Blogiversary and Weekend Recap

Today marks my 3rd blogiversary! That's 3 years of endless rants about furry children, babies and DIY projects. A huge thank you to all my loyal readers for actually making me feel like my mundane, repetitive lifestyle is somewhat intriguing. 

Anyways... Thursday night, Ash and I decided to do something a little different and checked out the Ladies Night Out put on by a local chiropractor. It was fun... we did a hand wax treatment, shopped, had our picture taken, ate lots of goodies...

... and drank wine.

Friday after work, I rounded up the children and went into Muskegon to spend the weekend with Mama Z. We mastered several new toys and activities, tried some new foods, learned how to swiffer, terrorized Peanut... ya know, the usual.

We also discovered if you put things in his shirt or pants, he wigs out a bit. LoL.

New foods include Oreos, Cinnamon Life cereal and tuna fish sandwiches. As always, a huge hit with the children... furry or not. 

Sunday we celebrated my Grandpa's 82nd birthday and twin cousins' 16th birthday. I obviously have a horrible sense of time. In my mind, my grandparents are in their 60s... have been my whole life. LoL. They're in incredible shape and never look any different, so I guess I can understand why I feel that way. (Or I'm in denial they're getting older.) Same with my cousins... I remember when they were wee babies on heart monitors. Now they're driving... WHAT?! God I'm old. So very very old. 

Lil Man loved Dan's hat and the Sugar Daddy sucker from great-grandma.

Pants optional.

Other than that, a pretty low key weekend. Went with Ashley to Fowler Monday to pick up her wedding dress. You're all going to be blown away... she looks gorgeous! But then again, she could rock a Hefty bag and still look pretty hot. ;)

If everyone could say a prayer for my living room furniture, I'd appreciate it. The baby gate has been lifted and Zora will have free rein starting Wednesday morning. I'm a little nervous I'm going to go home to a room full of furniture fluff... but then again, after 5 days at Grandma's, she might just pass out on the couch. Fingers crossed it's the latter. 

Have a great rest of your week everyone!

Thumbody Loves You

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day... filled with love and romance and lots of kisses! Mine was, uh... different than usual. Spent the evening with something that seemed a lot like the flu. I assumed the fetal position on the basement floor while Zora and Brody entertained each other, then I crawled into bed at 8:00. My super wonderful children let me sleep (almost straight through) until 6:45 AM! Best gift ever!

We also had an arts and crafts day last week to make a Valentine's Day card for Grandma and Grandpa Z and Aunt Z and Uncle Adam.

Unfortunately, Lil Man was not cooperative and wouldn't unclench his fist long enough to give me his thumb, so his big toe took a dip in the ink instead. Zora didn't give a crap at all.

But anyways, everyone have a wonderful weekend! Stay warm!

Happy 3rd Birthday Zora!

Happy 3rd birthday to my first baby, Miss Zora!

I adopted this sweet girl (then named Grizzly) from the Animal Placement Bureau when she was only 4-months old. She came from the most diverse litter that I had ever seen... but her foster mama tells me Zora's a lot like her mom, Daisy.

I didn't notice this until someone pointed it out last year, but Zora started out with blue eyes, and now they are brown. Kinda neat. :)

In celebration of Zora's birthday, my Etsy shop is rolling out a new collection of custom animal rescue prints and will donate 15% of all February proceeds to another animal rescue, Because of Mandy! This fundraiser applies to ANY of the items for sale in the shop, not just animal related prints. Just mention "Because of Mandy" in the notes to seller section when you place your order. Thank you for your support!

Happy birthday Zora and the rest of your crazy siblings!

The Adventures of Tank and Terror

Yet another snowed-in weekend for me and the lil ones. Yesterday we tried something a little different... and I had a whole bunch of pictures... until my new iPhone decided to betray me last night. Sadness. Anyways, Brody and I ventured out to the Westshore Mall to hang out in the play area. We've never done this before... and probably won't do it again. A bunch of parent-less children, well over the 48" height limit, were playing tag. Two of them pushed off of Brody and another one jumped off of the slide onto him. I can neither confirm nor deny that I went a bit ape shit on these 10-ish year olds. 

So we said the hell with that and tried out mall walking. Apparently this is a very exciting endeavor and will probably do this again in the near future. Brody thought he was the cat's meow struttin' through the mall. All the other mall walkers smiled and waved every time we passed them. Guess all Lil Man needed was a change of scenery and some substantial running room. Thank God the Westshore Mall is the most deserted shopping center in history!

Then there's today... a lot of chasing and playing. Typical Sunday in the Archambault household. 

"Hey... call Grandma Z. She gives more treats than mommy."

At least I wasn't the only one working from home this weekend. Brody was obviously working very hard on something. Must be taking after Grandpa Z... glued to a phone and laptop.

Then there's this effing snow. I read that Holland, as of Feb 7, was at 115" for the season. We've only gone 11 days since December 1 without it snowing. My snowblower doesn't even make it over the snowbanks anymore. I'm done with you winter.

So is Lil Man.

These two are the most adorable things ever. I'm serious.

My big girl (who will be 3 years old tomorrow!)

Spiderman... or something. 

Someone figured out how to crawl up into the furniture this weekend. Oh goody. As if the window ledge wasn't enough to worry about...

"Eat that one next Zora... now that one..."

Hope everyone has a wonderful week. Mine is going to be crazy again for sure. I could sure use a breather at work... any time now.

DIY: Homemade Edible Fingerpaints

I'm sure all moms experience this problem at one point or another, but I am running out of ways to keep Lil Man busy during the day. Emptying out my cupboards, tearing apart magazines and hitting the play button on the answering machine over and over and over... can only entertain him for so long.

Today we decided to give fingerpainting a go. We haven't done any art/craft projects yet, so I was pretty excited to see how he'd do. Since he's still at the stage where everything goes in his mouth, I made an "edible" version just in case.

This version was super easy to make and it made quite a bit.

• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/3 C. flour
• 2 C. water

Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan. Turn on the heat and whisk until the mixture thickens. Takes a few minutes or so. Dispense the mixture into separate containers and add food coloring. Mix thoroughly and wait until it cools before giving to the lil ones.

Masterpieces!

I put some seran wrap over the cups and I think they should keep pretty well. Although it only entertained him for less than 5 minutes and required a bath in the middle of the afternoon, it was fun and something different for once. :)