Monthly Archives: October 2014

Sweet Little Pumpkins

Fall is here! I love this time of year; the Holliday season is being ushered in, filled with family traditions. I think back on the traditions we celebrated in my own family with warmth and nostalgia and realize that those moments truly created my childhood. From road trip summer vacations to watching 4th of July fireworks over the Open Cut at the Maki’s house (with John’s yummy homemade ice cream). From floating the Black River to eating biscuits and cocoa gravy Christmas morning.

When Josh and I first were married we discussed our own childhood family traditions and began to plan what it would be like to merge the two. What should we keep? What didn’t serve our new, little family well? And we wondered what new traditions would develop over time.

This Fall makes the 4th year we’ve taken our family to the local pumpkin patch. I realize this is a tradition that many families have enjoyed for many years, but it is a new one to me and I love it. We check out the animals, run laps through the hay bale maze, climb the pumpkin piles and of course, pick out a pumpkin to take home. And what pumpkin patch trip would be complete without pictures! Lots and lots of pictures.

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Checking out the animals.

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Climbing, climbing, climbing.

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I love that face!

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Big Brother is having some major fun back there.

Check out these faces! He cracks me up.

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If you look closely you can just see his new tooth poking out.

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And just for funsies, here’s a side by side of the boys. Short Round at 7 months and Big Brother at 5 months.

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Mandatory Mom pic.

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We’re cute, right?!

A Bed For Big Brother

Have I told you about the bed we built for Big Brother? No?…hmm…that’s strange…it’s been so long I thought for sure you would have heard about it by now. It’s almost like I’ve been busy doing other things, other really important things like marathons. Yeah, you know, I Netflix marathon daily. I’m getting really good at it.

Well, I say that “we” built a bed, but I was as big as a house pregnant at the time so what I really mean is, my dad and Josh built a bed while I sat on the couch and ate fries and Oreo McFlurries.

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Don’t judge me mmmkay?

Anyway, the new baby, who I will lovingly refer to as Short Round from now on, was on the way and would soon take over the nursery. It was time for Big Brother to move on up to a bigger room with his very own full size bed. I wanted something that would work for him even as he got older and storage was a must so I looked all over Pinterest for inspiration. I found plans for a great little storage bed here.

So Dad got to work.

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See how cold it was? It’s been so long!

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Building the boxes.

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Big Brother checking out the handiwork. He’s saying, “Thanks Daddy and Papa!”

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Josh taking care of the staining. We modified the original plans a bit and left off the trim for a more unfinished look.

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I love how it turned out. Even though we decided to push the bed up against the wall, there is storage on both sides. We can also lift up the mattress and slats to have even more storage.

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Side view. The baskets are from Target and fit the cubbies perfectly. We purchased a memory foam mattress from SAMs Club and it is crazy comfy.

Big Brother loves his big boy room. At some point I’ll post pics of it all decorated..you know…in about 6 months or so. What?! Gilmore Girls just came out on Netflix!