Mustache Movember

Dan sent me this picture from work.  It was his way of announcing to me his work was doing Movember Mustaches.  It's a new thing that has started, every grows mustaches during the month of November to promote men's health. 

Christian thought the fake mustache was awesome!

Dan is not known for is facial hair growing abilities, this was as good as it got by the end of November, I'm not a fan of facial hair so I was glad when it was all over :)

Christian Has Glasses!

I didn't think anything of it when I got a note sent home from the school saying that Christian had failed his vision test at school.  He had passed at this kindergarten shots check up and I thought he was just distracted with all the kids in the cafeteria being tested.  Boy...we were all shocked when the doctor told us "sure thing this kiddo needs glasses."  But give me a break!!! Doesn't he look the cutest most handsom-est ever?!?!  He was not to please for the first little bit as you can tell he is trying his very best to give me a smile, but he has grown accustomed to them and can tell a difference when he is and isn't wearing his glasses.  He picked out the frames all by himself and if you ask him he will show you the flames on the sides.  What a cutie  :)

Playing Catch Up in a Major Way: Halloween Edition

We have found the funnest community event that takes place around Halloween time.  A family in Linden has a small train that you can ride on, and every year they turn into the Stringtown Nightmare Express.  It's a fun family oriented haunted train ride for families.  This use to be a free even and the families who hosted this did it all out of their own pockets and the kindness of the hearts, but because they have so many people visit now they ask for a small donation of $2 a person to help handle costs.  It is worth it!  We went I think a total of 3 times this year once with the Spanns, once with Greg and Erika and the girls and once with Miriam and the girls, and they boys just loved it.  Christian is dying to be one of the volunteers in one of the haunted tunnels. 

Our family loves that ipad game plants vs zombies and we had all decided to be characters from this game.  Well as Halloween grew closer Evan changed his mind and never wavered again, he wanted to be a BLUE monster!  He was very specific.  After trying to look online I was worried that this wish was not going to come true for my Evan boy.  We had over to Savers which is the best at Halloween time by the way.  And lo and behold what was the first thing I found in the brand new Halloween costumes but this sweet little blue monster costume.  Evan loved it and it was perfect!  Thank you SAVERS!!!!

Evan with Miss Cathy at his preschool Halloween party

We made home made rootbeer and jack-o-lantern pizzas for our Halloween dinner.  Christian thought the rootbeer was awesome.

The family in our zombie and cute little blue monster costumes.

Painting the Cabinets of DEATH!!!

I have a man that loves me and let me tell you I had no idea the amount of work we would do the next 5 days when I finally talked him into painting our cabinets with me.  So all these DIY bloggers who say they just need a "quick change" and so they decided to paint the cabinets can just shut up now.  This was a HARD project!  We hit several bumps along the way.  The first one being sanding. Just take off the doors and sand them down with an electric sander, not hard right?  Well our cabinets had this sticky goo all over them, you know when grease gets on something and then dust settles on it.  Imagine that all over the cabinets.  The sander could even scratch the service so we had to take a scraper and scrape off all the cabinets before we could sand them.  The next bump was how do you pain cabinets inside and out, what do you do with the doors???? So after sanding them all down we attached them with the original hard ware and realized will just have to do touch ups the best we could.  Then we though we will use my Dad's paint gun.  It will go on nice and smooth and it will go really quick.  Well pain guns don't go on really smoothly unless you can stand back away and with all the nooks and crannies we had a big mess on our hands with our first coat or primes.  Okay scratch that, get nice purdy brushes and flortrol and do it by hand. FIVE COATS LATER...  5 days to complete the project, and our poor children's brain going to mush by all the games they played on the ipad and movies they watched we were finally done!  It does look nice and clean and opens the kitchen up and I think it will help with buyer appeal when we finally sell this place.  But I would not recommend painting your cabinets unless you have to, like we did.  It is worth the money to tear out and get new ones!  Thanks babe for helping me do this project, I would have lost my mind without you.

Earning Stars

We've been doing star charts at our house to help the kids learn how to take a little more responsibility around the house, be rewarded for good behavior, and learn delayed gratification.  Christian chose a cool batman toys set to earn and Evan chose a monster truck set.  We bough it and put it on top of the fridge so they could see it every day.  They earned stars for helping me with chores, making their beds, clearing their plates, cleaning up toys, sharing, choosing the right, etc.  They could also loose stars if they were behaving badly.  This works really well for Christian since time out is kind of old school for him now that he is getting older.  I remembered to take pictures of Christian's chart, but not Evan's  :(  trying to get better, I've fallen out of the habit.  Since this picture Christian has completed another star where he earned $10.  He then used another $10 he saved and we pitched in $10 and he bought himself a razor scooter which he loves.  Evan is close to completing his chart too.  Love these kiddos.

White Bums in the Summer Time

I think Brian Regan said it best, he said he loves having kids because he gets to have conversations with his kids he would never have with an adult. This my friends is one of those conversations:

We have spent a lot of time outside this summer and the boys have become super tan. We were getting ready for a bath and Christian stripped down and as he was climbing into the bath tub I said "Look at your cute white bum!" He turned his head to the side and hitched his hip up so he could get a better look at his little bootie and said "What the heck!!! Is that going to wash off Mom?!" He was very concerned. I couldn't stop laughing. "Buddy your bum is white because the rest of your body has been out in the sun all summer" I explained. "How do we fix it? I don't want a white bum." "Well sweetie you would have to run around outside without any clothes on to get you bum tan." "Well I can't do that, then everyone will see my private parts!" More laughing from me. "Baby, everybody has a white bum in the summer time, I do and so does Daddy.." at this point Evan came into the bathroom stripped down ready for the bath, "Evan even has a white bum" When I said this Evan hiked up his hip to take a better look at his bum and said "What the heck!!!"
I have never laughed so hard before. Love these two crazies :)

Something weird happened...

BOTH of these cute little boys started school today. Christian's first day of Kindergarten and Evan gets to go to Preschool twice a week. Which leaves me home twice a week by myself and it's a little strange but freeing all at the same time. Both of them were so excited to head off the school. Me and Dan watch as Christian crossed the field over to his teacher- I know people say it but you really don't get it until you are there... MAN!!!! My kids are growing up too fast! Love you two little crazies :)