He makes me laugh

This is cross posted from Daves blog about our Halloween - so if you read that already then you dont need to read this.

This post made me laugh so hard that I had tears :)

thanks dear- I love you!

The Princess And The Frog

~o~ BOO! ~o~

A few months ago my wife found a cute little frog costume for Zeke to wear for his first real halloween (he was around for last year, but at 2 weeks old, I don't count it as his "first").

The town I live in held a trick or treat event on Friday where all the stores down town gave out candy to the kids from 3-5 in the afternoon. My wife took Zeke dressed in his frog outfit. At the last moment she came across the awesome idea of dressing herself up as a princess. So a quick dig into her costume box (a result of years spent working in the recreation department of an old age home, and Debbie simply being fun - Sometimes she seems like the daughter of Mr. Dressup) and *poof* she became a princess. The results are what you see before you. My wife and kid, the Princess and the Frog.

Note: For those curious, my wife kissed the frog and he did not turn into a prince, so my status as her prince still stands. Zeke will remain our amphibious cohort for the next few days :)


So you may be wondering: What did Yours Truly dress up as? We I tend to frequently have this natural and unintentional Indiana Jones look about me (see pic below), so lets pretend I dressed up as him intentionally this year.

Regular everyday Dave-wear.

~o~ Happy Halloween! ~o~

My musical son

Dave and I were thinking about getting Zeke some musical toys lately.

We did buy him 2 maracas from Cracker Barrel when we went to the Nascar race.

We were talking about getting him an xylophone and other musical toys when I came across a bag of toys given to us by Emily months ago. I totally forgot about them (and also found clothes from someone else too ~I think I better go though my closets more often~)

I got these toys out before bed last night (bad idea.) Zeke stayed up an extra 30 minutes playing :)

The place I volunteer at has a player piano that Zeke just discovered last week. He found it again this week. he enjoyed plinking the keys so I sat him on the bench and let him play. After getting the video I found out that the piano is not for kids to play on (opps) so next time I will have to close the lid before he sees it again.

Speaking of volunteering- its getting harder to keep Zeke happy in his play pen and he really gets around when he is not in it. I am going to have to rethink this volunteering thing or get a babysitter. Its hard to think about paying someone to go to a place where I'm not getting paid.

My friend Deborah and I have talked in the past of switching kids so we can each volunteer and not have to worry about our kids. This would be an awesome swap. She isn't currently volunteering so she would have to set that up first.

anyway- back to my musical son- here is a video I put together.

I like how gentle he is with the piano. He was banging on the table a lot more and in rhythm before I got the camera out. I also didn't get him playing the xylophone

or you can find it here

embrace your brokeness

This is a post from my friend Kendra over at Southern Disposition

She has an awesome blog that I enjoy reading a lot. You should go over and visit her there (and even leave her a comment!)

Here she talks about embracing her brokeness

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2010

10 Reasons Why I Embrace My Broke-ness

I like to think that Eric and I are (usually) ok at life. Thank goodness for good luck. Part of that is owed to our parents who were conscientious enough to realize that we would need to be decent, productive humans one day. Part of it was the God's unfailing grace - He knows what we need even when He has to drag us through it kicking and screaming. The rest, my friend, we owe to being broke. You were taught wrong: Necessity is not the mother of invention...poverty is.

Things I would have never learned with well-lined pockets:

1. You can buy GREAT movies for $5. We own a LOT of $5 movies. A lot, a lot. That's because $5 movies are how we "go on a date." We go to Blockbuster, pick out something we've never seen before, and have a date-on-the-sofa night. It's awesome.

2. You can have a fantastic date night on a shoestring.Even simple "nice" date nights can cost over a hundred dollars:

• a nice dinner out for 2: $60
• movie tickets at the fancy theater: $30
• popcorn and drinks: $20

Instead we do this and save ourselves some funds:

• $5 movie: $5
• Takeout Dinner: $20
• Wine: $15

3. Sewing is therapeutic. I learned to sew because it satisfied my need to create as well as my need to patch clothing and make curtains without having to pay someone.

4. Children don't have to be picky eaters................

read the rest here

decision made

I have finished another quilt.

This was the quilt I asked people for the opinions about which way to put it together. The main answers were the first one pictured and the all in a row one.

I decided to go with the all mixed up one (I really like order in my quilts) to try something different.

I also talked about the fabric here.

Here are the finishing pictures:

The top put together and the border added

The back, batting and embroidery thread for putting it together

All put together. Im glad the backing I bought matched. I bought it a number of months later.

I tied this quilt every length and every other width (if that makes sense)

I wanted to use the fabric in large pieces so I could show the whole pattern in the one piece that has the alphabet letters on it

fwd: blog post

I dont know how I found this blog but I believe she used to be the pastor's wife from the church we now go to in NC.
They moved up to ONT.

Click over to her site to read the rest of this post....

Manuel's Got Me Preachin' It Up

Anyone else glued to the TV news today?

Trying to get bits and pieces of things done while your heart is in Chile?

A little blurry eyed as you see the miners emerge and reunite with their friends and family?

I'm right with you.

