Happy halloween!!

The boys finally went back to school today after the hurricane days! It was already a short week for them since they were scheduled to be off on Friday for parent/teacher conferences...and next week is a short week since there are conferences on Monday and then election day is Tuesday! A 2 day school week followed by a 3 day school week! How come I don't recall that ever happening to me when I was in school??? (oh yeah, I went to private school!)

No trick or treating for us today even though it's Halloween. The town we live in postponed it to Friday at the start of the storm. They were concerned that there would be all kinds of power outages and felt it was unsafe for kids to be walking around. (The county however disagreed!!) Worked out in our favor since Daniel had class tonight and was going to miss out on the fun. To make it even better, my parents are coming up on Friday and we'll all get to go! Woo-hoo!

Anyways, here's my update on our last few days!

Hurricane Monday...

Daniel and the boys first venture out into the storm. It was super cold, windy, and rainy. I stood on the front porch and my slippers were soaking wet when I went back inside.

There's actually a storm drain in the "puddle" that Zach's stepping in. Technically it's to the right of Zach, pretty much exactly where the tree is. Daniel said the tree is growing out of part of it and obviously it's clogged.

puddles!

They were soaked!!! They came in, got in a nice warm bath and then had hot cocoa with lots and lots of marshmallows!

And despite the weather, we got mail!

opening mail is always fun! 

Halloween cards from Granny & Pa!

Emily got one too! (I helped her open it!)

Second venture out... it was even colder at this point and much later than the first time.

The winds were much more gusty!

Someone forgot to mention to them that there was a hurricane coming... :-)

Cupcakes! (Aren't my plates wonderful? I have 2 sets, an everyday set and then my pfaltzgraff which I say is for special occassions since it's so stinkin' expensive and breaks super easily...I've started using them more frequently though! I'd rather enjoy them than have them just sitting in my cabinet! Do I really need 2 sets of plates? No. I just like them both!)

We all slept downstairs Monday night. The boys think sleeping in the guest room is sooo much fun!

silly boys!

 

And then on to today...........

 

Are there enough trains on the track? We have about 4x that amount of track and for some reason that was all they wanted to use!

Zach drew a picture of me (sideways). He said I had poofy hair. He wrote my name and his name and then decided he needed to put the rest of our names on there too! Looks just like me!

Jacob's picture was of a "super silly car" as he described it. He wrote "GO" on it too and then pointed at a specific part of the car though I'm not sure what the significance of that part is! I'll have to ask him in the morning!!

Their new color chart at home. Zach's been a bit of a pain in the butt with listening at home lately and I've felt like I've been giving time outs left and right but like it's not helping so we went back to our old method...a color chart! It's the same colors they use at school. They both start out each day on green and depending on their behavior can switch colors. Clearly Zach had a rotten day at home this afternoon!! The "blue checklist" includes having all their toys picked up, having good behavior, and they have to do something to help Daniel or me (like set the table, sort laundry, etc). If they want blue they have to do all 3 of the things and in return they get a quarter. :-) When they get on red they lose a toy and have to pay me $1 to get it back!

New bed in our guest room! I just LOVE it! I made the headboard, painted the side table, and ordered the bedding. And yes, that's a trashcan next to the side table. This is the room I normally change Emily's diapers in so thats my diaper pail for cloth diapers!

 

and my new walk in closet! woo-hoo!! I need to finish "stocking" it!

 

In honor of Halloween....

 

Blowing Away!

It got really gusty out right when Daniel was trying to convince the boys to come in....

Aside from being super breezy and rainy, it was cold!!! We had hot chocolate with marshmallows after the boys soaked in a warm bath to warm up!

We're still here!

Our kids are fascinated by Gangnam Style by, including Emily. Daniel turned it on for her today when she was fussing at him and she calmed down. :-) (However our internet was being stinky and kept cutting out so it wasn't playing continuously and made her mad!) I am fascinated by the Mitt Romney RNC entrance. (they like that one too)

We're hanging out at home while the storm whirls around us outside! We've been getting a lot accomplished all day which has been nice. I took a video of Daniel and the boys outside in the gusty wind that I'm uploading right now and will post later (tomorrow!) if we don't lose power!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Hayden!

We travelled to VA this weekend to celebrate our nephew's birthday. Daniel's sister, Mary's, little boy, Hayden, turned 3 yesterday and his celebration was today. :-)

 

The cake I made him.

Notice Thomas is no longer on the cake. Silly boy!

 

I held Emily for most of the party but there was a short stretch where Dee-Daw held her for a bit.. .

This one makes me smile.

I like this one too but it would've been better if I would've checked to make sure I was taking a picture without cutting someone's head off...

dressed for success!!

Here's some pictures from this morning.. I just typed up a really nice post about it with captions and all...and then I hit something and everything got deleted! Blogger saves what I'm doing every few seconds and before I could go back to what it had saved last, it saved again...a blank screen. I'll add a few captions but it won't be as good as it was!

Today's suggestion for red ribbon week at the elementary school was "Dress for Success" and well, they did! :-)

Jacob has a lazer light in his hand and was trying to convince Emily to look up at the ceiling at the red dot. She just laughed at him.

