The Era that is Halloween

Halloween isn't just one day in our household anymore, it has turned into the "Era that is Halloween." About a week ago, we began carving pumpkins. I had found a stencil kit that I was eager to try out this year, so Ben and I had fun with that making 5 different designs. One is not pictured.... This is the design Ben picked. We made it first and weren't sure what we were doing so it ended up collapsing before Halloween and so I made him another one while he was at school Monday. It was a little time consuming, but a lot of fun making the pumpkins. I'm sure it will be an annual tradition for Ben and I from now on. On Monday night we went "Trunk or Treating" at a local elementary school. Ben wore his Ninja costume because we didn't want to do the whole face painting thing 3 nights in a row. He has a whole tote of costumes, but likes this one the best I think. I dressed Braden in Ben's old Pooh costume that he wore at around Braden's age. He doesn't mind things on his head and it was pretty cool that night, so it worked out well. Braden did not know what to think of all the whoopla at first. He would just stare at all the people and watch them put candy in his pooh bucket and walk on when I would drag him. It was so funny....After a while he realized he had suckers in his bucket and had a hayday. He began to figure out the routine and by the end of the line, he was dragging his full bucket of candy beside him, sucker in hand, sticky and happy! :)

This is the costume my Mom got for Ben. Ben is SOOOOOOOOOOO into "Army" (camo) stuff right now. He had looked forward to me painting his face for a very long time. We actually did it twice Tues night b/c it didn't look all that great the first time.

Tuesday night, we were going to go "Trunk or Treating" at the high school (not really for the candy, but just for the experience of it all) but Ben was really tired and not in the mood to go when he got home from school. School still wears him out a little no matter how early I get him to bed. Plus Monday night he was up pretty late, so we skipped the trunk or treating that night, but got all dressed up to go and visit Andy's folks to let them see the kids costumes. We knew we wouldn't have time to stop by Wed. night, so we wanted to have some time with them Tues. night. Ben and I had also carved a kitty cat pumpkin for them since they have always loved cats and had them up until Andy and I got married. We wanted to take that one to them so they could enjoy it on Halloween. It also gave Ben and I a chance to experiment with his "Army" camoflage face paint.

Ohhh, tough guy!

I walked off and left my camera at home so I didn't get any pics at Gma and Gpa's house :(

Wednesday I took Braden over to my Grandparents house to visit and let them see Braden's costume. We had lunch and hung out for a while too. Braden liked all of Grandma's decorations! I took some of Braden's "choo-choos" to keep him entertained while we visited. He fell in love with Grandpa while we were there today. He followed him around and just "talked and talked" to him in his own little language. The whole time Grandpa was talking at lunch, Braden was "talking" too. When we were leaving, Braden stood at the door and waved and waved and waved and said bye in his own little way for what seemed like 10 minutes. He was just loving them to death! It was so cute. I wish I would have had it on video!

Wednesday night we went over to my parents church for their Halloween festivities. Their children's pastor organizes the set up of carnival games all over the church and fellowship hall. They also have inflatables in the lobby. It is quite the production. Ben looks forward to it every year. My parents, brother and sister-in-law and their kids were there too. We had a great night. Braden went as, well, what else, a "choo-choo" of course. :) This was also one of Ben's old costumes. Braden was thrilled when I first showed it to him. He hugged it and walked around with it draped over his shoulders saying "choo-choo!" It was a lot cooler outfit for the indoor activities. The highlight of the night was "carpet ball." Ben and I got to play several rounds and then the little ones got in on it. Braden kept trying to throw the pool balls meanwhile saying "baaaaaaa." We had to remove him from the scene. :) That is his cousin Isaiah with him above. Braden enjoyed the slide and playset more than anything. Braden started saying "sheese" (cheese) for me the day before Halloween....just in time for the holidays--yea! Whew, what a week! Good thing it's the weekend!

Reconnecting with Friends :)

This past Friday night, Ron, Melissa and the kids came over to spend the evening with us. We don't get to see much of them anymore, so it was soooooo nice to catch up a bit! We kept dinner simple and ordered pizza. The kids had a little "picnic" in the kitchen with us at their own table. They were all hamming it up when I snapped some photos of them. The kids played everything from trains, to Polly Pockets, making pictures, playing Command and Conquor, dress-up, and who knows what else. They were all such troopers staying up until about 1:15 a.m. when us adults decided to call it a night. Braden was so excited about the playmates that even he stayed up until midnight. What a trooper! It was so nice to get to spend some much overdue time with them!

