Village Mommies Gingerbread Houses

Morgan is getting to be so much fun! His communication skills have a lot to do with that for sure. He is really into projects and I've been trying to include him on any projects that I do here at the house. He does slow me down quite a bit. But, he so very badly wants to help. He calls himself "a good helper". He's is my sweet little helper.

Carrie leads our Village Mommies playgroup. She is so creative. We are so lucky to have her. She's done everything from treasure hunts to craft projects. Morgan made his first Gingerbread House. Or, as he refers to it, his candy project.

Projects!

My sewing/craft Room (aka the tiny closet in the Dr. Seuss playroom) is now my sewing/craft area! It's a work in progress. I already had the paint from the playroom and found the fabric on sale for about $1.25 a yard. I hung over-the-door shoe hangers on both doors. Those things are amazing! Lowes sells them the cheapest at about $8. Ikea is all over the place along with a few Black Friday finds! The ribbon rod is an .88 cent piece of PVC. Brandon, our neighbor and electrician, wired the closet yesterday. I'm so excited to finally have a place that I can just close the door on projects in the works. The little metal cabinet has tons of papers, coloring books and other art supplies for Morgan. He is calling it our project room and now LOVES to do projects with me. I spent the afternoon installing things on the walls and going through a lot of stuff that has been stored in boxes for years. I haven't been much into art like I used to be simply because it was just a pain to get to everything. There are a few more tweaks and decorative things that I'd like to do in addition to the overhead lighting. But, it's coming along. Thanks Dan for letting me take over this closet!

I'm NERVOUS

Morgan has refused to go down for his nap unless he is only wearing his underwear. I tried for over an hour. He just kept taking all of his clothes and his diaper off. He did tell me that he wanted to pee pee in the potty in the middle of it all and he did. But, he has NEVER worn underwear. We haven't even bothered to start potty training. Now, he is asleep in his bed in ONLY his Elmo underwear.

....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... big mess for Martha to clean up in a couple of hours?!?!?

What did we do October 2009?

Well, as I mentioned in my previous post... I've been MIA because of a few crafty projects. We also kept pretty busy with all the Halloween stuff this month. I think that we went to eight parties/festivals before October 31st even arrived.

We missed the Halloween festival at Becky & Dow's church last year. We made sure not to miss it this year! We went to our city's festival, the pumpkin patch, Bass Pro Halloween, a Halloween party at Leah's house, Grapevine Main Street Festival and our own church's festival. Morgan now automatically asks for a bounce house if I tell him we are going to a party.

The Boogie Woogie Choo Choo is always a big hit. Morgan and Zoey rode it all by themselves.

Lynn came to town for a quick trip and we met up with Stephanie, baby Taylor at Spud's house. Everything you see in the backyard is his own private patio. I should take pictures of it sometime to really appreciate all the work that he's done. The space is simply amazing.

Our sweet little Darby turned six. I can't believe that she's six years old already. Mary MADE that pumpkin cake! So talented Mary! Darby had a Halloween dress up party complete with a pinata and pumpkin decorating. A few girls missed it because of the swine flu. Darby got the swine flu a few weeks later.

Annie and her granddaughter were able to come to town for Darby's birthday. Thanks Annie so much for making the day special!

Morgan and I go to the library at least once a week. Does anyone else notice the genius behind his tower? (hint: look at the color)
This is Morgan's "cheese" face for his pictures.

Yes, he is still my little thumb-sucker.

We stopped by the ghoulish dental booth at the Grapevine Main St. festival. This shows where Morgan needs to brush when we get home. The dental techs said that I was doing a good job brushing his teeth. I was shocked because this is after his teeth were coated with several HOURS of candy.

Morgan chose red and CJ chose blue. Melissa, they said that CJ's teeth looked good too. Yea for us! We aren't rotting their teeth after all!

I made Morgan's costume this year. It was part of my huge learning experience in my little world of sewing. He has boots that go with the costume too. But, he refused to wear them. He's a generic superhero. Explanation... Well, Morgan LOVES Spiderman and Batman. But, he calls both of them "the man". So, he went as THE MAN.

Here's Morgan in part of Bret's Scooby Do costume. The ironic thing is that this is really the only part that Bret would actually wear. Ahhh.... toddlers.

Where are pictures of Morgan?

