Our day with cousin Jack

Poor Jack was homesick...he's been away from his momma for almost a week now. I pulled out all of my "make-toddler-happy" tricks to cheer him up. Those are usually things I would never let Tessa do because I'm so anal retentive sometimes.... would you believe that I let them finger paint on my kitchen table (that's a huge step for me, guys) and smear dirty, soapy water all over my glass kitchen doors? There was neon pink play-dough all over the kitchen floor, and would you know that I ignored it the best I could while they had a blast, pretending to cook with it? I didn't even make them put on shoes when they went outside. I know, right? Notice in the photos that they both went through a couple different outfits...

Jack doesn't like having his picture taken.

Thanks for coming over, Jacky! (like he's gonna read this, or something...)

Photo dump

On our back porch...

Hanging with cousin, Jack...

Look at that beast of a dog. And he's still a puppy.

Long day tomorrow...I'll be watching my 2 year old nephew (the one in the picture up there) for the first half of the day, and then Tessa's friend (also 2 years old) will be coming over for a few hours in the second half. Tomorrow will be a headache day.... I should be sleeping right now.

Cheers!

This might be too deep for you...

I adore this baby.

Sorry for making you smell my pits, little guy.

There's just something about a mother/son relationship. Or maybe I'm just experiencing what it's like to overflow with love for more than one person. I'm madly in love with both of my kids just the same, but my connection to each of them feels different. It really is amazing. Love is good.

The apple looks angry

I'm gonna have to stop putting a fruit bowl on the kitchen table. Tessa thinks it's okay to eat-and-run.

Bye, summer.

We went to my mother-in-law's house yesterday evening with my sister-in-law and her family of 6 (soon to be 7 on Wednesday-- can't wait to meet baby Joey!). The kids enjoyed some cotton candy ice cream from Maggie Moo's (which apparently turns your poop bright blue), and then we set off fireworks once it got dark.

Tessa wasn't a fan, but Max was. He stayed awake through them all, staring while sucking on his paci.

Fun way to end the summer.

Rainbow catcher

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if you told a 2 1/2 year old to paint a rainbow on a paper plate? One of my favorite bloggers, Meg Duerksen, has "Craft Thursday" with her kids every Thursday and blogs about it, and I usually try to copy every single one of them because I'm a loser like that. Today's craft was a rainbow wind catcher (Tessa kept calling it a "rainbow catcher). Of course, Meg's family's looked perfect. Mine turned out okay:

Then there's Tessa's:

Epic, I know.

Ta-dah.

P.S. Snaps for those of you who picked up on the "a double rainbow!!" reference.

P.P.S. I do actually put clothes on my daughter. They just always seem to fall off, layer by layer throughout the day.

P.P.P.S. I love Meg Duerksen so much that I have her blog title "Whatever" tattooed on my booty.

P.P.P.P.S. I'm SO kidding.

P.P.P.P.P.S. I hope she doesn't read this.

Are you in a bad mood?

Yeah?

Well, I bet you aren't anymore.

Blog under construction

Please bear with me :) Here, I'll give you something cool to look at while this blog gets a makeover.

Good morning

No, really. Every morning is a good morning at our house.

Happiness is balloons and ice cream cones

Just looking through some old photos today. This was Tessa's second birthday:

That photo makes me happy. This next one makes me happy, too:

Ice cream on the boardwalk. I miss that.

Best Shot Monday - Blue

I'll be doing "Best Shot Monday" again, just like I did on my old blog. I'm not a photographer by any means, but everybody has a "best" shot. Mine just might not be as "besty" as yours.

I never thought I'd have a blue-eyed kid. I mean, it was totally possible (obviously).... we have a few blue-eyed people on my side of the family. I just always thought I'd have dark complected kids. So I'm pretty thrilled with this little surprise.

By the way, this is my almost-7-wk-old squishy baby Max. He's my boy :)

A few of my favorite things...

...in my living room. We just moved into this house at the end of June, and these are a few things that make it my living room (we're renters).

The silhouettes. I still haven't done one for Max. You try getting a newborn to hold his head still for a picture like this. It's not easy.

My breakfast nook. I don't know why I call it that. We don't eat breakfast there. Heck, we don't even sit there. It just looks cool. (I'm sure you noticed that we haven't completely unpacked yet.)

Somebody gave us this chair, and it was hideous until I breathed on it and made it fabulous. I recovered the seat cushion with this psychadelic fabric from a shop call Fabricworm on etsy.com.

I got this "Moses" sculpture for James last Christmas. He really likes Michelangelo's "Moses", so I got it for him kind of as a joke. I think it turned out to be a neat little gift, though.

I found this clock at a little odds and ends store in Winona Lake, IN. It sort of brings back bad memories of my darker times living out there by myself, but that doesn't make it any less cute. Well, maybe a little.

I LOVE this amish-made rocking horse/high chair/children's desk. It was a gift for us from my in-laws at my first baby shower

Here's another one of my favorite things, although she wasn't in the living room. She saw me taking pictures and said, "Take a picture of me, Mommy, and I'll smile."

Thanks for looking at my stuff. I'm sure it was a great use of your time. Posting it sure was.

My blog title

"...and that's how you do it".... a phrase often used by my 2 1/2 year old at the end of every babble. "You just give me some fruit snacks like this in my hand so I can eat them in my mouth, and that's how you do it." "You just write your name like this: PSOmommy. And that's how you do it." "I just throwed this book at your head because I did it, because I wanted to, because I did it and I did, I went like this with my arm and the book throwed out like this, and that's how you do it."

Once upon a time I used to be a blogger. And then I wasn't. But now I am again, and I'll try harder this time. And that's how you do it. (You had to know that was coming again.)

This is where I would normally give you an introduction about who I am and how I live my day to day life, but I hate those. So, if you don't already know and you're curious, I guess you'll just have to stick around for a while. Will this photo entice you?