I never wrecked one on purpose before

Last Saturday was THE MOST PERFECT WINTER DAY (and yes, all caps are needed) - at least to Mr. Curly and I.  (Mr. Curly was grinning like a little boy all day, I love him so much!)

A little before noon it started snowing.  Huge white fluffy, packable, snow flakes.
So after lunch, the Curly Crew headed outside.

Probably from watching ELF, but maybe she remembered from last year, Curly Girl instantly started making snowballs and throwing them at me.  So, despite the fact that they were wearing thin cotton gloves, and not their thick waterproof snow gloves, we had a mini snowball fight.  She's got a good arm.

After that, we attended our Church Decorating Party.  Mr. Curly put lights up on the outside of the church (on a ladder, in the snow, that's my man), while I helped put up two trees, string lights, and the Curly Kids hung ornaments.  We also hung up wreaths and put up a mini nativity on the piano.  The church looks awesome.

And THEN (but wait, yes there's more!) we attended a Christmas light parade!  Living on the busy boulevard we do, which is always used to line up the parade floats, we thought we'd be able to watch this from our porch, but no, they lined up too far away.  So, horribly dressed for trucking through snow (the kids were in light fleece pants, I didn't have gloves or a scarf), we threw a sleeping bag and the boys into the wagon and trucked ourselves down to Central to watch the parade (while it was still snowing).

Not long after this shot was taken, Curly Boy wanted out of the wagon and Curly Girl wanted to be closer.  So we moved on down to the street, settled between two parked cars of people watching the parade, and covered Curly Baby up with the sleeping bag.
A little while later, Curly Boy was back in the wago, snuggled up with Curly Baby on his lap, nice and warm, while Curly Girl yelled MERRY CRIBMAS at each float, hoping for more candy canes and popcorn!

It's hard to take pictures of moving Christmas lights!  This is Santa in a helicopter, the music playing something about Santa in a whirly-bird.  The helicopter rotated around and seriously looked like those shots of helicopters crashing down.  (Hence the post title from The Last Castle in which Mark Ruffalo wrecks a 'copter on purpose and walks away only slightly shaken.)

And then, when the last few floats were turning the corner, we trudged home through the snow, grateful for big wheels on the wagon, while Curly Girl told us that "Little toes and little fingers are FREEZING, we need hot chocolate."  Which sounded good to us, so after a supper of pancakes and popcorn, we had hot chocolate.

What a beautiful day.

You're my inspiration.....

No, this is not a blog about pinterest.... I'm still internally debating about that service.

This is about my brother and sister-in-law.  You can read my sister-in-law's blog here.

For Christmas, she gave my two oldest Curly Kids travel trays.  They are metal baking sheets with laminated scrapbook paper on them.  She included a dry erase marker, a flannel eraser, and two wooden magnets.
From that, I decided to give Curly Boy action figures found at Toy-A-Day for Christmas, and Curly Girl will recieve a set of paper dolls found at Babalisme.

And I also need to buy a laminator.

My brother made Curly Boy a repositionable fabric roadway for his race cars... and now I want to create a bag for those as well.  It was amazing how quiet he was with his cars when I pulled out that road on Sunday at church!

I am so impressed with their creativity.  I know Mr. Curly is as well, but I can see his mental calculator ticking as I add homemade gift after homemade gift to our Christmas list.  I suppose I'll have to edit myself a bit.

Do the watermelon crawl...

>Mr. Curly and I have always tried to have a "fun" night for supper - some sort of really bad for you food and a movie.

Last Friday we did "build your own" pizzas and watched Madagascar with the kids. They absolutely loved it and actually ate all their dinner!

Monday was in the upper 90s so we pulled out the swimming pool and on my grocery shopping run, I couldn't resist the watermelon on sale. I wasn't the only one who couldn't resist. Curly Girl actually ate 2 pieces and Curly Boy ate two huge chunks and took a bite from every piece on the plate!

As promised....

When I wrote the blog about my mom's graduation, I said I would have a picture post following. I promise I promptly forgot, until now.


So here it is, dear readers, pictures of our weekend in dear old Kansas.



Playing in the dirt in Grandad's backyard. Shortly after this picture was taken, old tonka trucks of my brother's were pulled out and we moved into the tilled, but as of then, unplanted section of garden where the soft dirt provided hours of fun.



Due to the hours of fun in the dirt, a swimming pool and new suits were needed for the kids to rinse off before going back inside. Grandad even carved them a couple of boats!



How Curly Baby spent his afternoon at the park. This is the sling I made for $7.

Mr. Curly in the college procession - can you pick him out? I can!

My mom just after receiving her diploma. Her name was called so fast we almost all missed it!

Sharing every little thing....

First a big THANK YOU to my sis-in-law, Mrs. B. She has given me the courage, and all the knowledge, to try cloth diapers with Curly Baby!


Now, her way is the more (new*) traditional way of cloth diapering, and I will say, much MUCH easier than what I'm attempting. But she also plans on using her cloth diapers for many more kids. I'm going more artsy-fartsy (read: Cheapo) and making my cloth diapers out of old towels and t-shirts. When you have a huge box of defunct organization t-shirts, you gotta do something, right?


Anyway, if it weren't for her, we would be spending a TON of money a week to diaper both our boys!
Pictures of my cloth diapers coming soon!


Second - a huge THANK YOU to my sis-in-law on Mr. Curly's side for all she does for my Curly kids. She arranged their first Easter egg hunt, she restored a Barbie jeep to be useful for all three kids, and every time she is around she takes the kids off my hands!!

Plus, I'm pretty sure she somehow passed on her artistic genes and for that I am very very grateful!

So, yeah, I have stinkin' awesome sisters, and they deserve some praise!

*My mom calls it new, because you can buy all in one's, or cloth and covers, or flats and pre-folds and covers..... All SHE ever had was flats or prefolds and plastic pants! It's really quite fun to talk to her about.

Post Title from the White Christmas soundtrack, "Sisters."