Happy Halloween

Chad and I went to a Halloween party dressed as the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol. It was really funny and we got a lot of compliments. The kids trick or treated with some of their friends in the neighborhood.

Thr Great Potato Salad Lesson

Grandma MN came over one Saturday to show me how to make potato salad. The kids really enjoyed the cooking lesson with grandma and they both LOVE the potato salad!!!

Peter Rabbit

Peter joined our family in August. He is a French Lop and is expected to tip the scales at 15 pounds when full grown. He lives in a hutch in our garage. I had intended on putting him in the backyard when the weather was warm but Chad decided he was safer in the garage. He is a good pet to have as he is very quiet and he is always up for having his ears scratched.

Happy Birthday Paige!

Paige turned six in August. She had a Hannah Montana Birthday party with an inflatable jumper. We invited her entire preschool class and all of her friends and family. It was a great party!

Famiy Photos -- July

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Ethan turned two this year and had an Elmo party with a few of his friends. He enjoyed the ice cream cake and tissue paper that was in one of his presents the most.

Big Boy Bed

Ethan has hit the terrible twos in full force! Several weeks ago he figured out how to climb out of his crib so I turned the crib around. It is a bed for life crib so the back is higher then the front. We figured that would buy us some time. It did, about 6 weeks. Monday he figured out how to get out again and then he would get out and not be able to get back in and he would freak out. So I rocked him to sleep for two nights and on the third night I figured it was probably time just to make it into a toddler bed. So he is officially in a toddler bed, the furniture has been bolted to the walls and I thought everything that he could get into had been taken out but he found a furniture marker for touching up the dressers one day at nap time and graffitied his wall. He has also taken a liking to digging in his diaper and smearing poop everywhere, carpet, walls, bedding. 4 days in a row of the diaper digging. I have learned that he might be ready to be potty trained so we got the potty chair out last night. He sits on it and says potty but that is it. We will see what next week brings!

Paige lost her first tooth!

We were at Grandma Minnesota's house for my birthday on Monday and Paige had a front tooth that was barely hanging on by a thread. Auntie Shalla pulled it out and then before we knew it Paige had pulled the one right next to it out too. Grandma gave her $10 and of course the Tooth Fairy came that night and left another $10. We assured her that the first tooth is worth more then the rest. :)

Ethan helped himself to some Teddy Grahams

Piano Project

We found an old upright piano on Craig's list for free so Chad and some of his guys from work went and picked it up. It was in pretty good shape except that the keys we in very bad repair and it smells like an old cabaret. We discovered via the Internet that the piano is 61 years old.

I ordered new key covers off of EBay and had my dad take a look at it and let me know what I had to do. It was a lot more labor intensive that I thought it was going to be.

I had to chip off all of the old key material, I think it may have been ivory but I am not sure. Then I had to sand the keys smooth. Next Chad and I (with the help of Google) figured out how to take the roll key cover off so we could get the keys out. Then we had to hand file each key cover to fit the keys and glue each cover and then clamp until it was dry. It was very tedious but my great friend Emily stayed until 1 am one Friday night to help me out. We got it done and the results are spectacular.

We found a plethora of strange items inside the piano once we started taking it apart, A 1907 Victory nickel, a 1914 Wheat penny, a recipe on baking a cake with Swan Down flour, a gas bill from 1989 that had never been opened, many pencils, safety pins and bobby pins to name a few.

I am so excited to teach Paige to play the piano. Once she is board with mom's lessons we will put her in regular lessons. We are all very excited about our great find. Ethan especially likes when someone leaves the bench pulled out so he can climb up on top of the keyboard and play a ditty with his feet.

Florida 2009

We had a great family vacation this year. We couldn't keep Paige out of the pool and Ethan was afraid of it. He fell in a couple times and then wanted nothing to do with it again. We went on a Pirate Cruise, spent a lot of time at the beach and took a boat to Cabbage key.

Vacation or Bust!

We are off to sunny Florida tomorrow. We are going to be there for 9 days I can't wait! I really need a vacation. Tonight I am going to the Sugarland concert with Erika. I think this might have been bad planning on my part. We have to be to the airport at 4:15 am. I am thinking I might not get more then about 2 hours of sleep. Now if this were a flight where I didn't have to entertain a 21 month old on my lap it would be fine, I would snooze but I am thinking there isn't going to be a whole lot of snoozing going on. I have packed a bag of fun for Ethan, markers, cars books to read and some stickers. He and Paige will need to share the DVD player. I am crossing my fingers that all goes well and we sit by people with kids. If this weren't recession vacation I would have bought him his own seat!

Goldys Bad Day

Ethan decided to give Goldy the goldfish a little food.