News & Notes, Frozen Edition

The weather has taken a sudden frigid turn.  It was nearly 70 on Tuesday, and the last couple days it has been freezing.  We woke up to snow on the roof tops this morning, and Jacob was thrilled!  I guess winter is here.  Carter is having a tough time with it.  He hates his winter coat, and refuses to wear mittens.  I need to find him mittens with a string so he can't lose them if he takes them off.  He refuses to keep them on, though, and I worry about his little fingers.  He doesn't seem that bothered by the cold itself, so how do I get him to be okay with mittens?

I was actually home sick the last couple days.  I finally went back to work today, still sporting a heck of a cough.  I started feeling cruddy on Tuesday night, getting the same muscle aches that Craig had when he got sick last week.  The chills and hot flashes arrived (though I never got a good fever reading), and I felt generally crappy by Wednesday morning.  I took some ibuprofen, pushed through half a work day from my couch, then rested the rest of the day.  Then I did the same thing yesterday.  I wanted to keep the work moving but keep the germs to myself and get as much rest as possible.  As crappy as I felt at times, I never got as bad as Craig, and ultimately it wasn't the worst way to spend a couple days.  The cough will be around for a while, but at least I'm functional.

Two years ago today was my nasty car accident.  It was such an awful experience, but two years later I'm extra grateful that it wasn't worse.  To think that anything could have happened to Carter, who was still pretty tiny in my belly at that point, is heartbreaking.  It made for a very tough month, that's for sure.  My car is almost two years old now, and while I love my Bluetooth, I still curse the non-automatic headlights every day.  I still think about the accident at least once a week when I drive through the area on my daily commute.  The only truly good thing that came out of it was that I allowed myself some retail therapy that night and I still LOVE the quilt I bought for our bed.  Now if I could just figure out how to decorate above the bed...

Tomorrow Carter is officially 75% of the way from one to two.  Twenty-one whole months!  Three more months until his second birthday...and it barely seems possible!  He's saying so many words now.  Not always clearly, mind you, but he recognizes so many and tries to say so many!  It's amazing to watch him!  I need to get video of it ASAP, because I need to remember this phase forever.  Have I mentioned that he calls Jacob "brother" instead of by his name?  So sweet.

Jacob is a giant handful right now.  Sometimes he can be so awesome, and other times he refuses to listen, completely ignores us, and has temper tantrums about almost anything.  It's pretty ridiculous and I'm not sure how to help him manage that anger.  But things are still going well at school, so I guess one out of two ain't bad.

But in general, things are fine. I'm definitely looking forward to a five-day weekend in a couple weeks, but for now we're all hanging in there.  More soon...

1200 Posts and Seven Years Ago...

Seven years ago today I was gallivanting around Pittsburgh with my aunt, uncle (siblings, not married), and cousin (not the child of either of them) checking out the Chihuly exhibit at the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden.  It was magical and amazing and seven years later it represents to me the last moments before I knew I was pregnant with my first child.

We had a blast that weekend, though I was exhausted after eating too much for dinner when we got into town and sleeping in a room with a snorer and a restless sleeper.  That crazy busy day was a Saturday, and I spent Sunday recovering, only to discover I didn't feel any better by Monday.  Around that time it occurred to me that I hadn't been feeling particularly fantastic for a couple weeks, and I was at the tail end of a round of clomid that was supposed to regulate my system and help me get pregnant.  What was supposed to happen didn't, and I was at the point of needing to call my doctor...or both doctors, actually--OB/GYN and my regular doctor, if I didn't get my energy back.  However, knowing that the first question most doctors asking women of childbearing age is, "Are you sure you're not pregnant?", I stopped on my way home and picked up a few dollar store pregnancy tests to take that evening.  After multiple failed tests in the prior months, I figured it was a slam dunk and I could call the next day with my "Totally sure" ready to go.

