Kids and the Thomas Balloon

Since we saw Thomas last Friday, Stella is now able to say couple new words: choo choo and balloon.

Playroom...finally

Here is how it turned out. I have just been waiting for it to be cleaned up! It isn't *that* awesome. It needs paint for sure. Also we bought one more piece to the Trofast system we bought at Ikea but we decided that we had enough. Also we reused some old Ikea furniture that we had for the two tall toy shelves.

These were metal dry erase boards at Ikea for $12.99. I used some spray glue and turned it into a magnet board for the kids.

Found these metal strips with 3 magnets for $0.99.

See the rest on our flickr link (top right of this page).


Friday we went to see Thomas the Train. Woo hoo. Let me just say, it was madness. "Our" two favorite activities were the bounce house and reading books in the Gift Shop.




Here we are riding the train that Thomas is "pulling."

Another Door

Whew. Just finished putting in the storm door on the front door. I was wrong about it being pre-hung...but it installed the exact way as the back door so it went much faster. But this one had a couple fancier features that slowed me down a bit. I almost put the doorknob on upside down twice. But what an improvement, huh?

Outside


Inside


And here's a funny (I missed it, I was still putting up the door):
Nicholas has had a stuffy nose today and he told Shawn at bedtime...
N: "Daddy, I think I need Zyrtec."
(What the !? We don't have Zyrtec!!)
S: "Where did you hear about Zyrtec?"
N: "On TV. It makes you feel better and all the [big giant hand motion around the head] go away."

Gotta love commercials. They have convinced my three year old he needs Zyrtec. Hmph.

This week: Nature walk and a back door

Huh? I know. It's a weird week already.
Monday we were so not liking being trapped inside. It has finally cooled off here and we have been having the most perfect fall days- sunny, cool, slight breeze. Love it! So we headed outside for a nature walk. Not much nature in our neighborhood, I tell you. But Nick and Stella carried their little brown paper bags as if they were looking for gold. Then we went down the street to watch a cement truck pour concrete into a wheelbarrow. Woohoo. But Nick loved it. THEN, the man let Nick pull the lever to pour the concrete. Very cool. Then we headed home and colored our findings. (I just make this stuff up as I go along, okay. At least my kids don't care if it makes sense.) We spent almost the entire day outside.

Nick coloring:

Stella taste-testing:

Helping??


Tuesday: I finished installing a storm door to our patio (ok, Shawn did help, I had to let him. It was a heavy door and Shawn is tall.) We talked about getting one when we first moved into this house. And Sunday we bought two storm doors- one for the front and one for the back. The one for the front should be much easier b/c it is a pre-hung door. It is a really nice one. The back door is just a cheap door. I thought we should start with the back door in case we messed it up- no one would see it.
Attaching door to house:

Door hung up on one side:

Door and frame hung, glass and screen in door:

Oh, and no I didn't hang the door crooked. Promise. My house is crooked. Trust me. I measured and checked with the level like a hundred times. But, I am SO happy with how it turned out. I have never put up a door before, but it wasn't bad at all. No problems, really. Soon, we will have a really nice one on the front door!

IKEA!

We had such a great shopping trip to IKEA, or as Nick calls it "the place with a K." Spent 6 hours there on Friday. No lie. We toured all the model rooms and homes upstairs. Had a Swedish lunch in the restaurant.


Let the kids play and romp in the Children's Ikea. Then headed downstairs to the Marketplace and warehouse. It is just such an experience to shop at Ikea. But they are so unbelievably kid friendly. They even sell baby food at the restaurant and have free diapers at the restroom changing stations. And they don't mind if your kids try out their stuff. In fact, they encourage it. So we tried out the rooms,

the beds

and the toys. They loved these rockers so much that we bought them. Not bad- 10 bucks each. So $20 impulse buy on Friday. We had to get two. They were great to have in the hotel room.

Then another $20 impulse buy on Saturday. Oh, yes, we went back. Just quickly went around the rooms and homes, then played and had lunch. But Shawn is such a sucker for these kids!!

So now we have two new goldens (plush toys). Stella's is "ruff" named by her. Nick decided tonight that his is named "Puppy Dog." So now Stella sleeps with Piggy and Ruff. Nick sleeps with Doggie Dog, Baby Dog (Doggie Dog's friend), and Puppy Dog. Whew. That is a lot of animals to get to bed.

I don't know what this face is all about.


I have one last finishing touch to hang up in their play room. I really really wanted to paint but I was vehemently out-voted. Maybe in the winter. Pictures coming soon.

Mug O Cake

Nothing better than a quick way to make a little cake. Saw this idea here and here. And if you go there, you will see that they found it other places. But here's the deal. You put some ingredients in a mug and microwave it for three minutes and then you have CAKE! This is not just for kids. Cake-loving friends, you are welcome.

What you will need:

Recipe:
Mix these dry ingredients in the mug first:
4 Tbs flour
4 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs cocoa
Add these wet ingredients to the mug:
3 Tbs milk
3 Tbs oil
1 egg
remember Dry 4, 4, and 2. Wet 3, 3, and 1. Cook 3 min

Start mixing.

Mix very well.

Put in the microwave for 3 minutes.

Not one blog mentioned that your cake might rise up out of the mug. Both of ours did. But did not explode. Whew. Wanna see what I mean?

Dump in a bowl. If you can't wait that long, eat it from the mug. But it is very hot.

I will be making these again in my test kitchen to see if you can substitute applesauce for the oil. I bet this can be done with banana or peanut butter or pumpkin! Hmmm.
Everyone ate theirs differently- with Cool Whip, plain, and with powdered sugar. I think it needed real whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!
Satisfied customers:

Four days

until our trip to Ikea. I cannot wait. I have my eyes on some awesome kids-storage-organization-toy holding furniture. They call it Trofast. I am going to call it cleaned up. I want toys up off the floor in their play room. I want everything to have a place.

So what did we do this weekend?
Well, this:


Check out Wordle if you haven't already. You can type in a list of words. You can also enter a web address and it will "wordle" that site. The jpeg is then yours to do whatever with. Lots of possibilities.

Some spray park fun we had earlier this month.