Very random things

 My autumn display of heirloom pumpkins and a giant gourd.  I have managed to keep the dining room table nice while the rest of my house is in a perpetual state of disaster.  I think I may soon be giving in and finally getting a cleaning lady to come once in a while.  

Outside the Box
In case anyone has wondered, "Gee what interesting conversations do Kevin and Bridget have when no one else is around?" here is your answer. (And I realize absolutely no one has ever thought about what we talk about, ever). 

Me - "Kevin, I have an idea.  Its a little crazy and definitely outside of the box, but hear me out."
Kevin - "This is going to be good, hold on."  (Then he makes the outline of a pretend box with his hands and dramatically steps outside of it, because he is going to think outside of the box and he is sooo funny.) "Okay, I'm ready." 

Me -  "What if we move the ironing board from the guest room to the basement so I can iron while I watch tv?  Maybe then I would get more ironing done!  I would keep it in the storage room out of the way." 

I think we need our own reality show, it would be fascinating.

Grace Update

Grace got to go swimming Sunday and had a lot of fun, thanks Grandma Jane!

Grace, in what can only be explained as an effort to ensure she is still thought of as being a 'character', said "Mommy you are small and Daddy you are big.  But Mommy your booty is big and Daddy your booty is small."  Perceptive little girl.


Team Spirit

At times my job can be, uh, funny.  I am on the Spirit Squad for our team, which Kevin finds HILARIOUS,   Given that I am not very spirited or lively or whatever.  We try to do fun things for our team, which can be challenging since we all work all over the country from our homes.  For Halloween this year we were sending everyone a little packet of candy.  So I agreed to go buy candy, put together the bags and mail them out for a portion of our team. I will not bore you with the details but lets just say mailing these suckers out was a bit of a fiasco.  I may now be banned from the Mayfair post office since I threw a little bit of a fit last night.....they are going out for the last time tomorrow.  If they do not get where they are supposed to go I get and A for effort and there may be some less spirited members of the Accenture Products North America HR Team. 

 Andrew Update
This little guy has been a handful lately.  He walks, very fast, towards danger.  Stairs and the streets are like magnets for Andrew.  He has fun knocking over glasses.  He throws things on the floor, really hard.  He STILL poops in the tub.  He carries food around and leaves crumbs everywhere.  He tries to stand up on chairs and laughs when he is caught.  He screams when the baby gates goes up.  But to make up for this he has started pointing and talking gibberish.  So cute.

Playtime
 The kids did not nap today. I spent 20 minutes reading a magazine article while they "played".  They were supervised I just wasn't following them around picking up everything they got into.  And this was the result of about 3-4 minutes of "playing....not great pictures but they illustrate that the mess was widespread.  

Then they abandoned this game and started playing what Grace calls "Take the Granola Bar from Andrew".  Which is a pretty comprehensive title and resulted in a lot of crying from Andrew.

Andrew's Nursery

Now that Andrew is 14 months old, I thought I should finally finish his nursery.  I was thinking I would wait until he expressed a liking for something...trains...cars...sports....but this isn't happening.

So far he likes:
1. climbing the stairs and trying to walk down them by himself (which he absolutely cannot)
2. throwing things in the bathtub and whining for me to get them out
3. all things related to the toilet, but especially the little covers that go on top of the bolts that secure the toilet to the floor.

Not popular themes in home decor.  So I went with elephants.

Hook from Kevin's room when he was little....

Since his room is so small, we needed some more storage - Kevin had a blast putting up these shelves. 

The Andrew sign was made last week with $10 of materials from Michaels and 20 minutes of my time.

Growing up we had this Babar book, just look at that dapper elephant!

I am not sure how much I liked it when I was little, but I love the Babar books now.  The illustrations are so beautiful.  So to complete Andrew's elephant theme I removed 3 pages of the book and framed them.

Very simple project and I think they look great.  Although Grace was extremely disappointed that I hung them in a straight line.  She wanted me to hang them in random spots around the room.

just a moment ago

Yes, there is drool on the book.

Apple picking!

 Last week we headed to Neiman's Apple Orchard in Cedarburg.  It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.  We had never been apple picking before and it was fun to see how the apples grow in cute bunches.

 I made Kevin prove his tree climbing skills to get some good cortlands at the very top of one tree.

 Andrew and Grace loved the ladder.

Awesome Fall Day

The weather was gorgeous today and we had a great time outside.

Sandbox fun

 Driving in the car.

 Andrew figured out that he can grab the mailbox and bang it against the wall.  He enjoyed grunting and banging for a while.

 Grace and Andrew were adorable playing together.  They collected leaves and then crushed them in the "trunk" of the cozy coupe.



Apples Apples Apples

After we went apple picking we had to use all those apples!

 Salad with cheddar, cranberries, walnuts and apples (obviously, we are in Wisconsin after all!)

 Roasted chicken with apples, potatos and rosemary.

Then we made applesauce.

With the washing, peeling, cutting, cooking, puree'ing (is that a word?) and dishes...it is a lot of work for something you can buy for $2 at the grocery store!

Then we used the applesauce to make apple muffins....which I did not get a picture of.