Only, I took the test and didn't even have to wait 30 seconds before I was staring at a big fat positive!  Craig wasn't even home yet and I was totally freaking out.  I didn't even really have time or the presence of mind to craft any sort of fantastic reveal for him.  I was in such shock that all I could do was tell him nearly the second he walked in the door so I had someone to talk it through with.  It had been such a process up until that point that it never even occurred to me not to share it with him immediately.  We were a team and that was the next logical step, I guess.

I was excited, for sure, but terror and panic were right up there, too, because I knew from that moment that nothing would ever be the same.  We'd either go along the normal path and have this baby, or something would go wrong and we'd carry that loss with us forever.  It got so real so quickly.  It consumed me for weeks as I lived that double life of not telling anyone, all while feeling spectacularly crappy all the time.  From that day after Veterans' Day when I found out why I felt so horrible until we left for our trip to Florida in mid-December, the funk, the fear, and the nervous excitement ruled my existence. 

What a crazy time it was.  I look back at that young woman, how she couldn't even fathom all that was to come.  So much has happened in those seven years, including this blog (which is still about six weeks shy of its 7th anniversary).  Two pregnancies, two deliveries, two energetic little boys, countless doctor visits, tons of sports equipment, and more fun and stress than I could have ever dreamed.  And that weekend seven years ago marked those last moments of blissful (and exhausted) ignorance. 

Here's a sampling of the best of the best from that weekend...

The Day the House Broke

Sometime on Saturday I headed down to the basement and decided to put a bin of Carter's outgrown clothes into the crawl space.  I hauled the bin to the back where the baby stuff lives, and just as I was putting it into place, in the shadows I could just make out a dark patch on the floor.  I reached down and realized it was wet.  And then I realized that the top of one of the bins was very wet.  And eventually I realized that the water was dripping from up above.  Originally I thought it was under the sink, but I couldn't see anything upstairs.  Shortly thereafter I realized it was the dishwasher instead. 

I called a plumber who came and identified the leaky part as the valve that controls the water flow into the dishwasher.  We turned off the water to it and later in the day I started drying out the subfloor, which has curled a bit around the leak.  I don't think it's major damage, but it's definitely annoying.  Of course now I'm torn about what to do.  One appliance repair place quoted me $200 to fix both that and the handle that's been broken for a couple years.  Of course, the new one I'd probably get retails for $386  at Lowe's, minus 5% for their credit card, but plus $119 for installation and another $100 if we get extended coverage that everyone's insisting is important these days.  Seems like a no-brainer, but if something else goes wrong next week, the new one looks like the no-brainer, you know?  So in the meantime I'm washing dishes like a crazy person, trying to keep up.  It's a throwback to the days in our old house when I had to wash everything by hand...and I did not miss it.  I do like the feeling of cleaning out my sink and not having anything else waiting in the dishwasher, but it's a lot of work.  It's good motivation to make a decision--quick!

Halloween night as we came in from trick-or-treating, we heard a terrible bang in the garage just seconds after we walked in the door.  Craig went out to look, fearing the worst, but couldn't find anything out of place.  We shrugged it off and moved on.  Saturday afternoon, after the dishwasher debacle and once Carter was napping, I was going to run a couple errands.  As I opened the garage door, I heard another terrible noise...and suddenly noticed that the piece that connected the garage door to the opener was dangling from the opener track.  Oh, crap.

It turns out that the horrible noise we heard the night before was the high tension spring that helps the door open breaking.  We had no idea that can happen...like that, in particular.  And because the spring is the thing that makes the door seem so much lighter than it actually is, the door was very heavy.  The opener couldn't open it, and the center bracket that connects it to the opener ripped right off the door.  It caused a little damage and I was praying it wouldn't be enough to necessitate a new door.  Of course, because the door was now crazy heavy, we couldn't get it more than a couple inches off the ground.  I tried calling the company that installed it (for the old owners, though we used them at our old house, too), but we didn't get an answer since it was later in the day.  We were trapped at home!

