make mine lime where I saw these. I didn't do the inner circle of paper though and I think it turned out fine.

I figured I exhausted my pumpkin quota this year so I moved on to something else.

Wreaths!

This wreath was pretty much the easiest thing to make ever. I just took a strand of leaf garland and a wood wreath and tied the garland on with brown yarn. I was going to trim the yarn really short so you couldn't see it but, you can't see it anyway so I didn't even have to do that. I think it looks perfect on my front door.

 And if one wreath looks great, why not make another one!? Even though I only have one front door.

Candy corn + hot glue + one dollar store foam wreath = something that looks too small and kinda awkward on my door.

Shoot.

I tried it a few other places in my house and it was looking lamer and lamer every time I hung it up.

It needed what only Goodwill could offer.

A $2.50 frame.

I painted the frame and added more of that damask fabric (don't worry, that was the rest of it so it won't be appearing anywhere else in my house, much to Tyson's relief) and hung the wreath there.

The fabric might be a little busy for this, but for now it works!

And my final craft of late was a simple boo sign made of canvas and paper to help decorate my entry.

I can't wait to start decorating for Christmas!



Because where one is good, two are obviously better

Yes. That is a different bike seat.

Our original intent when we ordered this one, was to return the other because we didn't think the other one would fit on either of our bikes. But now that one only fits on Tyson's and this one only fits on mine so... now we've got both.

Can you see the slightly crazed look in my eye and my hunchback posture of embarrassment? That's because the people walking behind us are my neighbors. The neighbors.

Guess that cat's out of the bag.

Anywho, speaking of Logan (which I always am, either directly or indirectly) I wanted to document some things that he likes at this age, but I didn't want to just make a list. So I rewrote the words to a song, and if you don't know what song this is, call me, we'll watch Sound of Music together.

Sirens on firetrucks and "helping" with dishes,
Kicking the doorstop and eating goldfishes,
The dances his mom does for him while she sings,
These are a few of his favorite things.

Dancing to music and spinning car's wheels
Throwing food off of his high chair at meals,
Chewing on all of his dad's sweatshirt strings,
These are a few of his favorite things.

Going for walks while mom pushes his stroller,
Biting on paper with his new found molar,
Getting excited when the phone rings,
These are a few of his favorite things.

When it's nap time,
when his ear hurts,
when his gums feel bad.

He simply calls out for his mom to hold him,
and then he don't feeeeeeeel
so sad.

After I sang this for Tyson (don't you wish I had sung it for you?) I asked him if it was lame and should I delete it. He said no, it has Mari blog written all over it.

And he's right.

Maybe that's a good thing?

Night rider

Just yesterday I was mentioning to my neighbors that we had been considering getting a bike trailer for Logan.

"Brilliant!", they said, "I can't believe it's taken so long to invent those. Do you remember those baby seats that sat above the back wheel? They were horrible! So unsafe and terrifying!"

"Totally!" I agreed, knowing full well that we had this in our garage just waiting for us to test it out.

Tonight was perfect for its maiden voyage.

And seriously, I don't know what they were talking about because Logan does not look scared at all, does he? There is no way he is feeling any fear whatsoever.

We thought it would be best if we took him out at midnight to avoid judgement from our neighbors. Just kidding, it was 6:45, blah to early darkness.

Looks like Tyson and I get to ride our bikes again. Wheeeee!



In response to Ashley's question of "is Logan taking his first steps?"

Yep.

zoo bee doo bee doo

One of my Mom's birthday gifts to Logan was a trip to the zoo. We weren't sure if he was ready for it yet, but once again the weather was fabulous so we had to try.  Allow me to present to you a list of the things Logan was and wasn't interested in:

WAS interested in:
Ducks

WASN'T interested in:
Hippos

(clearly the feeling was mutual)

WAS:

The drain

WASN'T:
The gigantic elephant behind him (and the drain).

WAS:
Drums

WASN'T
Giraffes

WAS:
Fake baby elephant

WASN'T
Zebras

WAS:
Goldfish.

WASN'T:
Actual fish.

WAS:
Walking with his parents.

WASN'T:
Taking a picture with his parents.

WAS:
Plants

WASN'T:
Animals.

So we decided to wait another year before getting a family pass. I had a great time though!

Highlight:
When the black bear finally woke up only to go to the bathroom for about 5 minutes straight. We actually left before she was done. I could relate though because I did the same thing after Logan was born and my bladder could actually fill up again.

What?

Never mind.

Thanks again Mom!

Cake day

Mom left yesterday morning. Did I mention she was here? She came for Logan's birthday and stayed a whole week. It was so fun! I've got lots to share so I guess I'll start at the beginning with Logan's birthday party.

Since this was obviously my first opportunity to have a birthday party for my child I had visions of perfect cakes and party favors with beautiful decorations and great weather.

The weather was good.

I forgot that I'm not actually Martha Stewart so when it came down to making my dream party happen, my ideals had to be pared down quite a bit.

One thing I thought I could do for sure though was bakerella's cake pops. You'll have to look them up because I can't copy her pictures.

Did you look?

Super easy, right? I thought they would be so cute if I got an edible pen and made them all look like little baseballs. What a fantastic idea!!

Oh, but wait. I am not good at pastry decorating. For some reason I think I can do it with zero practice or experience and I'm shocked every time things go wrong.

So I was astounded when my cake pops turned into cake...

flops. (Didja like that?)

They all started falling off their sticks and breaking into pieces before I could even dip them.

Ok, I'm flexible. I can change my plans. So I thought I would just pull the balls off the sticks and make them into little bon bons.

Hideous.

Fine. Back to the cake pops. After a little experimentation and some refrigeration I figured out how to make them work, but heck no was I gonna paint little red lines on like 75 balls. But I wanted baseballs so bad so I made cupcakes too. Here's our final dessert presentation.

The weather was gorgeous so we had a bbq outside with some friends and family. Logan loved his first cake experience.

Oh Mari, you may be asking, why does Logan look so serious in all these pictures? Well, that would be because he had a fever and when we went to the Dr on Tuesday for his 1 year check up we discovered he had an ear infection. So even though he got cake, I'm thinking his birthday may not have been the best day of his life.

He ended his special day with a nap and a hearty dose of Tylenol.