11/21/08

Life Really Comes Down to Two Questions....

Should I get a dog?.....
Or
Should I have more children?....

Our family tried a dog earlier this spring and that didn't go so well, I guess we're on to choice number 2! yikes!

11/19/08

It's Just One of Those Things

Have you ever gotten something that you weren't sure you needed and then once you have it you're not sure how you lived without it?
I got two such things for my birthday this year. One was a Kitchenaid Mixer. I've had several people in my life make comments about their mixers lately. Linda B. even said that if she could only take one appliance in her whole kitchen she'd take her mixer (which by the way is about 30+ years old, I'm sure she could take something else and then get herself a new one! :-). So I told Sam that one of the things I'd like for Christmas was a Kitchenaid Mixer. He looked at me like I was losing my marbles and I'm sure attributed it to the "pregnancy hormones". I started looking for a used one on craigslist and came across one the next day. I got it used which is the best for something you're not entirely sure you need. Since I bought it I've used it a handful of times (twice on Sunday!) and really do love the convenience of the mixer. Who'd have thunk it?
The second thing was a "bath pillow" (thank you Alicia). I received this bath pillow from a friend who informed me she originally bought it for herself but then realized she never takes a bath. It ended up in her "birthday gifts box" and I was the lucky recipient! All I can say is glory hallelujah! I love this bath pillow! I can't not imagine taking a bath without one ever again. :-) I'm a huge fan of taking baths in the winter. Just about every night I fill the tub with bubbles, light a candle, and relax just before I crawl into bed. I really can't imagine why someone wouldn't find a bath totally relaxing (Deanna?). Anyway, if you're big on taking baths like I am make sure to get yourself a bath pillow. It's pure luxury.

11/16/08

Is It Really November?






I can not believe the mild weather we've had this far into November! I'm loving it! I can enjoy fall when it doesn't involve snow! :-) Our family took advantage of the nice weather and decided to go and ride the new Mountaineer Skyride at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Once you get to the top it provides a beautiful view of the valley. We also took some time to get kooky with the giraffes. We love the giraffe display at the zoo. It's got to be one of the best in the country. (this was pre-haircut, so a couple of weeks ago)

11/5/08

The Haircut

It was time for the long hair to go....
BEFORE:




AFTER:






I'm loving the new look!

11/1/08

HAPPY Halloween

What a fun time of year! The fun is accentuated when you have small children the perfect age for tricker treating and carving pumpkins. Ethan and Ryan have had a blast this year. We had a fall festival at the church last Saturday which ended with a trunk-or-treat.



That meant we had a huge bag of candy in our house all week. This was Ryan all week long!...."mom can I have a piece of candy?" 15 minutes later "mom can I have a piece of candy?" I went to the store and got a bunch of fruit (which is not his favorite) and said "no, but you can have a strawberry". He ate alot of fruit this week. :-)


We had a fun FHE carving pumpkins. There were slim pickins at the grocery store so we ended up with "white" pumpkins. Sam was sorely disappointed. :-) Ryan, of course, picked a complex pattern. That's why at the beginning of FHE, I paired him with his daddy! Ethan originally wanted to draw his face on the pumpkin but then decided it looked terrible and picked a face from our patterns. It was hilarious to listen to the boys as they were taking out the pumpkin guts, and watching their pumpkins come together. They love FHE and every week they get excited wanting to know what we're going to talk about or do that week. This week, I was informed...was one of their favorites.



Of course, Halloween isn't complete without a few school parties. This year I signed up to be the "room parent" in both Ethan and Ryan's classes. Thankfully I'm a co-parent. So I worked with the other moms to set up some fun parties for the kids. The older kids had a costume parade throughout the whole school. The 1st graders sat down in their hallway while all the other grades paraded by and then they were the last ones that got to go parade by all the other grades. Ryan doesn't have school on Fridays, so he decided he was a 1st grader for the afternoon and participated right along with Ethan and all of his classmates! Ryan's party was on Thursday (Halloween was on a Friday this year) because he's out of school on Friday. The preschoolers are soooo cute in their costumes! They had their own little parade for the Kindergartners and the office staff. Fun.




On Friday morning then we had some little costume switch-a-roo. The boys were originally going to be a monkey and a Frankenstein for halloween. Both of these costumes are extra warm and made out of fleece. Well for those of you not in Colorado this year it was 70 degrees on Friday! 70 degrees in Colorado on October 31st! That is unheard of for this time of year. Ryan wore his monkey costume for his party and he was all sweaty and uncomfortable. So on Thursday night I was out for some "mom" time after dinner. I went to Target to walk around and burn time and saw their costumes were on sale. I found an Optimus Prime costume in Ethan's size and called him to see if he'd like to be Optimus Prime instead of Frankenstein (my boys are HUGE transformers fans). This is what he said "well I'd actually like to be Bumblebee but if they don't have Bumblebee then I'll settle for Optimus Prime". They didn't have Bumblebee. I came home and boys came out of their rooms wanting hugs from mommy before they could go to sleep and Ryan saw the costume and immediately started crying wanting to know why I didn't get him a Transformer costume. What a horrible mom I am! The only way I could settle him down was to promise him that on Friday morning we'd go to Walmart in search of Bumblebee or Optimus for him. After we dropped Ethan off at school we went in search of another costume. What we found was Bumblebee in Ethan's size but not Ryan's. So I bought Bumblebee, drove to Ethan's school, switched out his costume in his backback (without him knowing), and returned Optimus to Target to exchange it for Ryan's size. It was alot of running around BUT they were sooooo happy to be Transformers for Halloween. Ethan was shocked to see Bumblebee in his backpack when Mrs. Kehayas sent them to put their costumes on. When I showed up to the party he gave me a big hug and said thanks for getting me Bumblebee mom. I'm not a big fan of these types of costumes but the boys were so happy it was hard not to be happy for them.

The boys were beyond excitement last night. At the beginning Ryan was literally running from house to house.
They both kept saying "this is the best night ever!" After about 1 hour of tricker-treating they were exhausted. They wanted us to carry their buckets for them and Ryan would have been really happy if we would have carried him back to the car (we usually trick-or-treat in the Broadmoor Glens, a nice neighborhood with all cul-de-sacs just down the street from our house). When we got home from trick-or-treating the boys wanted turn on our lights, light their pumpkins to put outside, and pop some popcorn that they got in their buckets and watch the Transformer Movie...and of course EAT SOME CANDY!

When we tucked the boys into bed and said prayers I gave Ryan a hug and he says into my ear "ah good times, good times mom". That about sums it up!

Now it's early Saturday morning. For some reason I woke up earlier then normal. I decided to take this time to blog and watch the sun rise. We have these 4 big pane glasses windows that face East in our house. If your down in the living room they are about 15-20 feet up, if you're in the kitchen they are about 10 feet up, but if your in the loft you can see right out of them. It's beautiful just sitting here, having a spiritual moment, reflecting on life. I can't believe I'm 20 weeks along in this pregnancy and this time next year we'll have a 7 month old along with us when we go tricker treating!