Luckily we had enough food and didn't have anywhere we had to go.  Sunday morning we did have to skip church and we figured that we'd probably have to miss work Monday morning until someone could come out.  Sunday we decided that we had to get out, so even though it was very cold, we bundled up and took a walk in the sun (and wind) to get lunch and get a couple reinforcements.  We walked a little over a mile to a Wendy's along the main drag, had some lunch, then walked across the street to a Rite Aid.  Craig wanted chips and dip for the football games, and we grabbed a couple other things (including some cheap fall cookie cutters on clearance) before making the cold walk back home.  The wind was cold and Carter is refusing to wear gloves, but aside from that it wasn't too bad.  He rode nicely in the stroller, and Jacob walked without complaining.  The boys were pretty good at lunch, and as a whole it wasn't half bad!

We were, in fact, trapped on Monday morning, so while we could get Jacob on the bus, the rest of us were stuck at home.  The garage door guy came a little after lunch.  He went over how he was going to fix it, and suddenly I realized that he was going to do it right then and there!  We were going to be free!  He fixed the damage to the door and reattached a new arm.  He was done in less than a half hour, and we got off for less than $200, which was such a relief!  And we were free!  Craig went to work and I stayed home with Carter, who woke up right after Craig left.  Still, I got thanksgiving decorations up, and we ran a quick errand prior to picking up Jacob.  I bought frames to get a couple of Jacob's pictures up on the wall.  One was replacing a frame that Craig ran into and broke, and the other was to frame Jacob's gorgeous Asian-looking tree picture so I could free up one of the changeable frames.  It definitely made for a strange couple days, but we survived!

It wasn't any fun having two things break within a matter of hours, and I'm not looking forward to bill #2, but all things considered, we've been pretty lucky so far!

Awe

Lately I've been finding myself completely in awe of this crazy parenthood journey we're on.  I just can't get over the fact that Jacob is this big kid and my other tiny little baby is growing up too! 

The other day I was looking at a picture on my wall at work from last Christmas.  Carter was such a tiny little baby still, and when I compared that one to another picture from the spring where he was also sitting on my lap, even then he was so much bigger.  And now?  Well, there are moments now where it's challenging wrangling him because he's getting to be so long. 

He's got the full head of hair we waited so long for, and it's even starting to stand up around the cowlick.  He's got a mouth full of teeth and is looking more like a little boy every day.  He runs (and falls) constantly.  And as if all of that wasn't evidence enough, now he's talking.  The words were slow to come--heck, I think Jacob was practically talking in phrases by this point--but now the words are really coming fast and furious.  Not always clear and accurate, but they're there.  Last week he finally started saying "car", and from that I got him to say "Carter"!  Last weekend he finally figured out how to add the "s" sound to "bus".  He loves buses and it had been sounding a bit like "bye" for quite a while.  I was trying to teach him the "s" sound, and suddenly he started doing it.  Now it sounds more like it's rhyming with "hush", but it's adorable.  Then he started saying "truck", only it sounds like "duck"!  He can say and point to his eyes and nose, he's saying "done" and "no" a lot, and we're getting closer to him using "yes".  He says "tractor" because of the one outside daycare at the farm next door, and uses it for any sort of large equipment with wheels.  We had a digger outside our house working on the road, and that was a "tractor" too.  He's been trying to say "pumpkin" and "lawnmower" is still his most frequent request.  He says "book" and "tree", and is even saying the name (sort of) of one of his favorite teachers.  Oh, and he can also say his own name!

I marvel at how many stages we've already passed, all of the sections we can skip at stores, and all of the toys that are simply too young for him now.  He's got such a little personality and quite the independent streak, but he will sit nicely for books will laugh at whatever his big brother does.  He still does that happy run when we pick him up at daycare or walk in the front door.  Despite the challenges that come with this age, it is such an amazing age to watch.  To see how fast he learns words and figures out how to do things himself is just miraculous.  He's still got that baby-like sweetness, but has some of the perks of a big kid. 

