Our master closet has this thing in it. I thought it was a shoe rack, Peter figured it could be used as as wine rack in a pinch, but someone else had an entirely different idea:
I know I didn’t put those there. I wonder if the culprit could still be around somewhere….
Ah, I see my goofy girl found a cubbie just her size.
So clever!
Alright, so I know I promised some photos from our vacation to Arizona a couple weeks ago. I’m here to deliver the goods, but fair warning that since it was a family reunion, I didn’t take a ton of pictures. A lot of our time was spent just hangin’ around, which was very enjoyable, but not always photo worthy.
Arizona is about as different from Minnesota as you can get, so there were lots of things that were totally new to the girls. As our flight was descending into Phoenix, Peter pointed out the window and said to Alethea, “Look at the mountains!” Apparently her only context for the word “mountain” is a children’s song, because she responded, “Are those what the bear went over?”
Another totally new thing was all the cacti. They had a chance to get up close and personal with one. Naturally Clifford and Baa-baa had to check out the cactus too. Also predictably, Alethea proceeded with extreme caution, and Lydia just had to find out what Mommy and Daddy meant when they said it was sharp. Turns out, it was in fact, sharp. Lesson learned.
Peter’s mom was nice enough to watch the girls for an afternoon so we could go out with some of the rest of the family and go on a little horseback trail ride adventure. We were quite happy to find a place with a relaxed attitude that let us do some trotting, ride side by side and periodically mix up the order.
I’m pretty proud of this shot given that it was taken one handed, over my shoulder on a moving horse.
Mostly I have to wonder about people who live in the southwest. I don’t think I could do it. I like trees. I need trees. But there really is something about the sky there. It’s really big and really blue. Breathtakingly so.
We visited a nature center one morning. The girls had fun on the puppet stage with their second cousins and “Uncle ‘Teve”.
Peter went for an afternoon hike one day with his dad and brother and got this cool shot of the moon coming up over the butte.
Every vacation we try to get an ornament for our Christmas tree, so we had to hit up the Christmas store. This year we let the girls each pick one out as well. Peter and I got a blown glass cowboy boot, Alethea selected a pink glass ice cream cone and Lydia went for an adorable buri owl.
That trip to the Christmas store along with some delicious meals, hanging out with family, soaking in the hot tub, a couple games of Settlers of Catan, one trip to the ice cream parlor and getting caught in a traffic jam on the way back to the airport rounds out the “what we did on our vacation” list.
So, mostly good, not too much bad and no one puked, which means we are officially calling this vacation a success! Whew!
It’s November already y’all! I can hardly believe it, but it means that my autumn decor post is long overdue. Here’s how I dressed our place up for the fall season.
Here’s the living room:
Someday I’ll get to decorate the coffee table and side tables, but with two under 4 running around, for now I’m sticking to the mantle and the console table behind the couch.
Speaking of mantels, I was pretty proud of myself for actually sewing something this year. Sewing is not my cup of tea, but I knew I wouldn’t regret pulling out my needle and thread to make some plush pumpkins. I’ve sort of had a crush on them for a long time.
Things every mantel needs: a bit of ribbon, something natural, and a white ceramic animal, preferably a bird. Isn’t he cute!
Speaking of birds, I love the touch of orange that my new pillows bring to the room. (For the record, Peter said he thought we probably didn’t need to buy any more throw pillows for our house, but he never said anything about me asking for them for my birthday. Sometimes I’m so good at finding loopholes, I think I should have been a lawyer.)
Here’s a shot of the whole couch since I know I was negligent in informing you that it arrived back in July. The official consensus is that we love it and are very happy with our choice. Yay!
This is the console table behind the couch. I’ve been trying to seasonally rotate the pictures every month or two, but obviously had some time off since the pumpkin pictures replaced pictures of Peter and the girls from my Father’s Day display. Oops!
Moving on to the dining room…
I kept it simple this year and worked with what I had.
I wish I’d had enough stems to make plush pumpkins for the dining room table too, but I’m saving pumpkin stems again, so maybe next year.
I was pleased with how the branches stuck in the wine corks turned out though.
There wasn’t much left in my decor bin for the buffet, so I grabbed a couple faux pumpkins from the thrift store, covered them with some gold spray paint and called it good.
Happy autumn everyone!
We had a very busy, very delightful October 31st. Together with Gramma Denny and Grandma Debbie, the girls and I spent the morning and early afternoon carving pumpkins, decorating treat bags, and finalizing costumes by sewing a neckerchief and adding electrical tape stripes to some pink knee socks.
The girls followed up all that excitement by taking naps while I finished carving. When Peter arrived home, we got everyone up and ready and it was out the door to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a quick candy stop before we returned to our neighborhood and went knocking on doors.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:
Lydia was fascinated by the pumpkin gutting process. Alethea was much less interested this year. I guess she remembered from last year that she didn’t much enjoy touching the pumpkin’s insides.
Lydia dives in with a spoon, while Alethea carefully touches one seed. It’s funny to me how something like pumpkin carving can so vividly illustrate the differences in their personalities.
Because you just really can’t know what you might enjoy eating if you won’t even try it.
As requested by each girl, Lydia’s pumpkin was an Angry Birds theme and Alethea got a Clifford the Big Red Dog pumpkin.
Naturally, Alethea had to bring Clifford out to see Clifford. Also not surprising, she wanted her Clifford pumpkin to spend the night in her room. She said she thought he’d get cold on the porch. I told her he’d be stinky and we left him where he was.
Alethea decided to be Emily Elizabeth, owner of Clifford, for trick or treating. She absolutely adored the costume and wore it most of the day on Halloween and all day the day after. She’s quite sad that we have to return the borrowed white button down shirt and pink sweater.
Lydia went as Jetta, Emily Elizabeth’s friend and owner of Mac the dog, who appears regularly in the Clifford cartoon series. We had to do some explaining to people about who she was supposed to be, but I’m glad we decided to coordinate her costume with Alethea’s. Lydia was thrilled to the core of her being to be fully included in something that Alethea was so excited about.
This is Alethea with the boys who live right across the street from us. No, their mom and I didn’t plan on coordinating and yes, Brody is dressed up as a giant foam finger. Can you say ‘coolest DIY costume ever’?
Anyway, Happy Halloween just a couple days late from Clifford and the gang! Hope you had a good one!