You've got mail

Last summer I saw a blurb in Family Fun magazine for something called Postcrossing. It's a website for people to send and receive postcards from all over the world. I love to get things in the mail so I signed us up right away.

In the past 6 months, we have received about 50 postcards from every country imaginable:

Some of our cards are from the USA, but most are from other countries.

Postcrossing has some sort of automated system where you write an ID # on each card you send. When it gets where it is supposed to go, the recipient enters that ID # into postcrossing's website, and then your name goes to the top of the list to get a postcard from someone else. So the more you send, the more you receive. It's not like the old chain letters where you sent things to people and then never got anything.

I love finding a postcard in our mailbox when it's our turn to get one. It's so much nicer than just junk mail or bills. And I love reading what people write on the back - they tell about life in their county, or what they did that day, or what books they like to read. It's all so interesting!

If anyone is interested in signing up, the website is www.postcrossing.com and it's free to join. Your only costs are the postcards and stamps (most of the cards we have sent have been to countries overseas, which need a 98 cent stamp).

Catching Up

Wow, it looks like I haven't posted anything on our blog in almost 2 months. That's a long time! Since I last updated, we have had:

Thanksgiving:






















Christmas baking:

Bringing cookies to the local firestation on Christmas Eve:































Christmas:

And we even had a little bit of snow:

 

More frequent posting to (hopefully) come in 2012...

Living up to her name

There's a reason we call her Becca the wrecker.

Exhibit A: While most people put the silverware away when emptying the dishwasher, it's apparently much more fun to take it all out of the drawer and put it on the counter:

Exhibit B: Helping to make Ernie's coffee in the morning:

Exhibit C: Yes, this would be the wallpaper in our dining room. However, as luck would have it, we have never liked that wallpaper and have been planning to take it down since we moved in 4 years ago. Thanks to Becca, this project will be moved up on the to-do list.

Halloween

Here are some pictures of Samuel and Becca from Halloween last week:

Both kids loved trick-or-treating. Becca understood a lot more than last year, and was thrilled to walk up to each door and get candy. In between houses, I put her in the stroller and she did her best to eat a lollipop right through the wrapper.

Flashback: here's Samuel wearing the same lion costume a few years ago:

Sam 10

There is a cartoon that Samuel loves called Ben 10. Ernie found it for him a long time ago, and he has been watching it every morning since. I think it must be very popular with boys this age because I see tons of Ben 10 stuff at the store (including in the Halloween costume aisle this year), and last year our neighbor had a Ben 10 birthday party when he turned 5. By far, Samuel's most played with toy from last Christmas here is a Ben 10 watch called the omnitrix. In the show, Ben 10 uses this watch to turn into different aliens. (can you tell I know WAY more about Ben 10 than I ever wanted to?)

Last week Samuel found an old t-shirt and painted it to look like Ben 10. He painted the shirt entirely by himself. Here he is:

And here is a drawing he made recently of Ben 10:

Becca, by the way, does NOT like Ben 10. Every morning when it comes on, she says hopefully, "Ben 10 done?" about 20 times before it is actually done. My thoughts exactly, Becca. Apparently it is a show only boys like.





(as a side note, blogger's spellcheck just wanted to change omnitrix to dominatrix. That would be QUITE a different cartoon, I think.)

Been Boo-ed?

There's a fun thing going on in our neighborhood right now. It's like a secret santa, except it's for Halloween so it's called Been Boo-ed. Someone left us a bag of Halloween goodies on our porch (we have no idea who it was.) Along with the treats, there was a note saying we needed to then make up bags for 2 other neighbors and deliver them in secret. There was also a ghost picture to put in our window to show we have been boo-ed so we don't end up with another treat bag (although I doubt Samuel would mind that!).

Samuel is at a really fun age for stuff like this right now, so he could not wait to give out our bags. I let him choose which people we gave the bags to, and he chose his 2 most favorite girls from school.

Here is the stuff we put in our bags (all from the Dollar Store):

Here's a bag all ready to go:

 

Here is Samuel delivering the first bag. We did not have to be very sneaky at this house since we knew they weren't home:

 

Here he is walking up the 2nd house, where the people were definitely home:

Delivering the bag as quietly as possible:

After he dropped off the bag, he ran back to me, laughing hysterically. I didn't get a picture of that part because we wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible so we were not discovered.

There are still a few weeks until Halloween, so if you want to start something like this in your neighborhood, the website is Been Boo-ed. We had a great time!

Two!

Becca turned 2 this weekend! We had a MUCH smaller party for her than the big one we had for Samuel the week before (sorry Becca-in-the-future, if you are reading this, your brother's party just took way too much out of us.)

Here are some pictures of my birthday girl at her little family party. The dollhouse is an awesome garage sale find for $10. It came with tons of people and furniture and everything! And it folds up when you are not playing with it so it doesn't take up lots of room! And the refrigerator really opens! And I'm thinking maybe I should look for one for MYSELF at a garage sale :)

(pictured in the background of that last picture: jealous older brother sulking in corner, who apparently forgot he received approximately 1 million new toys from friends at his party just one week before.)

Here's a little video of her eating cake and playing with one of the toys from the dollhouse that plays a song:

Seriously, could she be any cuter?