Snow...

This is not a post I am excited to blog about but the boys were so funny and in awe with the site of the snow. Yes my friends we did see snow here yesterday morning. When we first got up in the morning it was rain so I thought I would wait to run or at least til it lighten up. We had our breakfast and came into the family room and I noticed that the rain had changed to snow..yuk!

 They were huge flakes and the boys tore open the curtains to see our first snow this season. They were both plastered to the window and completely fascinated with watching it fall. It was coming down pretty good and Thomas wanted to know if it was Christmas. Funny boy last year the first time it snow was on Christmas so now every time it snows he thinks its Christmas.

It actually snow for a little while so they decided to pull up their little couch. There was not much that could tear them away from this site. We do not get a lot of snow here, none of it really stick and it was gone in a few hours, much to my delight but pretty sad for the boys. 

Their own tree

A few years ago Eric and I thought it would be fun for the boys to have their own tree. This way they could pick out what they want to put on it.

 Even though they were younger when they picked out the decor both of the boys love being able to do whatever they what with this tree because it is theirs to do without help from Mommy and Daddy.

We have put it in their room in the past but this year we had a nice little corner in our family room so they decided to put it there. They both took great pride in their tree and were very particular on where all ornaments went. It was fun to sit back and watch. 

Christmas time

The boys were so excited to start decorating for Christmas. A few weeks ago we took all the Halloween stuff down and packed it away and started getting ready for Christmas. 

 I think the highlight of the decorating for the boys is the tree. They were so excited to to put up all the tinsel and lights. It was really nice because we have a rotating stand so with help from Daddy Thomas could stand in one place while the tree spun and put up the lights and tinsel.

 Next were the ornaments. We have collected quite a few since Eric and I were married and it was fun to see some of the older ones and remember some of our earlier memories as a family.

It is getting easier to decorate the tree. As the boys are getting older they can put the ornaments all by themselves, so my job has gotten easier ;) And of course the boys probably have a lot more fun putting them up as well. We did have to help a little on putting the more breakable ones a little higher on tree. Even though they both are good about not touching, Sup is still learning not to throw. 

Buliding project #3

As you can see Eric has has a pretty productive couple of weeks with his building projects. He was a little disappointed that I haven't blogged about this one. Again I made it a point to be sure to show it off for him.

I think out of all his latest projects he was the most pleased with this one. Probably what he was most proud of was the fact that he knocked it out in an afternoon. The second is that from his eyes he has yet to find a flaw, which is a big deal to him.

It his own little display shelf. If your wondering what he put inside they are Halo figures. If your not familiar with Halo, consider yourself lucky ;) But he plans on displaying them in his workshop so he was excited for them to have a home that they could be seen.

Pomegranates

Last holiday season I found that the price of pomegranate were pretty reasonable and thought it would be great to pick some up. The boys were pretty interested in them and wanted to give them a try.To my pleasant surprise thy both loved them. So when I started seeing them again this year I picked one up for us.

 These boys both have an amazing memory and couldn't remember the name but remembered the fruit and were begging to hurry up and get the seeds out. If you are not familiar with pomegranates..although they have gotten a lot of health buzz of late...they are a big round reddish pink fruit that are filled with a bunch of little seeds. They are filled with a sweet and tart juice with a tiny white seed in the middle.

It takes some time to get all the seeds out but once they were out the boys dig in and were eating them handfuls at a time. It has been a great snack for them and it is fun to see them enjoy them so much ;)

A talking gift

A few days ago we got a package in the mail with a few goodies from Gramma Kris and Papa Mark. There was a special gift for the boys. Gramma and Papa got the boys a recordable book, "Frosty The Snowman". The were do excited for the gift and didn't take them long to learn that it was Gramma and Papa reading the story.

 It didn't take out little Sup to figure out that if you cover up the small holes on the inside of the book the voices stop. This did not sit well with Thomas whatsoever. He was actually trying to listen to the story and Sup would come over and make it stop so he could hear Thomas yell. Ahhh.. little brothers... (hence why he is sitting in the box).

So now when we have the book out Sup has to listen from afar. This particular night he decided to listen from the box the package came in. I think the only thing he liked more then the box were the Reese Peanut Butter Cups that Gramma sent for him. That he polished off mind you in less then 24 hours and that was with restrictions. I am sure if I would have let him he would have eaten them all that night for his night snack. 