The Finished Product--The Boys' Swingset

Here it is--The swingset Ben and I put together.

Ok, do I deserve a pat on the back or what? ha-ha! What an accomplishment!

The Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so after Ben's soccer game, we headed to a nearby Pumpkin Patch in our area. We didn't get a chance to take Ben to one last year, so I was eager to take him and let Braden experience one for the first time also.

The first thing we did was go on a huge slide.

The second thing we did was go into this giant cage where there are little chicks running around. Ben and Braden were quite fascinated with them........

especially Braden...... he couldn't get enough of them! After that we went and took advantage of the decorations and got some photos of the boys. We actually invited a friend of ours and her youngest boy, Luke to go with us. Ben had a good time with Luke. Then we ventured up the hill to the vegetable picking area where we collected all kinds of stuff: Watermelon, zucchini, peppers, tomato, and an eggplant (which we thought was a squash) We headed back to catch the hayride out to the pumpkin patch and Daddy snapped this photo of Braden and I on the way out to see all the pumpkins. Once we got there, Ben found all the HUGE pumpkins and we all thought they were very cool! But he enjoyed picking out some medium sized "perfect" ones to take home. Braden at this point was just done. He was exhausted. We kept him up through nap time to take him to the pumpkin patch. (And had kept him up til midnight the night before--for good reason though:) Andy was a trooper going with us with such a bad backache, but he was determined to have some family time with us! It was fun!

Ben's School "Fall Party"

Don't ya just love being "politically correct?" Me neither. What happened to "Halloween Parties" where you get to get dressed up in costumes and go to school and enjoy celebrating Halloween in a fun way? Well, apparently our principal doesn't think the same way as I and a lot of the other parents think. Luckily our "Room Mother" thinks like me and even though we had a "science themed" "Fall party" planned, she put a lot of "Halloween" touches into it. It turned out to be fun except for the lack of costumes. The kids got to make slime... and reach into cans that had gooey stuff that they had to guess what it was... they got to use Halloween shaped cookie cutters and cut shapes out of cheese....then got to take a treat bag of candy home. They won't even let the kids eat candy at school because of our "healthy snack list" that all treats have to come off of. (I like it on regular days, but not for special occasions like birthdays and holidays. Those days should be exceptions, come on!)

Oh well. At the end of the party, the kids got to hear a fun "Halloween" story. Good thing the principal wasn't in the room. Now THAT would have been scaaaaaaaaary! Ha-ha!

My Birthday

On my birthday (Oct. 6) Benjamin had a soccer game around noon. My Mom and Dad and Andy's Mom and Dad came out to see the game. Ben played against a team that has two of his buddies on it. They kicked our butts through most of the game, but it's always fun to play against people you know. Plus, Ben scored a goal at the end of the game to tie it up which he was VERY proud of! Afterwards we went over and let the kids play on the playground for a little bit. My Dad and Braden had some cute one on one time. Then we went to eat at my current favorite restaurant--Jose Peppers. Later that night Ben and I went to a roller skating party for his school while Braden hung out at Grandpa and Grandma's house. It was a great day!

Braden's 1st Trip to World's of Fun

On Sept. 29th, we decided that we'd better make some more use of our World's of Fun passes before the season ended, so we took the boys out to enjoy the HalloWeekends at WOF. Since Braden is such a ball fanatic, we thought he would be absolutely overwhelmed with the "ball pit" and say "ball" a thousand times. Well, we were right about the overwhelmed part, but he just stared in amazement and was a little frightened by all the whoopla going on in there. He began to get into it just about the time that one of the huge baskets of balls fell on his head when the siren went off (if you've been there you know what I'm talking about) About 500 foam balls fell down on him and he began to wail! It was so funny. Andy and I just about died laughing. I said, "So much for the ball pit, let's go do something else." :) So we went over and put him on the swing. He loved that! Then he rode several things with Ben. He did much better than Ben did on his first trip to World's of Fun. He had just been in complete and utter shock and didn't hardly smile the whole day we were there. Braden on the other hand, had his big brother to ride things with and encourage him and he loved that. He adores Benjamin! Our little "Linus" meets big "Linus" (spelling?) with blanket in tote. All the "camp snoopy" characters were dressed up in Halloween costumes. Ben has always wanted to do the Go Karts at World's of Fun, this year we finally let him do them. His Daddy took him for a double ride on them. It was worth the wait!We took Braden on the Viking Voyager (the boat ride with the big hill that splashes at the bottom) and he wasn't too sure about it. He didn't like all the bumping and burst out crying when we got soaked at the bottom of the big hill. The rest of us got a good laugh out of his frustration. Poor Braden. Just before we left, Ben and Andy rode one of Ben's favorites (above) I can never remember the name of that one. All in all a good day--great weather too!

