Cute Kids and New Obsession

I'm so ready for the summer to be over.  Not because my kids are going back to school but because I'm so tired of the heat.  I forgot how much time we spent outside at the park and on walks until we were stuck inside because it was so hot.  Our apartment complex has a pool and we've been there quite a bit, but some days it takes more effort than it was worth and they closed it a couple days when we had planned to go.  I think Noelle, Mikey and I are sick of being inside.  I notice that our (when I say "our" I really mean "mine") moods are a little more sensitive and on edge because we're stuck inside.  I realized that we need some good, fresh air everyday and when we don't get it we are GRUMPY.  And I'm sick of not having a car, but that's for another post.

Despite the heat and being stuck inside we have enjoyed each other's company.  We've tried to be creative and sure make each other laugh.

Noelle has been begging to ride the train at the mall.  I told her she had to wait until dad could come.   She wouldn't stop telling me that she got to ride the train cause daddy came with us.

Noelle loves water but hates it being over her head so we've really been working on "swimming."  She is so proud of herself for swimming with her floaties.

my happy guys

Love this one!  He fell asleep on our walk about 5 minutes away from our apartment.  He refused to lay back so this is what we got :)

And don't forget Noelle.  Almost everyday she asks if we can go on a walk.  Can you see why I can't wait for cooler weather?

Aunt Nina made these darling winter hats for Noelle and Mikey.  She made a similar one for her little boy (my handsome nephew) Eric.  We are very much looking forward to taking pictures with them in December.  Miss them SOOOOO much!

He is a climber and much more daring than Noelle was.  He was so happy to make it to the top of the  jungle gym.

And this little girl would play in the sand ALL day if I let her.  

And on one of our bored days we broke up Noelle's old, yucky crayons and made some new ones. She loved doing this!

Me and my friends Michelle, Natalie and Alyssa had a much needed girls night. I had so much fun and wish we could do it more.  We went to dinner, to the fair, shopping and out for ice cream.  This is the only picture I have from that night unfortunately.  At the fair they had this big barn full of prize winning turkeys and chickens.  I was walking along with my friends and look behind me and this turkey was just inches away from me and it freaked me out.  I let out a soft little scream and ran away quite fast.  It was pretty funny and of course I had to take a picture of it.  I hate turkeys for some reason.  They creep me out and they just seem so mean.

Unlike Noelle, Mikey hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in books. He usually pulls them all down from the shelf and throws them and bites them.  So this picture I had to get.  He's actually looking at it without having the thought of "how can I make this more destructive?"  That didn't last long.

Noelle and her awesome name writing skills. This one looks like "Voelle." Other days it kind of looks like "Woelle." But I don't care, I think she's so cute and smart :)

Saw a rainbow and Noelle was thrilled!  She's been talking about wanting to see a rainbow and sure enough we did at Grandma Great's house.

Mikey has finally figured out how to climb on the couch and boy does he love it. He just smiles and jumps and almost falls off every time.  To get off though he will actually just walk right off.  Luckily I've caught him all the times he's done this, I'm sure I won't one of these days.

Noelle just wanted me to take her picture.  But I don't mind. I think she's pretty adorable.

Obsession?
What is my new obsession you ask?  Take a guess.  If you are a friend of mine on facebook you may know.  Or if I have talked to you recently you may know.  That's right, PINTEREST.  I really didn't understand the big deal of it.  I've had a pinterest account for over a year now probably.  Everyone talked about it and to be honest I didn't really know how it worked.  Well one night about two weeks ago I needed to find some ideas for a homemade Christmas gift for my kids.  This is a new goal of mine.  To do one homemade gift for them, either separately or together.  Anyway, sure enough the exact thing that I needed was there.  And of course after that I decided to look at other pins.  2-3 hours later and I had a whole list of things that I wanted to do and accomplish.  I had Noelle's whole birthday party planned.  I had the determination to have a spinach smoothie every day for breakfast. Etc, etc, etc...  Since then I have been on there a lot.  And have found some awesome inspiration for many areas of my life.  I admit that I need to get a handle on it, but for now it's lots of fun and it seems to be helping me set aside time to accomplish something late at night, instead of just sitting down and watching tv.  I consider myself a pretty creative person but I wouldn't dedicate a career to it, or a blog, or a class.  That's why I'm glad others have put their ideas on this site so that I may take advantage of their creative minds :).  With that said here are a couple of the things that pinterest has inspired me to do within the last week:

Toiliet paper roll painting.  Cool huh?  I got the idea from here

I used three different rolls to make different "brushes." 

And of course in the end she decided to blend it all together.

Isn't it beautiful?  And it looks pretty good on our refrigerator too! 