Thanksgiving party

Thomas had his first party at school today. They have a Thanksgiving party instead of Halloween so he was even more excited about going today(although he is always happy to go). They really had a nice little celebration for the kids along with a Thanksgiving feast. When we went to pick him up he was beaming and was so excited to share all the fun things they did to celebrate Thanksgiving.

 He came home with his pilgrim hat he has on now. He said the boys were all pilgrims and the girls were the Indians and they were all friends. He did the classic hand print turkey which he was very proud of it as well.

He was so cute he wanted to have everyone admire his work so we cleared some space on the frig and he hung up his artwork and hat. I must admit it is fun to have my little boys work hanging on our frig :) Now I just have to keep Sup from taking it down... he only does this to annoy Thomas..little brothers what can I say ;)

Building project #2

Eric has actually been working on this project for a while, but the doors were more of challenge then he anticipated. The boys have been very good about just looking at what was in the display cabinet but with the holidays and visitors I suggested he may want to finish the doors.

So last week he worked out the problems and was pretty proud of his accomplishment. He has even asked it I have blogged about so now I can say that I have ;) Again it needs to be stained as well but he can check it off his list.

In case your wondering that is Christmas stuff that you see around. Eric loves to see how excited the boys get about decorating for Christmas so we got our stuff out this week. 

Building

Eric has been trying to finish up some projects around the house before the holiday craziness. A little while ago I mentioned that a shelf in the kitchen would be nice to put my cookbooks and such on. I didn't really know what he had in mind for a bookshelf but he thought it would be nice to make it a book and display shelf. This is what he came up with...

I was pretty impressed. We didn't have anything on this wall any way and we had already put the window in so we could see into the family room last winter. There is a counter underneath where I prep a lot of our meals and bake our bread and goodies. So the bookshelf was great in this spot. I plan on getting some nice containers to put my flour and such in so it can look a little nicer but it will be great that everything is in reach. Probably some time in the summer I will stain it but I think it turned really nice.

Kids fun run

After the 5K runners and walkers were all in the race officials held a free kids fun run. I think it was any child under 10 could participate, so we thought the boys would have fun with it.

 They are both right at the back of the all the other kids but seemed happy to start there. They may be hard to see in this top picture but they are the two little boys with blue hats in the very back. At first Thomas was a little timid so he hung back and ran with Sup.

 They ran to the girl in the black jacket, tagged her hand and ran back to the finish line. I think Sup actually was there first but then Thomas decided that this was fun and ran a lot faster to the finish to beat Sup.

 At the end of the kids fun run all the kids were rewarded with there own medal. Both of the boys were so proud of themselves for their first run. They both wore their medal for a good part of the day. Later I put their names on the back and hung them up in their playroom. This way they could admire them while they played and they wouldn't get lost.

My first Indiana race

It has been a long time since I have run a road race. The last one I ran was back in Michigan before I was even pregnant with Thomas. Running was a big thing with Eric and I while we were dating and after we got married. But when I got pregnant with Thomas my running turned into walking and with being pregnant and working full time I didn't have much energy to run. I ran a little after Thomas was born but nothing serious and still working full time with a newborn again the energy just wasn't there. It has something that I have wanted to get back to for some time not just for the exercise but it is great for thinking and for just me time.

This summer when I went out to visit family in Utah I was able to use the gym at the Air Force base. We got up every morning to drop Mark off at the base and I was able to start exercising again. I realized that I needed to make time for it again. So when I got home from Utah I started to run again, and it felt good to get out and run again. Soon I started doing some searching on road races around the area.

  Every thing was new because even though Eric ran a ton of races in Michigan we knew nothing of the ones around here. I wanted to run one earlier this year in September but I rolled my ankle pretty bad so I had to wait a bit. So this past Saturday I was able to run my first road race in over 4 yrs. Oh! The things you will see! Race 5k run. It was sponsored by the Evansville museum.

 The boys were pretty excited to see Mommy run and they were up and ready for the race to start. Eric wanted me to wear his cross country jersey for luck and so the boys could spot me easier. I am not the fastest runner by any means and it is hard for me to judge distance so I had two goals..run the whole race, no walking and have a strong kick in at the finish.

