Spiderman & 50's Girl

Happy Halloween!!! This year Brody dressed up as Spiderman and Brooke was a 50's girl. We had our ward Trunk-or-Treat last Saturday and it was a blast! The kids are so excited to go trick-or-treating tonight. I can't believe how fast the holidays are creeping up, I'm so excited for such fun activities and family time coming up and our 10th wedding anniversary. I'm kinda sad to have to take down all of my Halloween decorations but more than excited to pull out the Christmas stuff! Santa is on top of it and finished all of the Christmas shopping for the kids last Saturday. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!!!

My Loves....

.....and I'm beyond blessed to be their mama. These were taken by my incredibly talented friend. She can do ANYTHING and I admire her many talents so much!!! Thank you so much Jen, I'm excited to see the rest!!

The Polar Express

I'm anxiously counting down the days to December 8th....I've always wanted to take the kids on a Polar Express adventure and this year we get to go! My brain has been hard at work trying to think of creative ways to tell the kids about our adventure. I definitely want to wait until the morning of our little trip to surprise them. Maybe one of Santa's elves will wake us up early that morning and leave a surprise on our doorstep??? So excited!

Feelings

This is how I have been feeling lately and I can't seem to shake it. I've been doing my best to keep busy, baking up all sorts of Pinterest goodies, getting outside, getting creative with crafts, and those things help but it eventually finds its way back. I'm really looking forward to General Conference this weekend. I'm hoping I can receive answers to prayers and to have those feelings that bring me down lifted. I have so much to be grateful for and I want to focus on those blessings. I love the saying "if we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back." So.Very.True. ..... I know what you are thinking, this is such a sad picture of Brooke! My little drama queen was having a meltdown because she wanted to take her ugly cat with her to college. I tried to explain to her that by the time she goes off to college she won't want to bring any of her toys....cue the meltdown. I should have just said yes.

First Day of Fall

Last Saturday was the first day of fall. We spent the day doing lots of fun things. We woke up bright and early, ate breakfast and headed out the door for flu shots. Then we treated the kids to donuts for being so good and brave during their flu shot. Next we headed to Target to pick up a few things, then onto The Home Depot to buy some shrub bushes for our front yard. We headed home afterwards to drop off the plants and then out to lunch! We tried Oregano's for the very first time and it was AMAZING. I see many trips back in our future. After a super awesome and fulfilling lunch we came home, Brody was asking for his nap and Brooke was ready to do some coloring and I set out to decorate the front of our house for Halloween.....12 bags of that fake spider web cotton and 4+ hours later this is what our house looked like.............see photo above..... We then ended the day by planting those three bushes. I'd say it was a perfect Saturday and I was able to cross off so many things on my to do list. Enjoy!

Getting Ready For Fall....

I'm getting better about blogging again, yay! Last week the weather was absolutely gorgeous out here. There was a constant breeze and everything just felt like fall was approaching...today we are back in the low 100's...go figure BUT last week I was itching to do some fall-ish things. So I baked chocolate chip pumpkin bars, planted fall mums, worked on the front yard with Bryan...busted out my Halloween yard stakes (my neighbors must think I'm nuts) AND this afternoon I started crafting my Halloween spiders. I CANNOT wait to web the front of the house and put up my spiders. They are so fun!! In other news, we FINALLY got the title to our van in the mail..it only took FOREVER. This week we are planning on cleaning her up and listing her for sale. Part of me is so sad to see my van go, there are so many fun memories in that car BUT the new car we got last month totally trumps those sad feelings. We got a 2012 GMC Acadia and I'm in LOVE with this car. It's by far my most favorite car we've had. Anyways I'm sure the mail carrier will be so glad to see my van go since it's kinda making delivering the mail difficult for her. Maybe i'll stick a treat in our mailbox for her. I'm really happy that the holiday season is fast approaching. I can't believe Bryan and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in less than 8 weeks...CRAZY! I'm excited and nervous about what Bryan has planned...or is yet to plan. Enjoy!

Expressions with Brooke

Instagram is so much fun. Last night we were waiting for Bryan to come home from the DMV. Brooke was sitting next to me on the couch and suggested we take pictures of different expressions...as you can see my sweet girl is quite the little actress... Number one: "Say what???".....Number two: Angry.....Number three: Sad.....Number four: Just us girls. LOVE her.

Happy 3rd Birthday Brody Bears!!!!

