Our Christmas in four sentences.

Lots of Imaginext.

Lots of American Girl

Lots of Doctor Who.

So much love and happiness.

When friendships fail.

I feel incredibly blessed in that a majority of the friends I have, have been my friends for over 10-15 years. I have noticed in this internet world how easy it is to form a fast, and strong connection with someone. And I especially think this is true when you join a group of people who are pregnant at the same time as you are. You are pregnant together, you have babies together, you worry about walking and talking together.. and then your kids hit an age where they no longer are doing enough that you don't discover who that person really is.

And then you wake up one day 5 years down the line and realize all you had in common with this person was babies born close in age. And although you have been friends through so much you really are not the friends that you thought you were. And you are ok with it. Then you realize from Facebook posts or things they say, or do that you don't even like this person  And you are ok with it. And then you wake up one day and think.. beyond babies there is nothing so you remove them from all of your internet life and you are ok with it.

It is ok to be ok with it. I was thinking today, should I feel bad? Should I try and make amends? I always try to put everyone ahead of me and sometimes I keep toxic people far longer than I should have. And I thought, I have people in my life that have been in my life and the lives of my children since I was a child. Friends that I have chosen as family. 

I am slowly learning that it is ok to walk away. It is ok to say goodbye to people who are toxic in your life and it is ok to say goodbye to people who you do not mesh with, it is ok to say goodbye when a friendship grows apart or fails. Everyone will move on and be ok.

How I saved Imaginext toys with a tooth brush and Rockin Green Laundry Soap

I am frugal. Sometimes obnoxiously frugal. Liam at the moment is in love with all things Imaginext.. cool right? Well, not when one building is over 50.00!

Recently, we were thrifting and found the Imaginext Adventures Castle

When new this thing was awesome! Ours? Not so much.

Pretty sure there is enough dust and cobwebs for a spooky village.

Well, a little cleaner, a little bowl of water, a rag and a tooth brush and this is how it ended up

 

And well, no befores of the Imagnext Dragon World Fortress but the same applies.. a little scrubbing and we ended up with:

Pictures by our 10 year old.

So for 4.99 and a little scrubbing our four year old has two more buildings to add to his collection. What we saved in buildings we are using to buy figures on ebay and craigslist.

All total I think we have spent about 40.00 on all of this. The rescue garage was a gift, the pirate ship 10.00 on clearance and the rest at goodwill or various other thrift stores.

Please vote for Liam!

The chaos of 4 has kept me from blogging!

That is right.. I said 4. Not because I am having another baby but because one of my older girls came home to live. Having four in the house is insanity. She isnt used to the little ones and they are not used to what is almost like having another Mom in the house.

This summer has been fun.. and instead of listing everything I am just going to do a photo dump. Hopefully I will remember to post more often. Oh yeah, I am still fat. But I did manage to dump my soda habit (go me!) and cut down eating out almost completely. (almost)

We did the toys frozen in an ice block thing (win!)

They played Mindcraft until Mom banned it.

We went to the opening of a Whataburger.

We painted.

 We celebrated the 4th of July

We went to the park. A lot.

We went portal hacking with Dad.

And now it is time for school to start, for me to start blogging all the things we have done around here and to get back to early mornings and early bedtimes.

Toddler/Baby Circus Strongman Costume

I got an email asking me to reblog about this costume and seeing as people keep repining on pintrest its a good idea to have it link to the right blog.

Halloween 2011

Here is what I used to make it.

1. Flesh tone long sleeved unitard

2.Striped socks (baby legs would work too)

3. 2 squares of black felt

4. 1 rod and 2 foam balls

5. Black embroidery thread

6. Black eyeliner pencil

7. Women's small black tank top

8. 4 wash cloths (muscles!)

I measured his wrists for the bands and just cut them out of the felt and sewed onto the leotard. Simple. The tank top I slit up the middle and just stitched it. Nothing fancy. And the barbell was just put together and spray painted. The chest hair was my favorite part, I put the thread on a needle and knotted it at the end each hair was done one by one and it looked so much better that way. The muscles were hard and a wash cloth worked best rolled and shoved in the sleeve.

Halloween 2011 chest hair close up

Halloween 2012 (notice no striped leggings this time)

Everyone loved his costume he ended up with way too much candy! LOL

When he was younger we covered his wagon to look like a stage. We special ordered the lettering but I would think you can get that anywhere. It is covered in felt. People stopped us all the time asking to take pictures ;) Although, the costume would still fit this year he has his heart set on being WONDERBOY the superhero. Stay turned for that costume!

So I slack at blogging.

I have a perfectly good excuse for not blogging lately: I just didn't want to. We had vacation time together as a family, Easter blah blah blah and because I live on the most amazing block in town lots of things like this happen:

Now shit gets serious. I have to get my house in order, and being that we are 

1. Slobs
2. Slobs
3. Slobs
4. Did nothing on vacation
5. Slobs

Our house is bordering on Hoarderville. We did accomplish cleaning the garage which in our world is pretty amazing. We discovered that we moved shit from Iowa that was trash. That was awesome.

My goal this week is to do my room and my bathroom. If I get more than that done, I am calling it a win/win.