 Here were my cheerleaders. According to Eric they really had a good time watching the race but he did have to bribe them with a promise of pancakes and sausage when we got home if they cheered really loud for me.

When I rounded the corner here I was on the home stretch probably around 3 miles, there were all my boys standing there yelling at me to run faster. It was pretty loud because even through my headphones I could hear Thomas and Sup yelling, " Run faster Mommy!! Faster Mommy!!" It was a chilly morning as well and when I hit the path on the river I was running right into the wind, which was very strong. But I picked my pick up point before I the race began so it was a little more of a struggle but I was able to have the strong finish I wanted. All in all I had a really fun time and I fulfilled my goals. Now I also have a start point so hopefully I can continue and improve my times.

Using our black walnuts

We have been working on harvesting our walnuts and if anyone has done this it is a pretty time consuming process to get the walnut out of the shell. We are not even half way through but we have gotten a pretty good start. What is nice is they don't go bad in the shell so you can take you time with it. I have been looking for different recipes to use them  because we wanted to try them out. If you haven't had black walnuts they have a different flavor then your english walnut and it has a much stronger flavor. 

 I came across a granola bar recipe in one of my cookbooks. I thought this would be a good way to try out our walnuts that we worked so hard to get. It called for a cup of any type of crushed nuts. With the stronger flavor of the black walnuts I ended up with putting in half cup of the walnuts and half cup of cashews.Of course they are not all the same size and shape, but they are homemade and like the more..rustic look ;)

After they were baked and cooled I was able to wrap them up. The boys are not a fan of the walnuts but Eric and I thought the bars came out really good. It is a nice and filling snack and more on the healthy end as well, and perfect for Eric's lunch. So I think this recipe was a success! 

Spiders

So I never have been concerned or really cared about spiders before. If I would see them I would step on them and squash them and move on. This is before I moved to Indiana and learned there was this spider called a brown recluse.

I remember when I first came to church my first week where in Indiana I asked someone where the mothers room so I could nurse Sup. He kindly told me where it was but said to be careful because they were having problems with this brown spider. At the time I thought it was kind for him to warn me but really wasn't concerned about seeing a spider. I really didn't catch the name of the spider at that time either. As the summer went on I heard a little bit on the news about some spider but I was busy with a newborn and a two year old in a new place with no family around so I wasn't really paying much attention about a spider. 

This year I started to learn more and more about this brown recluse and found out why people are so concerned about it.

Eric tells me that I have been become obsessed and very paranoid about this spider, and I have to agree with him. I have probably spent way too much time looking about information and what this spider looks likes, acts, lives, the bites it gives, etc. Again obsessed is probably a good word for it. Now every time I see a spider I first freak out which is embarrassing to admit and then we have a "spider jar" that we catch the spider in. After we catch it I sit there and examine the thing to see if it has a violin shape on its back....this is its signature marking. Although I am happy to report we have never seen one around our house or have caught anything in out sticky traps, I am still paranoid about it.

It didn't take long for either the boys or Eric to catch on that my fear for spiders has risen dramatically. So of course this leads to a lot of teasing and laughing at me freak out...which I guess can be entertaining to all in the house. I have told the boys that if they see a spider they can't touch it and to come get Mommy or Daddy if he is home. They have been really good about it.

On Monday we has to run to to the grocery store to grab a few things I forgot to get for dinner. While I grabbed the groceries Eric and Thomas went to look at the discounted Halloween stuff and they picked out this big brown spider. Eric said it was only a $1.24 and they could have lots of fun with it...at my expense of course. Needless to say we came home with this spider....

When we got home the boys thought this was the coolest thing, I was not as impressed. But it made it a lot easier to get dinner ready because they were busy playing with their new spider. As I am preparing dinner Thomas comes running into the kitchen yelling,

Thomas: "Come in here Mommy!! Hurry there is a spider!!"

Mommy: "Thomas a real spider??" (knowing they were playing with the stuffed spider.)

Thomas: "Yes Mommy! It is a real HURRY!!"

Mommy: "Did Daddy tell you to tell me that? ( Eric tends to help the boys egg me on)

Thomas: "No Mommy, hurry!"

Sup: "Mommy spider! Spider!" 

Thomas: "Mommy you need to come squash it!!"

