Kitty Tree

It seems I just get slower and slower at updating this! I must confess to spending time on facebook when I get a chance instead of on the blog. The boys are super excited about Christmas coming up - making lists, spending oodles of time on the laptop drooling over lego sets and screaming, "I want to get that!" at practically every commercial on TV... It can't come soon enough - for all of us! ;)

It's been nice to be done at the duplex - we've been back to "normal" evenings and weekends. Wellyn and Brendan have had some serious games of Steal the Pack and Aiden likes to help too.

We've made it church two weeks in a row...a new record for us lately! Here are me and the kids before heading out yesterday. Brendan did pretty good this week, Aiden had to leave for a little bit...




And, now that we've had some extra evening and weekend time, we're back to working on things around here. This weekend we finished up the cat tree we started building a while ago. It's a little bigger than I imagined it, but it turned out really great and the cats love it. Here's Brendan cleaning up the carpet:


Aiden supervising:


Diego checking it out:


And, the kids taking turns pretending to be "cats"... the only time we told them they would be allowed to climb on or in it:



The cats, relieved the boys went to bed so they could get a turn!


Wellyn surprised us this morning by going to swimming lessons so he could see Brendan in action. He is doing awesome - the coach has been having them do some things that are usually taught at the next level. Here he is waiting his turn to swim on his back:


And his new favorite part, standing on the edge in the deep end, while the coach says, "chop, chop, timber!" and they jump in feet first and turn and swim back to the edge.

A Week of Firsts!

Last week was a big week for Brendan - lots of "firsts" happened. Last Monday he swam with no flotation devices for the first time! He is doing awesome at lessons and will be moving to the next swimming level in January. Here he is waiting to start his lesson:


Here are some pics of the boys being cute together ;)



And, the biggest news for Brendan - he lost his first tooth! It had been loose for over a week and was really bothering him the day it finally came out. He was able to get it out on his own, something I'm very thankful for - I did not want anything to do with trying to pull it out! The next morning he was up bright and early to see the letter the Tooth Fairy left him and count his money. He was excited that the Tooth Fairy had signed the letter "Love, The Tooth Fairy"...funny! Then he came home from school saying that his friend Marilyn had told him the Tooth Fairy wasn't real, it was really just his parents... That Marilyn, she's been nothing but trouble for me! She is also the one who told him that Obama steals money from people...


On Tuesday I picked him up from school and he wanted to hurry and get home so he could have a Q-tip for his ear...which made me ask "why". Which led to the answer, "there is a rock in my ear"..."how did a rock get in your ear?"..."I don't know"..."Did you put it in your ear?"..."no"..."Did someone else put a rock in your ear?"..."no"..."Did a rock accidentally fall in your ear?"..."YES!"....Hmmmm... So home we went and it turned out it wasn't a rock but half of a bean he had found on the carpet in class and put in his ear "to see if it would fit". I had to take a picture once I determined it wasn't going to be necessary to run to the ER. He finally let me use tweezers to get it out, but it was a lot of work talking him into it. I do believe he will not try that again!


In other news, Wellyn finished up the duplex and we signed a lease with a couple who will be moving in next month. This is one of the bedrooms before, one of the other ones was navy blue:

And after, a "little" more neutral:


This was the color of the living room to start:

And this was it after we were done (notice the new floor Wellyn put in!):


The kitchen before:


The kitchen after a new floor, new paint and a touch-up of the cabinets:

Happy Halloween!!

I didn't think we would have a Halloween as warm as we did last year, but this year was even nicer! Temps were a mild 61 during the day with a low of 40 so trick-or-treating was really a treat this year! The boys were obviously excited to go out and get some CANDY...it was hard to get them to eat dinner, but they got enough down to call it a meal and then came the process of getting dressed. Even though it was warm, we did have the boys put a couple light layers under their costumes. Brendan's friend from kindergarten, Olivia, and her brother Hayden joined us for the big night. Wellyn dressed as a graduate and walked (with beer) around the neighborhood with their dad. I love handing out the candy to the kids and seeing all the neighborhood kids all dressed up - not to mention in between kids coming, I am able to clean up the house some.

Brendan picked out a Special Operations costume. He was very serious about the whole picture taking - wanting to get it done so he could go get some CANDY! Notice the pumpkin next to him. He picked out that design and he cut out the windows and painted it with just a little help from me. It's a craft pumpkin so we'll be using it every year!



Aiden went as a racecar driver - very appropriate since he loves the movie Cars and wants to buy every hot wheels type toy advertised.




Here is the whole crew waiting (patiently) for us to release them into the night to get some CANDY!



The boys holding the loot from the night.



And, the first pieces of CANDY they picked out to eat.


Saturday, Wellyn and Brendan went to the duplex for the morning and then Aiden and I joined them for a "picnic" lunch. We are almost done with the duplex, thanks largely to Wellyn's dad who spent a day there with him and did some work on it while we were vacationing in Vegas. We don't have renters yet, but have a likely candidate. It will be nice to get it done and have some free time as a family again. I'll have to post some before and afters another time.

Today was another beautiful day. The rain missed us and we made the most of it by trying out the playground at a nearby elementary school. The boys had tons of fun and were running the whole time. Here are a few pictures of the kids.