Isn’t this so cute?
If you’re looking for a way for your child to be more excited about trying new foods, maybe this is the plate that could change your life!
I think I especially love it cuz it reminds me of long road trips when I was a kid. We all loved playing with our Wooly Willy!
Sorry—I couldn’t resist. As I was writing this post, I was like totally thinking about how I used to talk, like back in the 80’s, ya know? The only time I use the word “generic” now is to refer to the less-expensive store brands of grocery items, but back in junior high, anything that was lame was “like SO generic"! Anyone else remember that?
I am a big fan of generics. Why would I pay $4.59 for a container of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats when I can buy the same size generic container for less than $2.00? Since the majority of our grocery cart is filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, one of the few categories where I am actually buying something that has a generic option is cereal. Patrick and I often make fun of the names that have been chosen for the knock-off cereals. Here are some I’ve seen over the years:
Yesterday I think I found my favorite one of all times-- and at my neighborhood grocery store of all places! I’ve been in this store pretty much once a week for the last three years, so I’m not sure how I never noticed it before. Thankfully I had my phone with me to snap a picture!
Maybe this isn’t as funny to everyone else as it is to me, but I laughed out loud in the store when I saw it! I love that the name has two meanings—Crisp 6, as in the shape of the cereal with six sides, and Crisp 6, which if you say it quickly sounds exactly like Crispix without infringing on any copyrights!
Kendall woke up this morning telling everyone she has her very first loose tooth! I wasn’t sure if she really had one (remember, she didn’t even have ONE tooth in her mouth until she was 19 months), so I gave it the wiggle test and I can verify that it is, in fact, TRUE!
Kendall is beaming. She has waited patiently as lots of friends have lost teeth and she is so excited that it’s finally HER turn!
One guess as to who is NOT so excited. . .
It’s only been one hour and I’ve already heard “why don’t I get to have a loose tooth?” at least 17 times. Patrick graciously offered to punch Berkeley in the mouth to loosen up a few teeth. She waited a little too long to say no—I think she was seriously considering it. Anything to one up her sister!
We’ve been back in our routine for a few weeks now but I still find myself reminiscing about the fun times we had in Colorado. Two days before we left, my sister Marliese and her family arrived from Iowa. With her kids there, that brought the number of cousins up to NINE! On the last day of our vacation, my sister Monette hosted a Fall Festival at her house.
She made sugar cookies for the kids to decorate.
She had pumpkins for them to carve or decorate.
Then we went to a local nursery that had lots of fun activities for everyone: bounce houses, a maze, and lots of pumpkins! 
I really wanted to get a good picture of all the cousins with the pumpkins. The lighting was horrible and hardly anyone is looking at me, but if you look really closely through the shadows and squinty faces, you’ll see that I did get all nine kids in the picture! 
That evening, we all went over to the church to witness a very special event—my nephew Tyler’s baptism! I was grateful that Marliese chose to have Tyler baptized in Colorado (instead of at their home in Iowa) and also during the week that we were there!
Look at all the family that was able to be at Tyler’s baptism! What a lucky kid!
Awwwwww—such proud parents and cute kids!
… I know you’re finishing that line in your head!
We were at our favorite furniture consignment store the other day and Berkeley could not resist hopping into this little beauty of a vehicle! Sadly, it did not come home with us…
Ever since I have known my friend Erin, I have been hiding a little secret. Shhhhhhhh—I am jealous of her amazing talents. (Don’t tell her.) She is a crazy good seamstress, but in addition to that, she also has an eye for looking at something that most people would throw out, and finding a way to give it a second life. The thing she is most famous for is her entertainment center repurposing. It’s nothing short of genius, and this idea has turned her little blog into a blog with TONS of followers! (I may or may not have been the one who submitted her blog to the blog that got her off the ground—without her knowing!) She also takes old clothes and makes them into things for herself or her daughter.
I don’t have any old entertainment centers lying around, but I DO have a bunch of shirts that have shrunk enough that they are too short for me to wear, yet still in great shape. They were in the Goodwill pile, but after seeing Erin’s t-shirt transformations, I thought it would be cool to reincarnate them as shirts for my girls. I wasn’t confident enough to try it on my own, so yesterday, I tricked Erin into coming over and helping me figure it out. I forgot to take a before picture, but just imagine a plain old short sleeved women’s V-neck t-shirt. And here is the after picture:
It actually wasn’t too hard, and now that I know how to do it, hopefully I’ll be brave enough to try one on my own. Kendall loves it and thinks it’s so cool that it used to be MINE! Total cost? FREE! (Thanks for the help, encouragement, and letting me use your elastic thread, Erin!)
A friend asked me how I keep from eating the Halloween candy that is stashed away for decorating our gingerbread house. Well, first, I must confess that before I stash it away, I sort through it and pull out my favorites. This year, I was pretty disappointed—only ONE Special Dark and NO York Peppermint Patties or tiny boxes of Junior Mints? What a waste!
Then, I put all the candy in a giant Ziploc bag and put it in a container up on a very high shelf in one of the kitchen cabinets. It’s just annoying enough to ever get down that I don’t go digging into it. And if I ever get tempted, I just think how sad my girls would be if we got it down in a few weeks to work on our gingerbread house and the bag was half empty! If I had one of those FoodSaver vacuum sealer thingies, that would be an even BETTER way to keep it safe!
If you don’t like the gingerbread house idea, here’s another way to keep all that candy out of your kids’ tummies. I read about it today and I think it’s genius!