Billions of people around the world are doing the same thing ... watching, waiting, praying, praising. Billions! When he heard the word BILLIONS George said, "I'm sure every business man in the world wishes his logo was on that rescue capsule ... advertising to billions!"

Stick with me here, cause I need to take a minute and preach it up.

Come on, you can say it out loud, "Preach it sister! Preach it!"

So, no business man had the forsight (or the tactlessness) to get his logo on the capsule. But as I see it there IS advertising ALL OVER this story.

Did you catch the name of the rescue worker? MANUEL

Manuel ... does that ring a bell?

Do you know what Manuel means? Literally it means, "God with us".

.......

go read the rest of the post- I loved it.

God is Good!

vacation!

so some of you may have noticed that I havent posted for a little while.

Most likely no one noticed :)

Well we went on a vacation to Myrtle Beach with Daves family.

It was a week of fun and it flew by quickly!

Dave is posting our adventures on his blog I recommend going over there and reading throughout the week as he will be posting a few from myrtle beach there.

Daves family has been going to Myrtle Beach since he was little. I think his grandparents started it. Since I have known Dave they seem to have been going down every other year or so. I have been with his family on 3 trips there including this one.

We started off on our vacation by geocaching on our way down. This was fun and allowed Zeke to get some play time as well when we found a park with a swing :)

We left about 8:30 am and arrived at 5ish. We saw the sunset from Nana and Poppas condo. Daves sister and Family had a condo on the 11th floor, Daves parents were on the 6th and we were right above them on the 7th floor.

This was a great way to vacation. In the past they have all been in the same condo and sometimes it felt like you were on top of each other. I remember escaping on my own to walmart one year just to get out.

Now the condo was not set up quite how I expected. As soon as you opened the door you were in the bedroom. then came the galley kitchen and bathroom and then the living room with a balcony out to the beach. I understand that is so you have the best view of the beach. What I dont quite get is the straight into the bedroom- it was kinda like a hotel in that way.

Well we had zeke set up in the living room at night but he had his naps during the day in the bedroom. We did this so we had the better tv, comfortable chairs etc. during the day. Since the bedroom didnt have a door on it we were unable to leave or enter the condo without waking Zeke.

At night we would go down the one floor to visit with Daves parents. We had the monitor with us and were right by the stairs. At first I was a bit worried about this. but it worked out well for us to lock him in our condo while visiting Daves parents. We tested the monitor before we left him.

Does this make us bad parents? would you have done it?

He does go to bed at 7/7:30 so that would make for a long night.

He survived :)

We got a Date out of the deal too! Dave and I went to see Medieval Times. This would be the 3rd time for me and he 2nd for Dave but the first in Myrtle Beach (not that the story changes). We had a lot of fun!

Since we were all together just before the Canadian Thanksgiving we decided we would do a dinner together. We stared with a turkey and all the trimming then it went down to the rotisserie chicken at a grocery store plus trimmings to KFC for dinner.

We combined Thanksgiving and Zekes birthday.

It was a lot of fun to see Zeke get all messy and loving that sugar high! The crash happened quickly too since it was past bedtime!

hope you enjoy the pictures! You can click on them to be taken to the larger ones :)

A concert!

I think the last concert that Dave and I went to was back in the spring of 2008.

I had a friend on facebook post that they went to see Mary Poppins. I asked her where she saw that show and she sent me the link to this theater group in Charlotte . At the bottom of the page with the upcoming concerts, much to my surprise, was Great Big Sea!!

They are a band from Atlantic Canada that plays folk, sea shanties and fun music! They are popular on Canadian radio as well.

Dave and I have seen them before that the Molson Amphitheater in Toronto. They are a fun band to see.

So I got very excited about this concert here, 1.5 hours away!!!

I right away sent Dave a message asking if we could go. He was excited too- just not as much as me.

But first we needed a babysitter to cover from 4-12. Our third request was successful!

I was able to then buy tickets!

>>>fast forward to the concert.

We drop Zeke off at the babysitters where he got to go see soccer games and play outside with balls and on a playground and fell asleep without his night time bottle. So he had a great time.

Dave and I continued on to Charlotte, stopping for dinner at the Cook Out.

We got downtown early so we walked around a little bit. Downtown Charlotte is very nice.

The concert was in an old church that was converted into a theater, seating about 700. The ushers were rationing the playbill as they didnt print enough because they didnt expect the concert to be SOLD OUT.

I wonder how everyone heard about the concert. So I asked the people sitting next to us. They had been to Newfoundland and heard about them and went to see a show by a group called Anchors Away while they were there. (plus she gets the email with the shows that are coming up)

The concert started out on a high note and didnt disappoint. There was a lot of audience participation and banter. We even had an impromptu singing on "skinamarinkadink, skinamarinkydo" Many people were even doing the hand motions. It was a lot of fun!

Now I want their new CDs :)

new clothes!

First off we have something that Andrea gave Zeke when she found out I was pregnant. At the time I thought: 24 months- it will be a while before he/she fits that!

Well Zeke is 11.5 months and I'm starting to pull out his 24 months clothes!

it says "tiny turtle"

Next up we have something that Daddy brought home for Zeke from his recent trip to Ireland.