Carving Pumpkins 2010

We carved our pumpkins over the weekend

  Brayden took the job of making all the faces on them very seriously! (I love that he does the teeth backwards!!!)

We painted a baby one with chalkboard spray paint and Brayden has been having fun changing the face on it every day!

Ready for dad to cut them out

We also made some zombie cupcakes to eat after. Yum!

I'm thinking it's about time for a haircut for this little boy!

This was Tyler's face when we lit them up!

Love the pumpkin faces BB....GOOD JOB!

And nice work on your spider Guy! :)

Obsessed

It's true...we are obsessed with garage sales. I think we both just get so excited when we find a good deal and think of all the money we saved!

Here are our finds from Saturday...

 $200 Changing Table we got for $20

I've always wanted one so it will be nice for when we have baby #3

 (which is not right now, just to clarify!)

 Maclaren umbrella stroller- $10

The sun shade is kinda messed up but other then that it works great. It's seriously the most smooth stroller to push...I can see why people pay big bucks for these!

White desk and chair w/ baskets-$50

These are still for sale on the target website. Desk sells for $300 and chair is $150.It has some paint chipped off but apparently it is supposed to since it's an antiqued look. I'm excited about it because we've never had a real desk before!

 I also found a whole pile of clothes for Tyler all from Baby Gap that are seriously brand new. Shoes were 50 cents and clothes were $1 each. Score!

 We have a couple neighborhood garage sales we're planning on stopping by this Saturday morning so we'll see what we find :) Like I said, we are obsessed, but it's a great way to furnish your house for cheap!!! I'm on the lookout for a dresser for my boys and a bookshelf...fingers crossed!!!

Sunday 10...

Only on Wednesday...and I could only think of 8 things!


1. Yay, the binkie is gone! It was really harder for me to let go of then it was for Tyler. I didn't want to say goodbye to the plug! But thankfully when we got home from Utah, we lost his last one for a few days so it was forced to happen. I might never have done it on my own so it was a good thing!

2. Florida is good...but it's been a kinda hard change. We have been spoiled always living 5 minutes from church in Texas. Now it takes us over a half hour to get there and Brayden went from a sunbeam class of maybe 15 kids down to 2 kids, and one of them is him! It's kinda tough, but the members in our ward are really nice, even if there aren't many our age. We're only here a year, right...I can do this! I'm just feeling a tad lonely and wishing I had a few friends to hang out with :( I pretty much live for when Guy gets home!

3. Brayden is loving preschool! I never knew the hardest part of my day though, would be getting him to tell me about preschool! His answer to everything is "I can't remember" or "The same stuff..." Drives me crazy! So I have resorted to bribing him to get him to tell me. When he wants a snack, I make him tell me 3 things about school. Haha, I know it's sad, but I just want to know! Gotta make sure he's learning something in there!

4.  The only  part about  preschool that drives me crazy is that they have it EVERY day for 3 hours.  I would have much preferred 2 or 3 times a week instead. And they are pretty strict about attendance since it's being paid for by the state taxes. I guess I shouldn't complain since it's free, but I think every day is just too much for a 4 year old...at least mine!

5. I have started up running again.  And it is SO hard. It's been a long time since I ran regularly so I decided it was just time.  And it seems the only way I can stay motivated to do it every day is to sign up for a race. So, since we are in Florida, I thought the Disney World half marathon in January sounded like fun. You get to run through magic kingdom and you finish in Epcot and there are characters cheering you on the whole way. I mean, if you have to run, this sounds like a fun one huh! I'm pretty excited about it and I'm excited to do a half instead of a full. I think it will be the perfect distance! Anyone want to plan a trip to Florida and come run with me???

6. We also signed up both the boys for little Disney races that weekend too. For Ty's age group they run 100m and Brayden's is 200m at Disney's Wide World of Sports track.  It was only $10 and they will get a medal and shirt so even if Ty won't do it (which I don't think he will) it's still worth it. Plus all the characters around will make it fun for them! Brayden is taking it very seriously and tells me he needs to do his training all the time. It's pretty cute!

7. I was very blessed the other day.  I have been having a lot of trouble with my thyroid lately and having the worst time finding a new endocrinologist.  It's a little different here then in Dallas, where they have some of the best doctor's in the country.  I finally found a good one, about 25 minutes away, but when I called to make an appointment, I couldn't get in until December 15. I was crushed because I really can't wait that long! So I asked them if they get cancellations a lot and they told me they do sometimes, but most people know how hard it is to get in so they don't cancel. I just had to keep calling back every day to see if anyone did. So they very next day I prayed so hard that I would get in and when I called the lady put me on hold at first, and then came back and told  me that someone had just cancelled right before I called and I could get in on October 29! I am so grateful for this answer to my prayer. What a blessing!

