sniff....sniff..

we were looking a little shabby and such a handsome boy shouldn't look even a little shaggy, so..........

i bit the bullet and snipped away.

granted it only took a few snips and i saved every bit of it, but....i used a few tissues.

the finished product isn't half bad. another milestone done! at least he didn't make me jump that until 3 1/2!!!

it's halloween time!!!

before halloween is officially here, i wanted to post our annual pumpkin carving event. we had soooo much fun last night carving away, i wanted you to be able to be a part of this too. the boys were great.

i do have to say i don't believe they actually have previous memories of doing this from years before, but they jumped right in and did a great job. this time i was prepared with gutted pumpkins before we even started. it was great.
first we all drew out our designs. actually jeremy and i cheated and copied one from those pumpkin carving kits. but the boys drew theirs (wasn't fast enough with the camera for that one!). then we trace, poke, and carve our little hearts out!!

we couldn't help but laugh at caleb carving his pumpkin. he was so intent on getting it right and not breaking the saw in half. it was so awesome to see him so focused on something. i had to video it so you could see that little tongue hard at work!!!

lets face it-ethan is only 3 . do you think i would let him loose with a knife or saw? even if i did, do you think i would admit it here??? not likely....but he did draw and trace and then was kind enough to embellish it for us all. thanks for the glitter pens grandma!!!

you can actually see the traced object that ethan is holding up. his carving is remarkably similar if i do say so myself.

caleb's traced paper wouldn't come out in a picture,

i thought he actually looked very similar to his finished project.

i think they all turned out great. caleb was so proud of his vampire he took it to school today to enter it into the pumpkin contest. hopefully they award all participants because i think he will be heart broken. we loved it and we love this tradition.

if you were wondering, the great punkin head cooperated very well, and just observed. next year he will be in the middle of it all!

btw-my kids think roasted pumpkin seeds are just about the best snack EVER!!!!

the love of a baby

i know, i still need to post trip pictures, but today, i just want to tell you about my little baby g. he's growing so fast. he's hardly little anymore.

my heart has been so full of love for this little guy lately. we used to call him baby crawl. i guess we had to adapt. he's walking like a mad-man. there's no stopping us now!

could it really have been a year ago when we were so scared for him? those memories are so fresh i can't believe we've come so far.

geesh! the things that little body had to go through, i can't even imagine--what a tough guy!

did he know then he was sealing the deal on our hearts?

i can't believe how much he's grown.
he is such a sweet boy. i know every mother is totally in love with their baby, but really-garet has my heart lately.

he eats like a horse (or another animal that likes sand and blue crayon), this little guy has been known to down a man sized bowl of oatmeal. he's starting out strong and can easily finish the same sized bowl as caleb.


he smiles like an angel. how can you resist when those eyes light up and those pearly whites come out? will this one be more spoiled than the other 2? is that possible? and really--who can resist that bald round head?


he laughs and jokes like his brothers. they are so sweet together. g joins right in on wrestle sessions but is the 1st to let someone know if he's 'rubbed the wrong way'



he has my heart completely. jeremy says its because he cemented our bond when we spent a week 'alone' together.

really--this baby is tops. he laughs and talks, and motors around like a pro. he is growing too too fast and the more i think of how fast this year has gone, the more i think of how fast the coming years are going to go. so.....for today i am loving my baby.i am loving that i can still bottle feed him before bed every night. i am loving even those days when he wants to be held by no one but 'ma-ma'. i am loving it when i get the head on my shoulder after i rescue him from 'brotherly love' even though that's not often since he is not much of a cuddler. i am loving that he still needs me to put him to the top of the slide before he can scoot his way down, and that he expects me to be at the end to catch him. its worth all the tears. i have never cried over one of my kids as much as i have over garet. not yet at least. i think maybe giving up some extremely (to me) important things for him made me appreciate him even more. i love this guy and i wanted you all to see how great he is!

what we've gotten ourselves into

many have asked....but-i was determined not to post until i had before and after. things are not progressing as quickly as i had hoped (they never do). so you will just have to settle on the before and a few during and then be in suspense on most of the afters.. figured if i was going to do an after it might as well really be an after and not just an almost done . stay tuned might get it finished by next summer?

here is our little house. we love it! not quite as big square footage wise as we were originally looking for, but after many a long hot days at house hunting with 3 boys, we decided this is the house for our family.

first up is the lovely guest room. this lady had a serious passion for american flags and wallpaper borders. she found something that worked for her and took off running with it-to the extreme. are we un-patriotic taking them down? hope not.


here is that same room in process. for the record, there were 2 layers of wallpaper borders before i got to this beautiful stenciling. many times a day i ask myself 'what were they thinking?'

boys room


during...this room only had 1 layer of wallpaper border and then these lovely stencils....