By this time he really sounded like and looked like there was a real spider in the guest room where they where playing. So I hurry into the room and see the spider above. He and Sup were laughing so hard when I came hurrying into the room ready to kill this creepy spider. If they are already doing this at 4 and 2 I have a feeling that we are going to have this teasing Mommy for a long time to come so I better brace myself.  

More leaves

Our leaf clean up is something that we have been working on since last week. As mentioned in the earlier post we have a pretty big maple tree in our front yard. 

 We are learning our lessons from last year and trying to keep up on our leaves. They are a lot easier to take care of when they are nice and dry and not left in a pile for too long. At the same time the boys love to play in pile so we let them play a little before we mulch them up.

 Thomas loves to be hidden in the pile, so you can see is little blond head sticking out of the pile. This is our third clean up of these leaves and hopefully our last so we let them play a little longer.

 Somehow I got tossed in the leaves with Thomas.

 Later Thomas and and Daddy had a leaf fight, I think Thomas had more fun then Daddy ;)

That boy

I am not sure if Thomas is a hard name to say but Sup has decided to call Thomas "that boy" or just "boy". It is actually pretty comical and has been doing it for a couple of months now. So I thought I would share a few quotes from our Sup....

Sup: "Daddy lets go get that boy!" Daddy and Sup always pick Thomas up from preschool and this is what he says each day.

Sup: " BOY! BOY! WHERE ARE YOU BOY!" This happens when he is looking for Thomas somewhere around the house or outside.

Sup: " Boy you go poop or pee?" Kids and potty I think that is all that needs to be said here. This happens almost every time Thomas goes potty.

Sup: "Mommy (or Daddy) where that boy go?"  Again Sup looking for Thomas.

Sup: "Boy look! Boy look!" When he is showing Thomas a toy or some kind of trick.

Sup: "BOY! BOY!" When Sup is yelling at the top of the stairs wanting to get Thomas's attention downstairs and not wanting to go down the stairs to get him.

Sup loves "his boy" ;) The funny thing is Thomas response just like he was saying his name and doesn't think anything of it. The last few weeks he has started to say Thomas although he still uses boy and that boy quite often.

Family picture

Thomas is really getting into drawing and writing. It was a beautiful day last Saturday so we spent the day cleaning up the yard and playing outside.

 After lunch Thomas wanted to practice his name and draw some pictures. For preschool we bought him is own green notebook and green pencils. After I gave him his things he went outside. A few minutes later I came out and seen him sitting on the patio wall. He looked like he was working pretty hard on his name and he looked pretty grown up.

 He always has to practice his name a few times before he draws, so after his name was done he moved on to his picture. He said it was going to be a family picture and he would let me see it when it was done.

 

He was excited to show me what he did. I am not sure how Optimus Prime made it into our family but the little one on the bottom with the one small circle in it is Prime. It is good to see that everyone has a smile. It was a sweet picture.

Meal planning

Meal planning at our home can some times be a challenge. Even though I make all the meals it is always nice to have some input. I personally like to plan for the month, that way the meals are thought of and written on calender. Making adjustments for me is a lot easier then coming up with dinner meals/ides the day of, and I don't get in a rut of making the same thing every week.

 The boys...Thomas more then Sup... really like to help plan but sometimes if is not in a picture form I tend to get little input. When we visited family for Labor Day weekend we noticed they had a picture menu for their meals. Eric and I thought this was a really good idea, so we borrowed their idea...thanks guys ;)

Eric put his little twist on it and made this wooden food calender for us. He used one medium sheet of wood and then cut out thin wooden pieces as dividers for the days of the week. Then he cut out small wooden squares that slide up and down the slots. We then had to sit down and come up with all the meals, I think we came up with like 50 some dinner ideas between the two of us. Then we just found pictures and printed them off and glued them to the squares.  

 Since we just finished before November started we were able to use it for this month (not all the 50 some foods but enough to do the month ;). The boys thought it was the coolest thing. They sat at the table and admired all the foods thinking what they wanted. Sup would just pile his picks over to the side. Thomas was a little more picky where he went he wanted the foods (ex. pancakes on Wednesday, big chicken on Friday). Lets just say this was a really good idea! It took a lot of the planning out of my hands and the boys thought it was so much fun.  

