Carving Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins tonight. This year we bought templates for the pumpkins. We thought it'd be fun. And they turned out really great, but C choose the hardest design and it took about 2 hours to carve. Luckly, we bought a new power knife, and it was a LIFESAVER! The kiddos crack me up, Miss M loves to get in there and pull out all of the slime, but C won't touch it. He'd scoop it out, but would not touch it! Miss M choose the dragon design and C choose the haunted house with bats. Trick or treating is on Saturday night, we are going to have Tinkerbell and Bumblebee (Transformers) running around the neighborhood. I can't wait and I'll post pictures Sunday. Happy Halloween!!!

Scooping out the "guts".

Showing us what the "guts" look like.

C scooping out the "guts" but he won't touch them because they are "binscusting!"

Daddy using his new knife.

Miss M's dragon pumpkin.

Miss M with her dragon pumpkin.

R working on the haunted house.

Haunted house...finally! It looks so good, can you see all of the detail?!?!

The kiddos with their pumpkins.

The finished products.

Our new home

Well, let me just first say, this post is going to be chock full of pictures of the new house. The only pictures that are missing are of the upstairs (because when I took the pictures, the upstairs was a mess) and the backyard (beause it was full of rain and mud that I didn't want to trapse around in) so those will have to be on another post. I just wanted to let you see our new home and how cozy it is. In looking at the pictures, I realize that it looks alot like the rest of our homes (especially the one in Houston) but I guess that's because we like our furniture and the decor so we don't change it up much. This house reminds me a lot of our Houston home (or home #2 as the kids so lovingly refer to it...they are all numbered and we are currently in #4). The layout is similar, but this house a much larger. I think it is the perfect size for us because it has 4 bedrooms and a spare area for the playroom/ office (aka the upstairs). I'm growing fonder and fonder (is that really a word?) of this house day by day. I have already decorated for Halloween/ Fall and can't wait to see it done up for Christmas!

So (drum roll please......) here it is.......................

This is the front of the house. R trimmed the trees and mowed the grass the other day and it looks soooo much better. You can actually see the house now. All the windows are in C's room on the front of the house. Don't ask to see pics of the garage, because it is FULL!!!! We have all of our regular garage stuff in there as well as what was in the basement in house #3 AND one whole side is full of the gold couch (oh yes you read right, we are getting rid of the gold couch.....do I hear bells ringing or what???) and other such garage sale items. Not to mention the Harley and Polaris. No my truck won't be in there until a garage sale happens and the Polaris finds a new home. We can all pray, right?!

This is C's room. Yes, one shelf is missing from his dresser, the WONDERFUL movers lost part of it so we can't fix it yet. But, it's a nice large room and great to play in. He is also in the transition from going from small boy with the tropical theme to the big boy sports theme. AND yes, he did make his bed for this picture. He makes it now everyday. It's not as straight as if I made it, but he is independent now and I'm happy for that :) Plus the windows add LOTS of light to his room.

This is Miss M's room. She is totally girly and loves pink. The rooms in this house are all tan and we are not painting the walls, so the decor has to add the touch of color. I love her room. I think that it is cozy. She only has one small window, so her room is darker, but we turn on lights and it works just great. On another note, I'm not sure if I posted this already, but her room is where the famous Scorpion made it's appearance. On the second night in the house, I went to fold back her comfortor and there it was on the corner! C raced to get me a shoe and I SMASHED it while M got me some t.p. to flush it with. It was an eventful night and I am still searching the house for more! But...I like the room anyway :)

This is what the kids bathroom looks like for now. I want to change it and put all of this decor upstairs. I am looking for chocolate brown and teal to put into here, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding a shower curtain that will work. I've not hung the pictures in here since I don't want to put extra holes in the walls. When I re-do the room, I'll re-post. But this works for now!

This is the main hallway. The kids rooms, bathroom, laundry room, guest room and stairs are all up front (or to the top left of the pic) and the kitchen, living room, and master are behind (or toward you). This is looking at the dinning room.