Someone had a birthday!!! Brody turned 3 last month and I'm finally getting around to uploading all of the fun pictures we took of our fun little family party. Brody requested chocolate cupcakes so I turned his request into chocolate puppy cupcakes. Brody loved it and we all agreed they kinda looked like our Ruby girl!! Brody loved all of his presents from family and from Brooke, Bryan and I. We have TONS of Spiderman stuff scattered around the house and yes if you follow me on Instagram you will see that my sweet boy wears those cowboy boots EVERYWHERE. Bryan thinks its weird but I love it...only a three year old can pull off cowboy boots and bright orange shorts on a hot Arizona day. We had such a blast celebrating Brody's birthday and I could not imagine life without my sweet little Brody boy!

First Day of 1st Grade!!!

Here they are...only, what 2 months later!!! Sheesh! I took a ton more but I'm trying my best to get all caught up before all the fun holiday activities arrive. Brooke had a great first day of school and was so excited for the new school year!

More Coming Soon....

I'll post pics soon of the birthday fun and all the other fun events that have happened over the last few months. I know I'm terrible, life happens and the blog had to take a back seat for a few months. I'll try my best to be better and catch up! We've had a fun summer!! Enjoy!

Happy 3rd Birthday Brody!!!

On 8/23 my sweet Brody bears turned the big 3!!! It was a perfect day. The kitchen was decorated with streamers and the table was full of presents. We dropped sister off at school headed home for some breakfast before heading out to spend the morning at BounceU. Brody had a blast jumping on everything. After our BounceU fun we met up with Bryan and had In & Out, Brody's favorite. We headed home after lunch and Brody headed off to nap while I baked his birthday cupcakes until it was time to pick Brooke up from school. We headed out to have dinner the best pizza place ever called Casanova Brothers and then headed home for cupcakes and presents. What a fun day!!! My Dear Sweet Brody Bears, I cannot believe you are my big 3 year old!! Where has the time gone? I remember the day you were born. Your sweet chunky face melted my heart. This past year has been so fun and you have grown up so much! You speak so well and you starting sleeping in your big boy bed too! You no longer need a high chair or a sippy cup (even though I sneak one in every once and awhile). You adore your big sister Brooke and can't wait for her to come home from school everyday. You are obsessed with Spiderman and Batman and boy are you a little dare devil at times, you sure know how to keep me on my toes. You are brave and fearless...except when it came to swim lessons this past summer. I could not imagine life without my sweet little boy. I love you so much Brody. Happy 3rd Birthday and thank you for choosing me to be your mama! Love, Mama.

What We Have Been Up To....

So besides a broken dryer, Brooke's last day of Kindergarten, new tires...etc...we have been staying busy this summer. Brody needed a haircut SO badly so we did that and I've been staying busy spray painting old frames and whatever else I can find to keep me from being lazy. I even cleaned out all of our closets and had a garage sale last Saturday. Brooke and Brody have been having swim lessons 4 days a week since school has been out and they have learned so much! Brody cried the first few days, I totally was "that mom" with "that kid" and I received a few death stares from some sweet moms since my kid seemed to ruin it for other kids...but now he is such a happy little fish! He even jumps off the diving board all by himself out to his teacher, (I never would have done that at 2!) Anyways, so far it's been a great summer and I'm looking forward to the rest of it. Enjoy the posts below!

It's Kaput

Memorial Day weekend we ventured out to take care of some "fun" and expensive errands like...buying new tires for my van. Super fun and expensive. Bummer. We came home and when we walked in I could smell something burning. It came from the laundry room and sure enough it was the dyer. It clunked out mid cycle and was burning hot. The next day Bryan set out to fix it. We figured it was the belt...and found out it was not the belt. Sadly it was the motor and we had two options buy a new motor or buy a new dryer. Our washer/dryer was old and we (I mean Bryan) purchased the set from a man in Utah (when we lived there) who would take old broken sets and fix them up like new. Honestly I really did not care for the washer/dryer (and of course they survived our massive flood in Utah). Sure they did the job but not that great of a job as past washer/dryers we used in our apartment rentals. We opted for the new dryer. Lucky for us it was Memorial Day weekend and everything was on sale. We were able to purchase a brand new set and get a fantastic deal on it. Since everyone in America was out buying a washer and dryer on Memorial Day weekend my new set was on put on back order and we were scheduled with a delivery date of June 19th........what? Three weeks without a dryer? I can easily wash my clothes with my old washer but how was I going to dry them? I pictured a clothes line in my backyard and Ruby chewing on our lovely clean whites which were now covered in grass stains and mud. Then I pictured dragging my two kids to a laundromat (which I have done before) and quickly put that nightmare to an end. Lucky for me we are so blessed to have incredible neighbors, an amazing ward family and I have two of the best visiting teachers out there. I have endless options of dryers and I'm SO grateful for everyone's willingness to help me.I'm so blessed! 8 days until the new set arrives!

