Max in the role of Captian Hook... ...

Happy Halloween everyone!

Oh...Austin...

I heart long weekends away...

What do you do when you get to travel sans babies..?...

This was the first time in four years I have taken a long weekend without the boys. I went to North Carolina and Georgia before Max was born, but that was for work, so it doesn't count. Plus I didn't see anything great on that trip.

Visiting Becki and Nick in Austin was so fun! We went to flea markets, and spent time wondering around grocery stores and markets (which could not be done with little men in tow). We bought expensive beautiful teas, drank yummy coffee, and ate really good food. We drank a little to much wine, but got to sleep in.. I had no diapers to change or kids to feed or put down for naps... it was so nice, made me feel human again.

Don't get me wrong, I missed my boys at home, and had considered bringing them with me. But I was so glad I didn't. I did manage to bring Oregon weather with me, we had one day of warm sun, and the rest of my days I felt like I was at home.

Austin had so many cool little pockets of restaurants and shops. It was so unpretentious. I love Portland, but it made me realize how hipster P-town is. It was great going out in Austin and seeing people who really did not give a crap what they were wearing, I guess that is kind of the artsy hippie vibe down there. It was actually quite refreshing. If it wasn't so damn hot and yellow there, I could definitely see my little family moving.. .. Most restaurants had these great outdoor patios, and you saw kids and dogs everywhere, the city seemed super kid friendly. But if I couldn't take the heat of central valley California, I have no business in hot and humid Texas.

half my heart resides in Austin....

I turned 31 yesterday... Crazy.

For my birthday, I went, by myself, and spent a long weekend with Becki and Nick.

I am so sad today, I miss spending time with becki. It sucks living so far away.

daddio induced hearing loss...

The other night B was entertaining the kids while I was working on burdy stuff, or cooking, or whatever it is I do. I kept hearing loud off music coming from the basement play/storage/laundry folding/guest/B's music room (boy, that basement has allot of functions). I captured a little of the concert for your listening pleasure, notice how close max is sitting to the huge amp. B and I discussed little ears, I would like our children to be able to hear in preschool.

On another note, I had a meeting today at Grasshopper (one of the shops that carries burdy) and Kara (owner of Grasshopper and Tumbleweed, also the designer of karaline and wild carrots) is totally hooking me up. She is awesome anyways, but she had a little business pow wow with me, and is kind of taking me under her wing, which is more than I could ever ask for. She passed my info onto a showroom she works with in L.A.. Which is awesome! This is a huge opportunity for me, and I really hope it works out.

My goal is to establish myself so I don't have to go back to work for someone else, I just may be able to work for myself. Hopefully in the future B will be able to quit his sucky job, and we can do burdy as a family. We are looking at getting a screenprinting press and maybe starting a mens line, or B can pursue more schooling for something he loves, rather than something he has to do to keep food on the table. I have left it up to the higher power, I know what is meant to happen, will happen, and I will just keep pluggin away. Who knows what will happen to small businesses with the state of the economy.....But, oh, what if!

lunch duty.. .

Pretty soon they won't even need me. Now I just need to teach them how to do the dishes!

Last week we started a new lunchtime routine. Normally when the weather was good I would send the kids out to the backyard to play, and make lunch without little men running around my legs. Now with the weather being yucky that isn't as easy of an option.

So I sat them down gave them each a plate, and two pieces of bread. The first time they made there own lunch we made turkey, cheese, and tomato sandwiches. Not only did they do awesome by being involved with the whole process, but they seriously ate way more than when I just serve them their lunch. And they were so proud of their lovely creations. So now on the gloomy days I have sandwich making helpers, It kind of doubles as an art project, killing two birds with one stone... awesome

*Just a little lunch related story. Awhile back at my mom's house, she told the boys that ham was elephant meat. So now every time we eat any kind of lunchmeat the boys call it elephant meat... haa haa haaaa

Just another breakfast at the raetz house...

my morning entertainment, sweet and crazy little monkeys...

here comes the baking...

the weather is grey and yucky... makes me want to bake! last week me and the boys made this lovely pie... I like custard-y things, but not so much in my apple pie, it smelled great, and looked great, but was a little disappointing. I think my house likes more carmelly apple pies, not so custard-y. But I love that blog, she makes me so jealous. I wish I just had a dog to take care of sometimes (not really I would miss my boys).







Me and Ollie roasted a squash to make pumpkin cookies, he was such a good little helper. He took the photo of me. He is getting really into taking pictures, which is fun sometimes, it is kind of difficult reminding him that it is mommy and daddy's camera and not a toy.

I think in his picture he was mimicking me, in one of the pics he took I was leaning on my hand. I kept having to get really low because he kept pointing the camera down. He did a good job, and was very proud of himself.

















Speaking of pride. It bites you in the butt sometimes. I kind of suck at making soup. I always make it more complicated than it should be, and my soup turns out over seasoned and thin.

But, last week I made the BEST broccoli cheddar soup. I kept raving about how great my soup was, and how I made it from scratch, and basically how awesome I was. Well, I tried to make it last night for dinner. Same ingredients, but a cocky attitude, cause I thought I was the bomb soup maker.

