Firsts...

Our little Laine bug took her first steps!!!

Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes...sniff, sniff.

She is growing up so very fast. She has been toying with the idea of taking steps for a week or two. She finally got up the courage to do it, on Thanksgiving day no less. She is so very proud of her little self. She giggles with joy every time. She turned 10 months on the 17th. So maybe it is a little soon but she is ready run and play with Bode. Oh boy, I sure have my hands full with this one.

If you couldn't guess what was in the box...

It was my stroller!

The kids were very curious about the big white box.

Bode tried to stuff Laine in the basket underneath the stroller. He told her it was her spot and his was up here. (referring to the seat)

Thank you again for all the votes. I am so appreciative. I give this stroller 2 big thumbs up! I took it shopping in the mall the other day and wow. It turns on a dime, so maneuvering through all the clothes was so easy. But my favorite part is the adjustable handle bars. Normally the handles to push a stroller and uncomfortably short, but this has 4 settings so I can get them high enough. Again thank you to all of those who helped me rack in the votes. There is no way I could have won with out your help!

Have you met this kid...

If you haven't you really should. He is a hoot. Bode gets to go to preschool two days a week. He LOVES it. He wants preschool to be everyday. He loves to come home and show me the things he has made from his back pack. He is so proud of his letters and pictures. We still haven't got counting down...

This is his Thanksgiving turkey hat. When I picked him up on Thursday there was a rafter, look it up its the right word, of little turkeys to greet me. They were all going "gobble, gobble". Well Bode was saying "gob, gob".

Oh how I love this little boy. He is my little buddy and I am so grateful to be his mama. See this kids eye. I think I had mentioned that he has a stye. It is the stye that won't die. Poor kid gets double looks everywhere he goes. It started out as a pretty regular stye, but has grown into something gross. We have taken him to the doctor and then the eye doctor. There really isn't much we can do just wait for it to go away. If anyone asks he will point at his eye and tell you he has a stye. Or we are going to get a patch and tell everyone he is a pirate. I still love his face.

PS...

Guess what I found on my doorstep yesterday.

HOL...

AKA: Heidi On-Line

Yay! I have a computer again! Woo Hoo!

I can't exactly remember how long ago, it seems like months, but I was blog hoping around the blog world. I was on a blog that I have looked at before and it had a link so I looked at the link and bam! I caught a virus. It was one of those pop-up ones. I tried calling qwest, then dell then McAfee to resolve the issue. No one would help unless I pulled out my credit card and spent at least $150 to fix it. I didn't want to do that so I went another way... it was the wrong way. I had someone try to clean it up and it crashed. A hard nosedive into a brick wall.

Luckily for us we didn't loose pictures or documents because of my husbands foresight to back up the computer with an external hard drive. So basically we were looking at either buying a) a new computer or b) a new hard drive and new programs. Each option was not cheap. Either was we were going to be out at least $300-$400.

So we both decided that we would wait and see if the Black Friday sales would have a great deal and barrow my mom's laptop until then. But my sisters volleyball team went to nationals and my parents went to Wisconsin to support Lee and she needed her computer. So we needed to see about getting a new computer.

One night a close family member of ours mentioned that we owned the rights to the programs that came on our computer from dell. We decided to get a new hard drive and load new programs. Much cheaper then buying a new computer. So Jer tried calling dell. They were horrible! The lady tried to hang up on Jer, wouldn't transfer him to the manager or give him her id number. Very frustrating. So I called the next day to try again. Much better luck this day! We found out our computer is still under warranty. We have talked to dell 3 times and no one mentioned the warranty. They wanted us to pay to fix it or buy a new computer. But since it is under warranty they fixed it for free!

So with in 3 days the tech was out here to fix the computer. He ended up having to put a new hard drive and mother board in it. We basically have a new computer in our old tower! I have spent way to many hours on the phone in the last month. I hate the phone.

So things I have learned in this process:

• Always buy a warranty.
• Every company outsources their calls to India.
• I cannot understand an Indian accent.
• People on the other end on my phone call get very annoyed at me asking to repeat every word.
• Qwest offers free virus protection if you are a customer.
• Qwest doesn't outsource to India.
• I like Qwest.
• After spending hours on the phone. I learned that the only way to keep kids quiet when I am on the phone and can't move from the computer is candy.
• Laine likes suckers.
• Bode asked me to get on the phone... so he could have candy.