this is courtesy of ethan, he's quite the photographer and captured perfectly the reason all this painting is taking me so long. spoiled baby...

boys bathroom

master bedroom. how do you like that carpet? please do not be too sad that it has gone to live with jesus... worst part about it--the carpet was brand new!!! and i am talking maybe put in within a month...what a waste of money!


this is what happens when you keep your kids up too late while working on your house when they're exhausted and really want to sleep. at least he has a blanket you say. well no..that's a furniture pad---ew! it may have even been better had he fallen asleep on the red carpet, at least that's soft!

my little blond helper. if we ever went into home depot without primer attached to his face i don't think the guys at the paint counter would recognize us.

so you have to know this happened more than once because the first time i ran over and rescued him right away. however, the second time i needed a bit more proof. and how cute is that, he has the paint brush and everything. since this photo-op latters are stored in the garage whenever they are not being actively used.
main floor.
living room-yes that wall does match the carpet

kitchen

kitchen (the knobs do match as well-can't say they weren't color coordinating!)

and now on to downstairs....
downstairs bedroom

poker anyone?

downstairs bathroom

den/living area.when we originally put an offer on the house the counter came back with the ammendment "pool table light and hot tub do not convey"

i know, it is sad and i would be lying if i said this almost nixed the deal...so sad-we are still in mourning.

this is what sold the house. the back yard is perfect!!! not too small and huge high walls so we don't feel like our neighbors are watching us all the time.
so that's our house! hopefully you enjoyed it. i will post more after pics when i get them. probably not until after christmas. today's tally is:
master bedroom: done
master bathroom: not started
boys bedroom: done
guest bedroom: done
boys bathroom: done
living room: done
kitchen: done
downstairs bedroom: in process (etd christmas morning)
den: not started
downstairs bathroom: not started
garage: still filled with boxes
still need to hang pictures, decorate and make it our own but every day it is more and more like home. we have plenty of room so please come visit us soon! we'd love to show you in person.

why we love aunt jeanne

so its long past time we posted about our amazing aunt jeanne. yesterday was her birthday, so what better time than now to show you what an awesome gal she is!!! really, what person (in their right mind) would allow a family of 5 to take over her house for 3 weeks while their housing situation got ironed out.?!? not just any family of 5 but a family of 5 with 3 small boys who are active and destroy and are loud, and...shall we go on? for those of you not familiar: when we moved to arizona we had to be here a bit earlier than we had possession of our house. the sellers were not willing to rent for a few weeks, and we needed to get caleb in for the start of the school. all our stuff was left in el paso in storage but we needed a place to call home for a little bit. jeanne offered and i'm not sure she knew what she was getting into, but she soon found out. this was a hard time for all of us. we had been in limbo for so long nerves were shot, normalacy was only a sought after dream, and schedules were far from normal. but in swooped jeanne (i forget did she have her cape on?) and saved the day/weeks.
needless to say, our aunt jeanne is the best thing around, and here are some reasons why:
this is what a typical laundry day looks like at jeanne's house. she only does it once a week and only has 2 very small loads...

here's what it looks like when we do laundry. it happens a minimum of twice a week and is never less than 3 loads (and it is always on the biggest cycle).

\
this is what her den looks like. this huge bean bag was our kids bed for the 3 weeks we stayed with her (i remember this bean bag at her house from when i was a kid)!!

this occurs only minutes after the boys take over this room. not to mention the talent we quickly realized caleb has at getting the tv to work no matter what we tried to stop him. maybe someone should invent some device that only allows the television to be turned on after 6 a.m. (that would have afforded at least 1 of our kids 2 more hours of sleep a night).

this is what her living room likes like on any given day.

.............add three boys..........

it's important to note that these pictures were only taken minutes apart. but even with all the chaos, jeanne never complained. she never even seemed bothered that caleb threw fits, garet always threw food on her floor, or ethan's toys were never all in one place. she never even skipped a beat or looked surprised!

...okay well maybe this once...
so this is only the tip of the iceberg of why we love our aunt jeanne. it has been so hard to leave mom and dad back home and the boys still ask to go over every sunday for popcorn, but jeanne has really made the transition easier. all our family has been wonderful, but we are partial to jeanne today. many of you know, but jeanne lost her husband rather quickly earlier this year and i'm sure that has been hard on her. what an amazing example she has been to us. she has stayed positive, busy, and has reached out to others with love. she opened her home to us with no questions asked and never judged our parenting techniques (or lack there of) or our kids. we will always look back on our days at her house with fond memories of salty popcorn, late night chat sessions, t-shirt cuttings, and project planning.

we hope you had a very happy birthday aunt jeanne. we love you so much and are so grateful to you for who you are!

you are tops at our house!!