Update on Andy's back

Hi all! Well, I got a bunch of photos scanned into the computer so I will post a few this evening, but first, I wanted to give you an update on Andy's back. Andy took his MRI photos in to show his chiropractor last week and he was blown away by what he was told. His chiropractor, Curtis Brennan, took a look at them and said, "Who diagnosed you with 3 bulging disc's and a ruptured disc?" Andy told him that it was his pain specialist. Dr. Brennan showed him on his MRI that he had in fact had 7 bulging discs, one ruptured disc, and in one of his vertebra there is a notch out of it that looks like a missing lego piece. He asked Andy if he had fallen out of a truck moving at 50 miles and hour or something!!! He said he had never seen anything like that before. He asked him how he was even standing. Well, mind you, at the time the MRI was done, he wasn't doing much standing. All he did was work for a few hours and come home and lay down, take pain medication and sleep. But, now, he is beginning to have trouble with it again. This past week and a half he has been in constant agony with his back and is back on his pain meds which is not a good thing. He has been going to his chiropractor about every other to every third day and was told the other day by Dr. Brennan that he doesn't know if there is much more he can do for him. He said with the condition that his back seems to be in, he doesn't even know if surgery would help the problems that he has.............................................. So, what do you do? All I know is that I went to the altar yesterday morning at church and gave it to God! That's all we can do at this point. He tries to work out and strengthen it, and it gives him fits. If he lifts Braden even once, he pays for it the next day and several days following. If he does any other lifting at all, he is in the chiropractor's office paying $40 for a back adjustment to put it back in place. It is a never ending cycle. Somehow in someway he has massivly screwed his back up whether it was playing basketball all those years, softball, or whether he messed it up in a car accident, it is really messed up. So, at 41, the future of him doing anything remotely athletic or fun is looking quite dim. We are going to trust God right now and have asked Him that if he will not take away the problem and heal him, that he will provide us with the means to do whatever it takes to help aleviate or lessen the pain. He is in the process of inquiring about a laser treatment at a hospital in Florida that will remove some of the scar tissue and bone spurs that he has that are causing a lot of the problem. We are also looking into trying shark cartlage which I have heard helps regrow cartlage in the discs, so we shall see. Please, please, please keep Andy in your prayers. I try to keep my posts on here positive because I tend to be a negative person, and that helps keep me up, but today I have to report the reality of the situation. I am thankful that at this point he can still walk, but am very nervous about the future. The Dr. told him that the vertebrae that has the notch out of it could break very easily and that could potentially do major damage to his spinal column.......... I'll post some fun stuff later.

Git-R-Done!----And "Pweese" :)

I got-r-done, the swingset that is! :) Ha-ha! I put it up all by myself too. I am very proud, I must say! :) I made it my weekend project and even though the rain tried to put a damper on my plans, I prevailed. The kids (including the neighborhood kids) were very excited about it and were playing on each new item I got up as I was installing. I'll post a picture sometime in the future. I just had to pat myself on the back a little. Ben actually helped me put the main frame together and put several of the screws in. He was my little helper. Andy was in bed all weekend with the flu which turns out that is probably what Braden and I had but since we had had the flu shot last year, we only got a very mild case. Andy refuses to get flu shots, so he's got the full monty. Somehow I don't feel sorry for him since he's being so stubborn about the shot and all. Friday night Ben, Braden and I watched Evan Almighty that Andy had rented for us. Saturday since it rained most of the morning and early afternoon, we just hung out at the house and I did some chores while the kids played. Braden just loves having Ben at home to play with on the weekends. He loves to antagonize his big brother. He is always crawling on him and giggling with his "evil laugh." Ben tolerates it most of the time, but also gets tired of it and tells him to "get off" a lot. Braden just keeps coming back for more though. I usually have to intervene. Braden finally started saying "Pweese" (Please) this weekend. It is so adorable! I really don't care how long it takes Braden to learn how to talk, but "Please" is one word I have been wanting him to say for a long time because I hate the pointing and whining bit that he's done for so long. Now he gets pretty much ANYTHING he says "Please" for b/c I think it's so cute! :) It's new, so hey, I have to milk it and reward him for it :) Well, that's about it for the "exciting" news of this weekend. I spent much of my freetime after the kids were in bed Saturday night trying to get a myspace page put together. I had an awful time trying to figure out how to navigate and change things. But it's kinda fun. I saw that Elisa now has one too. We had the same idea! :) Thanks to Melissa, I finally figured out how to put my slideshows on there. Ugggg! That was an ordeal trying to figure out. I'm almost a pro now though. HA! Have a great day!