It was so horrible we had to order pizza for dinner. I don't know what I did. I think I might have overcooked the rue... I used veggie stock instead of chicken stock... I don't know exactly what I did other than humble myself. I hope to redeem my soup making sometime this week, wish my family luck.














really how gross does that look, lumpy and congealed... ooooohhhh grosssss..

tough guys..heee hee he

watch out the tricycle gang is coming to get ya..

loving fall....

I am loving the seasons change right now, the gorgeous bright weather, but only around 65. Layer on a long sleeve tee and you are good to go! Me and the boys have been taking full advantage, spending as much time as we can out in the backyard or at the park. I know soon the weather will be wet, and indoors will be our only option. But for now we are loving it.

We headed out to a new pumpkin patch that I read about on urbanmamas. A couple of moms had recommended it and it was on our side of town so B got off work early and we headed out. It sucked... against my better mama judgement I loaded the kids up at almost 2 pm, right at naptime, brilliant, to head out the pumpkin patch. Both boys fell asleep in the car. My boys don't do to well when they get woken up to early from a nap. The patch itself was not really a patch, a field with a bunch of pumpkins laid out. The reason why I wanted to go there was because they said they had a bunch of pre-schooler type activities. They did, but they were kind of lame, kind of run down, and not I guess what I expected. Plus you had to pay to let the kids climb on some hay, play in a broken down playhouse and dig in a corn box. Whatever.

We left the patch with two small pumpkins, I left the patch carrying a screaming max... before we even bought the darn pumpkins.

Ollie and B stayed behind to purchase the pumpkins. Ollie in a fit (because he wanted to weigh the pumpkin again), threw his pumpkin on the ground. He had enough force that it split the pumpkin open.

So there I was sitting in a car with a screaming max, and I see B walking very quickly almost dragging ollie to the car. Needless to say, ollie was in trouble... But I understand the poor little guy, no nap, overstimulated.. good thing we had a 20 minute car ride home for everyone to cool off. The boys fell asleep again and we took a late nap. Thank God for naps.

no more monkeys jumping on the bed...

Bed time has been a struggle in our house for the last month, I blame it on the late summer nights. Ollie ended up being put to sleep in our bed every night, and max started noticing the special treatment. So we would have max screaming for mommies bed, and ollie screaming when we tried to put him in his little bed. The only solution I could see was new beds for both. We needed something major to reset the bedtime routine.

So in my search I scored the mother of all deals on craigslist this weekend. I have been watching adds for about two weeks for bunk beds. Originally we were going to get a set at Ikea, but the one I wanted was $400 bucks, plus the cost of the mattresses. I went to plan B and started looking on craigslist, originally I felt like I needed to get beds that the boys would have for a long time. I wanted them to be wood, I wanted them to be able to be set up as bunk beds, and come apart as two twins. Right now being a single income family of four, our price range was pretty limited. Craigslist had a couple of good deals, but like anything on craigslist you have to act really fast or it is gone.

I ended up getting an almost new Ikea Kura reversible bed for $35 bucks which came with a practically new Ikea mattress. It does'nt have all the characteristics I wanted in a set of bunks, but $35 bucks... come on...

The guy I bought them from had bought an abandoned lot from a storage unit, and had no idea what the bed costed new, I felt like I was ripping him off. The bed new at Ikea is $199 and the mattress is $100... I did tell him what they sell for new, he said he had told his wife to look it up online, so it is her fault they did'nt put it up for more, but he was stoked to sell it to me, with my two little cute men in tow.

We headed out to Ikea and picked up another mattress for the bottom, and the tent cover for the top. The boys are stoked, and I must say my grand reset the bedtime plan is working smoothly so far. Two nights, and two naptimes both boys have slept in their own beds. This makes one happy mama and papa.

It took the boys no time at all to find new ways of playing on the bunk beds. The bed is low so hopefully that is better than full size bunks. I am hoping for no bumps and bruises, but know they are on the way.

last summer day at the beach...

We took one last day trip to the beach before aunt jo started her internship at OHSU. It is going to be sad when she has to work rather than play with us all day.

We headed over to cape lookout to check out the camping situation there. It was beautiful and I can't wait to rent a yurt for a weekend.

Cape lookout is a nice, clean, small beach, surrounded by awesome hiking trails through the forest and along the coast line. It was a colder day than we expected, but we have learned to expect gloomy weather at the oregon coast... i personally like it that way!

Jo was being quite the instigator, teaching the boys how to do sand angels, and making wigs and tails out of seaweed. Made for quite a clean up the next morning. Lots of sand in odd places, the boys loved getting covered from head to toe.

Since we potty trained ollie can't seem to keep his pants up. The boy has no butt... poor thing was mooning everyone on the beach. lucky for us we pretty much had the beach to ourselves.

We ran around the beach all day but ended up driving all the way to rockaway to get dinner. There was'nt much around cape lookout that we could find. We got really good pizza in rockaway though! I am already stoked for our little winter trips to the beach!