Happy Halloween!

James

The best picture ever - look at Brenna's face! She had had enough Halloween by then. :-)

Fluffy Brenna Dog

Save it for Therapy

Tonight I made a last minute schlep to Target after we decided that, yes, the kids will be dressing up for Halloween even though it is less than 12 hours away and we have no costumes. Apparently we aren't the only procastinators in Elkhart county because the costume aisle was packed and a huge mess. After settling on a puppy dog costume for Brenna, (it was either that or a sock puppet costume that was a little freaky looking...) I had almost resigned to dressing Riley up as a pony - how lame! Then it happened. While digging through a pile of sexy vampire dresses trying to figure out which one would be cubicle appropriate, the heavens opened up and the angels smiled upon me and I spotted James.

Not his favorite engine, but I do believe I am a hero in my 2 1/2 year old's eyes right now. In fact, Riley insisted on wearing the costume to bed. Of course there will be pictures posted tomorrow.

After my awesome find, I was feeling pretty good and strolled to the baby section to get some pull-ups. On the end cap, they had boxes of 68 pull-ups for $11.88! And I had a $2 coupon! Normally they are at least $19.99! So I'm thinking, "Could Target be any more perfect??" But then it hit me...all of the boxes were pink. There were no "boy" pull-ups on clearance. Only pretty pink "girl" pull-ups that literally had princesses on them. Dilemma. Do I save $10 and go with the pink? Or do I secure my son's masculinity and pay out the nose for the blue ones? I decided to go with the pink.

Others in my household (**cough, cough**...JEFF) feel I just don't get it and that I can't put princess pants on the boy. I say that their main purpose is to catch his poop and it doesn't matter what color they are. And if it DOES matter, I've just given him another topic to bring up during one of his therapy sessions later in life. After all, don't they always blame it on the mom? :-)

Oh, you were curious about what I'm dressing up as for Halloween??

A vampire of course.

How YOU doing?

It seems that I tend to blog about things and then just abruptly stop...(sorry mom!) so here is an update on the Rudd's thus far...

Riley is sleeping in his own bed! It was much easier than I thought it would be. I guess it was just time. He still puts up a little protest, but is content when you agree to read three books and watch some episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine. (Yes, my 2 1/2 yr old son has a tv in his room. I swore my kids would NOT have tv's in their room, especially so young! But it keeps him in his bed and allows us to watch something OTHER than Thomas and Friends.) He's such a good kid - says "please" and "thank you" and helps out with his sister. Little boys don't come any sweeter than this.

Brenna is a hibernating bear right now. She's moved up to eating 6 oz at a time and is CONSTANTLY SLEEPING! Last night, she slept from about 5 pm to 4:30 the next morning! She's growing like a weed and is so so sweet for the few hours she is awake. :-) She may look like her daddy, but she's as photogenic as her mom. Which is not at all. She's so precious when she smiles so I tried to catch a picture of her this afternoon and this is what I got...

Terrified Brenna

Brenna giving me the ol' stink eye.

And doing her best dead possum impression.

I did get ONE semi-blurry, but super sweet one. It showcases her pretty red hair.

Jeff is doing really well. Working hard among all the layoffs his company is doing. The RV industry is really awful in Elkhart County right now - the NY Times even did a story on how Elkhart is the "white hot center of the meltdown in the American economy". (Click here to read the story) Jeff works in IT (a.k.a. the computer guy) and not in the actual factories, so he does have some job security. I'm grateful to have a computer nerd for a husband! He's a good man and an awesome father.

Me - well, I'm good. I some how thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the craft fair at work, because I don't have enough on my plate with two kids, a house and a full time job. So I've been making cards like a mad woman. It's next week, so we'll see how I do! I've had some requests for my stuff already! I just hope I don't disappoint! I'll try and post some pictures of my creations before they are sold.

The whole "weight loss Wednesday" has been put on the back burner. I could come up with a thousand excuses why, but honestly my inner brat has won out recently and I just don't want to eat well and exercise. As much as I know I should and as good as I felt when I was going strong! I do really really really want to do the 5k that Mandy Hall is holding in March in honor of her son Connor. I am going to do it. I just need to get my brat in line. Like the Japanese proverb, Fall down seven times - stand up eight!

So what's up with you?

(p.s. how do you like the look of the Mighty B's blog?? I did the header myself! It only took me about four hours and a million google searches for tutorials on how to use Photoshop! HA! But now that I have it figured out, (sort of) I can't wait to make more! Start a blog! I'll design your header for you!! Only $29.95!)