Swingset in progress....

Today was a productive and fun day. Braden and I went to eat lunch with Ben again today. The food was horrific, but the company was pleasant :) We again went to recess with him and were mobbed by every kid I knew. The kids just love to have one of the parents there. Ben's teacher and I had a short conversation at recess about Ben being so picky about his clothes. I asked her if it bothered her that I sent cooler or warmer clothes in his backpack b/c of his apparent dramatic dislike of being hot. She said he cracks her up because he'll ask her to go to the bathroom and then grab clothes out of his backpack and change in there and come out different. It is so bizarre! He is becoming more and more difficult to clothe each morning. He detests jeans or anything "dressy." Which I've become used to by now, but now he is becoming particular about the "sweats" he wears. If they have the ribbed lining inside of them he fusses and says they bother his legs. Oh COME ON!!! Give me a break already! He now won't wear "Thomas the Tank Engine" shirts to school and is particular about the other types of shirts I pick out too. I guess I just never expected this type of thing from him. He never used to care about clothes at all. Clothing is one battle that I've chosen not to fight with him though because it's not that big of a deal to me and it makes him going to school less painful for everyone. I just had to blog about it to vent a little. Ha! I'm not really sure which one of us he gets his clothing fetish from, but it's quite the event for me when I pick out his clothes meanwhile trying not to get a rise out of him. Anyway, we watched Ben do his very favorite thing at recess right now--he loves to do the monkey bars. He has such an obsession with them, that he has a horrible blister on his palm that he has had for almost 2 weeks now because he won't stay off them to let it heal. He keeps breaking it open so it doesn't have the chance to heal. What a kid! Yesterday he learned to do hand over hand monkey bars which was the apparent highlight of his day because that's the first thing I heard when he came home. After Braden left the school today, we hit a few garage sales and found some more "treasures!" During Braden's nap, I moved my new porch swing up onto the deck where I can enjoy it more, and when Ben got home from school, he and I began assembling his new swingset. He was quite the little helper! I wish I would have gotten some pictures of it. My battery is dead on my backup camera and I keep forgetting to pick one up, so now i'm not even getting pics from it. Uggg! Well, anyway, after our swingset adventure, I came in and made dinner for my boys (Andy has the sick bug that Braden and I had Wednesday and went straight to bed when he got home from work) and then we watched Evan Almighty that Andy rented for us last night--such a good movie, even without Jim Carey in it. That's all of my ramblings for tonight. Catch ya later!

