family pictures. check.

 my sweet, talented sissy took our family pictures last year. she found cool old buildings and chippy painted doors and took a lot of wonderful shots. but now she's in iowa...which meant we were on our own this year. :(
so on a whim,  we went back to the sites from last year and thanks to our tripod and nana's entertainment behind the camera, we got some pictures.

 after just a couple pics, this huge train came steaming and blowing by and stole everyone's attention. and gave ben the FRIGHT of his LIFE!
he trembled uncontrollably for at least 10 min. and kept covering his ears and murmuring "choo choo, choo choo, bye bye...choo choo...bye bye." it was pathetic, poor boy. but i did get a lot of snuggles...

this one below is last years version....oh ben! be still my heart, i love you so much.

2 of my 3 favorite guys...awww, that chubby little hand!

then we went over to this cool green wall...also one of sister's finds from last year

and one in the street.

 
and here's last year on the same street. little people are getting taller..,

and then we ran out of posed smiles and nice light so decided to let the crazy came out.

or rather it would seem, the parents needed to let their crazy out. :)

 will was definitely keeping his crazy contained...

ta-da! ;)

the end.

thanksgiving..better late than never

i just can't post christmasy pictures until i get this important holiday documented. so here it is. thanksgiving was lovely and full of family and fabulous food.

my lovely mama and the beautiful spread

yum

sickie benny...cute as ever.

and then the day after, as per tradition, we cut down our tree. now on to christmas!

Indie Arts Winter Market this Saturday!

hey friends! just thought i'd let you know that tomorrow (saturday december 1st!)

is the annual craft show right here in our own little town.

if you live around these parts, you should come check it out! there's always a great vibe and lots of indie art and handmade goodness.

 handy andy and i will have a booth again this year. we have a lot of new items in addition to the regulars...like tooth fairy pillows! (pocket is on the back)

 more bunting and chalkboards!

 and the best of all, our new item this year is the giant ruler growth chart. these were hand screen-printed by the one and only handyandy and look quite fabulous if i do say so. ;)

our kids are shipped off to grandparent's house for the night so we can finish up last minute details.

looking forward to a fun fun day tomorrow with this guy. :)

we voted on tuesday...

 thankfully the lines weren't too long...especially since sophie was a little sickie poo.

 we got a nice instructional talk from the cute election judge, signed our ballots then we each filed into the voting booth.

 we, of course, took it quite seriously...i even got a glare from one voter for breaching the booth's privacy walls to snap a quick picture...(where's a scrutineer when you need one?!)

 there was a good bit of deliberation within these walls...

then the ballots were placed into the ballot box and stickers were passed out.

i'll spare you from the final election results...but i will say, i think ben made the best choice with his write-in candidate. how could our country go wrong with mr. balloon in the oval office??


**p.s. a great big thank you goes to handy andy for his tireless efforts in making this voting experience a reality for the citizens of schmidtville. he constructed the booth, ballot box and ballots and procured the stickers. our thanks and love go out to you.

super hero candy night

our little super heroes dressed up yesterday. well, to be more accurate, we actually only had one "official" super hero and that was ben. will was a ninja [super hero on the side] as was his green sidekick, sophie. and madeline was [naturally] a princess super hero.

 

here are a couple costume conversation snippets from the last week:

will: "if i can't be a ninja then can i just dress up like a kid who goes to school? i could wear what i'm wearing now [motions to his clothes which happened to still be pjs]...wellll, not pajamas, but regular clothes and i could carry around my math book."

madeline upon seeing that i was sewing "sparkly" ribbon onto her cape: "mommy, i love you because you are nice. and i love you because sometimes you buy sparkly things for me." 

