Happy Halloween!

From Kris, Baby Turtle (SQUIRT) and NEMO :)

Pigtails or Puppy Dog Tails?

Hi all!!!! Yep... we're pregnant again!!!! The final (trust me....) Baby Valenti will join us in early April of next year and we find out next month whether we're having a little girl or boy. I'm ~ 15 weeks along now and am *very* happy to be out of the icky first trimester. In general I do really well when pregnant, but the first trimester is always the hardest - tired, and just generally off my game. I'm starting to feel like my old self again - perfect timing for the upcoming holidays!!!

We found out the big news on Frank's actual 40th birthday in late July- it'll be a birthday that he'll never forget!

Not much else new is really happening around here. Fall is everywhere, so we're grabbing at every opportunity to be outside while we still can. Our eldest dog, Higgins, turned 12 this month - Happy Birthday Higgy!


Also have been working on the front yard a bit here and there - am pretty much done planting bulbs (irises, daffodils and tulips ) - 90 down and ~ 40 more to go. Talk about tedious.... The toughest part of planting them is that our land is incredibly rocky, so I can get a few inches and then need to either extract HUGENORMOUS rocks (with the help of Frank if he's around), skip the area, or just plant and hope for the best. I'll be interested to see what actually comes up next spring...

We've been doing a lot of rock and leaf hunting / gathering lately - Sydney seems to be pretty smitten with the red and gold ones :) It takes us an hour to walk our 1/4 mile neighborhood loop, but she loves every minute of it, so it's worth it!

Off to start the day! Brother Ben's first birthday was yesterday and we're having a birthday party for him and 2 other little boys this morning - the kids get to wear their Halloween costumes, so it should be a fun time! I'll take pics of the gifts later and post them next time :) Happy fall everyone!

Feeling so *International*!

How neat is this?! Just got an email from a customer (Hippe Hippo) who sells my bags in Norway - she's at a diaper show this weekend and took some pics: (I added the little text blurb at the top left). So fun :)

Off to make another one of these outfits for a birthday party tomorrow - how cute would this look with some tights and brown boots?!

PlayDuuuuuurgh!

We love PlayDoh around here - I'm talking about up to 3-4 hours some days of PlayDoh love...

I finally decided that our first 2 packs need to be retired - one is filled with ~ 6 containers of nasty gray, gummy, yucky PlayDoh (from when Sydney decided early-on to combine all of the colors). The other pack still has it's original colors intact, but they crumble pretty easily and are very hard to work with.

Out with the old, in with the new... BUT.... did you know that the PlayDoh brand containers aren't recyclable?! Hubby thought I was nuts when I told him that I am boycotting buying any more of that particular brand anymore (given Sydney's PlayDoh love), but seriously - there's got to be other options out there that are more eco-friendly.

So the search begins...

I can make my own playdough:
- recipe on HowtoMe.com
- recipe on eHow.com

Or can get some of the ecofriendly playdough that's out there:

- Ecoplaydoughfactory.com


"Eco play-dough is delivered to your door using recycled pails and air tight tamper-proof lids. On collection day simply leave your pail and old eco-dough out for collection and one of our team will pick up and replace with fresh, hygenic Eco Play-dough. EPDF will then recycle your used Eco-dough to create a by-product you can use in your Garden -Eco Fertiliser. "

- Over the Rainbow

- Mary's SoftDough


I'm thinking scented playdough is a nice idea, but given that kids already like to eat the regular stuff, I'll stay clear of the "flavors" for a few years :)

I will give making it a try, but I've heard from several friends that it's pretty messy (which could be fun....) and doesn't really work that well. Would love to hear ideas / feedback from any of you guys that have tackled this issue already. Thanks! ~ Kris