Charlie's Last Football Game

Another fantastic year of football, all 5 practices/games.  I'll miss that easy schedule for sports as he gets older...

'Football Necklace' as he calls it

Hunger Run 2014

Second Annual KC Hunger Run.  Benefiting local hunger through Episcopal Community Services.

My church puts this on, super fun event and my first 5K. I brought stinky so we walked it (there were some beast moms running with their strollers, but not this one)  It was supposed to be freezing and rainy, but we ended up with a chilly, but sunny day- thanks goodness.  We finished in 56 minutes - not bad I think!

Charlie is waaay too big for a stroller, but he would have never walked the thing, I would have ended up carrying him

My friend Cari came out and walked with me.  I felt bad, she runs 1/2 marathons, so walking a 5K had to be pretty slow for her, but it was so fun to catch up.  This picture cracks me up, she ended up pushing Charlie over the end.  She said she 'missed this' when it came to pushing a stroller.  Ha!  Help yourself dear!  You know a good friend when you spend the entire time talking about what crappy parents you can be.  Love this girl!

Camper Rehab: Small Steps and What I've Learned So Far

Step one of any project, get giant iced teas from QuikTrip

Getting the little man involved.  He was very interested and thought of himself as a HUGE help

I will say, there have been 5,398 screws taken out of this beast and he's been the collector to bring them all to our little bin we have going.  It's been a big help, he never tires of bringing screw by screw by screw over to the bucket. Toddlers love to help

MORE ants.  We are in the tearing down phase, but when we start the building up, we are going to use as little organic materials as possible to avoid just this.  

Pulling the flashing

The rear comes off.  

Charlie plays with art supplies, and I fall over and faint that the kid is actually creating! (lasted for about 10 minutes)

Things I've learned:

#1 - If you live in a stuffy neighborhood with an 'association', this will not work.  It's messy, messy, ugly work.
#2 - Talk to your neighbors when they get nosy.  If you bring them in on the project and tell them what you are doing, they are much more likely to be cool, and ALL the neighbors have stuck their head out the window driving by trying to see what we are doing
#3 - If you don't have a place to burn things, it's going to be a lot of work dragging all this to the dump.  We have burned all the wood in our fire pit.  For all the aluminum, we stuck it free on Craigslist and got someone to come haul it away same day.  I can't believe I convinced my hoarder husband to let me do that, but he agreed and it was so nice to have it gone quickly.  Also, it keeps the neighbors happy. We try to dispose of everything same day and tarp everything down to keep it as neat as possible.
#4 - Keep the valuable pieces you are reusing in another place.  We created an area in our (already overcrowded) basement. Things we don' want damaged or stolen like the stainless steel sink that can be resold.  Until we can install it, we keep it away from the camper.  We've never had issues of theft in our area, but better to be safe than sorry.

More to come!

Feast of St Francis

Sunday we did a blessing of the pets after church.  So everyone brings their pet, or a picture of their pet, or their stuffed pet...it's adorable.  Church is chaotic (one of  the dogs whined loudly every time we sang, I guess he thinks we need to work on our vocal skills) but it is so fun having dogs everywhere! 

I love this picture of Meg and her big jar of treats. 

Charlie getting his George blessed

Fletch getting blessed

pretty much sums up their relationship

Trying to get a picture of Charlie with his 'Fletcher' shirt on

Best friends

TWO birthday parties last weekend.  One on Saturday and another on Sunday.  But Charlie loves them and it's good to see friends 

Saturday was at a water park, so for Charlie, we just HAD to go.  Plus, it was for little, little kids, so I didn't have to get in! Yea! Plus, I've finally been making some mom friend's through church and this was for one of their kids.  Finding mom friends is hard work!  And for being over on this side of town for 5 years, I'm finally making a few.  I have lots of friends, but they are scattered across the country, it would be so nice to have someone close that I can sit on a park bench and bitch with while our kids run crazy...

This Video cracked me up...and is pretty dead on

Sunday was Peyton's party.  We adore Peyton and it's a good excuse to see my surrogate family, the Shaw's. Missy (Peyton's Aunt) and I have known each other for going on 20 years (gulp).  She is my dearest friend, but on the other side of town, but we see each other as much as we can. 

He would just kind of roll it with the putter

and then get annoyed, pick it up and drop it in the hole (cheats like his Grandpa)

He loved it and it was a riot to watch, this was a first for us

We went inside to bowl, but with four year olds, it took forever.  All the kids (and most of us parents) were crashing by the time it was over

Two Randos

Look what I found in my camera pulling football pictures off, I have no idea when this is from, possibly Labor Day Sunday

Field Trip to Burr Oak Woods- who is this giant child????

Football 9/30 - unofficial team photo, first 'TD'

Trying to wrangle 4 and 5 year olds to take a picture...

Charlie's first little 'touchdown (even though he got his flag pulled, this is the first time he's gotten more than 2 feet)

Hilariously Ugly Train Picture

If it's not a camper, I just haven't accomplished much.  Charlie found this plastic 3D picture at the habitat restore and obsessed over it, so for $5, I bought it (which I even think was a little steep for this thing)

When I was little, pictures like this would fascinate me, I could stare at them for hours.  I had a Holly Hobby picture kind of like this that  I was obsessed with.  Picturing little people getting on the train...I saw it in Charlie's face, so I had to get it.  

Had to do something to make it a little more tolerable to look at, so as Matt said, "white again"?? I like white, it goes with everything and it's clean.  I thought about doing some shading to get it to pop out more, but that's way above my artistic abilities.

I've caught him staring at it a lot, in fact every time I go in his room, it's crooked because he's been looking and messing with it.