The dangers of too much DIY Network...

Just a quick warning.  If you ever are house-shopping and you see a house that you think you could really like after "just a little bit of work", be warned.... a little bit of work turns into a lot of work.  Oh, and if you like to lay in bed and watch DIY network and dream up all the possibilities of things you could do to your home yourself and think of all the $$$ you'd save by not paying anybody to do the labor, just remember this...

1) The people in those shows often use their vacation time from work to tackle these tasks.
2) They don't have 3 kids running around in the meantime.
3) Thanks to TV magic, their projects only take 30 minutes to complete. 

So, having been warned, if you still choose to proceed.  You just might:

have a 18 foot ladder in your living room indefinately...

your toaster might live on your living room floor for awhile...

your kitchen island might move to your family room...

your couches may be stacked on top of each other where your dining room table should be, and you may spend over a week with boxes upon boxes of hardwood flooring stacked in your kitchen.

But someday... someday your husband will get down to the last row of flooring to be laid.  Your walls will be painted, your new dishwasher will be ordered, your fireplace will be re-tiled, and all of the other projects that popped up unexpectedly around the way will be done.  Your husband might have bloody knuckles and sore knees, but you will feel a great sense of satisfaction at all of the $$ you saved.  And if you are like me, you will realize that you should probably wait until after the holidays until you gently remind your husband about the other (much smaller) projects that were already agreed upon. :)

A day in the life of Broden...

 

Having a big sister in school sure can be fun.  Broden loves coming to school when it's my turn to help with Popcorn Fridays, especially when it's pajama day at school.  He takes his job as part of the clean-up crew at the end of the day very seriously, and Jacey loves having him there at recess to show off to all of her friends.

Broden has been so fun lately, and a very good sport.  Our home has been a busy place, with lots of stuff that little boys just can't touch.  (Saws, tools, wet paint, etc.)  I had to smile yesterday when we had to go to Lowes to pick out a new dishwasher.  I told Broden we were going to the store, and he asked which one.  When I said "Lowes", he put both hands on his head and started shaking his head saying, "Not Lowes!  That store gives me a headache." I have to smile because that's the exact same reply I get from Dan if we are ever out running errands together and I want to run into JoAnns.  Then he went on to attempt further negotiations by saying, "How 'bout Target?  Target's a WAY funner store.  I promise I'll be a really good boy if we go to Target.  Or how 'bout Costco?  I like Costco.  Please?"

Can you tell we've been spending too much time (and $$) in Lowes lately?

To our neighbor across the street.....

You seem like a delightful woman.  Really, you do.  You were very nice to us when you came to introduce yourself when we moved in.  Then this scary guy started hanging around on  your porch.  I wonder if you know he's there?  Maybe he's not so bad, but he's causing a few problems in my house.  You see, my children have the perfect view of him from their bedroom window at night, and it's making bedtime very difficult.  Did I mention that his eyes glow green in the dark?  I can't blame them for not liking him, because, to tell you the truth- he always creeps me out just a little bit when I leave my home in the dark at 5:30 a.m. to meet my friend for my morning run.  Our home sure would run more smoothly if you could just ask him to leave.

Sincerely,
Your new neighbors

Think I could get away with it?  Probably not......

Halloween

 Broden's costume.  I totally stole the idea from my friend Whitni in TX a few years ago, and was so proud of myself for a homemade costume.  Unfortunately, Broden is really sold on blue right now.  When I asked him what color he wanted his robot buttons to be he said, "Blue" of course.  When I showed him the finished product, he started to cry because he thought he was going to be a blue robot.

So I did what any good mom would do.  I gave in to the tantrum.  The truth is, Broden is not a dress-up boy.  I can't remember a halloween when getting him into his costume has not involved tears.  I had already decided that even if I finished the costume and he didn't want to wear it, it wasn't worth ruining a fun holiday with a power struggle.  Especially since we weren't going trick-or-treating this year.  But hey, if being a blue robot would make it more fun for Broden, than so be it.  And it worked like a charm.  

Of course, robot costumes are kind of hard to walk in for long periods of time, impossible to sit down in to eat a hot dog, etc.  So when we crashed another elementary school's halloween carnival on Friday night (since my friend and I are heading up our elementary school's carnival later this year)  this is where our blue robot spent much of the evening.

 Which meant Broden spent the rest of the time walking around playing games like this, in mismatched jammies.

He did decide to put it on again for awhile at the end though.  Good thing, because on his way to the cupcake walk, one of the men in charge of one of the games stopped him and said, "Good for you, not enough people use enough imagination for homemade costumes anymore." and dumped handful after handful of candy in Broden's bag.  Broden won a cupcake a few rounds into the game, and discovered that eating, even standing up should be added to the list of things that are hard to do in a robot costume because he couldn't bend his head down to look at his food.  Too funny.

  

The whole group.  Sadie, Isaac, Broden, Jacey, and Adam.  Jacey was easy this halloween.  Her friend from Texas (whose mom just happens to Jacey's former (and favorite!) dance teacher) sent her his ballet outfit for her birthday.  She loves it, and immediately decided that she wanted to wear it for halloween too.  Since it was a year of indoor activities for us, this was a good year to be a ballerina.  This picture was taken as soon as we walked in though, before she changed out of her tennis shoes and into her ballet slippers.  Oh well, you have the idea.

And then there's Sadie, our always happy BYU cheerleader for the evening.  Until she's old enough to have an opinion, she will be recycling Jacey's costumes from previous years!  I guess this was never really a halloween costume for Jacey, but it served it's purpose this year!

 

Backtrack for a moment with me.....

to Jacey's birthday party.  The only reason I have any pictures of this event is thanks to good friends who realized how completely overwhelmed I was.  I won't go into details, but lets just say I will never plan a chef party complete with make your own personal-sized pizza with 20 children, (started out with 8- our guest list spiraled out of control as more and more little friends at school started asking Jacey if they could be invited to her party.  I'm curious, how do the rest of you deal with that?) especially on a weekend when daddy is out of town for a seminar and I'm flying solo, combined with 3 days before a move ever again.  Yikes!  I have to take complete responsibility for the timing.  That probably wasn't the brightest idea, but I got so tired of putting everything fun off until "after we get moved" or "after things settle down" or "once we have a better idea of what's going to happen."  Those reasons already cost us our family vacation, a carefree summer, and I wasn't about to let it ruin Jacey's birthday too.  And I didn't really know we would be moving in 3 days.  Actually, I didn't even know if we would still be living in that house when I handed out invitations.  I purposely left the address off so parents would have to call me and find out where we lived, because I didn't really know where that would be a week in advance!

I will say that Jacey saved the day in one regard though.  I usually make my kids' birthday cakes.  This year when I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she got this worried look on her face like she was afraid she was going to offend me and said, "Mom, would you mind if this year I had one of those cakes from the store with white frosting with pretty edges and colored flowers?"  Bless you, child.