 

 

cheeeeeeeeese. I told them this was the last picture (but we all know what it means when I say just one more picture!).

As soon as I pressed the shutter button Zach said "Mom! You said the last one was the last picture!!"

woops. I got caught. :-)

I swear I didn't pose them. Zach looked over at Jacob and saw his foot on the tree and had to do it too.

As much as Zach does things to bug his big brother (just being a little brother!), he sure does love him!

And Jake sure does love him back!

 

favorite. picture. ever.

 

ok, maybe I have 2 favorite pictures!

 

Zach!! Don't get dirty!

being a ham.

still!

Somehow they both stayed clean all the way to school!

I should've taken a picture of Zach when we picked him up. He looked like he got into a fight with blue art supplies...and the art supplies clearly won. Hopefully everything they used is washable ink! (though I'm not sure about cleaning the tie.......)

Jumperooing

Poor little Emily still seemed to feel yucky today but I managed to catch her happy and starting to jump a little in the jumperoo. She's still figuring it out (and only made it about 5 minutes total in it today before the whimpering started). I'm hoping she gets a really good nights sleep tonight because holy guacamole last night was exhausting!!

oh what a night!

The weather is so nutty lately. It's cold then it's quite warm. The boys both had a little cold, then I felt like I was getting it, and then today poor little Emily had a drippy little nose. Regardless, we had a pretty good day (well, until this evening!)..

We enjoyed a little time outside after Jacob got home from school. I thought I'd pull a few more weeds from my flower beds.. Emily thought I should hold her. She won.

She was babbling to Zach for all of 10 seconds when I set her in the bouncey seat. Then the screaming started!

big brown eyes. Just like his mama. (Jake's got them too!! I say they get them from me

 
It had been awhile since we had out the Gator or the Tractor--they've been shoved in the back of the garage and we couldn't get to them! Well, the battery on the gator was pretty much dead and the tractor only had a little juice left in it..they still had fun though!

vroooom

He must've thought if he gave it a push it'd start. Might've worked if there would've been a clutch but nope..no clutch.

Hey mom!

skateboarding!

Emily's first John Deere tractor ride!

The battery was dead at this point and he thought he'd fix it. Good Luck, Tater Tot. :-)

 

Emily's first John Deere tractor ride with Jacob!

 

The boys were ready to go inside, so was Emily. As they were parking their toys in the garage Zach fell and bumped the side of his face on a table. Poor thing has a huge red mark on his face now.

 

Emily seemed to really feel crummy after we went inside. Not only did she have a runny nose but she was tired..and it wasn't bedtime yet (and was too late for a nap). She was not the happiest member of our family tonight..in fact, she was the least happy! Fixing dinner was not happening since she was so unhappy (and remember, I was a single mom tonight!) so we ordered a pizza (online too...there would've been nooooo way we could've called to order and had anyone hear what we wanted!). While we were waiting for the pizza, the boys got in the shower to get cleaned up (it was already after 6..we normally eat close to 5:30) and Emily and I went upstairs to get her jammies. After a few steps going back downstairs, I slipped and she and I tumbled down the steps...tumbled isn't exactly accurate, we sort of slid sideways. Nonetheless it scared my sweet little girl so bad. She ended up with a little scratch on her cheek and a little bruise. I feel absolutely awful about it. As my good friend Sarah reminded me though, Emily won't remember it, only I will. I hope we all have a good nights sleep...we sure do need it after our evening!

Stashes & Smiles

We were silly, tired, grumpy, and happy--depending on the minute! I had the thought of taking the boys out to dinner tonight (Daniel had his last class of this semester! woo-hoo!!! too bad they start up again in a week!)...boy did Emily have a different idea! She was about the fussiest little lady ever! We needed to run to Lowe's to take a couple of things back and to get some bolts for my newest project (details later! It's looking fantastic though!) so we had to be in the car for a little bit...after our little bit of time in the car and then our even shorter amount of time in Lowe's, the 3 of us that were quiet had heard enough from the 1 of us that was screaming and decided we needed to go home instead of out to eat!!! The boys got happy meals so all was right in our world. Emily's mood changed for the better after she ate, had a bath, and got jammies on. I thought she was ready for bed but she had other thoughts!

Emily happy with her Zachy.

So sweet. Zach was giving her a ketchup kiss.

I'm sure ketchup was just what she wanted on her forehead!

Mustaches...after they were clean and in their jammies!

watching her silly brothers!

 

Lucky kiddos...Daniel got home early. He texted me when he was leaving his class and it was still early enough that I told him I'd keep the boys up until he got home (still after bedtime but not too late). Boy were they excited that they got to stay up! He's going to be gone all day tomorrow so I wanted them to get to see him for a little bit tonight.).

Everyone being silly!

She just wanted to see her daddy!

She got the biggest smile and cooed at him like crazy when he started talking to her.

I love Jacob's face!

Zach: Take 1

Zach: Take 2

Goofy Jake!

 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a great day!

I'll have to come up with something fun to do in the evening with the boys..........just not sure what!