I am glad to have a computer again :)

Red...

Thing you must have when redoing a piece of furniture...

A great sander. This cuts down on a lot of work. Sanding is a must do in any project and an electric sander is a must. I am so glad Jer persuaded me to buy this one at a yard sale for $10 bucks. Laine was very interested in this. She watched me sand the whole hutch. It took about an hour. She sat on the other side of the screen door watching the whole time.

Paint. In your favorite color. I was worried to do it red but all your comments made me go with my gut feeling on this and go red. I am very picky when it comes to red. I wasn't going for barn red or crayon red. But more of a deep burgundy red. I found "Royal Garnet". Mmmm, yummy. It is beautiful. I went back and forth on how much paint to buy. Is a quart enough, a gallon to much. Well I bought a gallon and it is way to much. So stay tuned for more Royal Garnet paint projects.

A good paint brush. I have made the mistake before of using a cheap paint brush and have ended up picking out stray brush hairs all the time. So I bought a nicer brush this time and the end product was much better then I expected.

This was a fun must have for this project. Wallpaper bead board. Ever since I hear about this stuff I have been wanting to try it. I originally wanted to use real bead board on the back but it wasn't long enough. So I bought a roll of wall paper and just covered the back. It was a bit tricky. I wasn't sure it was going to stick the right way. But it turned out perfect. Now I have beadboard wallpaper left over and again stay tuned for more breadboard projects.


With all my work I turned this...

Into this...

The picture makes the red look kind of bright, it is much deeper in person. I decided against the black wash and I need to update the drawer pulls.

Up close of the bead board.

Oh one more must in any project for me is two tolerant kids and me knowing my house will be a total wreck before the end of the project.

Look ma, no hands...

Laine is growing so fast. As of yesterday she is 10 months old. I can't believe that she is almost one year old. She is a happy little girl. Very chatty and proud of all her accomplishments.

She learned how to clap her hands. This was funny because we were at my sisters volleyball game where there was a lot of our family around, including cousin Jet who is 2 or 3 months younger then her. He was sitting on his mom's lap just clapping away. I mentioned to Brittany that Laine hasn't even made an effort to clap or wave. Well she must have been watching Jet because the next day she learned how to clap. She is so proud of herself. If she claps she wants you to stop what you are doing to so scream "yay" and clap with her.

She also has learned how to wave. She doesn't wave her hand back and forth or side to side though. She open and closes her fist really fast. She likes to wave at herself the most. I caught her in her crib this morning after nap laying on her back waving at herself. She did this for awhile before she noticed I was there.

This little girl is on the move. She is cruising along walls, cupboards, couches anything that stays still for her she is using to walk around. She likes to use Bode's stool to scoot around as a walker. She also can stand by herself. I am not sure if she knows it though. She will be standing some where with something in her hands and to get a better look she grabs whatever it is with both hand and then she is just standing there.

We love this little girl :)

Opinions please...

Again, Craigslist is my best friend. I have been diligently searching craigslist to find a display hutch. I had a very specific look in mind. And seriously I have been looking for over 3 months. I had given up and decided that Jer was going to have to make me a hutch top for a shelf base I already had. I don't think he was to keen on the idea. So on Monday night I got on craigslist to look again. And I found this hutch. Here's the kicker, it was only $30 bucks! Such a steal. It is exactly what I was looking for. Plus everyone else selling things like this were asking $100 plus for them. It is solid wood and everything. Luckily I have great connections on the east side of the valley and could get it the next day. (Thanks Tim for getting it for me)

Here is where I need some input. The back upper half is going to have bead board in it. (oh how I love the bead board) But I am not sure what color to paint the whole hutch. Here are my thoughts.

Black. But I already have a good amount of black pieces in my house and I think I should branch out a bit.

Antique white with a brown wash. Like my bed. But it is going to sit against a white wall. So is that to boring?

Then last I am thinking bold and paint it RED with a dark, probably black wash. I am tempted to do red because it will make a statement. But I don't want to do red because whatever I decorate it with will have to look good with red. I don't want stuff to clash.

What should I do?

PS The Warren Kimball flag print in the hutch was $3 at Goodwill. Thank you to the person who bought it at Joanne's for $49.99. Then donated it to Goodwill so I could buy it for $3.oo. Oh have I love a bargain.

