Too big to hold.

 Every once in awhile Skylar gets a sisterly urge and decides she wants to hold her baby brother.

{The rest of the time she is either screaming "No Finweeeeeeee!" or ignoring him completely.}

The problem is, the three year gap between them isn't reflected in the size department.

He weighs just a few pounds less than her now.

 So being that the Finster is gigantic, he's a little hard to hold on to, even for me........

And he's learned to scream "Nooooo" in the same voice she uses. Awesome.

Cuteness.

Happy Monday!



Renovation update.

 Okay, so as is the case with most home improvement projects, we are behind schedule.

Our house should be on the market, like..... NOW.

(Not that I want it to be on the market. Or to sell it. EVER. I love it. I want to die here. Except that I don't want to die in this town.....just in this house. But I'm working through that. I do breathing exercises and chant to myself "It's just a house...it's just a house...I can't take it with me....")

But we have a bathroom that looks like this, which is a slight problem......

The plumbing has been replaced.

The drywall is going up.

There is a floor-ish.

And believe it or not, we actually had a showing on Saturday.

Our house isn't even on the market yet. 

We haven't advertised or contacted a realtor.

But a realtor contacted us. His clients are interested in the white house with the red door on the corner.

Word travels fast in a small town. 

So bathroom or not, we let them in.

We said, "Hello! Do you want to see how well built this house is....you can look right into the walls!"

I have a feeling they were a little scared off.

But it was good practice at least:)

Hi bored, nice to meet you.

 Now that it's mid-February, the novelty of the Christmas toys has worn off.

Skylar roams the house looking for things to do and driving me crazy complaining that she's booooored in a whiny voice that is the equivalent of finger nails on the chalkboard.

To which I respond "Hi bored, I'm mommy, nice to meet you!" 

Because those are the kind of dorky lines from our childhood that we feel inclined to pass on to our children.

{I have my Papa Austin to thank for that one. Also works with: hungry, thirsty, and tired}.

So you might remember the old paper mache volcano from your elementary school days?

Same thing. No volcano.

Colored vinegar dropped into baking soda using a medicine dropper. 

Watch it fizz. 

Make fun patterns.

Let the whining cease for 5 1/2 blessed minutes.

Until she remembers she's huuuuungry. 

{At which point I'll make her a snack that she won't eat. Because she isn't really hungry. She's just bored. Again.}

Catch up.

Things have been busy around here.

The bathroom renovation is at a screeching halt. There is always some kind of hold-up.

Of course it was like opening Pandora's box. We are doing more than we had planned on, but that's how it goes.

We are getting the house ready to put on the market, cleaning every nook and cranny--of which there are many.

Did I mention we are moving to the Boston suburbs?

We are moving for the third time in less than three years.

Lots of reasons to be excited about that, but definitely sooner than I was hoping to leave.

Finley is in some kind of hyper-attachment phase. Anxiety if I leave the room, wanting held constantly, waking up every 90 minutes at night freaking out, crying when he gets dropped off at the nursery.

I even got paged to come get him during MOPS.

Skylar never cared where she was left. She couldn't wait for me to leave.

Finley's first phrase is "No Jack!" If you even ask him about Jack he says "No, No!"

Probably because the whole time he's in his highchair, Jack is trying to scratch at his legs and get crumbs, so he hears "No Jack" a lot.

Learning to defend your food is an important life skill around here.

He's into everything. He emptied a box of ribbons while Skylar and I were crafting, got his legs all tangled up and signed "finished" over and over until I rescued him......

 Meanwhile, Skylar made Valentines. Topless. And then we mailed them out late. {You can expect yours by St. Patrick's Day}.

She spends a large part of her day doing shows. Finley and I are the audience and we are told what to say and when to clap. Ribbon dancing is a big one right now.

We had company last week. One of our favorite old friends, Doug Armstrong, was visiting. We had fun catching up with him. Wish they lived closer!

Finley has stopped fighting the snowsuit. As soon as you put him in it, he goes limp and stops moving. {Similar to Sabot in the hot dog costume}. And he's such a guy, when you unzip that snowsuit it smells like a locker room in there. I don't know how a baby can be so sweaty and stinky.