8. We just bought Brayden a set of bunk beds (thanks Ashlie, for your advice) that we found at the Sam's Club by our house.  They were a great deal and really solid and sturdy, which is what we were looking for. And the best part is you can separate them if you want to and make them into two twin beds which will be nice in the future. Brayden is pretty excited about it since up until now, he has still been sleeping in a toddler bed with a crib mattress! It was definitely time for an  upgrade for that boy!

I also saw a great idea online about bunk bed bedding. It can be annoying to get to stay tucked in all the time, so if you take a piece of elastic and attatch it to the ends of the comforter (kinda making it like a fitted sheet on one side) then it will fit to the bed and stay put. You can sew it or use a piece of elastic with clips on each side so you can take it on or off whenever you want. Definitely going to try this out!

Quick Little Pumpkin Festival

Seriously, where has October gone? It's almost halfway over and I realized we haven't done anything Halloween-ish yet. I love this month so much and I love all the fun things you can always find to do so I figured we better get started!!! Plus, we're in a new place now, so there's gotta be lots of cool places to try out.

We went to a neighborhood pumpkin festival today and it really was a lot of fun. Not quite as fun as some of our favorite Halloween places in Texas (which I'm really missing...), but the kids seemed to enjoy it and that's all that matters, right!

I thought this was a different idea. Everyone who came carved pumpkins that had big holes cut out of the bottoms of them. Then they put them all on this huge shelf with lots of white christmas lights underneath the pumpkins and once it got dark, lit them all up for everyone to see. We didn't stay for that part but there were TONS of carved pumpkins so I'm sure it was really cool!

They were charging a dollar a ticket for the carnival games which was just crazy since the games were so basic and some even required 2 tickets. So we let the boys each just have one ticket to play a game. They both chose this spider toss game. Well, Brayden chose and Tyler followed :)

Yay for Halloween!

Slide Races

This is how we spent our FHE activity on Monday night.

The boys racing on the slides

over

and

over

and over again.

Climbing up to meet Brayden for the big race

Just about there...

"On your mark.... Get set.....GOOO"
And they're off....
"Wheeeeeeeeeee"

"Let's do it again!"

Coming back for round 2 (of 50!)

Almost there...
Phew, made it to the top again!

Wait for it... "GO"

Ty can't help going early every time.

The anticipation kills him!

Just adding some mulch for a bit of a challenge

Quick stop in the middle when he realized he put it on his side.

Way to go water shoes...Nice stop!

Slides are FUN!

Quick Trip West

We made a quick trip out to Utah the beginning of October.

Guy ran and finished the St. George Marathon!!

He cramped up really bad after so he was lucky to have his dad and brother to massage his legs! Let's just say I was glad to be a spectator this year and not going through that pain again :)

Great job Guy! We are so proud of you!

And it was so great to be able to see Grandma and Grandpa Hill, Missy, Maria, Mike and Mandy and all the cute cousins. Thanks Mike and Mandy for letting us stay a night at your place and Missy for the family pics. Love you guys!

We went to my Grandpa Peel's Funeral

October 4, 2010

He had a military burial and it was really neat
My sweet Grandma.
I love her so much!

It really was a beautiful funeral and it was so nice to hear my mom and aunts/uncle's telling stories and sharing what a great father and man my Grandpa was. All of the grandchildren sang a few songs and poems together that my Grandpa wrote. The words he wrote really touched my heart. I am so grateful that we were able to be there for his funeral and to be a part of honoring his great life. Love you Grandpa!

 It was great to be reunited with all of these guys!
Love them!!!!

We celebrated my brother Jason's 17th birthday

Ty found this hat at my Grandma Richardson's house and wouldn't take it off. It's part of a game where 2 people wear these hats and you have to try to throw balls at the other person's head and get it to stick on the velcro strips. We played it once at a family reunion and it was hilarious to see my uncle's running around, chasing each other. Pretty funny!

Haha, I just love you Tyler!

We played some mini golf for Jason's birthday and the boys all went crazy with the go carts after. It was pretty funny to watch...

 His yummy rice krispie treat cake!

I'm still not believing my little brother is 17 though.

How did that happen?!?!

And then just like that, it was back to Florida once again. This was such an exhausting, quick trip that I think we are still recovering. It was so great to see everyone that we were able to. I know we missed seeing a few people that we really wanted to see and I am soo sorry! Next time we come out that way we'll hopefully be able to spend a little more time.