Let it Snow!

Here's the local forcast for this week.

See those pretty little white things on Monday and Tuesday???

It's SNOW! I LOVE IT!

Mighty B Edit: The wonderful snow was actually just incredibly cold, big, wet, awful, semi-frozen raindrops. Blech. Bring on the real snow!

Cool Scrapbooking Class

I found info on this class at Cathy Zielske's website. I've never taken one of Jessica Sprague's classes, but she always has some really neat stuff. I'm very interested in learning more about digital scrapbooking (I'm not sure how much of that will be in this class...) and especially learning new ways of looking at scrapbooking. It looks pretty cool - and it's FREE! - so I signed up. Anyone else interested in taking it with me??

Go HERE for more info!

Night #2

This is my second night on bedtime patrol and so far so good. We read three books, (Sleepyhead, The Monster at the End of This Book, and Go Train Go). And now he is in bed with B-Bear - who wasn't thrown at me tonight - and D-Dog. Every now and then he'll yell, "Mommy wake up!" which to Riley means, "Mommy I don't want to go to sleep". But it's relatively quiet. May even get to bed before midnight tonight!

So Hard

We have gotten in the bad habit of letting Riley sleep in our bed. Since he's nearly 3, we decided it's more than time to get him to sleep in his own bed. Since I have tomorrow and Friday off, I'm the bedtime police for now (Jeff will be on duty Friday and Saturday night). Right now, Riley is sitting on his bed with D-Dog (he threw B-Bear at me when he realized what was going on.) and he is screaming. Sobbing. Wailing. He's only tried to come out of his room once, and went back to bed pretty well (screaming the whole way, but didn't resist like I thought he would). Every now and then he'll get quiet and I'll think, "Yes!" - then it starts again, "Mommy! NOOOOOOOO!"

Ugh. I know this is the right thing to do. But MAN! It's so hard! I want to run in there and hold him and say, "It's okay! Mommy's sorry! You can sleep our bed! I'll squish into your toddler bed!" But then I remind myself - I am the parent. He is the child. I want him to grow up to be a responsible little man, not a spoiled brat. He is not hurt. He will live through this. And so will I.

So now I sit and wait and listen to the crying. Clutching my Supernanny book and praying, "Please Lord let me make it through this..."

Daddy's Girl

I just can't get enough of the tiny B. She's so sweet and smart (she's rolling over already! At 3 months!). And to think I wasn't sure I wanted a little girl!

She looks exactly like her daddy, but with Aunt Jen's red hair!

Love you Miss Brenna Nicole! My little smoochie girl.

Celebrate good times COME ON!

Leaving up the birthday stuff in honor of my pal Haley Ramer! Happy Birthday!

Happy Happy Birthday to ME!

28 years on this Earth...looking forward to many more.

Seriously.

Dear John McCain,

After losing control of my mouth last night, I'm trying my hardest to be nice. But you're making it very hard. Your cronies have called my cell phone THREE times tonight. The first called Senator Obama "Bear-ick Obama" and the third called Barack a baby killer. (The second got an earful from me then hung up). Is this some kind of joke? Am I being punked?

Please stop calling me or I will be forced to blog about your opponent again.

Thank you,

The Mighty B

Simmah Down Now!

Whew! Ever heard of drunk dialing? Well, last night I did some tired-blogging (and emailing...). I got all fired up and posted some stuff, when what I really should have done was smiled, hit delete and went to bed. I have very passionate political views and stand behind everything that I said - but this isn't the right "forum". I want this blog to be about my family, me, happiness, love and making life easier. So the posts have been deleted. Sorry folks!

The Best Place to be is Together

Yesterday we made a family trip to Mishawaka. I've been wanting to go to Pages In Time (the best scrapbooking store for miles around here!) and we wanted to take Riley to Toys 'r us for the first time. I finished my whirlwind shopping trip at P.I.T. in record time and came out with some really cute papers like:

and

and some other things. I also picked up a Maya Road chipboard album to do my Week in my Life mini-book. I'm looking forward to digging into that this week!

Toys 'R Us was dangerous because they had a Thomas and Friends train table set up with the wooden trains for kids to play with. Riley LOVED it:

The fun part was the screaming, kicking and crying when it was time to go! Yeah, we won't be doing that again anytime soon. But we do know what Santa Clause is bringing this year...

