We had a happy halloween

Just before heading out to trick-or-treat:

My grandparents were in town and they came over along with my parents for homemade pizza and pumpkin cheesecake.  Keith and I didn't dress up this year, but the boys made a very handsome fireman and Chicken Little.  Remember when Grant was Chicken Little?  It was so nice to pull out a homemade costume that was already made and ready to go!

We found that our little street doesn't get many trick-or-treaters because they're all two streets away, on what Keith and I like to call "Halloween street," because lots of people go all out and that's why everyone goes there to trick-or-treat.  I walked with them for longer that I should have (I have a pinched sciatic nerve) and then Keith ran home and brought me my bike.  That helped but I had to leave them and go home to rest.  Grant and Brett were so excited about all of their candy and took a while to get to bed that night and then we spent the next day in our PJ's.  Ahhhh, that was nice.

**Hoping to get more space on my computer soon for photos so I can share more of what we've been up to this past month.  We've been having lots of fun!**

Happy Birthday Brett!

Brett turned 2 today!  He started his birthday celebrations a few days early with Keith's parents coming over to give him a gift.

Airplanes from the Planes movie.  They were a hit...with both boys.  Brett is being a good sharer with his older brother.  :)

This morning was so fun.  Keith and I blew up a bunch of balloons and had them covering the family room floor.  I'd put up streamers and had his wrapped gifts out for him.  Here's Brett looking at the cute card that Grant painted for him.  Grant is showing him that he needs to put it up on the mantel with the other cards.

Brett thought that was a great idea so here he is trying to reach up there.  Side note: We finished our fireplace!  :)

First gift of the day.  Grant had to try really hard to not open it for Brett.  He did a good job at holding back.

I made Brett a super hero shirt and "power bands."  Grant has his Super Why costume that I made last year and Brett always loves to wear it, so now he has his own.  Grant put the bow from the present onto Brett's shirt for him.

We also gave him a fire truck.  He loves it!  

My handsome boys.

Super hero breakfast.

The cake.  Brett loves monster trucks.  He has to wear his monster truck almost every day.  So, since I'd made Grant a monster truck cake for his birthday, and I still had the frame for it, I made another one for Brett.

The party room.  I think one of the best things I ever made was that birthday bunting.

I made each of my boys names, including Keith, and I just switch out the names for each birthday.  

My parents came over for a BBQ lunch and cake.  The weather was nice enough to eat outside!

The cake is lit.

He was pretty excited about it.

Yum!  What a fun day!  Brett took a good bath after this and then a really good nap.  Both boys went to bed tonight in record time.  They were so tired!  And now I am too.  Happy Birthday Brett!  Goodnight!

Fun at Grandma's

Brett has a terrible cold and so we're sticking around home today.  Grant doesn't have school on Fridays and after his favorite playmate went down for a nap around 11:30, and I started my neglected list of things to get done, Grant got really bored really fast.  Thankfully we have a Grandma one minute away who came and rescued this boy and now he's roasting marshmallows in her family room.  Why didn't I think of that?!  There are just some things that Grandma's do better, and Grandma Jackson knows how to help a kid have a great time.  Thank you Grandma Jackson!

Our family

Grant has recently started drawing people.  I love how all kids have their own way of drawing people and I was excited for the day when I got to see how Grant would draw his people.  So here's our family.

GRANT:

BRETT:

BABY SISTER:

KEITH & I ON OUR WEDDING DAY:

Apparently the girls in our family are tall.  And Grant is the only one with two legs.  I love it!

Resourceful

Someone's learning to be mighty resourceful around here.  He knows where the goodies are, and he knows how to get them.

This picture is from last week.  You can see some of the pesky mosquito bites on his legs.  :(

Labor Day Weekend at the Cabin

For Labor Day weekend we got out of the heat and headed through the rain to Keith's parent's cabin up north.  Soon after our arrival we went with Grandpa Jackson to play at the local school.

Later that night, my parents arrived at the cabin also.  The next morning they presented our boys with official frontiersmen hats.  Grant loved his hat and wore it as he led my mom and I on a little hike.  

 We saw lots of beautiful things along the way.

 The wild flowers were out in force.  It was so pretty.

On Sunday afternoon we went for a drive to Forest Lakes to have a look around.  The boys all skipped rocks in the lake.  Grant "fished" with his walking stick.  On this outing he wore his "cowboy" hat.

On our way back to our car we met some people who where looking at something high up in the trees. It was a bald eagle.  I don't know if I've ever seen one in real life, but there it was.  It was so neat to see.

That night we had a fire and took turns telling "scary" stories.  I could listen to Grant's stories all night. They are so clever and funny.  Brett told us about some cows.

Our trip was a success.  We were bummed to leave, but it was sure nice to get away.

Some random things

Part of the area where we're putting pavers is done enough to put our table on now.  Last weekend we suddenly realized that the weather was kind of pleasant in the evening, so we barbecued some chicken and had a yummy summer dinner outside.  It felt like such a treat to be out and not dying from the heat...until the mosquitos came out.  Poor little Brett must be the sweetest thing around because his cute legs are covered in bites.  

Monday morning brought another treat...RAIN!  Oh it was lovely.  Keith even took the day off just because and stayed home with us.  We took advantage of the rain softened grass and picked a bunch of weeds.  While we worked, the boys had fun in the mud.  They were covered!  

This beautiful flower popped open on a new hibiscus plant Keith surprised me with.  Oh, I just love these things!

9/11

Our Weekend

After going to the funeral of a sweet 94 year old friend of ours on Saturday morning, I got hit with a bad cold.  Our babysitter got it too!  I feel so bad for her.  Our weekend looked a lot like this picture above- mismatched PJ's, juice with straws, and lots of tissues for me.  Mom's should not be aloud to get sick!

