Out of the mouths of babes

This morning Steve is working on plumbing under the house. Nicole looks at me and says "How come Daddy is in Oregon? I miss him." They had been doing some work in our homeschool about maps and geography, and talking about where Washington is and that Oregon is under Washington. So I ask her how come Daddy is in Oregon? She says "Well he is under Washington!" I guess our house is Washington, and underneath is Oregon. Too cute how she processed that one!!!

Some fun things

Here are a few pictures of some fun things we have been doing. Andrew went to a railroad club with Steve and they are realy getting into this! Andrew wants a "long, long, long, long, long, long, long train at home!" Steve used to really be a big train buff for years, and modeled and had a small layout in our spare bedroom before. I am afraid we might be starting up another long term train lover, and someday my future daughter in law might be wishing we never opened this door, but it is a great way for Dad and son to spend some time together. There are definately worse things!!! So here is a picture of Andrew at the club:

We had our neighbor friend come over and we made some ginger bread cookies and decorated them too. They ate most of the frosting on one cookie!! It was fun.


Today Steve is working on our remodel of our laundry room, and we are without water all day, so me and the kids are headed out to the mall to do a little Christmas shopping for grandparents. Here is a pic and a little video of us getting ready this morning. Nicole is all dressed up to go to the mall. What a little cutie!

Train Show

Here are a few pics of the kids at a train show last weekend. Steve took them while I was sleeping on Saturday. Andrew has started to take an interest in trains, and this is something that Steve used to really enjoy. It is fun watching them build an interest in these together.

Okie Dokie Artichokie!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The last few weeks

The last few weeks of October have been busy. I had knee surgery and will be returning back to work this Friday night. I am doing well, and am even starting to do a little bicycle riding at the YMCA to strengthen the knee and get back into working out some. I am starting slow as per the docs instructions, trying to be a good patient is hard for this nurse!!! Steve had an epiphiny on how we could better utilize the space in our home, with the intention of putting on an addition in the coming year (hopefully!!!) we decided to give up our large master bedroom suite to the kids so we could make this into their bedroom/playroom/a second tv room. This has been a very good choice on our part as it has allowed us to take back our living room from the kids!! We now have a more adult space, and they have the large bedroom as their play ground, and this separates them from me as I am trying to sleep after my night shift. We are planning on adding another bedroom out the front of the house that will ultimately be Andrew's bedroom, what was our master bathroom will become Nicole's bedroom and a shared bathroom for the kids, and what was our large master bedroom will be the family room/playroom in between the kids rooms. So currently we have both kids in our large bedroom, but it is plenty big for them both and at this age I am comfortable with the arrangements especially with the long term plan. We even have their desk in there and this allows for a designated space for our homeschooling, rather than being on the dining room table!!! Here is a little video of what the new space looks like. The kids love it, and so does Mom and Dad!!! And the plan for our bedroom will be to make what was Nicole's bedroom into our master bathroom/closet and even take a little square footage out of that to make a 1/2 bath for guests! I love it that my hubby is my contractor too! It will be a very nice floor plan when it is all said and done!



For Halloween we went to an alternative event at our church on Friday night, and then on Halloween night we went out trick or treating with a few friends on the military base close by. Andrew was Batman and Nicole was Super Girl. They were too cute.








We had also gone to the pumpkin patch last week before Halloween. It had a way cool corn maze that we tromped though and we got some great pumpkins. We never did get the jack-o-lanterns cut out, but last night I and my two helpers made a pumpkin pie out of one of them. I have enough of the pumpkin in the freezer to make a pie for both sets of grandparents as they visit for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas!!! It was a lot of fun.

More Hamster Drama

We have had some issues with the hamsters. Very long story short little Kyra in the previous post was our third hamster. Nicole wanted her to be a pretend girl, but per the pet store they were all three supposed to be boys. So all three were in the cage and I and the kids noticed that Jake and Buddy were fighting quite a bit, and the next thing I knew there was this "survival of the fittest" thing happening and then Buddy was no longer with us! Pretty tramatic for a bout 24 hours, and then the next night we opened up the cage to play with Kyra and Buddy and there were TWO BABIES in there!!!! So apparently the whole Buddy incident was about the girl and he just was not the fittest! Now you are thinking that is it, but no, it goes on! So about two days after the babies showed up we found little Jake out of the cage in our bathroom sink! We then cobbled together another cage just for him, thinking this would be best as we do not want more babies and not sure exactly what he might do with the babies anyway. Then the next morning his cage was EMPTY!!! Apparently my glue gun job did not do the trick, and the little houdini got out again!!! This time Jake has not come back. I do not see any interest in the dogs in trying to find the little critter this time, and am thinking the little guy ended up being a doggy snack. Sigh. So we are having fun watching the little babies as we can see them. Most of the time they are in the little nest Kyra has built up of the bedding, but today we got to get a very brief video of the little white one. I am hoping this will be the end of the hamster drama, but it is just POSSIBLE that we could have another round of babies on the way as hamsters can have a litter just about every month and there were those few days that Jakey babe was with little Kyra and apparently from what a google search showed is that the act of child birth can be rather stimulating for the little hamster pair and well, you know what makes babies... I will keep you posted!!! =+0