I got to see a new baby on Friday--a little over a month old--and it was yet another reminder that my baby is so big now.  Those little noises and little faces are long gone, though I love the smiles and laughs and hugs of this age, too.  I'm well aware that this is it, that this is the last baby and there are a lot of "lasts" to come.  In some cases I hate seeing phases pass, but I'm more mindful of enjoying them while they last.  I hug and kiss Carter as much as possible because I'm well aware (especially now that Jacob is getting so big) that that phase only lasts so long. 

Speaking of Jacob, he's getting to be so big.  I look at his gangly limbs and the half of a hole in his mouth where a permanent tooth is growing in.  His attitude sometimes seems more like a teenager, some of his behaviors more like a two-year-old, but to hear him speak like a big kid and see him become a more graceful athlete is amazing.  When he reads and writes, it's awesome to see how far he's come.  He's making such progress, and while he still doesn't seem to take it seriously, I can tell he's learning so much.  There are moments where he lets down his obnoxious, too-cool façade and just acts like a cool kid, and those moments are so wonderful. 

I just can't believe how the boys are growing, how fast Carter is blowing past stages that I vividly remember with Jacob.  I can barely believe that by the time Thanksgiving hits, Carter will be older than Jacob was when we moved into our house.  Jacob already seemed like a big boy back then and Carter still seems like my baby--even though in the next moment he's such a big boy, too.  It's such a funny time.  I fear the end of this fun, lovey phase because I adore kissing Carter's smooshy cheeks and hearing him say new words for the first time.  I fear that one day we'll be facing off with him as much as we do with Jacob, and by then I won't have another baby to keep me sane like I do now. 

I love my boys so much.  They are so amazing to watch as they grow and I marvel at the changes.  I'm just in awe of them.  I don't know how else to say it.  It's an amazing mix of happiness, sadness, amazement, and absolute true love.  What a blessing and an experience this journey has been.

Halloween!

Well, we survived another Halloween!  It's been a crazy week, but we did it...pretty well, in fact. 

On Wednesday we carved our pumpkin.  Jacob did a pretty good job this year of helping scoop out the seeds.  The pumpkin was rotting a bit on the inside, which was a bit of a bummer, but we got it cleaned out, cut a face (complete with a mustache, as suggested by Jacob), and cleaned up relatively quickly.  Carter sat and watched us, but when we turned the pumpkin around so he could see the face, he started saying, "No, no, no!" in this sad little voice.  For some reason it creeps him out, I think!  He kept saying "bye-bye" to it too, which I think was a hint for us!  I did move him outside as soon as I could.  

I found out Wednesday, too, that Jacob's class was not only going to be frosting cutout cookies, but they were also going to be tasting pumpkin bread and chocolate pumpkin muffins.  UGH.  That meant that I had a couple days to finagle some replacements that would help Jacob feel included.  I had already planned on making gluten-free cutouts, but now I needed to find something pumpkin.  Fortunately, I was going out to lunch with my group at work the next day, and we were going to our favorite little place in the city, this amazing restaurant that actually caters to special diets but makes delicious food for anyone.  It's fancier stuff than I usually eat, but every meal I've ever had has been spectacular.  And right across the street is a tiny bakery called The Gluten Free Chef.  Perfect!  I picked up a tiny loaf of pumpkin bread, and that was set!

I mentioned the other day that I had a funny costume idea that I managed to cobble together, and here it is...say hello to Velma Dinkley...

Yes, I'm holding a little Scooby-Doo and wearing my glasses from when I was 13!

The costume got quite a few smiles, and actually fit in with my research co-worker's "cat burglar" costume!

