Trick or Treating!

I think this year has to have been my favorite year trick or treating.  Paige is a professional at it though we learned next year we need to come prepared with a joke.  Henry caught on pretty quick and ended up getting so much candy because they thought it was cute.  He just would take more and they all would say, "Oh that's ok!".  Enjoy the pictures!!  Thanks to Henry's cousin Colin for the robot costume!  It was by far our favorite.

So happy to take a selfie with Mom

Eating candy when we got home.  I'm saving this for high school graduation pictures.

Pumpkin Carving

Let the Halloween events start at our house!!  Well and by that I mean we carved pumpkins!  Paige decided not to carve hers this year and to just stick with stickers.  We carved Henry's because we wanted to see his reaction to the insides of the pumpkin.  Turns out he's not a huge fan.  Paige tried to eat it when she was his age and got right in there.  Henry chickened out.  But we still had a great time!  Excited for trick or treating this week!

Our best before photo

Paigey working on her stickers

She's so serious

Daddy starting Henry's pumpkin

Checking out the insides

Had to see how the lid worked

Pumpkin seeds

All he did was smack it out of Rob's hand

Paige's kitty pumpkin!

Crazy Face

Doing what Dad does best...scooping out pumpkins

Paige's final pumpkin outside ready to go

Try #1 of getting a final picture

Try #2 for a final picture.

Living room update

So a month or so ago I posted an instagram picture saying that Rob and I were starting a project. 

It started out fun like projects always do.  Then it turned into a giant pain in the butt!  But I'm so happy with the results.  So I found a post on pinterest showing me how to make these amazing shelves.  I showed them to Rob and he also loved them.  We agreed they would make for a new entertainment center.  We've been trying to find a way to rearrange our living room so the kids have more space.  But that also meant selling our beloved entertainment center that was one of the first pieces of furniture we purchased together (not to mention it was so expensive).  So after we agreed on a plan it was time to get started.

I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  We have a few things that we are still working on.  But here are some before and after pictures for you guys.

Here is my living room almost exactly 3 years ago.  When it was easy to keep clean with only one kid.

Here is what it looks like now.

Here was the floating shelf that came with our house.

The shelf is now down and our hutch is there

Our living room

Our fun pop of color with a blue wall!  I was so nervous when I painted it but I love it now!

Now our new entertainment center!  This is our work in progress.  We haven't put much on the shelves as we're kind of training Henry to not touch things on there.  I'm hoping to find enough stuff to put on there to make it cute.  Then just hope that cute little boy in this picture will leave it alone.

This is a close up of the shelf above the couch.  I'm so happy that Rob could build these for me.  It's just metal piping that I spray painted.  Then Rob trimmed, sanded, stained and clear coated the shelves for me.  As much as we both hated the process of this project we're already thinking of more.  Including toy storage in the living room, storage in the kids closets.  I'm sure we'll hate those too but love the outcome.

What A Great Weekend

 We finally had an entire weekend at home...I can not explain to you how much needed this way for us.  Rob and I have been working on projects to update our living room (blog to come).  It's been a project from hell (no other way to explain it).  So to have a weekend at home to clean up the house and relax a bit was amazing!  All of the photos are from Sunday.  Sunday we started our morning early with a trip to Menards.  The kids LOVE the car cart and this was Henry's first time.  We make so many trips to Menards it feels like our second home.  We were however getting me an exciting present for my craft table so I was much more interested in the trip HA!

After Menards we went out for breakfast together.  I'm starting biggest loser at work so I made sure to enjoy all of the things I probably will have to limit for the next 3 months.  Henry got his first sucker at the restaurant.

Sunday afternoon Paigey talked us into going on a bike ride.  She also someone talked us into letting her actually ride her own bike.  So we didn't go on as long of a ride as Rob and I originally wanted, but she did AMAZING!  She fell off a couple times but just got up and brushed it off.  We're working on navigating the corners on sidewalks.  Henry loved his trip in the Burley cart just as much as his sister used to.  We also stopped at the school on our way back home for the kids to play for a bit.  I am realizing I have a million pictures of Henry and none of Paige.  But Paige is so busy right now it's hard to get her to stop.

Thought I would leave you with this cute little dude on our way to dinner.  His personality is changing so much.  He's also starting to say so many words and learning how to request things.

Field Trip with Paige

So last year you'll all remember that Rob went on the apple orchard field trip with Paige.  This year I got to go!  It's always fun to go on field trips and talk to the other parents and watch Paige interact with her friends.  We went to the same orchard/pumpkin patch that we've been to before.  They got to do apple tasting, go on a hayrack ride, jumping pillow, corn pool...we pooped them out in 3 hours.  After the picnic Paige and I spent the day together.  Since we were 10 mins away from Ames we thought we would visit Daddy at work too.  I love my Paige and Mom days.  So much fun!!

Paige has been wanting to learn how to cook and get more involved in cooking with me.  So after her nap we went to the store and pulled together a way for her to help me cook dinner.  We set it all up on our deck for when the boys came home.  She was so proud!