I promise to get back to posting pictures of Mr. Morgan. I've been MIA lately because I've been busy teaching myself to sew! I honestly didn't even really know how to thread the sewing machine a couple of months ago. It's amazing what can be learned from the Internet. It took me a few weeks of heavy research. Here is my first project... the back living room. I think that I must have lost my mind to take on such a huge project as my first. I slip covered one of the chairs (still have one to go), the ottoman, made a 20' cornice with rope lighting accent , 8 fully lined and interlined triple pinch pleated working drapery panels and six zippered pillows with contrasting welts. The curtains are hung on double traverse rods. There will be an additional sheer layer behind the panels when I can find the right fabric. It's so awesome to be able to close the curtains when we want to blackout the light for movies! But, wow... this was quite the task to accomplish! I also made Morgan's Halloween superhero costume and his nap mat for mother's day out. Now, if I can just sew that dang button on Dan's shirt. :)

First Day of School 2010!

Today was the first day of school! It didn't go too well. Last year Morgan was all too happy to leave me behind. I barely got a second glance! Click here for a refresher. This year I had to practically scrape him off my leg. Poor little guy. I guess it's the age and yet another stage that they go through. It's just been in the past two months that we've experienced drop off freak outs at church and other places.

I was able to dress him in the same clothes. The shorts are a size bigger and he is crammed into last year's shirt. But, hey, I can't miss the photo opp. He's getting so big!
So, I spent the morning at the fabric store gathering up materials for his nap mat. I'm washing and pre-shrinking the fabric right now so that I can get moving on it and he'll be ready to use it on Monday!

Here he is during the leg scraping process. So sad!

But yet so very happy moments before! I think that I'm going to pick him up early today.

From the Mouth of Morgan

Morgan just cracks me up with the stuff he says. I wish that I remembered to write down all of the funny stuff he says. Here are some of our recent conversations.

At Home Depot the other day upon seeing a shirtless construction guy
Morgan: "Mommy! Take off your shirt!"
(He also called all the men in the store Daddy.)

When Dan turned the light on in our bedroom this morning.
Morgan: Turn off Please.
(He was watching cartoons and the light was in his eyes.)

Morgan: "Daddy, draw a tractor."
Dan: Dan proceeds to draw what I thought was a great tractor.
Morgan: That's a choo choo!

Today as we were getting in the car:
Morgan: "Don't touch the button. It's noisy. BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP!"
(He been instructed many times not to push the alarm button on my car keys.)

He also calls Gingy on Shrek the Muffin Man. He calls the huge Gingy Big Muffin Man.

I often have a buckets of water for water changes in our saltwater aquarium. I often find myself telling Morgan not to touch the water because it is icky fish water. I told Morgan not to touch my drink the other night. He said, "no touchy! It's Mommy's icky fish water!".

Morgan has called his blankie 'key-key' ever since he could talk.

He also likes to talk about falling down and bonkey his head. He is forever bonkeing his head, his knees, his legs, etc. Are little boys always bruised?

He's obsessed with Batman, Spiderman, Alligators and Legos.

Life is good at 2 1/2!

GG's 59th Birthday Roller Skating Party

Mary, Mom and I took the kids roller skating for Mom's 59th birthday today. What a trooper GG is! Morgan was a wild man as usual. I used to take him to stroller skating when he was a tiny little thing. So, this was a lot of fun to try it independently of me. They have skate trainers. They pretty much look like PVC walkers for toddlers with wheels. Morgan would have been able to do a lot more. But, he wouldn't let me touch the trainer to help him stay steady.

We brought cup cakes and all the goods to decorate them too. Darby and Bret got by without a crumb on their clothing while Morgan had to be stripped down to almost a diaper.

My friend Phyliss turned me on to a really neat blog recently called My Charming Kids. She has a hilarious post titled I did not. I would like to add that I DID NOT let my child eat goldfish and craisins for breakfast this morning. And I most certainly DID NOT let my child eat THREE cupcakes at GG's party this morning. I also am currently NOT sitting her typing while I listen to my child tear his room apart instead of going into his room and making him lay down in bed for his nap like he is supposed to.

Here are some of the goodies that we used to decorate the cupcakes.

Darby has a new short hair cut... BOO HOO! I was told to shut it as I don't have to deal with the daily tears of detangling a 5 year old's long hair.

This is Morgan posing and saying "cheese!!!!".