 

 

Craig took off part of the day to go help out in Jacob's class (he headed up a cookie frosting table!), then brought the boys to my office to trick-or-treat!  Carter has not been loving his costume, but I managed to get him into it with only a minor tantrum.  Of course, he would not keep his mouse ears on, so the body was as good as it was going to get.  We wandered around my office and the boys got candy from my co-workers and showed off their adorable selves.  Back at my desk, Carter was fascinated by the view out the window, with his own front-row seat to a great view 16 floors up!

Little Mouse, Big City

He was mesmerized by the train, buses, and cars he could see from up there.

Jacob was hanging out at my desk, fascinated by my giant pen, which was a gift from our first-ever intern.  She was a funny girl.

Craig took Jacob home and I left work early with Carter in tow so we could get home at a reasonable time and not rush to cram in dinner before trick-or-treating.  We got pizza and had a comfortable amount of time to eat and get ready.  Carter still wouldn't wear his hat, but I snapped this miserable shot of him for posterity.

Sad mouse :(

That costume has now been worn by me, Jacob, and Carter.  And I sort of feel like it's cursed, but more likely it's just the age.  Jacob split open his lip (leading to a visit to the emergency room) five minutes before trick-or-treating when he wore it, and tonight Jacob accidentally pushed Carter's ride-on car into his face (rescuing his ninja belt which was under it) and gave Carter a little bruise under his eye.  And Carter really didn't want to wear the ears, so it just seemed like there was no sense trying much with him this year.  But we got a couple smiles after the ears came off...

In all the chaos, this is the best picture I got of Jacob.  I actually liked his ninja costume despite the craziness we went through to get it (thanks to the annoying, overpriced Halloween store).

It was rainy and a bit chilly out, but Carter did seem to want to tag along for trick-or-treating.  I snapped a picture of our pumpkin on the way out...

I strapped Carter into the wagon, grabbed our safe trick-or-treating gear that I won via another blog (reflective slap bracelets and a flashlight), along with an old cereal box toy, a flashing skull, that's always been an extra little safety device on Halloween!  Our neighborhood is a bit hit or miss with houses.  The neighbors across the street were actually out tonight, but stopped by beforehand to drop off two big candy bars each for the boys!  We had to do a lot of wandering for the candy we got, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't more miserable.  It was in the 40s, I think, but despite the constant drizzle, it really wasn't freezing.  I didn't even need my gloves.  Carter was content, too.  At one point we passed back by our house and I asked if he wanted to go in.  He whimpered when I pulled in the driveway, so we kept going.  Jacob actually wanted to quit long before Carter did!

Our entourage

We did maybe 11 houses and Jacob wanted to be done.  He wasn't miserable or anything, he just wanted to be done.  My inner child thinks he's crazy, but my grown-up self thinks, well, at least he's not going to have an absurd amount of candy!  Aside from one house where we know the neighbors, Carter just sat in his wagon and I didn't bother getting candy for him.  He already had plenty from work, if nothing else!

We came home and Carter did not want to go in, even though his head was wet and it was getting colder.  I guess we'll have to get out the lawnmower tomorrow, no matter how cold it is!  Carter got to try a couple treats tonight--one little Kit-Kat and a couple Skittles--and of course started asking for more.  Oh boy.  We traded out the couple gluten treats Jacob got, and we ended up with a ton of candy leftover.  We got more kids than I expected with the weather, but after the year we ran out of candy, I always try to overprepare.  Oh, well.

All told everything (aside from Carter's mouse ears) went pretty smoothly.  Hard to believe November starts in 15 minutes and we're now on our way to Thanksgiving!  Time is flying!

Fall Fun!

It took almost all of October, but we finally got in some fall fun this weekend!  We are almost ready for Halloween (a.k.a., the day I will completely humiliate myself in the midst of my co-workers) and I feel like we did our duty.

Near the end of the week, Craig had to go to a work-related function up in Canada so I had the kids.  On the way out of the school parking lot, the sun shone perfectly above a huge line of clouds and it highlighted the trees so perfectly...

Looks like a painting, doesn't it?

