My almost 4 year old

Gideon, Gideon, Gideon. I just love this kid so much and he's growing up so fast. It seriously breaks my mommy heart to think he's almost four. It's flown by so fast. Gideon is a spark plug. He makes us all laugh. He is silly and crazy and witty. He loves superheroes and loves to dress up in some kind of superhero outfit EVERY SINGLE DAY. His favorites are Darth Vader, Batman, Superman, and Captain America. He loves Legos and building things. He is becoming quite an artist. He loves to sit with Jasper in the afternoons and do "homework". Gideon is my little snuggle bug. He loves to give kisses and hugs and talk to the baby in my belly. He's going to make a wonderful big brother. He is so much fun to be around. He's a good friend - sometimes he needs reminders about what being a good friend means, but he has a very kind heart. He also likes to challenge me and to test limits. Gideon has a mind of his own and has strong opinions about what he wants to do. He's particular about socks, shoes, shirt sleeves, and the length of his pants. He brings out the fun, rambunctious, wrestling side in Jasper, which I think is healthy and fun for the two of them. Gideon's best friend in the whole world is his big brother :)

Gideon is going to be four on Christmas Eve. Sometimes I wish time could just stand still for a bit. As excited and elated and ready I am for our new little baby to arrive, I have SO enjoyed this fall with Gideon. We've had time to bond and talk every day while Jasper is at Kindergarten. I've gotten to know him as an individual kid, which is really special. It's going to all change pretty quick, and change is good :) I think he will adjust beautifully, but I will miss the quiet, simple moments he and I have been able to share these past few months.

Okay, here are a few pictures from the past month:

Ready for the day

Climbing around on things

Pike Place Market with Jasper

First dentist visit

Cavity free!!

Gid laughing hysterically at Jasper:)

Nature School

Happy as a clam next to all the lego boxes

Fall Projects

This happens to me every year. I catch a fall time project bug. And I'm six weeks away from the arrival of baby girl, so I think the nesting urge has also kicked in. So I'm kind of going crazy with crafting, painting, and sewing right now. I've got Rob refinishing a dining room table, chairs, and high chair too :)

So here's what I've been working on-

1. I found this two sided, green storage bookshelf for free on craigslist ( I forgot to take a before picture). It was half painted and the shelves were unsanded and unstained. So I painted it yellow and sanded and stained the shelves. Then, I hit DI and bought a bunch of tins, painted and modge podged and organized all our craft supplies. We now have a "craft corner"! We will move our old table next to it once Rob is done refinishing our "new" table ( new to us- it's over 50 years old and a great craiglist find). The kids are super excited about the craft corner. I've been dreaming of a crafting/coloring/painting area for the kids for a long time. The boys like to work on crafts that are week or two week long projects (for instance- Jasper has been working on a "playground" with recycled materials of thread spools, cd's, bottle caps, broken electronics, etc. for almost a month!) so having a craft table beyond our dining room table is going to be wonderful.

2. I found a black, Ikea TV unit with a "free" sign taped to it on the side of the road about a month ago. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind for an entryway bench, but it was free and a good height for a bench so I jumped at the chance to do something with it. Since then, it has grown on me. Our shoes all fit nicely into the shelves and I can easily put shoes on in my 7 1/2 month pregnant state. Anyway, the next step was to make a cushion that fit the dimensions. I used this blogger's tutorial- http://thecsiproject.com/2011/07/27/piped-bench-cushionpretty-handy-girl/

I found some very lovely fabric at JoAnn's with a cats cradle pattern and went to work. I'm really excited about the way the cushion turned out!

3. I used some of the left-over fabric from the cushion and sewed a little pillow! 

4. Rob has been working every night for the past week on refinishing the dining room table, which I am super excited about. I will post picture of that soon. I've been working on re-upholstering the chairs. We decided not to refinish all six chairs right away. Rob is going to refinish the two with arm rests since they are the most worn. The other four, I've been working on the past couple of days. I removed the old cushions, cleaned and polished the wood, measured the old fabric and cut the new pieces to the right size. Here is a before and after of the cushions- 

Going to the zoo

We went to the zoo yesterday with our friends J, G, and K. We had so much fun. Little J is a favorite friend of both Jasper and Gid, but especially Gid. He talks about this friend all the time :) It's really nice for Gid to have a best friend since most of his life he's been tagging along with Jasper and his friends.

Monkey School

It was my turn to teach Gideon's little homeschool preschool that I do with a couple other moms. The lesson theme was "me". The kids each brought a picture of their family and shared what they like to do with their family. Then we sang "head, shoulders, knees and toes". After that, we put together a paper body and talked about how great our bodies are. We went outside and traced outlines of our bodies with chalk. I also had the kids put together collages with cutouts from magazines with their favorite color, fruit, veggie, toy, season, etc. For snack- I had cut up a bunch of different veggies and fruits and let the kids put together "snack bodies" and then eat them up! I think Gideon loved this best of all. When Jasper got home from Kindergarten, he wanted to do it also. I don't do enough of this "fun food" stuff. Makes meal time really fun when the kids get to be a little creative and participate.