A Statement of Truth

Chad is rad:

Am I right or am I right?

Rainbow Snowflakes

I always have about a million projects going on in my head at one time, but if you ask me, the best projects are the ones that my kiddos come up with.

Such as my older daughter, who found seven perfect colors from my cardstock stash, folded them, cut them--

 --glued yarn on the back of each of them--

 --took a break while the glue dried to watch a little Roy G. Biv on youtube--

--and then had me hang her rainbow's worth of snowflakes up in her room:

Where, yes, she has asked me to hang other things amply, as well.

Barter and Trade

I've been bartering. Inspired by Radical Homemakers, a book that I didn't even really like that much, I've found myself setting up trades for lots of things lately, saving myself money and getting stuff that I appreciate in exchange for something that somebody else appreciates.

Also, no tax!

Here are some of my more recent trades:

• a baby bag for a book bag
• blog post editing for cookies
• photography for cornstarch
• fabric for fabric

In that last one, a lady at a craft fair admired the novelty prints that I use in my I Spy quilts so much that she offered me three bags of stash fabric in exchange for some 2" quilt squares in novelty prints for a charm quilt that she's sewing. I'm also sewing a postage stamp charm quilt for myself, and I occasionally offer postage stamp charm quilt sets in my pumpkinbear etsy shop--

--so it was no problem.

Now I need to find a way to barter for babysitting, a travel chess set, some yardwork, candlemaking lessons...

Bedtime Story

Because One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is DEFINITELY better when it's read out loud.

Travel Prep: The Essentials

We still play the odd game of chess, and Scrabble Junior, and checkers, and Matt has taken to teaching the girls Solar Quest every night after dinner, but Sorry is the latest true obsession:

 
Have I mentioned that the girlies and I are going on a very odd and unruly road trip next week? Our elderly and much-mistreated van, which we use for hauling everything from craft fair stuff to the craft fairs to bicycles to the trailhead to our dumpster-dived coffee table home to our living room, is just about dead in the water. Every day Matt tests its bum transmission by driving it to work and back at under 25 mph and 2,000 rpms. While I was researching little cargo trailers to be pulled behind our Sable (and to probably kill ITS transmission), Matt's parents bought themselves a new used car, and generously offered to give us their old minivan--if only we could find somebody to drive it cross-country to our house!

Hmmm...I wonder who we know who has the time and the inclination for a cross-country road trip?

Hmmmmmmm.....

The kiddos and I leave next week.

Travel logistics are doubly difficult for me, since I have a plane trip AND a road trip to plan for. As you with small kidlets know, entertainment is different for each method of transport. A plane flight, especially since it's likely that Will won't be able to sit right next to me if the rows are small, requires lots of independent, quiet, small-space, no-mess snacks and activities. The benefit, however, is that I can often play with them, or at least fetch them things and set them up with stuff. A road trip, at least for my kiddos, requires LOTS of books, LOTS of educational DVDs, LOTS of audiobooks that we listen to together, LOTS of snacks, and a few playthings and activities. I also can't fetch anything or set anything up, because once we're in motion, I don't take my eyes off of the road--paranoid driver, I am. Now you know.

Hallelujah that we're flying Southwest, in which each traveler gets to check a bountiful TWO FREE BAGS. For us, most of these bags will be filled with road trip stuff; this is good, because when Matt's parents come to pick us up at the airport, it's a tradition that my father-in-law pick up one of my bags, almost die, and then say, "What's in this BAG?!? ROCKS?!?"

At which point I reply. "No, books. Duh!"

So the travel essentials shopping list looks like, to date:

• magnetic board games. Chess is an absolute must, of course, but it's been decades since I've gone shopping for magnetic board games, so WOW me, board game manufacturers!
• car kit for the ipod. I hated that ipod FM transmitter thingy that I bought last year and then returned because I hated it. Wow me, Apple!
• as many books and DVDs and audiobooks as we can sneak out of the public library before we go.

When that's all settled, I'll think about packing some clothes, if we have anymore room in the luggage...

The World's Sleepiest Kitten

She earned her keep at the Halloween party, that's for sure:

And now the world's sleepiest kitten indulges in the sleep of the just, and the kind, and the patient:

We'll see that she gets a good nap before she wakes up to play some more.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

One thing about Halloween being on Sunday, at the very smack-end end of the week, is that you basically get to celebrate ALL. WEEK. LONG.

And we did:

We made yummy Halloween treaties:

 Can you tell that they're supposed to be Jack-o-Lanterns?

We ate yummy Halloween treaties at each of the THREE Halloween parties that we attended in three days:

You probably recognize every piece of Sydney's outfit, from the Salvation Army "handmade by grandma" dress to the $1 garage sale vintage necklace to the birthday crown. The girlies weren't super-inspired by costuming this year, so they cobbled themselves together a new costume from their dress-up stash for every Halloween event.

We attended Night of the Living Red with the IU men's basketball players, with trick-or-treating, contests, a scrimmage--

--enough free candy to keep a little girl entertained during the scrimmage--

--and a costume parade down on the court with the basketball players, broadcast on the Teletron:

We made even MORE Halloween treats:  

That's another Amelia Bedelia sheet cake, by the way, with pretty much three entire jars of sprinkles thrown on top of it.

We decorated the house all pretty and spooky:

 We made some healthy treats, just so that we could feel good about ourselves:

And then we had a party! Little friends made gak with us--

--were enthralled by the overhead projector--

--loved on all the play dough--

 --and, of course, helped us eat some of our many, MANY Halloween treats:

And here and there and in between, we made Jack-o-Lanterns out of felt and Jack-o-Lanterns out of paper and Jack-o-Lanterns out of pumpkins and even, for keeping for momma's posterity to make her sniffle bittersweetly in twenty or so years, Jack-o-lanterns out of funkins: 

Willow's is on the left and Sydney's is on the right, with their signature and the year on the back, and I don't care that Matt does beg me to think about ten years from now, when there will be 22 carved funkins to deal with, each baby IS going to make her own funkin Jack-o-lantern every single Halloween from now on.

And lordy, I didn't even talk about the neighborhood trick-or-treating!