The sicky bug caught us

Tuesday I went and ate lunch with my grandpa and grandma whom I don't seem to take nearly enough time to spend with these days even though I am much closer to them since we moved. I am trying to make that more of a pattern as of now. We just never know how much more time we have with those who are closest to us (no matter what their age.) Anyway, Tuesday night I took Ben and Braden out to church to help set up for our Awana carnival. The kids had a ball playing together while I helped set up. I took Braden's battery operated "choo-choo's" and they managed to annoy most everyone :) since he lets them go and go and go and go even though they're running into a wall and continuing to go and go and go......:) Braden had had about 3 very ugly diapers throughout the day Tuesday but I had fed him a couple new things so I didn't think much of it since he was acting totally normal, but that night at about 5:30 a.m. he woke up with a 102.5 degree temp. Uggg! He had had another ugly diaper and his diaper rash was out of control. Needless to say he wasn't a happy camper at 5:30 in the morning! When I went to bed Tuesday night, I too felt achy all over. I felt like I had the flu with no symptoms except for the horrible body aches. It felt like I had arthritis in every joint and muscle in my body--ugggg! I thought I was just tired and overworked, but had a slight feeling it was illness too. Well, it was illness so Wednesday Braden and I both crashed in the living room all morning. I made Braden a little pallet in the floor with a comforter and pillow and I layed on the couch. Braden skipped the pallet altogether and fell asleep in the fetal position in the middle of the floor just minutes after I attempted giving him some breakfast (which he ate none of.) We both slept the morning away and woke up around 1:15 p.m. After about an hour and a half of wake time I put Braden in his crib and he went back to sleep until about 6:00 during which time I layed in bed and watched t.v. --what a nice change that was! Maybe I should be sick more often. It was almost like being on vacation. When Ben got home around 4:00 he came in with me and we watched "The Biggest Loser" together that I had taped the night before. He and I watch that and Deal or No Deal together each week. He also pretends (I think he just says he likes it because he knows how much I like it) to like Survivor and tries to watch it with me, but usually ends up getting up and doing something else. When Braden got up, the guys had left for church, so we had the evening alone again. He showed signs that he was feeling better and we had a little cracker fest in the living room together. Wednesday night was the Awana carnival and Ben his friend (and neighbo) Zach to church with him. They had a great time! This morning, when Braden woke up, his fever had broken--WOW! That was nice! I can handle a one day illness! Just enough to give you a break and make you appreciate being able to move without aches and pains all throughout your body. It also makes you realize though, that so many thousands of people live in that kind of pain all the time and it makes me sad just thinking about it. That would be so awful! My Mom suffers with bursitis (spelling?) and has to take medication for it. I got a small glimpse into what she has dealt with for a very long time. :( .........But, we are on the mend now and hoping Andy and Ben don't get whatever bug we had. I am looking forward to getting started on putting the boy's swingset together in the next couple days. Wish me luck! :)

Fall Festival-Wanna know how a horse bites? and The best birthday present!

Today was our fall festival for our church. We held it on our new church property even though there is no building there. We are trying to make the community aware of who we are before we get there so they will be excited about going to our church when it is built. It is AMAZING how much a sign can do for a piece of property. When we had a booth at our city carnival we were overwhelmed at how many people already knew who we were and have been wondering when we were going to build our new church building just because they've seen our sign on the property. It's crazy!

Well, today was a huge success despite the rain all around our festival. I truly believe the Lord held off the rain on our property because of the prayers of the people in our church because when I left my house to go to the festival, it was pouring at my house. I live only 4 miles from the property and it had not rained there at all since the festival began. I was in shock! Ben is at a fun age to take to a carnival. He just did his own thing while I helped run one of the carnival stations (Pick and Win--pick suckers to see if they have a red dot on the end to win a prize) I kept Braden occupied with suckers. He ate about 5 while I "worked." Hey, whatever it takes. :) When Andy had a lull in his duties I asked him if he'd "man"my station so I could walk around a little. I took Braden over to see the goats, ducks, chickens, and horses. I got some food for the horses so he could feed them. First we gave one of them a big treat, then we were given some granular treats to feed her. Well, I put some in Braden's hand so he could hold out his hand for the horse and when he did, the horse got a hold of Braden's thumb instead of the treats and wouldn't let go. He began crying and I realized what had happened so I quickly reached over and pulled his hand out of the horses mouth. Braden began bawling and his thumb was ripped open and was bleeding pretty badly. I was panicked. One of the helpers at the station ran with me over to the paramedics at the ambulance (that was there to show off their equipment) and we got it bandaged up. It wasn't as deep as I originally thought, but Braden and I were really shaken up. A crowd had gathered by then and a couple of the ladies told me I should take him right back over to the horses and let him pet them (but NOT feed them) so he wouldn't be scared of them in the future. So I did. As soon as I got close enough to them for him to realize where we were, he began shaking his head no and clung to me. I tried to make nice with the horses by petting them and he tolerated me doing it but didn't want any part of doing it himself. So, that may be the extent of his horse fascination for quite sometime.

After we got home, the boys took a bath and it didn't seem to bother his thumb, so I'm sure it is fine. He pointed to it a couple times after I bandaged it up but, it looked a lot better once it was cleaned up. Whew!

I really missed being able to go to EG's fall festival today. Our festival fell on the same day theirs so that was a major bummer. I always look forward to seeing my old church family and my good friends from EG! I miss them so much.