I WIN! I WIN!

http://www.classymommy.com/giveaway_new/contest2/vote.php?contest=mutsy_transporter

That is my name at the top. Yay me! Or more like yay for all of you for voting for me!!

I saw this giveaway posted on facebook a week ago. The person winning has like 50 votes and I thought "I could get 50 people to vote for me" Little did I know I ( with the help of many friends and family) could get 783 votes!!

Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

It is late I am sleepy, but more to come later.

Before...

I have been wanting to redo my family picture wall since we got our family pictures taken. I felt the frames were not my style and it just needed to be redone. Frames can be expensive. So a trip to Goodwill was the trick. Here is our before...

Here are the frames I found at Goodwill. After all the frames and paint I spent $15.00. I could barely have bought one good (small) frame for that price.

I originally thought they would be cream with a dark brown wash over them. But that turned out well, just plain ugly. So I fell back to plain and simple black. I love the way they turned out!

Here is the after...

I am loving it! It is almost completely done. The red plaque in the upper left corner will get changed out with a new sign from Off Woodland Lane. It will be a family name sign in the red. I can't wait!

2 more days and I will stop begging for votes...

But until then I keep begging!!Click on the stroller, find my name and vote.

Camping...

in the backyard.

Jeremiah as been wanting to take Bode camping for over a month. But we have been busy. So the only way for camping to happen was to set up the tent in the backyard and have some fun. They roasted hot dogs on the open...errr....grill. And were lulled to sleep by the sound of crickets and the traffic on Greenway, and awoken early by the trash man. All in all it was a great camping trip.

In the tent. Bode was so excited. He wanted to go to bed early, like 7 o'clock early.

What would camping be with out Pepsi?

This poor child. His poor little face has sure been looking a little, I don't know, used these days. He has a killer sty on his left eye. It was huge and ugly. Then it got bigger and scabbier. Now I just call it a fungus. We took his to an eye doctor and he said to let it run its course. But if it still is bothering him and not going away in a few weeks then he can get it drained. yuck. Hopefully it will go away on its own.

Next, notice the other gash in his forehead? No that isn't the old one from this incident. But it is a new one. Bode is just the right height to smack his head on car doors. Jer open his door and at the exact time Bode turned his head and hit it. Poor kid. At least this one was small and didn't require a trip to the ER. Hopefully he won't get a scar. With the other one it would form a "V".

Insert Witch Cackle Here...

This year Halloween was really fun. Bode was really into it. The other night it was really windy and he got all excited. He told me he could hear Halloween outside. He really wanted to put on his costume and go outside. He had a little pre-school party, a trunk-or-treat, and trick out treating. We have so, so much candy! Jer was working and I didn't want to do Halloween by myself so we pack up and drove to Queen Creek to celebrate with the Papa's.

Laine was originally going to be a "Laine Bug" aka a lady bug. I couldn't find wings and was procrastinating about getting it done. Then I decided I didn't even want to do a costume for her. I didn't want to spend the time and money on something that she wouldn't remember or like anyway. Then I found a little witch hat. It was too cute to pass up. So with the cute hat, black tights, black shirt and poofy skirt she made the cutest little witch I have ever seen. She didn't care much for pictures, cute just the same.

Their Halloween Day outfits. Thank you Great Grandma Joncas!










Bode was Optimus Prime. He was happy to have this costume.


All the kids gathered around the door Trick-or-Treating their little hearts out.

Bode caught on to the whole concept of trick-or-treating fairly fast. A few times he got a little impatient waiting for the people to come to the door. He actually opened the door and nearly walked in twice. Just like his dad. Not afraid of anything and very friendly. I missed not having Jer there. It would have been fun to have him around. But we are grateful he has a job. Plus I think when Jer is around I am less of a hovering parent.

After all the celebrating we packed up and drove home. But not before we stopped off at Daddy's work.

My cute little witch.

Happy Halloween!!

Pumpkin Carving...

First you go to the Pumpkin Patch and get the biggest pumpkin money can buy.

Then bring it home and act all excited that you get to carve it.

Sketch out your spooky design.

Then get your hands all gooey messy.

Or no....because that stuff is gross.

But it is serious stuff.

But look how good it turned out....

Well OK this one isn't ours. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. It was a skeleton face. Bode picked it out and was so happy to have it all light up on the front step.

Jeremiah did a wonderful job of carving the pumpkin!