Feeling fall-ish, and having Jacob complaining in the back seat that things are boring when Daddy isn't around, we played outside with the last few minutes of daylight.  Carter still wants to play with his lawnmower every chance he gets, and Jacob wanted to play a little hockey.  Jacob had had fun playing in the leaves at school, so I suggested we go in the back, try to rake up a respectable pile, and play for a bit.  Given the fact that we had so many leaves at our old house that we couldn't even rake them all before the snow came, it is such a weird change of pace to have almost no leaves at this house, even though our entire neighborhood is full of trees.  We have some trees in the back, but they just don't seem to fall in the yard.  Our neighbors' yards are full, though, and since no one's next door we could go over there...but we managed one decent pile and the boys had their three minutes of fun with it:

Throwing leaves at each other!

Saturday I was hoping the weather cooperated so we could go to the pumpkin patch.  When we woke up the forecast had improved and it looked like we'd be good until mid-afternoon.  Woohoo!  Originally I was planning on trying a new place that got good reviews on Facebook, but the more I thought about it, the more a new plan came into view.  I had been wanting to make another trip to one of our favorite spots for gluten-free food, the Livingston County Pizza Co., where they have a full, delicious gluten-free menu plus a full gluten-free bakery.  The big issue is that it's about a half hour away and not particularly convenient.  But our favorite pumpkin patch was in that general direction, and when I mapped it out, the pizza place was only 10 minutes beyond the pumpkin patch!  Sweet!  Still, we'd only have a couple hours to play at the pumpkin patch before we'd all be getting hungry.  Not that Carter would last much beyond that anyway, but keep in mind that we can't just grab a couple donuts like most people, so we have to plan a little differently.  Unfortunately, Carter was awake earlier than usual and ended up being a bit challenging for most of the trip, but we did it.

One of the first stops upon arrival was the alpacas.  They're so cute with their funny fur and long necks.  And when this one laid down and practically smiled for the photo, I couldn't resist...

It was a lovely day, cool but not cold, with plentiful sun.  The place was busy but not crazy, and we had plenty to check out...

Carter & Daddy

The next stop was this giant slide.  Jacob was such a big boy going up all by himself!

In the meantime, Carter climbed the hay bales, and I couldn't resist this picture of Jacob when he came back over, because I took one of him when he was three with the same backdrop.  My, how things have changed!

Next up was the giant jumping pillow.  This is a new thing at this farm since our last trip, and Jacob had a blast...

Next up was the animal section.  We took a ride on one of those barrel trains (though we rode in the caboose), and checked out some baby chickens.  We headed over to see goats, pigs, cows, rabbits, and a couple other interesting ones...

So, this is a yak.  I found it hilarious because just the night before, Carter and I were reading an alphabet book and the "Y" included a yak.  At the time I silently bemoaned the yak because, well, how often do you see a yak in your daily life?  I feel like so many things used yaks when I was learning to read, and how many had I ever seen?  Well, now it's at least one.

Say hi to a very intense emu.  They are really interesting animals up close...cool feathers, dinosaur feet, a twisty neck, and crazy eyes.

Next we walked across a bridge into an area better suited for the littler kids, full of tricycles, gravel pits, and duck races.  Carter pretty much just wanted to hang out in this car.

Craig tried yet again to teach Jacob how to pedal (seriously, he just can't make his body do it...it is the weirdest thing), and then they headed over to one of the gravel pits where Jacob got to use one of the diggers...

Carter didn't want to sit on the giant tractor even though tractor is one of his favorite words, and the only other thing he liked was pushing around trucks in the gravel.

Knowing we were short on kid patience, we headed back out to head toward the hayride, which goes toward some other activities.  Such a classic view, no?

One of my favorite family pictures ever was taken on one of these hayrides (also when Jacob was three), but I couldn't get all smiles (or a willing picture taker), so this will have to do...

On the other side there was a tire crawl, pedal cart races, a little volleyball area, and this sports challenge, which had basketball, football, and baseball sections.  Baseball was the easiest for Jacob and he could have done it for hours.