As for the funeral though, it was lovely.  I know that can sound weird, but it really was.  She'd lived a long, full, happy life and I'm sure she had a sweet reunion with her loved ones that had passed before her.  The thing I love about funerals like these is that it really makes you take a look at your life and take inventory on the legacy you are creating for your family.  Keith and I both felt that way on Saturday and I'm grateful for moments that remind us to be the best we can be for ourselves and for those we love.

Washing cars and houses

Grant and Brett love helping Keith wash the cars.  It's so nice to have a driveway now so that we can wash them at our own house.  It also makes for a great way to cool off on a Saturday afternoon.

Our neighborhood was having a bulk trash pick up day and someone put out a play house that their kids had grown out of and they were giving it away.  Keith came home and told me that he found it and he was so excited.  I will admit that I was very skeptical.  I was imagining a neon colored, broken and dirty, ugly playhouse.  I am happy to say that I was wrong and Keith was right.  :)

He brought it home and put it on the side of the house where the boys wouldn't be able to see it.  Then we had them come out to check out their surprise.  It was very dirty however, so we put that house on the driveway and went to work washing it, just like a car.  

And doesn't it look great?  The working doorbell is a hit, as is the hummer monster truck that came with it.  They play in here every day.  Yesterday I gave them some water and sponge paint brushes and they "painted" their house.  Thanks Keith for having an eye out for our kids!

Inside his lunch box

Grant's preschool schedule this year has been a dream.  Last year he had to be on the bus at 7:30AM!  It sure got us up and going in the morning, but we are happy that he's in the afternoon class now.  It's especially nice that it's during Brett's nap time.  :)  It's also during lunch time so I get to pack a little lunch for Grant.  Grant is easy to please.  He loves PB&J and could eat it everyday.  And he does.  He has snack at school too so usually his sandwich is gone but his carrots are hit or miss.  Isn't his lunch box cute?  He wanted a green lunch box.  And the fact that it's also a dinosaur is pretty awesome!

Fireplace: before and almost done

Before:  It's sure hard to believe that it looked like this for so long.  I guess it used to be cool.  We had the same mauve tile around one of our fireplaces growing up.  It went with the mauve carpet.  :)

Almost Done: The granite got set on Saturday.  We just need to go pick out the tiles to go immediately around the fireplace opening and then we'll set the mantel permanently and my brother said he'd help us do the tile at the same time.  I'm so grateful that he's so handy and that he has all the tools and know-how that we'd need to do the job.

A beard and a baby

We went for our ultrasound yesterday and found out the gender of our little baby.  We are thrilled to be having a baby either way, but secretly we were hoping for a girl.  So Keith decided that he was going to do something different this week so that maybe it'd be a girl.  He grew out his beard.  And it worked!  Hahahaha!  We are happy to say that we are expecting a baby girl in January!  Thanks Keith, I'm sure the beard helped.  Ha ha ha!

Projects Galore

Things have been pretty busy around hear over the past couple weeks.  We kept going back and forth on places to take a week long vacation to before school started and we just weren't coming up with a plan.  We also knew that we had some projects that we really wanted to get done ASAP and Keith is usually really busy with work.  So I brought up the idea of just staying home and doing some fun things together as a family and working really hard on a couple projects.  Really, it started with just getting the backyard done.  Keith worked so hard to shovel and move all of the rock that filled half of our yard.  It was a ton of work.  Our eight year old nephew helped a little, and Grant did a couple shovel-fulls with his plastic beach shovel, but Keith did the rest.  He worked his tail off and got super dirty.  I'm so proud of him.  Tomorrow  morning a crew is coming in to improve our existing sprinkler system and extend it over to this other half of the yard that will be home to some new grass and a putting course.

 Grant & Brett had fun splashing around in the shade while Keith slaved away in the sun!

Just in case the backyard wasn't enough to do, we decided to redo our fireplace!!!!!!!  I was surprised when Keith mentioned doing this, but I'm sooooooooooo beyond excited.  I've been looking at fireplace mantels online for a long time.  We narrowed down some of the ideas and then when we both agreed on one my brother came to do his magic.  (Remember, he's the one who installed our family room cabinets.)

After ripping off the old pop-out surround thing from the fireplace, he set up shop on the back patio and got to the fun part.

He really has put a lot of his talent into this mantel.  My dad came over today and helped paint the final product.  Before I was born my dad was a professional painter.  He's knows what he's doing and I think he had fun helping with this little project.  They both signed the back of it so if anyone ever rips it out (they would be crazy!) they'll know who built it and painted it.  Tomorrow the hearth will be set in place and then soon after our granite friend will come place a pretty piece of granite on top of that.  Then the mantel will be set in place.  Then it will be done!  I'm so excited!  I feel so lucky to have such an awesome thing being made for our home.  And I'm thrilled to have a mantel for Christmas!!!!

Meanwhile, Keith and all the boys had a trailer full of pavers arrive that needed to be unloaded.  They all (even little Brett) worked for over an hour unloading the pavers and stacking them on the ground.

I thought my little guys would get tired or bored after 15 minutes, but they loved it and worked hard till the last paver was out.

Brett was in charge of the small pavers.  He really got into the grunting and making a hard-working face while lifting.

So now the rock is gone and the fireplace is almost done.  We had a guy come fix the drywall around the fireplace and in a few other spots in the house.  I've spent today sanding the drywall and cleaning up all of the dust from that.  Tonight the primer and then the paint will go on the wall around the fireplace so that it's ready for tomorrow.  

Whew, all of this makes me tired!  And I'm mostly supervising!