Auction Night out with Momma!
So, quick post.... Mom and I are embarking on shopping this whole month for items for their new home/ B&B.
First night out-- Auction night. Great date! Had NO idea of what to expect but quickly learned alot!
I of course came prepared with my new itouch to take notes of items we may like and want to think about.... along with a camera. Last minute i luckily asked mom if she thought i should take the camera or not and she said no. Thanks mom, I would have looked like a royal idiot!
We got in there and were a bit dumbfounded and quickly realized there would be no time for notetaking nor pondering buys.
Better gitchya a number and speak up if you want it! It was so fun. 5 min into it we found ourselves following CLOSELY behind the auctioneer as we were ready to pounce on him for what we wanted. Long story short- we left with some good buys and laughs.
Guess where we'll be next friday night!!

Kombucha... Kom-whatcha??-Kombucha

Don't ask.
You know me. I'm always into something going against the flow. But now, even Jacob says I've gone off the deep end! :)
We have these awesome friends on our street who are very similar to us and the other day they saw me working in the garden and brought a drink down for me to try... and of course i will try most anything labeled as natural or healthy, probiotic, blah blah blah. Basically anything not FDA approved I will eat! :) Give it to me in it's most natural form!
So we loved it. And then a week later he/Mark said he had a scoby ready for us.
A WHAT?? That's right, a Scoby. Too much detail and seriously, i still don't fully know what it is so you can wikipedia it if you care :)
So I brought my Scoby home and made a home for it under my kitchen shelves for it to ferment ( in a brew of black tea and sugar) I've left it for 5 days and it is crazy incredible! Or freaky. I poured the liquid into 2 glass bottles and made another brew to ferment for next week and put the scoby back ontop- or you could call it a sea anemone like jacob :) Also in the glass bottles i put just a smidge of freshly juiced muscadine grapes so that when it ferments for 2 more days it will have a fruit flavor.
Wednesday should be full of Surprises!
We're brewing beer! Scary. :)

Lucy's 3 1/2 B-day celebration

So Lucy had been inviting people to her birthday ever since her 3 yr old party ended... so we decided it is a great excuse to invite friends to hang out for her Half Birthday! Originally we planned to have it outside at our playground but the weather said rain 60% chance all weekend long. So change of plans... We took our sweet kiddos and friends to a very new Cupcake store in the Vista! They loved it! They ate more icing than the actual cupcake but definately enjoyed themselves. Then we got all our sugar energy out by taking them to the nearby park / Finlay park downtown to let them go wild... and go wild they did.... and crashed they did when we got home :) Lots of silliness and laughs. These are our good friends Aria, Isabelle, Liam and Owen (Children of our friends Brandon and Rachel, and Blake and Laura). We are thankful for good families to grow our kids up with!

Last friday I made caramel candies. I know, not the first nor the last thing you would expect me (healthnut) to make. But the autumn in the air for some reason makes me want to have fresh caramels. So, we endeavored and succeeded! Very simple but you gotta be able to stir extremely hot sugar for about 15-20 min. We placed walnuts on top of half the batch- HUGE batch!- and wrapped them individually. Lucy enjoyed helping to wrap them. We took them to a baby shower the following day and made goody bags for her friends for her 3 1/2 b-day celebration as well. It was a hit! Good memories are mostly made in the kitchen :)

Leaf prints

Well Lucy and I love doing crafts so last week we picked ivy from our yard and placed them under paper and then rubbed crayons over the paper to pick up the print of the leaves. They turned out beautifully! Then we of course had to do a photo shoot and got the fun idea to glue them back on the real ivy leaves for a cool effect. The glue stick glue dries fast! We started pulling them off the leaves and they were almost stuck! ;) Lots of fun! Ready to do fall leaf prints...
And of course, had to include the top pictures of the kiddos having a screaming contest at breakfast. "The best part of waking up is Screaming in your Cup"!
I have been forced to become a morning person :)

We had a great labor day weekend with family including going to a parade in chapin. The kids loved the parade- it was a really great one. Lucy loved the candy collecting experience! (later daddy and she sorted out by candy type and she kept one piece from each section and shared the rest with the Ben Lippen kids- thank goodness for BL!) We ran into a little dog who had broken the exact same right arm as Lucy and had a pink cast! So fun- glad I had the camera. Here are also some zoo pics from the weekend and pool time!

*Lucy's Pink Accessory*

Well, sweet girl took a tumble off a pony (name was Bear) at the zoo a week ago. Earned herself a bright neon pink cast! (who would have thunk she'd pick pink! :)
This was quite scary for her but she has coped very well and really never complains about it. Throughout the day she does find little things she can't do like bringing a cup up to her mouth and holding onto the swings with that arm but she is adjusting.
Friends and family are donning her arm with lovely signatures and drawings to keep her happy!

These are also some pics of Landon at the table eating- he's just so funny right now! To get him to put things in his mouth instead of throw them on the floor from his high chair, we have made a big deal about clapping wildly for him when he will put things in his mouth. So here he is exited because he's got an audience ... it's quite the game!