This is a good picture of the dinning room. I have my old armoir as storage for my crafts and placemats, my curio in the corner and long wooden table as well as the dinning table in here. We've not eaten in here yet, but this will be the location of our Thanksgiving feast come November.

This is the guest room. Nothing fancy, but it does the trick. It is not supposed to be a bedroom since there is no closet and the french doors are glass, but since we don't have a ton of visitors and we wanted the office upstairs, we turned the room into the guest room. Plus it's set back in it's own hall, so there is privacy.

Here is the living room. This is where we do most of our living. It's very cozy. When you sit on the couch, you can see everything and since the front door is glass, you can see if someone is at the door. I like the room. It's not huge, but house #3 had too large of a living room (in my opinion) and I think this is perfect for us. The kids have their toys hidden (yeah right) in the trunk at the end of the couch and there is lots of "grown up" look to the room. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

This is the hallway leading to the master bedroom. R would be upset if I didn't show the copper sailboat in this post :) I love the light in the niche. Again, it just suites us!

Here is the master bedroom. We were so happy to find a room that would fit our new furniture. It feels like such a grown up room...I just love it! And yes....that is our NEW LCD t.v. in the corner. We've finally joined the rest of the world and bought our first LCD t.v. Mainly so that it wouldn't scratch the new furniture...ha.

Here is the kitchenette. This is where we eat most of our meals. We have to carefully plan where everyone sits, so that no one (aka the kids) can see the t.v. while they are eating and so that I can get to the kitchen easier during meal time. This handy little table that we found at a garage sale for $30 has really come in handy!

And finally, the kitchen. I really love this kitchen. When I started to put our stuff away, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough room, because house #3 had a HUGE kitchen, but I found that I desperately needed to weed out my trash treasures and miraculously I found that I actually had extra cupboard space! It has the sink just to the right of the lamp (in the island) so I can see everyone and be a part of the family while I'm cooking and during clean-up. The only thing that I don't love about this kitchen is that it didn't come with a fridge, so we are using our garage fridge for now. Let me tell you, this thing doesn't have an ice maker or water in the door. I have to make ice everyday! R's favorite joke right now, if the ice is low, is that the ice maker isn't keeping up! We are going to be looking for a new fridge once we are more settled!

So, there it is! Hope you enjoyed the house! Come visit anytime, we've got the room and love having company!

Birthday Boy

Yesterday was our little bear's 5th birthday and it was a good one! I'm putting some pictures up of how we celebrated last night. He's all about Spiderman and asked that he have a spiderman cake. So, being the wonderful (ha) baker that I am, I made a Spiderman cake for him. Actually, it was a box mix and can of frosting. He chose a chocolate butter cake mix and cream cheese frosting that I colored blue. Then I used red gel to make the web and we found a black Spiderman (he likes them both, but didn't have a black Spiderman figurine, yet) that I put on the corner. I used the gel to make the web and had it look like it was coming out of Spiderman's hand. Here's what it looked like...by the way, it tasted AWSOME!

Here he is with all of his gifts to open. He had already gotten his gift from Grandma Bu, he had gifts from G & G J, Uncle Shawn & Aunt Carrie, G & G B, and of course mommy, daddy, and Miss M.

Miss M got him a T-ball bat. Of course it HAD to be green since that is his favorite color.

He found this shirt at Target, and picked it out because it's just like one that daddy has!

He got a Spiderman sweatsuit that made him very happy!

Here he is with his new Nintendo DS. This is one of his favorites, especially since his friend Preston has one in Cincy and he loved playing it with him. He has been having a lot of fun learning how to play the games and how the whole system works.

And the grand finale....Spike the motetontrol dinosaur (his words). He has been wanting this for over a year. He was thinking that Santa was going to bring it this year, but he got a huge suprise and got it for his birthday. He was so excited when he saw it in the box.