{i will be sharing this little tip to her husband-to-be one day}

sophie: "am i scary in this mask? did i scare you??" 

anyway, we had a great time trick or treating with a group of friends in the neighborhood i grew up in.

true story: we pulled up to our friends house where everyone was meeting and realized that
1. i (the lizard blood girl) was wearing a short sleeved shirt and didn't grab a jacket
2. i also didn't grab jackets for the other short-sleeved members of our family
3. madeline was barefoot.
now, if i was a type A person we would have had to drive back home...well, never mind, those people would have never forgotten these things...but either way, if we at least had a clean car we would have been out of luck. BUT we didn't have a clean car. we instead had one stock full of necessities. i found a jacket for me, will and sophie, a long-sleeve shirt for madeline AND a pair of shoes! moral of story for me: don't ever clean out your car

and this is what really topped it off for the evening. as we began trick or treating i realized that even though madeline forgot SHOES, she did remember to grab a stick of celery for the road. we love every bit of this "sparkly", spacey princess girl.

ben loved every minute of his cape, mask and legging-wearing night. loved. it.
(and loved the candy even more)

sophie loved it too. cutest green ninja/super hero ever.

then we had soup and pizza and it was loads of crazy fun.

will bemoaned on our way home, "it really is sad that halloween only comes once a year. getting candy is so much fun."

what it takes to get a decent picture of 6 people...

 after church last sunday we got out the tripod to take a few family pictures while everyone still looked kinda put together. handy andy put it on the timer and all 63 shots turned out perfectly- just like this one.

hahaha...here's a taste of what the other 62 pictures actually looked like:

turn your heads around! look at the camera!

hurry and sit down!

why do we have pumpkins in the picture with us?...too distracting..

 then the real drama began...

 simultaneously water started dripping towards sophie and ben and then handy andy stabbed will in the face with the pumpkin stem.

freaking out over here...

can we be done now?!

and this is why a picture of all 6 of us is incredibly rare. :)

have some pumpkin chocolate cake

crisp, chilly fall is here. i've resumed my cold weather uniform of fleece pants, smart wools, and 2-3 layers on top. i've also sought every excuse possible to turn on the oven and get yummy smells and warmth into the house.

which is why i made an entire pumpkin chocolate sheet cake for just our family. fortunately some friends came over at the last minute and shared it with us. :) 

and i'm here to share the recipe with you.

 pumpkin chocolate sheet cake
4 eggs
1 cup light olive oil or vegetable
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 can of pumpkin (about 2 cups)
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. nutmeg
chocolate chips

in a large bowl, beat eggs, oil and sugar until well blended. add pumpkin and mix thoroughly. in separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. gradually add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture. mix until smooth. add chocolate chips and mix. pour into greased and floured 11x17inch jelly roll pan. bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. spread chocolate fudge frosting over cake.

chocolate fudge frosting
1/2 cup butter
4 T. unsweetened cocoa
6 T. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 lb. powdered sugar
pinch of salt

heat butter, cocoa and buttermilk to boiling in saucepan. remove from heat and mix in vanilla and sugar and pinch of salt. frosting is runny but hardens as it cools.

****

in other news, this quirky song has been in my head for several days now. if you haven't watched the video before, it gets really fun at 2:50. makes me wish i was a ballerina. 

dump truck hoodie

one of ben's best little buddies turned 2 a couple days after his own birthday and we had great fun going to his truck/car birthday party.

a few months ago i made this race car hoodie for another little friend, but once i found the Little Blue Truck book i knew we had to go the dirt road route instead of the race track. (and besides, i was completely out of navy and black felt for the road :))

 these are easy to make- find a picture online, trace and cut it out in some wool/poly blend felt and then sew onto a hoodie from target. 

*for the dump truck i did put a bit of liquid stitch stuff down in the middle of little pieces like the window and the rear bumper. then after it was dry i top stitched it onto the jacket.

this book is super cute with a sweet message at the end. i would have bought a copy for our family too, but i had ben with me and he beelined to a giant board book of Good Night Moon instead. :)

this "2" patch covers the stupid graphic that was already on the jacket.

added a little scrap of felt to make a personalized tag.

all done and ready for the party.