We had Finley dedicated at church last Sunday. He and his daddy ended up wearing matching outfits, which seems to happen a lot {and not on purpose}.

The Lion King pose {this is a requirement for all Rue baby dedications}.....

 My dad came up for the dedication and spent the weekend with us. He came bearing goodies--a Rockland Bakery smorgasbord for the adults and lots of Valentine treats for Skylar.

This is the look of steely determination, usually when something fun has been spotted like a forbidden snack or the dog's water dish.

Last Friday we had a movie night with Skylar. She got to stay up really late and eat popcorn and ice cream and watch Tangled. She was so engrossed that her ice cream just melted in her lap and she didn't even touch her popcorn.

And now she pretends to be Rapunzel. Here she is watching her daily show with her Rapunzel hair on.......

Never a dull moment around here.

Sunshine and tea parties.

The winter in Northern New York is characterized by endless cloudy days and boatloads of snow. We haven't had much snow this year, but sunshine is rare.

So when we get a sunny day it is reason to celebrate!

Skylar picked out her outfit and set the table all by herself.

Then she had a tea party with one of her little friends who was visiting.

Little girls are so fun:)

Please don't feed the baby.

I told Skylar she could give treats to the dogs today.

I was in the middle of something and wasn't paying close enough attention.

Apparently she threw one to her brother too.

I found him just as excited as the dogs, with Grade F meat by-products dripping down his face.

He loved it.



Homemade Laundry Detergent.

Making my own laundry detergent would never have occurred to me. I'm pretty loyal to Tide. But I was given a jar to try {along with a very convincing list of reasons to use it} so I decided to keep an open mind and give it a shot.

We've probably done a dozen or so loads with it, and I'm pretty happy with the results. The laundry is definitely softer, and the stain fighting is good. In fact, Skylar accidentally squirted green food coloring on a shirt last week and I didn't even bother to treat it or wash it right away because I figured it was a goner. I was shocked to see that it all came out.

The only negative is the absence of that clean, perfume-y smell I'm used to from the Tide. The Fels Naptha has a distinct smell, it's not bad, just different.

The recipe:

1 cup of Borax

1 cup of Washing Soda

1 bar of Fels Naptha Soap (grated up)

Mix ingredients and store in an airtight container. Use 1.5 Tablespoons per load of laundry.

Some reasons to give it a try:

-Safe for regular and HE washers.

-Great for babies (no dye, perfumes, etc) so no need to buy the special baby detergent.

-Earth friendly, no giant plastic bottles.

-Since you use such a small amount of detergent per load, it lasts forever.

-Budget friendly. Laundry for a whole year for only $20? That's what I spend on detergent every month.

-If you don't like the smell, I'm told you can substitute a different bar of soap for the Fels Naptha, but I haven't researched this.

Stuff.

Have you tried this stuff yet? It's so good. You need to pick some up. Only open the bag if there are other people around to share it with. Don't attempt to eat it alone. Just don't.

There are a couple of deals at Target right now worth checking out.

Apparently I've passed my love of Target on to Skylar. Today we were going to go to an open gym time at the Y where the kids have free reign of all the gym equipment. She usually loves it. But today she said she wanted to do something different....something more fun. "Let's go to Target instead mom!"

Well okay, we can do that. (whew! At least she didn't ask me to ride on a dolphin again.)

So since I'm on my second week of couponing, I was happy to discover Target's website has coupons for all kinds of things I already buy there {like my beloved Tazo chai concentrate}.

Two deals worth passing on to you {in case you care}.....

Twenty-four packs of play-doh are currently on sale for 12.99. There's a coupon on the website for $5 off, making them $8 (almost half off regular price). That's a lot of play-doh for eight dollars. So if you have a play-doh lover in your life go here and print one off.

It's fun to make it at home, but seriously....don't you remember how cool it was to open a brand new can of play-doh and dig into it? {The only thing cooler was a brand new giant pack of crayons....all those colors in little rows.....gives me chills just thinking about it....}

And if you are a Method soap snob like I am, there's a coupon for that as well, bringing the price for this bonus pack down to $4.99, or $1.25 a bottle {instead of $2.99}.


So that is my dorky coupon update for the week. Now go eat some chex mix.