Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet

Tonight was trick-or-treating, for some reason Iowa has beggars night the night before Halloween. Stella was a fairy and Porter was a skunk (he's our little stinker!). At first Porter HATED his costume, but it didn't take him long to realize he got candy by wearing it and he ended up LOVING his costume! He learned very quickly to hop out of the wagon, walk up to the door, and wait with his pumpkin for candy. We were very lucky to have awesome weather tonight. I was wearing flip-flops, next year I'll probably be wearing snow boots!

Stella the fairy.

Porter NOT enjoying his costume.

Say CHEESE

Ringing a doorbell.

Riding in the wagon.

Where's Waldo....er, I mean, Where's Stella?

Bug Man

I think Porter is going to be a veterinarian when he grows up. He loves, loves, loves animals whether it be dogs, cats, squirrels, birds, bugs, etc. This morning I found a ladybug by the front window and pointed it out to Porter. He went crazy over it! Here is a little bit that I caught on video. :)

Daddy's #1 Fan

Mike was working on demo-ing the former sunroom, which will soon be made into the family/playroom area. He's replaced all the windows, installed new french doors and tore up the old tile. He still have to tear down a wall, put up a support beam, lay carpet, etc, etc, etc! Anyone wanna come help!?!?!? LOL!! So anyway, he was doing some work on Sunday and Porter was obsessed with watching his daddy through the sliding glass door. He pulled up his little chair and put it right in front of the door so he could watch Mike work. It was really funny seeing him lug this chair all the way across the room, place it right in front of the sliding glass door, and then squeal whenever Mike started pounding. Then Porter had to go find his play hammer and pound on everything in sight in the playroom. :)

Jack-O-Lanterns

We carved our pumpkins tonight. Stella drew the face on her pumpkin all by herself and I carved it as close to her drawings as possible. Mike carved Porter's and it turned out great.


We took the kids to the basement to let them see their pumpkins glowing in the dark since it was still light out. They really loved seeing them all lit up.



I had to throw in a photo of "Pumpkin Porter" from last Halloween.

Da House

We finished painting the house today....well, Mike finished painting the house today! But he did have a lot of help from mom and I a few weeks ago. We need to touch up in some places, but we are really happy with the color. The house used to be beige and now it's a greenish-gray (called streambed).

The front...Stella and Mike are standing in the driveway.

The back...I just put all the patio furniture away this afternoon, the deck looks so bare.


Porter getting ready to go down the slide this evening.

I was making dinner tonight and looked over to find Stella watching TV in this position, she is definitely a little monkey. :)

Move Over Martha

Stella and Porter have started baking!! :) I'm hosting a play date tomorrow morning so I thought we'd whip up some sugar cookies tonight. My plan was to do this AFTER they went to bed...but Mike called this afternoon and said it would be after 7 when he got home, so I decided to let Stella and Porter join me in making sugar cookies. I think their favorite part was the rolling pin. We did pumpkins and bats....the bats didn't turn out all that great, luckily the oldest children that will be here are 3.5 years old, so I doubt they care how they look. :)

Showing off their cookie cutters.

Rolling out the dough...


Stella cutting out a pumpkin, the pumpkins were her favorite.

The finished product! They are orange with purple sprinkles...I have a feeling I'll be finding purple sprinkles in my house for the next month!

The Great Pumpkin Patch

Today was a gorgeous day in Iowa! We took the kids to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard after Porter's nap. They had so much fun and ran all over the place....maybe they'll sleep extra good tonight and sleep in tomorrow morning...yeah right! :)

My favorite shot of Porter all day, he was standing in the apple orchard.

Our punkins' sitting on the pumpkins.

Stella in the corn pit. Her favorite spot all day, she LOVED playing in all the corn.

Stella and I jumping on the space pillow. That felt super on my knees after running a half marathon this morning! LOL!

Giving kisses.

We Did It!!

Some of you may remember my moment of insanity a few months back when I signed Mike and I up for the Des Moines 1/2 Marathon. This morning was the big race and we finished!! To be honest our training hasn't been all that dedicated the past month or two!! In fact neither of us have ran for the last 2.5 weeks, but who cares now?!?!? :) My goal when I signed up in July was to finish under 2 hours 30 minutes. I finished in 2:19:55.....and of course Mike had to beat me in a time of 2:19:54----by ONE second!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We decided to run together and it was definitely more fun to have someone to run with. Here are a couple of photos before the race this morning. I don't have any after photos....but I will tell you my hair looked like I belonged in an 80's hair band! No joke!! :)

The Bathroom Remodel

Here are some photos of Mom and Dad's bathroom remodel since Jenn wanted to see some. Jenn, I think you guys just need to come back to IA to see it in person! :)

This is the hall bathroom.

Please take note of the bunn feet on the cabinets---Mom's favorite detail!!


This last photo is of Mom and Dad's bathroom, the base cabinets and sink were not able to be installed due to the wrong size of cabinet being delivered. So here is the new mirror, light fixture and wall cabinets.

Boxes, the New Rage

We spent the weekend in Mt. Ayr so that Mike could finish up the bathroom remodel for mom and dad. Unfortunately the wrong size cabinet was ordered for mom and dad's bathroom, so he'll have to go finish that once the correct cabinet is delivered. The hall bath is finished and looks GREAT! There were tons of boxes at Nana and Papa's house due to all the new cabinets/sinks/mirrors and of course Stella and Porter loved playing in them all weekend.



Mom took Stella to the driving range today...she may need a little help on her form, but I think she'll turn pro before she turns 5! :)

Twilight

Thanks, Jenn, for hooking me on the Twilight Series----LOVE IT!!!!!!! I just bought book #3, Eclipse, a few days ago and I think I'm going to finally start it tonight. Yay!! Anyhoo--- tonight I saw the Twilight trailer for the first time on TV. Squeal!! It looks SOOOOO good. Edward looks especially yummy! :) I wish we all lived closer then we could have a Twilight movie party and go together! So if any female is looking for a great book to read, go out and get Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, you'll love it!

Sparkly Pumpkins & Mr. Curly Q

We went to a play date at a friends house this morning and the kids decorated little pumpkins with spray glue and glitter. Of course the sparklier the better!


I LOVE LOVE LOVE these pj's of Porter's! I just took the tags off of them last night and I can't get enough of them! They are right up there with his Monster Truck pj's (I'll have to post a photo of them sometime!) They are green with brown little zebra's all over them--CUTE, yet so manly!! LOL!


And boy does my little guy have a head full of curls. I tried to capture them tonight so I could always remember how curly his hair was. Love it!!!!!!

What A Difference A Year Makes

I was taking photos of the kids tonight up in Porter's room and it reminded me of photos I took of them last year at this time. How much they change in a year! Also it was funny that they are wearing the same colors of PJ's!!

October 2007

October 2008

Happy Birthday Mike!

Mike celebrated his 31st Birthday yesterday. Now he's old like me! :) He had a super fun day full of painting the outside of our house! I'll post photos once it is all done. Today mom helped us with the project and we got a TON done. We had a little party for Mike last night at our house.
Here he is with the Hulk Hogan birthday cake I made him.


Playing Ring Around The Rosie with Nana.

Stella and Grandpa dressed in purple!

Friday afternoon Stella fell asleep on Grandma's lap. :) (And Porter was here all weekend, I guess he was just running from the camera the whole time!)