And here he is with his cake. He made the best wish, then blew out the candle. I must also mention, that he devoured his piece of cake in all of about 5 bites. He said it was delicious, but then immediatly had a belly ache! Not suprised!! All in all, I'd say it was a good birthday! Happy Birthday Little Bear!

Our Little Bear is 5!

Well, my little bear is 5 today! I can't believe it. I was thinking last night about 5 years ago. We were so excited and scared to be bringing a new life into the world. We didn't know how well everything would go and we wanted to be able to provide. Now, it's strange to look back and think that. It's amazing how God provides for you. Since the time we found out we were pregnant with him, we've been provided for beyond anything we could have asked for.

I was also thinking about all of our friends and family who were there to support us during our pregnancy, labor, and who have stayed so close to us (even though we keep moving away). I remember so many of our friends coming to visit us in the hospital and staying most of the night...since he decided to make his apperance at 3 in the morning! I remember that everyone ordered pizza for dinner and I couldn't have any!!! They were so nice though, they took it out into the waiting area to eat it :) Do you remember that Niki and Ashley?!

Well, today he gets to go to school and share some cookies and juice with his friends, then go to the doctor for his 5 year check up. Luckly, he doesn't have to get any shots this year. But, I think we are going to get the flu shot today, so.....I guess one shot will be ok.

He has choosen the Spiderman theme this year. I am making a spiderman cake for him. It's rectangular with blue icing and will have the black spiderman climbing up the side and spraying the cake with a red spider web. I'll post a picture of it when I am finished with it.

Here he is this morning ready for school!

He has such a wonderful, contagious smile!

Loving on his sister.

Of course, she has to make a camio as well.

New House

Well, we are finally into our new house! We moved in last Monday and have been unpacking since. R had to leave Tuesday early morning so I was left to unpack the house by myself for the rest of the week. The unpacking went really well and I was pretty much done by Friday night, save some last boxes that I was just too burnt out to tackle. We got to work on getting all of the electronics set up...how do we live without them?!?!? and decorating the house. It is finally starting to feel like home.

I also had the daunting task of listing things that didn't make it they way they were when they left. We didn't have a lot of things break (in the boxes) but had quite a few things that were not in boxes that were either broken or scratched. One of the things that irks me the most is that they wrapped our brand new end table from our bedroom in a dirty blanket and ruined it! I've tried to Pledge it, but you can still see the marks from it. SO....I guess Armstrong will be buying us a new end table. The other thing that really gets me is that they did NOT pack my 2 cup coffee maker in a box, they just threw it into the truck! So, of course it's top got broken. Another purchase for Armstrong!

In case you haven't heard, the second night that we were in the house, we had a visitor. R left that morning for Cincinnati and was not coming back until late Friday night. So, I was putting the kids to bed and as I was turning the comfortor back in M's room, I noticed a scorpion! YES I SAID IT...A SCORPION!!!! Ok, so it was only a baby and it was not black (it was light brown), but it had it's tail all curled up and it's pinchers going to town toward me. M had to go potty, so she ran into the bathroom, so I called to C to run to his room and get a shoe. He did and ran back to me with it. I then proceeded to flip it onto the floor and smash it with all that I had with the shoe. I got a tissue and had to pick it up and throw it into the toilet. The kids then slept with me that night and I still look for one at every turn. I would put up a picture of what it looked like, but I am trying with all my might to forget what it looked like!!!

When we are more settled into the house and have unloaded all of the garage sale stuff that is sitting in the entry hall, I promise I'll post pictures.

Well, I think that is most of the fun that we had moving into the house. I am looking forward to enjoying the house and settling into our new life here. I am getting really excited for the holidays that are coming up. C's birthday is Thursday, then we have my mom and dad's birthday, our Aunt C's birthday and Mimi's birthday all in October. We are preparing for Halloween and the kids are super excited for their costumes and trick or treating. We also have a vacation coming up to Florida in November, Thanksgiving in our new house (hopefully with Bu) and then Christmas to look forward to. I can't wait for the upcoming months!