Eric made the side so we could put up our grocery list that way I can know what I need to get at the store of that week. We haven't done this yet but we were going to put the main ingredients that we need of the recipe on the back that way it makes it even easier for the grocery list. As you can see Sunday's are left blank..this will be our leftover day. Eric is not crazy about this day but as much as I like to cook it is nice to have a lets say more restful day. To be honest it is the clean up that I am not a fan of ;) And we don't like to waste food so this is a nice way to use up what didn't get eaten, and we haven't thought of a picture to represent leftovers...Eric suggested a trash bag. I haven't made it yet but for our blanks and the food we don't pick for the month we will hook a little fabric bag under the grocery list. This way everything stays together and can add more foods as we think of more or try new recipes.

The boys really like to look at and like to know what is going to be for dinner that night. Of course we did this before lunch. It had the same reaction if you go the the grocery store hungry. So nest month we will have to do it AFTER we eat ;) 

Fall is here

The leaves started to change a few weeks ago and this week our maple tree in our front yard has started to drop its leaves. It is a big mature tree so when the leaves fall it is quiet a job, and this was just the first drop.

The boys were so excited when the leaves started dropping. Thomas kept asking me why the leaves were falling from the tree and now he will tell you it is because it is fall. So for us here fall has arrived. At first they really wanted to help in the clean up. So each boy found a little rake and got to work making their big leave pile. They had a good start....

 After the pile got big enough to play in/with they no longer seen a need to rake any more. Since Eric and I were still raking it made them happier because the pile just kept getting bigger.

It was really a beautiful day full of smiles and fun, just another reason why I love this season :)

Trick-or-treating

On Monday the boys were soo excited to go trick-or-treating. Thomas was pretty funny because he kept telling Sup that they were going to candy from houses tonight not cars (from the truck-or-treat).

Right after dinner even before I had dinner cleared from the table the boys were begging me to put on their costumes. So to save my self the headache of two begging boys I put on their costumes but explained to them we had to wait til things were cleaned up and Daddy left for work before we went out to get candy. Thankfully they were pretty satisfied with just getting in their costumes and we were able to get the rest of the house taken care of before we headed out.

 There is a really nice subdivision not far from our house that we drove to last year and was a nice place to go so we went to the same place this year. It was suggested that hours were from 4 to 8 and I think we were out around 5. It was nice because there were not too many kids out and the ones the ones we seen were young like my boys. They did really good this year, I was a little hesitant with Thomas ringing the door bells because sometimes he can get a little carried away but he did really well. It was nice to have Thomas because he pretty much lead Sup around and Sup was happy just to follow and get candy.

 Sup has more of a sweet tooth then Thomas so after Sups bucket started to get some candy in it he had to stop and look in it. This would drive Thomas crazy because he had to stop and wait for Sup. It was really funny because he would squat like this and stick is whole face in the bucket to exam what he had. So all you could see was this little blond head sticking out of the orange pumpkin bucket.

They were pretty proud of their collections. When they got home they dumped their well earned candy into their own white trays and examined what treasures they got. Sup of course loved everything he got, Thomas was a little more critical. They got the easter basket and made that Daddy's basket..things they didn't like or things I said they couldn't have (all the hard candy's i.e. jaw breakers and gum). Thomas does not like Reese peanut butter cups and he probably had at least 5. He defiantly didn't get his negotiation skills from his Daddy because he traded ALL of his Reese's for two little gummys and was totally happy with that. He is a very nice and generous in his candy trade :)

For the love of rocks

Last weekend there was a mineral and gem show in our area. Now I know it probably doesn't sound exciting to most but this is the type of thing both my boys and my husband love.

 There were a ton of tables around that you could walk around and look at all the different types of rocks and minerals. The boys would go from one table to the next with wide and excitement in their eyes.

 Thomas was just fascinated with all the different types of rocks. Some of the tables had these charts and Thomas looked like he was studying it with such concentration.

Sup really didn't get to walk around too much. For one reason he was about the height of the tables so he couldn't really see much from where he stood. The second reason is that he is still learning how not to touch and we wanted to keep this a fun a free family activity ;)

Both of the boys loved this huge rock they had on display. It was right in the middle of building and caught their attention pretty quick. They were pretty funny they were just sitting here on the floor steering at it and talking among one another on how "big and huge" it was. I could probably replace the TV with a big rock and have the same result ;) Although I am sure Daddy would not be pleased with that switch :)