Last Day of Kindergarten

A few weeks ago Brooke had her last day of Kindergarten. I took a bunch of cute pictures and after I uploaded them on my computer I realized that I really need to take the time and read my user's manual for my camera. My pictures either come out way too dark or way too bright. Luckily I took one picture with my phone. I'm in shock over the fact that my sweet little girl is now a 1st grader...a 1st grader!! Where did my little kindergartener go?! Bryan went with us to drop her off on her last day of school. I totally cried as I watched her line up after the bell and disappear into the hallway of her school. I was able to leave Brody with Bryan so I could go to her end of their year class party. During the party the kids had one last special visit from their 6th grade buddies who were moving on to Junior High. I tried so hard to hide my tears but I couldn't help it, I tried hiding them with a smile and that worked for a few minutes. I'm such a wimp! Anyways the party was fun. A part of me is happy and somewhat relieved that Kindergarten is over, we survived the first year and that "mystery" of school is over. I remember a year ago stressing with worry about sending off my baby to school. I feel so much more prepared for the upcoming school year and what to expect. Brooke can't wait for the school year to begin again, she loves school so much. I'm so proud of her and I know she will enjoy being a 1st grader next year and I'm excited to hear all about the new things she learns everyday.

Ruby Update

It's been forever since my last Ruby update. I missed her last update at her previous vet appointment, my sweet girl was sick so blogging was not the priority at that moment. Today Ruby had her VERY last vet appointment (for the next 6 months that is). She weighed in at a whopping 17.2 pounds. Today she had her "big girl" vaccinations. Ruby did great and was so excited to see everyone at the doctor's office. They love on her so much. The nurse asked me if she could take her in their back room to visit and play with everyone while I waited in the patient room for the doctor. She said everyone was excited to see her on the list of patients today. She was gone a good 10 minutes but it made me smile to hear everyone back there talking and playing with her. I laughed a bit while I was sitting by myself in the room waiting for the doctor because I remember being in the same position with my children when they were just babies. The nurses always took them to visit because they were so overly friendly and pretty darn adorable at all of their well check appointments. Yes, I know Ruby is just a dog but it just made me realize how lucky we are to have Ruby as our family pet, she really is such a sweetheart and fits in with us so well. Ruby is 100 % potty trained. Yay! She still gets into trouble sometimes (she's still a puppy) and we are working on teaching her not to jump up on people when she sees them or plays. She has a bad habit of running behind our couch (I can't stand it) hopefully she will fatten up some more and won't be able to fit behind there anymore. Ruby has this adorable new thing that she does. Along with wagging her tail when she meets new friends or is excited to see someone or us she will wiggle her little bum back and forth pretty dramatically. It's hilarious! She also has this squeaky monkey that she chews on and she will "sing/howl" with it when she chews it. It's a crack-up. Ruby channels Snoopy with her sleeping positions and snoring (which is REALLY loud). We sure love our Ruby so much, even when she decides to play in the mud and require an emergency bath at the most stressful time of the day for me. Enjoy the picture I took of her above with my phone while at the vet today. I'm really sad her dark widow's peak has disappeared and has gone all blonde above her eyes. It must be the Arizona sun or something because I'm noticing Brooke's hair become lighter as well. Enjoy!

Getting My DIY On

I have been wanting to buy a cute little chalkboard to use as a fun photo prop for my sweet ones. Since spray painting Brooke's frames for her room weeks ago it has sparked a spray painting frenzy for me. Who knew playing around with frames and spray paint could be so much fun!? I was bored last weekend and decided to run on over to Wal-Mart to buy a few cheap supplies and make my chalkboard. It came out so SUPER cute! Frame: $5.00 Red Spray Paint: $3.00 ish? Chalkboard Spray Paint: $3.00 ish? Spray Paint Primer: Free (I had it on hand) Total: About $12 with tax give or take. The great part is now I have a new can of spray paint color and chalkboard spray paint to make a few more if I'd like too. Awesome!! I took the photos above with my phone, I was too lazy to run upstairs to get my camera...must move the camera downstairs!!