And here is super sweet tiny B being the good pretty girl she is.

My Son DOES Wear Pants!

I realize that Riley hardly ever has pants on in any of these pictures. The stinker will come home, kick his shoes off, throw his hat on the floor, and his pants usually come off soon after that. But - here is proof that he does wear pants sometimes!

Sometimes he wears his pants backwards...

And sometimes he shows a little crack.

Feeling Thankful

Gas prices are finally going down!

They are even lower today - this picture was taken Thursday!

The leaves are changing.

(A pretty scene on CR 18 near my house.)

I have a dependable job that provides me with a great income and terrific and affordable healthcare for my family. And they do little things to let me know I'm valued - like give me a nifty pen, 2009 planner and COFFEE! (Pumpkin latte...yyuuummmyyy)

Life is good.

Gratuitous Nudity

Lovin' me some baby fat rolls!

Ms. Bren - this had better be the ONLY time your nekkid butt ends up on the internet!

Whatever Mom!

What are you waiting for?

If you do nothing else today...listen to this. I'm telling you folks, you will not regret it.

Live Passionately.

A Mighty B How-To

With two kids still in diapers, we go through a LOT of wipes in the Rudd household. Wipes are EXPENSIVE and were eating up a big chunk of our grocery budget. So recently I indulged my inner Martha and attempted to make my own baby wipes. It was actually pretty easy. And surprisingly they work really well - so well, in fact, that I haven't bought wipes since! So now I will share my frugal wipe-making technique with you. (With the help of the cutest assistant ever!)

Step 1: Gather your materials.

You'll need baby wash, baby oil, a roll of paper towel, and a container that seals. (Yes, this is a wipe container that I 'scrapbooked'. This was done during my nesting period of pregnancy. Don't judge me. :-) )

Step Two: Take the paper towel and cut the roll in half. Remove the inner cardboard tube and pull the towels out from the middle like so:

Step Three: In your container, mix 1 1/2 cups of warm water with two tbs of baby wash and one tbs of baby oil. It helps if your "stirrer" is adorable:

Last step - place the paper towel in the container, close the lid, and flip upside down. Leave in your sink (because it may leak a little) for approximately 10 minutes to allow the fluid to soak into the paper towel.

I used Kleenex Viva towels as the are strong, really soft, and were on sale at Target. :-)

Let me know how it works for you!!

Clean-up, clean-up, Everybody do your share

Clean-up, clean-up, Everybody do your share
Originally uploaded by jwlphotography

Look at this picture and try NOT to laugh - I dare you!

We're no dummies

We're no dummies
Originally uploaded by jwlphotography

One of my favorite things to do recently is check Flickr for different pictures. I love taking pictures and would LOVE to have the artisitic ability that some of these photographers have. This is one of my favorites from today. This photographer has the CUTEST kids and takes some amazing pictures!!

(Click on the picture to look at the book titles - so cute!)

It's Just One of Those Days

Feeling a little blue today. You know how it is - to quote the Carpenter's, "Nothing is really wrong, feeling like I don't belong." Just started off as a rough morning. Lately it seems like I yell at Riley way more than I mean to. And even though I had the past two days off, I feel like I never get to spend any time with them. It also doesn't help that all I seem to find are depressing news stories like this and this.

I tried walking around on my lunch break. It's a great fall day and the riverwalk that the city is building across the street from my office is really nice. But I'm still feeling melancholy and antsy. May need to take some mental health time off...

Weight loss Wednesday...two days late!

Quick post on my progress so far - the scales at work say 211!! woohoo! only two pounds to go until I hit my first goal. Can she do it? Yes she can! (we've been watching Bob the Builder lately...)

A Week in my Life - Wednesday Pics

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A Week in my Life - Work Edition

Make a Smilebox slideshow

One Month To Live

I have several things I want to post today. Not sure if I'll get around to all of it, but I wanted to be sure to post this. Before I met Jeff and moved up north, I had started attending a church in Kokomo. I really loved attending Oakbrook. It felt like no other church I had ever attending - and I have yet to attend one like it. Mark Malin has a true gift for presenting a message that is thought provoking and relevant to everyday life.

I was THRILLED when I stumbled on their website one day and found I could listen to the messages online and even download them to my iPhone through iTunes. The current series is called "One Month To Live". I've only listened to the first service, but it was amazing. See for yourself...

I can't wait to hear the next service.