AJ's first birthday card this year

AJ turns 6 tomorrow, a couple days ago he received a birthday card in the mail from my grandparents. He was really excited.

"Snow"

I came home from work the other night to find snow on my porch. Only my porch.

Corey and the boys started getting out the Christmas decorations and found a tube of this fake snow stuff that you mix with water. I got it for the boys to play with and then decided it would be too messy, but outside is alright.

Corey said they had a lot of fun with it, it sure was funny to discover it at 2 in the morning.

Gingerbread Train

Corey's dad got the boys a gingerbread train to build, so one night while I was at work Corey built it with them.

I don't have much story to tell, since I wasn't here.

I had to put it up high because Andrew kept climbing up to steal candy off of it the next day.

Thanksgiving

We had a busy Thanksgiving this year, it all worked out in the end though.

The day before we took the boys in for Christmas pictures, then we headed to Corey's sister's house for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner because her kids spent the holiday with their dad, so she wanted to celebrate early with them before they left. We had to duck out a little early because I had to work that night, getting the store ready for the Black Friday Sale.

Then Thanksgiving morning we got up early and went to Corey's grandparents for a dinner there. We had to leave there early too so we could get back home in time to start our turkey.

My parents came over about 5 and we had dinner then. Everything got done right on time, and the turkey turned out really well.




We were all asleep at 9:30, which was good because I was at Kohls by 3:30 the next morning for Black Friday shopping!

Painting the house - FINALLY!

This has been a long time coming, and thanks to my friend Maria who forced me to just do it (and came over and did all the hard parts ;) )it's finally done!

Part of it anyway.

We did the hallway and entryway a butter cream color, and the living room is a latte color.

Looking into the living room from the entry way

This is a picture of a corner where the 2 colors meet

This is during painting

A doorframe in the hallway, we haven't put fresh white on the trim yet, we had to sand it first

My curtains

One piece of art I bought, it looks high but that's because we don't have a mantle up yet

More art

The entry way - I need new lights in there and a white bench instead of that table

Looking down the hallway, none of my pictures are back up yet

After all the furniture and art was put back - Corey was putting the feet back on the couch

Above the entertainment center, I need a new white one and a big mirror to hang above it
Those candleholders have sand and seashells inside.
I'm also getting new non-neon stuff for the fishtank so it matches.
And new lamps.

I love, love, love it! It's exactly what I wanted. I can't wait to keep putting new pieces in and taking old pieces out, all in due time.

Next will be the kitchen (Shire green) and the guest bath (pinstriped gray and white), and the master bedroom (robin's egg blue with chocolate trim).

I'm going to have to live in this house forever, once I get this all done I'm never going to want to leave it!

AJ's painting at preschool

I recently noticed that one of AJ's paintings from last year or the year before is framed and hung in his old preschool that Andrew attends now. I thought that was kind of neat.

He says it's a fire truck.

Halloween

AJ wanted to be Harry Potter again, so we just got all his costume stuff out from last year.

Drew couldn't decide, first he wanted to be Indiana Jones, then Peter Pan, then a vampire. He went back and forth between those for weeks, finally on Halloween I took him to the store and told him he just had to pick and he picked Indiana Jones.





I took the boys trick or treating by myself, Corey got stuck at work until 7 and I had to work at 8, so about 6:30 the boys and I went out to go around the neighborhood. They get bored after about 45 minutes anyway, so by the time Corey caught up with us they were ready to head home and hand out candy to the trick or treaters that came to our door.









With Andrew's food allergies, there isn't much candy that he can have, plus they always get way too much, so this year we decided to put all their candy out on the porch just before bed and leave a note for the Great Pumpkin asking him to trade for a toy. AJ got a Leap Frog spelling game tin and Andrew got an Indiana Jones Mr. Potato Head. They also got a little bit of candy too. It worked out really well.

We met up with the neighbor kids for a bit, they had some pretty cute costumes, the Oompa Loompa's mom made his costume and her Wonka Bar costume too.





And finally, a picture from last year that's too cute not to share. Andrew had a monkey costume, and when we were out trick or treating we ran into another neighbor who's little girl had the same costume so we took their picture together.

Back in action

Ok so I know this is over a month late, but I lost the cord to connect the camera to my computer and I've been too busy to look for it. I should have just asked Corey because he knew right where it was!

I have over a month to catch up on now.

Updates

I've been so busy, I haven't had a chance to update in awhile. We're all doing well, we just have a lot going on.

I'm working now, at Kohls, I have been working there for 5 weeks or so. I like it a lot. I'm working nights after Corey gets home, so it works well for us.

We've been painting too. My friend Maria is an awesome painter so she's been helping me. We've got the hallway all done and tomorrow we're painting the living room. I'll post pictures after it's done.

All that will be left to paint will be the master bedroom and the kitchen!

More pumpkin carving

The boys got some more pumpkins in the last week, so we had another night of carving tonight.

AJ insisted he had to carve his own without help, he chose a skull pattern, and he did a great job.

Andrew isn't big enough yet, but he picked his pattern - which is a spider, just like his other pumpkin.

Corey's work is having a pumpkin carving contest so he brought home a pumpkin and carved a pirate ship to enter in the contest.

I don't actually do any carving, so while the boys were busy hacking away at their pumpkins I was busy scraping out seeds and goop. I separated them and saved the seeds to roast tomorrow, and I plan to turn the last pumpkin into bread (it's small and thick so it's too hard to carve).

The bed that AJ built

AJ built a new bed in the living room the other day for him and Andrew to snuggle down in and watch a movie, he is so creative, it cracks me up sometimes the things he thinks to do.

Andrew is sick

Corey and I have had a cold for just under a week, AJ never got it of course, but Andrew came down with it Thursday night. He woke up at 3:30am Thursday night coughing and was in and out of sleep all night long. He seemed fine during the day yesterday, but then his cough got bad at night and he started to get a fever too.

I took him into the walk-in clinic today and they heard some whistling in his lungs so we did a chest x-ray adn it turns out he has a touch of pneumonia.

He will be on antibiotics for 5 days and we have some saline and albuterol for the nebulizer to open up his airways a bit.

He seems to be doing fine, he isn't acting sick. He's still into everything, running around the house and causing trouble. His cough is pretty junky though, so hopefully that will clear up soon.

Reading Night

AJ's school had a reading night, where all the kids come in pajamas and bring pillows and blankets and crash in the gym and listen to some teachers read stories. AJ liked it, Andrew got bored and ran around out in the halls for awhile while Corey chased him.