As most of you probably know Noelle's hair is kind of thin and slow at growing. Sounds kind of like mine.  I still have hope that it will get a little thicker one day and that we will actually need to get her a real haircut.  Anyway, I still love doing her hair.  She has some really cute curls but if I don't put a ton of mousse and hairspray in the curls don't stay, so I usually just put her hair up.  She's pretty good for me when I do it, especially if I put on a favorite show.  And I decided I wanted to get a little more creative.  This was her hair for church on Sunday.  Got that idea here

And today she let me do her hair crazy again.  This one looks a little different then the picture. That idea I got from here (it's a facebook page)

And I think my favorite of the week are these cute felt bandaids. Noelle has this doctor bag that she got for her birthday last year and over the last few months has really loved playing with it.  She also currently loves watching the Disney Junior show Doc McStuffins.  She is always giving me and her toys checkups and loves when I give her a checkup.  So I thought I would add some bandaids to her bag.  I had a ton of felt left over from last years Christmas project (princess felt mat) and some velcro that I have had for forever.  I made my own little pattern, well really I just used a real bandaid and used my glue gun.  So simple and cute and Noelle will love it.  The idea came from here.   

And here is the back.  It was fun to do and I only got two burns from it.

Maybe I'll have some more creativity to share with you soon! 

Birthday Boy!!

On July 25th my little guy turned 1!  Can you believe it?  I certainly can't.  This last year has gone way too fast.  I remember so clearly the day he was born.  Wow, has he come a long way since then.  He has been such a joy in our lives.  He is constantly smiling and making everyone around him smile also.  The doctor's appointment was a little over a week after his birthday, so that's why I waited to do this post until then.  Here's the doc. appointment info:

Weight: 25lbs 3 oz - 75%
Height: 32 inches - 97%
Head: 95%

He is such a big boy and apparently very tall as well.  I was looking back at some old posts and I realized Noelle was 25lbs at 2 yrs.  Crazy!  These two siblings sure look alike but they are built differently.  However they both are tall.  The doctor is always calling him such a "sturdy boy."  I think it is so funny.  Here are some fun things about Mikey right now:

*He tackles all little kids and babies that he meets.  The poor babies just topple right over and usually cry.  What's funny is Mikey totally does this out of love and a way to say I'm happy to see you.  He's tackling Noelle all the time and she loves it too!
*He gives the best hugs and kisses.  In the mornings or if it's been a while since I've seen him he just gives me the sweetest hug that lasts forever.  Oh I just love it.  He is always giving Noelle hugs and kisses and she does the same.  These two sure love each other.
*When he crawls he puts his head down like a little bulldozer and often runs into things.  But he doesn't mind and he sure gets attention when he does it.
*When he meets someone new or sometimes for no reason he smiles and puts his head down like he is being bashful.  It just melts my heart.
*He crawls super fast and is also walking.  He is still a bit unsteady but he seems to enjoy it and is so proud of himself!  Sometimes when he is walking and wants to get somewhere faster he'll just dive right into the ground.
*He sleeps with a white burp rag and loves to cuddle with it right when starting to go to sleep.
*He HATES to get dressed.  He really will cry when we're trying to undress or dress him.  Sometimes he screams and squirms and we can barely contain him he's so strong.
*He loves to dump everything out and pull things off their shelves.  Especially after we've cleaned it all up.
*He loves to spend time with me in the kitchen, playing with the magnets or emptying out all my drawers.
*He loves food.  I can't tell you his favorite cause he likes just about everything (which is pretty much the opposite of Noelle).  Except eggs for some reason
*He's had three haircuts.
*He can throw all sizes of balls.
*He plays pretty well independently and loves to explore everything.
*Starting to understand the word "no!"
*Loves to splash and climb around in the bath tub.  He also loves to be in the pool.
*He would live outside if we let him.  If one of us is leaving outside without him he gets very upset.
*Laughs a lot at his big sister :)!
*Mikey is always smiling and dancing and clapping and is so much fun!

We had a fun little birthday with him.  It was just immediate family and a few friends.  We did miss more than half the Pfeil side however and Tanner, Nina and Eric.  Wish they could've been there.  It was small but a lot of fun.  I can't believe that my little boy is 1.  We love him so much and are excited for what adventures Mikey will bring into our lives over the next year!

Enjoy the pictures!

birthday boy!

He actually seemed to get into it (a little)

yay paper!

A little distracted by all the other toys :)

my happy boy

I decorated all of the cakes that we ate.  It was really easy.  I made three chocolate cakes.  Used oreo cool whip frosting and dyed it brown.  Used crushed up oreo for dirt over all the cakes.  Found some awesome CAT construction vehicles at walmart (not edible).  Gummy worms were here and there.  And I used candy corn for the construction cones.  Those were my favorite part, not to mention the kids loved them and kept asking for more "cones."  I actually really liked how they turned out and it was like zero stress for me, which is unusual.

Mikey's very own "bulldozer" cake.  Very fitting isn't it?

He was a little hesitant at first, but happy :).

Then he got into it a little more, with some help.

What?!

And of course he had to rub his eyes with the hands all covered in cake.

And now we just let him play without his shirt on.  He's so much fun!