One other thing I wanted to journal about today was something that happened when we got home after the kids had their bath. I was getting some dinner ready for them and Ben looked over and saw my birthday cards displayed on the counter for me to enjoy for a couple days. He said, "Wow Mommy, you got a lot of cards for your birthday! Did you get any presents?" I thought for a minute and said, "Well, you know, I didn't really get any "presents" for my birthday from anyone but I got money and nice cards." He said, "OH!" and immediately jumped down from his barstool, speedily crabwalked into his room (as he so hyperly does around the house sometimes.) A few minutes later he came back into the kitchen with a Christmas gift bag (that he had in one of his toy bins in his room) and in it was one of his favorite stuffed bunnies that is pink (because he knows my favorite color is pink) and he handed it to me and said, "Here you go Mommy!" :) ..................I nearly cried. It was the sweetest thing! What a precious little guy I have! One of his top "love languages" is definately "gifts" because he LOVES giving and receiving gifts! What a blessing he is!!!

My Birthday...Sat. Oct 6

I had a very enjoyable birthday today. Ben had an early soccer game today at 10:45. My Mom and Dad and Mother and Father-in-law came out to see him play. We were short players today and played a 5 on 5 game with only 6 players on each team. It was a lot for their little 6 yr. old bodies to handle. Ben was exhausted by the end! He scored a goal to tie up the game which was a lot of fun to witness. He said that he "tied up the game so we wouldn't have to lose." How nice of him :) The coach and her family of the opposing team go to our church and are friends of ours, so it was a fun game to play and watch. After the game, my Mom and Dad, Andy, Ben, Braden and I went over to the playground to let the kids play for a little bit. Then we went to eat lunch together at Jose Peppers (one of my all-time favorites) It was really nice to get to sit down to eat without any need to rush off to do something. It was just a nice leisurely lunch, how refreshing! (Well, with the exception of the near hose down of Braden in the bathroom after the salsa and macaroni and cheese explosion on his face, arms, hands, and clothes--yes, he gets very into eating at Jose Peppers!!! I always have to strip him down and nearly give him a bath in the bathroom sink when he's done eating, but it's all good. :) ) After dinner, they brought me this monstrous dessert which I let everyone else split since I try to avoid sugar. The chips and espinaca dip were my indulgence!!! YUMMY! :P After lunch, my Mom came over to the house to see my second biggest "deal of the week"--my new free standing porch swing which I procured for $30 at a garage sale on Wednesday. This has been quite the week of deals, let me tell you! I got Ben a telescope for $5, a nice pair of rollerblades for .50, a brand new Star Wars backpack for .50, a Cars backpack for .50, a new slide set for Braden for $3, a rocking horse for $1, a very nice dog house for $1, not to mention all the clothes, shoes, books, puzzles, videos..........I could go on and on. I went Wed., Thurs. and Fri. this week. This time of year you never know how many more garage sales you're going to see until spring, so I was trying to make the most of it. I had an awesome time this week! :) I guess that was my little birthday celebration for myself. It kept my mind off the fact that I was turning a year older--a very ugly year older. Ugggggggg! :( Anyway, changing the subject...Ben's school had a family night planned for tonight at a nearby skating rink. So we took Braden over to Grandma and Grandpa's house where he got to play with Lilly and Isaiah who were also spending the evening at their house, so Ben and I could go roller skating. (Andy was helping set up for a festival our church is having tomorrow afternoon on our new church property.) Ben wore his "new" rollerblades on the skating floor to see if they were easier to use than the rollerskates. He did remarkably better! He didn't fall nearly as much as he has in the past, but still has several bruises. And he was really worn out by the end of the session! It was fun to get to spend some quality time with him--just the two of us. I couldn't get over how little his legs looked coming out of those great big rollerblades. I regret that I didn't get any pictures of our "date" together because I was out of film and didn't have time to stop and get any before we went tonight. But, it was so much fun! He kept getting so excited every time he'd see someone else he knew from school. I am so thankful to all who have prayed for him to like school more because now he loves it. When he was sick a couple weeks back, he was crying because he wanted to go back to school. Now that I loved hearing! I teased him though and said, "Gee, this is a turn-around from when you first started school." He giggled and said, "yeah!" Anyway, after we left the skating rink, we went to pick up Braden and stayed to play at Gma and Gpa's house for a while. On the way home, the kids both crashed so I got to carry them in, and have the evening to myself. And what did I do with that time you ask?....I went to Walmart and shopped for groceries at my own leisure. You know you're getting old when going to Walmart, on a Saturday night, on your birthday, shopping for groceries without children, brings you pleasure. Ha-ha! Pretty pathetic! Oh well....all in all a good day! :)

My GREAT Deal of the Day!

