Trick or Treating

We had a blast with the girls on Halloween, Annika figured out what Halloween was all about this year. CANDY CANDY CANDY and she let me put make-up on her and do her hair, that was fun for me. Our neighborhood had a trunk-or-treat, it is perfect for the girls a hour is all they can handle and they can accumulate enough candy in that amount of time.

Pumpkin Head

We have a fun little pumpkin patch in West Haven that we have gone to get our pumpkins the last couple of years. The gentleman who owns the pumpkin patch wears a pumpkin head while his is working at the patch. The kids either love him or are terrified of him. The girls didn't want to take a picture with him, so Paul tried it on to see if they would take a picture with the pumpkin on his head. As you can see from the last picture Sydney just ducked her head into his chest and wouldn't look at him until his took it off.
I know it has been a few week since I posted last, since then I have begun working at Kohl's as the Supervisor over the Men's department. I am enjoying it, for you that have worked retail before you know this is probably the worst time of year to start working we have been putting out merchandise pretty much none stop since I started three weeks ago. Kohl's is a much larger company then Hallmark so it is interesting to see how they run a store on a much larger scale. I have never been tempted to buy much from the companies I have worked for but everyday we are putting out new merchandise like sweaters, slacks, Levi's, jackets, workout clothes, skirts, shoes and that is just for don't get me started on clothes for the girls. I have to restrain myself from my urges to go on a binge shopping spree. I did get a king size comforter for seven dollars yesterday, that I don't feel any regret for buying.
We have had a about ten families come through our house, no word yet of an offer but we feel grateful that we are getting traffic in this lagging economy. We (mostly Paul since I have been working) have been cleaning our house constantly in an effort to have the house in good order to show. So we are staying busy to say the least, but always having fun with the girls they make us laugh everyday.
Also, we were so happy to have Paul's sister come and visit a couple weeks ago. She came up a few days after Annika's birthday so we of course extended the celebration to have her celebrate with us. She has been very busy working and going to school herself so we are grateful to be able to see her when we can. Thanks, Aundria....

Fun with paint....

Annika always enjoys helping me with projects around the house one of her favorite things is to paint with mom. So I decided to let the two of them go crazy with painting whatever they wanted. I covered an area as well as I could with plastic and poured the paint for them. They started out using brushes but ultimatley the bests way to paint is with your hands, right. Atleast for a three and one year old.

Even more....

Here are some pictures of our new and fabulous carpet it complements the wood trimming very well. The gentleman that owned the house before us put some out of date grey carpet in, not quite sure what was going through his mind when he ordered it? And last the bathroom remodel which you have seen before but I love to see before and after pictures. We have more to complete so I will end this series of posts and continue with more fun house projects.

More house pictures....

For you Friends and family that have visited our house you have probably noticed our very attractive staircase, which was a project the dogs decided to do while we were away one day, they somehow tore all the carpet off the stairs. I am not saying it was the most attractive carpet but it was something. So we were so excited to have carpet on them once again. The next set of picture was our large sandbox we had for the girls he he Paul, his friend Tate and my dad all helped with laying the sod. Then we went yesterday and picked up the compost to fill around the basketball court. It turned out so beautiful and the girls love running around on the grass, well Annika does Sydney still find a pile of dirt and digs in. I have come up with new nick=names for my girls, Annika is "sticky" because she is seems to always be eating or playing with something sticky. Sydney is "dirty" she is our little digger she love to grab handfuls of dirt, food, flowers and toys and spread it EVERYWHERE. Anyways, back to the house renovation we are thrilled with how things are coming, we still have a lot of work to do but it WILL be finished by Friday.

Update...

We have been crazy busy the last few weeks I wanted to update you all on the progress. I also have some before and after pics of our projects. Today has been difficult we had to say goodbye to one of our babies, our dog Duke, unfortunately we will not be taking her with us to my dad's house and have found her a excellent woman to live with until they can find a home that is perfect for her.





These first pictures are of Annika's old room, we tore up the carpet and finished they wood floor and transferred Sydney's furniture over.

We are on the move

So we have decided it was time to move on. Paul and I are both going to go back to school and finish getting our degrees. Paul is going to get his master's in counseling and I have chosen to get my nursing degree. We want to be able to pursue our education with the least stress possible so we will be putting our house on the market and moving in with family to achieve our goals as quickly as possible.
We have been doing some project that need to be finished to sell the house. We had our agent over and she asked is we had wood floors underneath the carpet, to our surprise there was. Who would cover them up especially with dated, grey carpet? So my mom took the girls last night so we could pull up the carpet and we found wood floors in fairly good condition. To bad we didn't realize this when we moved in. It is funny I was thinking when we moved in to the house we repainted everything and now that we are moving out after two children and two dogs we are replacing the flooring. I will keep you updated with the progress and we are happy to be able to finish our education and continue on with life.