This present was from "Damin" Fullmer.  It's a little ball pit.  Both kids just love it and I find little, colorful balls all over the place.  Notice Noelle's very static-y hair, haha

We were at a bbq at my parent's and this is Mikey eating the famous Odriscoll dip.  He kind of liked it.

and my sweethearts hugging each other.  I'm so lucky to have these two!

Oh how I love to go camping!

If anyone has kept up with my blog since I started knows that every summer we go camping for a week.  We call it Clayson camp.  Originally it was my great grandma Clayson and her kids and all their kids and grandkids.  If that makes sense?  Well we did this camp about three weeks ago and had such a fun time!  It was from Sunday to Friday.  Michael went up with us Sunday to set up camp and then had to be back for work for Monday and Tuesday.  But then he came up again Tuesday night and was able to stay with us until Friday, thank goodness.  The kids did really well.  The first night Mikey kind of had a hard time.  Probably due to the fact that earlier that day (on our way to church) Michael accidentally shut Mikey's finger in the door.  Here's that story in a nutshell: 

We were literally minutes away from leaving for church and this little accident happened.  We didn't think it was too bad until we saw blood all over Michael's white shirt.  Poor little guy :(.  He was pretty much inconsolable and we really didn't know what to do.  His little finger looked horrible.  I called my mom for advice and then we called the doctor.  They said if it looked like he needed stitches that we should come in, if not then just to clean it and put a band-aid on.  So that's what we did.  Noelle was really upset about it all so I took her to church to take her mind off of it.  Afterward we headed up to the mountains.  Monday Mikey's finger looked really gross, almost infected.  It had gotten really red and swollen.  So my mom and I took a little trip to a nearby city and went to the doctor.  It's a good thing we did too.  The doctor said it wasn't infected yet but that it looked pretty bad and that considering we were camping and Mikey was always getting into something dirty it would be best to get him on some antibiotics.  The doctor wanted to get some antibiotic cream for him, but I said "no" because he kept putting his finger in his mouth and taking his bandaid off.  I know, so gross right?  So it was some bubble gum flavor medicine instead.  It worked really well.  After camp his nail fell right off and I think a new one is growing back.  But I hope to never do that again.

Anyway... Here are our pictures and reasons why we love to go camping!

1st day at camp-setting up the tent.  Noelle with her friend, second cousin, sweet Alivia.  These two play so cute together.

playing down by the stream

resting with Pa

Our tent.  It's been nicknamed "the lodge," "cabin," and my new favorite "the fortress."  It's large, but we love it and it's comfortable. 

Our tent was right by this pretty stream.  It was very soothing at night and I think really helped Mikey sleep.  We also went to Payson lake and had a blast there.

The lovely bathroom.  We have come to this campground for as long as I can remember.  One year this bathroom was out of order and we had the lovely opportunity to hike up to the other bathroom.  Basically just a wooden room built around a hole in the ground.  Gross.

This was our shower.  My parent's hooked it up to their trailer.  It was wonderful.

There was a huge pile of sand at our campsite this year and Noelle spent hours there.  She loved playing with others, but she wouldn't mind going here by herself.  She really showed her independent side here.  She did NOT need mom at all, or she thought she didn't.

Silly girl.  Playing down by the river.

Trying to convince her to get in the very cold water.

This was Mikey's bed.  He slept soooo well at camp.  I was very surprised.  Our tent would get really hot during his naptime so we had this battery charged fan.  It was a lifesaver.  Noelle also slept excellent at camp and even took a few naps.  Such a difference compared to years passed. 

We found this little guy near our tent.  Noelle was fascinated.

Mikey wanted to go everywhere!  Actually that is an understatement.  Here he wasn't quite walking but just wanted to be down on the ground.  He was usually pretty good at staying on this blanket, but still loved to get off of it once in a while.  The kids were so dirty up there.  But I didn't care much.  I made sure their hands were clean before and after eating and I used some wipes here and there.  It was nice not to be so worried about how dirty they got.  Made for a much more enjoyable camping experience. 

Around the campfire.  Noelle loved roasting marshmallows and loved the mornings around the fire.  Every morning we had hot chocolate, mmmm my favorite.

Michael participated in a horse shoe tournament with my sister, dad, cousins, and aunts and uncles.  I know he had lots of fun and he did pretty good too :). 

The last night we were there everyone got out some glow sticks.  They had lots of fun with that.  We also sang around the campfire.  That's one of my favorite parts.  We really get into it and can get a little crazy :)!!

Every year we have a pinata.  It's something my Grandma just loves to do.  Every cousin got a turn.  Youngest to oldest.  The pinata was really tough to break this year.

Mikey even got a turn.  He had no clue what was going on.  He has the funniest faces and was looking at Michael like "what the heck are you doing to me daddy?"

 We had such a fun time at camp this year.  It is sure a lot of work.  And sometimes I questioned why we even do it.  But it was worth it.  Noelle had a blast.  And is still asking if we can go back to camp.  My kids love being outdoors.  They are the happiest when they are outside doing things and I love that.  I'm glad that this is a tradition in our family and hope to continue it for many more years.