Brooke's Room Make-over

What inspires a room make-over? A few weeks ago Brooke lost her front tooth. It's amazing to me how much more grown up she looks to me and in that instant I decided she needed a room make-over to accommodate her more "grown-up" self. I liked her room before (I have a blog entry of her room in April 2011) but there is always room for improvement, plus I had a pretty nice budget to play around with this time around. After Christmas I had bought the kids a super cute kitchen set from Pottery Barn Kids. Without fail, every single time we visited that store my kids were drawn to it, played with it, loved it. So I decided to save up and when I had enough I'd splurge...they loved playing with it right? I finally had enough to buy the set, I settled on two pieces, brought them home and the kids played with them a whopping 20 minutes. Fast forward two months and the kitchen sat and sat and sat untouched in the playroom. I was so fed up with having spent that much (it was a VERY pretty penny) that I phoned the store asked if I could return the set since I still had my receipts and the set was in brand spanking new condition with zero finger prints and they agreed but could only issue me store credit. I settled for that. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I decided to use the store credit as my budget for Brooke's room make-over. I was able to purchase her a canopy, cork board, new bedding, accessories that include her two hanging birds, butterflies I pinned to her canopy, dream wall decor above her headboard and wall decals below the cork board. The frames I purchased at Ikea and spray painted them (FYI PRIME before spray painting!). I over bought the frames and ended up with an extra so I decided to place the extra frame around her cuckoo. I'm still trying to figure out how to hang that frame without the ugly white nails showing. I still need to put pictures in her frames and there is one more accessory I want to purchase (its a fairy doll with brown hair at Pottery Barn Kids) but it needs to wait because my budget is currently at $0. I also want to buy a chalkboard I saw that is shaped like a house for the wall next to her closet. It's pretty large and so is the price. There is much more I wish I could have done and hopefully maybe in time I can do it...someday. I had so much fun re-decorating Brooke's room and my sweet girl loves it too. She actually spends a lot more time in her room now than she did before. Brody is up next...my little boy is not so little anymore and is making the transition to his big boy bed. Soon there will be no need for a crib and I can create a fun, adventurous little boy's room for him. Enjoy! p.s. I think figured out my flash...I love the last picture, the lighting makes her room look angelic!

All I Want For Christmas Is......

....my front tooth!!! Look who lost her front tooth! Here is how it happened. We were all at church and Brooke was snacking on crackers next to Oma. Brooke must have bitten into her cracker awkwardly because her tooth was literally knocked loose...so loose that it bleeding and my poor little drama queen became scared and worried. I took her to the bathroom where we cleaned it up and stopped the bleeding. After church we came home and we had her work on pulling it out (it was very loose) and about an hour later it was out (thanks to me). The tooth fairy came once again and left her a dollar, or as Brooke calls it "paper money." We spend the evening watching old home movies of Brooke when she was a baby and I could not help but ball my head off. I can't believe my sweet little baby girl is almost a first grader!!! Before bed Brooke was admiring her new smile in her bathroom mirror, I walk in and she said said "Mom I totally look like a first grader now." I LOVE that girl of mine. Her comment sent a pain through my heart because yes my dear you do look like a first grader now. I quickly set out on a mission on Tuesday, I completely redecorated her room...like everything. I had planned it all out the day before and she was so surprised when she came home from school that day. I still have a few little adjustments to make and I can't wait to post pictures of it. I'm no decorator but it turned out gorgeous! I'm so excited for her!

When Oma Comes To Visit We.....

...have SO much fun! My sweet mom came to visit us for almost an entire week. It was so much fun! I love visiting with my mom. The kids were in heaven to have their Oma here. I felt so bad because she could not sit on the couch and rest for a second without having both of them hanging on her, that went on the entire week. Brooke and Brody sure love their Oma so much. Ruby loved visiting with my mom too. The days were spent taking Brooke to and from school, running errands and walking Ruby around the lake. The evenings were wonderful. They were spent relaxing on my rocking chairs on the porch while the kids colored with sidewalk chalk enjoying otter pops. We even spent the evenings on the porch after the kids were asleep with Ruby, it was so very peaceful. The weather was gorgeous the entire week. We sure miss having my mom here and it broke my heart to see the kids crying the morning she left. I'll sure treasure the time we spent together that week. We love and miss you Oma!