Carter and I wandered over to the remains of one of the pumpkin patches, where he was very purposefully pointing and talking to these pumpkins...

When Craig and I first came to this patch (I was newly pregnant but had no clue), we did pumpkin slingshotting.  Now they have high-powered apple cannons, too! 

Hard to see, but they're up on an army truck shooting apples at targets.  Man, those things flew!

Because we were short on time and the kids' patience was waning, we skipped the long line at the zip line (which is my favorite thing to do) and Jacob just did one quick slide on the tunnel slide through a hill, and we started heading back toward the front of the farm.  We made a pit stop at the spider web while we placed our lunch order...

...then took an unsuccessful trip to the corn box.  Jacob still enjoyed it but Carter wanted nothing to do with it.  Jacob really wanted to pick out pumpkins, so we did a quick scan of the small assortment that was left (well, small compared to what I'm pretty sure it once was).  Carter liked looking at them enough that the tantrums stopped for a bit...

 ...and Jacob found his choice...

Carter was trying to pick them up, which is exactly what Jacob wanted to do at this age...

...and he found one he could lift...

We paid for the pumpkins and snuck in a pack of donuts for me to hide in the kitchen.  Sorry, it was hard enough to avoid all the other tasty food there.  I really wanted donuts.  We said good-bye to this guy, and headed out to lunch.

Carter was asleep before we ever left the parking lot, and got a cat nap in while we drove to lunch.  We had our tasty lunch of gluten-free pizza and a cheeseburger panini, then picked out half a dozen cookies (two s'mores, two M&M, two chocolate crinkle) and a chocolate half moon cookie to go.  Carter fell asleep again on the way home and slept most of the rest of the afternoon.  I headed out to work on my Halloween costume.  Progress was made, though I am totally going to embarrass myself at work on Friday!  All in the name of fun, right?

We had a low-key rest of the weekend but it will be a busy week trying to get ready for Halloween.  I'm trying to decide if my costume needs more tweaks, and I need to decide what I'm going to use to give Carter a mouse face, because I no longer have the makeup I used for Jacob.  Jacob's costume is ready to go, but I need to make him a batch of pumpkin cutout cookies so he's got something to decorate at school on Friday with his classmates.  I also need to decide what I want to bring to work for the annual day of gluttony.  I frequently make my double-decker pull apart bread, but it's complicated in the morning when I already have multiple costumes to finagle.  We shall see. 

And nowlet's start praying that Halloween night is pleasant for trick-or-treating...

Lego!

Lego is a part of life in this family.  I grew up with Legos, as my brother was a big Lego builder.  I had a small set of my own that I liked, but once my brother outgrew them, I definitely enjoyed building with his.  My creativity was limited, but I still enjoyed it.  Craig loved Legos as a kid, and he started sharing his huge collection with Jacob pretty early on.  They spend a lot of time building and dreaming up things to build.  We have some Duplos waiting for Carter to be ready for them, too.

Jacob has gotten many sets over the years for Christmas and birthdays, and I've done my fair share of assembly.  For a while now I've been looking for a set for me.  I'm not sure why, exactly, but I guess I wanted one that was more my style, possibly one that I could use to play with Jacob or at least connect with him a little more on his level--you know, that Mommy has something cool.  My main concern with that scenario was that my set would most likely be a pretty pricey set and I couldn't really risk letting Jacob actually keep mine with his.  He'd steal pieces without even thinking about it, and they'd disappear into the abyss of Legos in our basement...meaning I'd never be able to build my fancy set again.  Even my cute free Lego store set that we got when we went to the Lego store opening here got gutted and I can't find the pieces I need to rebuild it.  Maybe someday if we organize the Legos better. 