Out and about............

I don't know if you can tell how enormous this cow is, it is twice the size of a normal cow.
It was pretty much the only animal worth seeing that was left at the fair, I guess that is what we get for going on the last day.

Here is me and the little ladies on the merry-go-round.

Mama Jane wanted us to get a bike for Annika on her birthday, we thought this one would be good.

Our little cutie hanging out at Paul's baseball game.


I know it has been a few weeks since I last posted, last Sunday we met up with Nicole and Brent at the State Fair. They had just come home from a all niter at Wendover, they always are out living it up. We went on the last day of the fair, one reason for that was to go to the demolition derby but when we walked up to the gate there was a sign that it was all sold out. Nice, it didn't say anything about purchasing tickets on the Internet, oh well. We bought a funnel cake to make up for the disappointment, there was a cute little exhibit for kids call Little hands on the farm. It helps children understand the process of harvesting their own goods and the steps it takes to be able to sell them for a profit at our local stores. The girls wanted to hit the rides, carnival rides always give me the creeps but I guess it not the adult they make the money from, kids do not know any better. Paul has started his fall baseball league so we have been dousing ourselves with bug spray and love still being able to get and watch him play, his is pretty awesome at short stop.

MOMMY & ME

I took these pictures after we came home from class

She did not want to have any pictures taken of her.

I signed Sydney and I up for a mommy and me dance class. Today was our first class and she was a little hestitant at first but warmed up to the other kids by the end. At the end of class they do an activity called the Tumble Jungle, they have the girls do summersalts, balance beam, teeter totter and they have trampoline. The trampoline was Sydney's favorite she tried jumping on it but it ended up more like she was running in place, it was so much fun to have some time for her and I together. As a second child we do not get much time alone with her one on one, I think she enjoyed it as well. My sister-in-law Joanna have her little kids in the class as well it is so great to spend some time with them as well.

It is POSSIBLE!!!

Today for lunch we were having soup and with soup you usually have saltines. When we were finished Paul wanted to see if he could eat the 6 saltines in one minute. I started to stop-watch and fifteen seconds into it he had consumed three crackers so he was well on his way. He was at the half way point and he was on his fifth cracker, and with five seconds to spare he swallowed the remaining crackers. So it is possible!!!!

Have you tried the saltine challenge?

Tuesday night Paul and I were watching the Food Network. The show we were watching I think was something like "Myth Busters". Anyways there was a challenge on there, the challenge was to eat 6 saltine crackers in 1 minute. They had a fairly large man try it out and he only was able to eat 3 in that amount of time, WEAK, is the word that came to my mind. At the time we didn't have any saltine's in the house so we went out and bought some. Paul told me that he had heard of this challenge before and had tried it and he also didn't complete it. It seems simple enough, I'm sure that I could do it. The first try I had three in my mouth by 30 seconds and by a minute I was still trying to swallow. So I tried again and I had shoved five in my mouth by a minute but was no where near close to swallowing. So I want to know if any of you have tried this and succeeded, it has to be possible. I am going to continue to attempt it for some reason I really want to be able to do this, though I'm not sure why it is bothering me so much. Anyways, good luck.

Mom, I need to go to dance...

Yesterday, I was in the kitchen getting lunch ready I told Annika to go wash her hands before eating lunch. She has become obsessed with washing her hands, Alexis said that she takes after me, I guess I do the same thing which I think it is not a bad habit to have. She had closed the door behind her and I noticed that she had been in there for a good 5 minutes so I went to check that she was alright. When I opened the door this is what I saw, I asked why she was cleaning her dance shoes. She begins dance again next Tuesday and is so excited. There was a time that all she wanted to wear were her dance shoes everywhere we went so she was concerned that they had become dirty while wearing them frequently. She knew that her shoes needed to be clean for class and was trying so hard to get them clean. She said to me " Mom, I have dance class in two days and my shoes are SO dirty". We laid her shoes on a towel to try she was very proud of herself for getting them so clean. We will definitely need to get some new shoes before Tuesday because as you can probably guess ballet shoes and soap and water do not go together, but it was pretty funny.

Updated Bathroom

Before with blue carpet and wall

Here is our new tile, Paul and I made up the design and do you see that there is no more PINK toilet.

Before

Our new lights and faucet.




We are thrilled to have the bathroom finished, I still need to repaint and put up new towel hooks. When I get that finished hopefully this weekend I will post another picture, I just wanted to show you how it is looking.