Well, I am finally caught up on posting the pictures that I have had in my digital camera. I don't think I've mentioned it, but my digital camera is broken. It got knocked into the floor and the lens won't come out. So, I am in the process of saving for a new one. I am going to get a much better one this time. I watch my next door neighbor's kids before and after school, so I am saving that money until I can get one I have my eye on. So, until then, I'll just have to journal.

I had quite the day today! We have had an ongoing "swingset fund" that we started over a year ago for Benjamin (that my Mom and other people have contributed to over the past year) to get him a swingset for our back yard. Well, I've put off getting one for awhile now just because I haven't really had the time to worry about it and I know it will be a major pain to put together (and it will be ME doing it.) So, anyway, Ben has been asking about it a lot lately so I went online and looked at the ratings for those available at ToysRUs and Walmart and found that the one he has had his eye on looked like the best one for the money. Well, while shopping online, I noticed that the one he wants (regularly $228.00) was on clearance at Walmart for $199.00. Today I was at Walmart and happened to think to go back and see if they had any in stock. Of the 5 different swingsets they carry, 3 of them were completely out of stock and I began to panic a little when I saw that the one he wanted said it was on clearance for $150.00 because I knew there was a good chance that there might not be any left in stock of that one either (but was very excited about the price!!!) Well, I asked a stockman to see if they had any of them left in stock and I was sent on a wild goose chase to find where the only one left in the store was located. When I found it, it had a clearance tag of $110.00 on it!!!!!!!!! I was just about to create a scene of jumping up and down and hollering WOO--HOO but I composed myself and told the lady at the register to ring me up as fast as she could so no one else could buy it! :) Long story short, I got the swingset Ben really wanted at less than 1/2 price and now have more money to add to my digital camera fund so today was a very good day in my book! :)

It topped off a great weekend too. Friday night the boys (all three of them) and I got the chance to go out to eat together at one of my favorite places--Jose Peppers. Then Saturday, we took the boys out to World's of Fun to take advantage of our season passes that are about to expire at the end of this month. This was Braden's first time there and he loved it! I got pics with my other camera, but am not sure how to scan them in yet. Anyway, Braden had a great time riding rides with his big brother! He seems like as much or more of a dare devil than Ben was at that age.

Sunday afternoon while Braden and Andy were resting, I took Ben up to the nearby tennis court and we got to have some quality time together. It had rained some so we had to play amongst the puddles, but it was a neat time that we got to spend together.

Today also, Ben's Grandma, Judy, went to eat lunch with him at school. She called me afterwards and said it was the most fun she's had on a lunch date in a very long time!!! :) Ben pulled out the chair for her at the table, he introduced her to his good friend Garrett, and they just talked and talked. After lunch she went to recess with him too. She said the kids in Ben's class kept going up to her and talking to her and showing her what they could do as if she was a celebrity. (they just love it when one of the parents/grandparents visit for lunch) After recess, Ben showed his Grandma his classroom and his desk and she got to meet his teacher. I am so thankful that Ben has so many Grandmas and Grandpas that live so close and love him so much! It shows in so many ways how much he is loved!

My Little Train FANATIC!

I've been planning on doing Braden's toddler room in Thomas the Train for quite sometime now, simply because I will have a place to put the train table in this space-challenged house of ours. Well, much to my delight, Braden has become absolutely OBSESSED with trains in the past 3 weeks! I got out the battery operated train set for the older kids to play with one afternoon and that was all it took. Once Braden saw that he could turn them on and they went by themselves, you hardly ever see him without one in his hand. He just carries them around all day. Often I have to tell him to stop handing me trains, because he'll bring me trains over and over during the day. I'm not sure if he's just showing it to me, or if he wants me to play with it with him, or if he just wants me to hold it for awhile, but it's so funny how fanatical he is about them. I'm half tempted to do his room now instead of waiting until he graduates to a toddler bed, but I've been promising Ben for quite sometime that I'd do his room like his one at our old house, so he's first on my project list. I'm sure Braden's fascination will continue. :) You'll notice that even when he's in the swing, he has a hold of one of his trains. Silly boy!

Just Had To Do It

Good Morning Mommy! I came in the other morning to find that Braden had wiggled his arm out of his pajama sleeve sometime during the night. He looked like a little cross dresser. I just had to get a picture-LOL!