I was mostly looking at the various Creator sets, which provide instructions for three different builds.  Last Christmas I was eyeing up a cool house that even included a light brick!  It was a neat modern house with a couple other options.  I never found it as cheap as I wanted it, though, and decided to just give it time.  Earlier this year I happened to see a new set, and it was exactly what I had been looking for.  It was a Creator set that could become a variety of different business/apartment combos.  When I was a little girl I played with Barbies and dollhouses, so this set seemed more up my alley than any other (well, aside from the $150+ super-fancy sets like the department store or the Parisian restaurant).  It was still more than I thought it was prudent to spend on Legos, though, but when my birthday came back in August, guess what the boys had waiting for me when I got home?

  

I almost made them take it back!  But I appreciated the sentiment, so it stayed.  And I started building.  Each building option in the set is hinged, so they can be a full building when closed up, or be open for playing inside.  First up was the flower shop.

Flower shop downstairs, apartment upstairs

The florist shop register.  Hard to see, but there's a couple flowers behind the glass.

This is the flower arranging station, complete with a spray bottle of water.

Upstairs is a fancy armchair and a table, plus two doors...one out to the stairs, and another to the balcony.  And yes, that guy is holding a chicken leg.

The exterior stairs...notice the cool planter and lighting...

The back entrance to the flower shop and the apartment balcony

The front of the flower shop is so cute...so many flowers and a cute canopy.  And how fancy is the work around the upstairs windows?

Next up was the mechanic shop with an office upstairs.  I love the corner placement of this one!

The wrench sign over the car bay is so cute!

Lots of cute little details in this one, including the cute picture window, key drop box, balcony, and cool stuff above the window

Inside to the left is the tool area, and the car and customer entrances are to the right.  Upstairs is an office with roof access, a coffee maker, and a flat screen monitor computer.

Back outside you can get a better view of the balcony and the view of the tools through the picture window, along with the key drop.

It broke my heart to take apart each of those creations, but it's all about progress!  Once I had tried out both of those smaller builds, I needed to move on to the big one!  This one had two buildings instead of just one, and it ended up taking me parts of a few evenings to get it all done.  Of course, when I took these pictures I forgot to add in the cool yellow car that was also part of this group!

This shows the two separate buildings placed together to look like a street, bike shop on the left and cafe on the right.

Front window of bike shop

Front window and patio of cafe...note the curtains!

Back of both buildings...bike shop loading dock on the right, stairs to apartment on left.

Balcony on bike shop includes a BBQ grill!

Inside of bike shop building...note the loading ramp from the loading dock and the double ladders to access the upstairs and the roof

Close-up of the apartment - bed on the left, and kitchen on the right.  The sink even has a basin and there's a frying pan on the stove!

Inside the café...I love the pendant light and the tiny table in the window.  The curtains are fantastic!

Downstairs in the café there are cupcakes on the counter and an adorable beverage machine!  Note the coffee cup hanging on the wall!  Upstairs is a side table with a cute lamp.  I didn't post one of the other side upstairs, but there was just a chair.  You also get a glimpse of the mini-garden on the roof.

The whole thing, opened up!  So charming, no?

The little arch was really cute with the sign comprised of the cup and the cupcake!

With that building closed up, the arch disappears and morphs into a two-sided sign.  And the ATM was awesome, complete with the dollar sign above the screen.

It's been a really fun experience putting these together.  The architecture is so pretty and so creative.  The fact that they can take a set of pieces and make three distinctly different builds is so amazing.  The concepts are all pretty similar, but they manage to tweak them just enough to keep each one unique.  I just love the little details, like the random stripes through the brick walls, the columns, the cute roof edging, and the sweet little window boxes.

I also earned some major cool points with Jacob, who said that I was a great Lego builder.  It stinks that I can't let him play with it, but he is totally the type to randomly steal pieces and I will never recover them enough to recreate this very expensive model.  But if he needs a neighborhood outside his baseball stadium, I might lend it out. 

Anyway, I know it's random, but this was a sweet gift from my boys and I wanted to share.  It was a lot of work and though it seems silly, I'm proud of it.