Is It In The Water??

I have been sick in bed this afternoon and am so bored! So my mind wanders and thinks about random things. That is when it hit me: I have so many friends and family pregnant right now! Normally it comes in waves, but not now. I counted 2 family members and 6 friends that are currently pregnant. 3 of them I found out just these past 2 weeks. Exciting news! I know this really doesn't mean much to you, but it does to me and I just had to write about it. That means 8 babies I am now praying about, 8 mommies to check in on, and 8 baby gifts. I love it!

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Congratulations to Casey, Jodi, Rebecca, Emily, Karris, Chelsea, Misty and Abby!

Just Call Me Schneider

Remember Schneider from "One Day At A Time" who was the general fix-it handy man? Well I have been feeling like him a lot lately. I have a list of things I have wanted to do around the house. The sizes of the project range from big (put in french doors and wood flooring) to small (touch up painting here and there, replace some fixtures). Since I have been home, I really want to take full advantage of being home and knock off some items on the list. I have lived in this house for almost 7 years and it frustrates me that some things have taken me this long to do. But my weekends consisted of laundry, cleaning, and playing with the kids. Home improvement was not a priority, yet I would gripe and whine about some of the things anyways. :)

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Several things have been knocked off the list or in the process, but I am really proud of this small one. Because I did it ALL BY MYSELF! I was determined to replace the kids bathroom sink faucet myself instead of normally turning it over to Jason. Jason is super-duper handy and it just annoys me sometimes at how he can just tackle something he has never done before and make it seem easy and flawless. Now don't get me wrong, there have been many things he has done that took a lot longer than it should and probably cost more than having a pro do it, but he did it anyways and was proud. Me too.

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I read and re-read the instructions on this darn faucet just bound and determined to do it myself. At first while reading it, it seemed really simple. I took everything out from under the sink, knowing I would be crammed under trying to work on it. One thing the instructions left out: how to take out the existing faucet. Yea. It took me a long time, but I did it. Now I won't lie, I did consult Jason once about the freaking drain. What a pain in my rear! I had no clue how all of that was originally connected, sealed, etc. He showed me and then I was good to go. The hardest part was connecting the lever to the drain that raised and lowered it. But I did it and I feel so good about it!

This is the faucet before. Everything else I replaced in their bathroom is brushed nickel. I did that when Sammi is a baby, if that says how long the bathroom sat with a brass faucet.

And here is the new faucet! I found an amazing builders surplus store near us and got this for a steal. I was curious to find out just how good their prices really were. So I went to Home Depot to price the exact faucet. Home Depot price: $100. Builder Surplus price: $50. I'm not kidding. I was floored and the huge price difference!

So there you have it, my sole home improvement project! My kitchen counters are almost done (thank goodness!), which I will post when that happens.

Sammi & Mommy's Day Of Fun

While Sammi was home all day on her birthday this year, I was at the hospital while my dad underwent 11 hour back & spine surgery. Jason stayed home with the kids and Sammi's birthday fell on a day off from school. My plan was to get home by dinner so that we could at least have a birthday dinner and cake. Didn't happen. My dad didn't get out until after 10 pm from surgery and Jason eased my mind by telling me to stay at the hospital until he was out. My brother in law came up that night from Austin with Sammi's cousins Nic, Will, and Kate. At least she would have fun playing with them that night. I just felt so bad not being home with her on her actual birthday. It must be a woman/mommy thing to wreck ourselves with guilt. But I knew I would feel bad not being at the hospital with my sister and two aunts while my dad underwent the long surgery.

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My sister Meredith had a great idea for me to have a day where it was just Sammi and I and do fun things together to make up for not being with her on her birthday. Loved the idea!

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So off we went the following Monday for Sammi & Mommy's Day of Fun! I kept calling it that the day before and day of. Sammi loved it. I picked her up from school and we went to Chili's for lunch. One of her favorite places to eat. As you can see, she is drinking some blue slushy drink and giving blue smile. As we were eating she said "I like it just being the two of us" and said that several times throughout the day. It brought tears to my eyes! I realized that we do not do enough alone things with her like she needs.

After lunch we went to Wal Mart to return a duplicate birthday gift as well as cash in a couple of gift cards she got. Those are the best gifts! Letting her pick out her own toys was so much fun to watch. Below she is showing off her new toys....Baby Dr. Barbie, some little poodle in a carrier, and a new dog for her Lil' Luvables. She is really into dogs and their own little carriers. This makes 5 of all different sizes she has.

After shopping we headed to Sweet n' Sassy in Southlake for a manicure. She is a tom boy like I was, but she still loves her girly things. This was her first professional manicure and was hooked! They were so nice to her and treated her like a queen. I really had to help guide her on the nail polish color. She wanted everything from neon green to Big Bird yellow. She settled on a coral color with a flower on her middle finger nail. Not the best finger to put that on. The rest of the day and week when she showed others the flower, she was flipping them off to show it. Yikes!

They gave her glittery purple stars on her cheek...

...got to pick out a lollipop and then let her walk down the runway. That is usually used for birthday parties but we were the only ones in there and let her strut her stuff.

It was as much of a fun day for Mommy as it was for Sammi! I need to do this more often!

Pumpkins & Candy

October for me is a busy month...Jason's birthday, 10 days later is Sammi's birthday, Sammi's birthday party, pumpkin patch (my fave for pics of the kids), pumpkin carving (my fave event of Halloween), then trick or treating. Needless to say, October has the most pages in my scrapbook than any other month. But I love all of these events! I had to combine two into one post.

First, the pumpkin patch. This year I waited too late and went the day before Halloween. So the pumpkins were not plentiful. My fault. But I still got some good pictures.

I like to get Halloween shirts for them, but I either could not find any for boys or if I found anything, it wasn't cute. I settled for solid black. :)

Luckily they had a bounce house and slide that I could bribe them with over and over. "Just one more picture and you can go in the bounce house" I said that so much that smarty Sammi said "you said that 5 pictures ago". Dang it, I hate it when they learn to count and spell! Just like when Jason spelled "ice cream" to me the other night when it was too close to their bedtime and Sammi said "I know what you spelled. You spelled ice cream and I want some too". Doh!



I was at Michael's last week and came across a Haunted House Cookie kit that Sammi wanted to make with me. My sister and her kids did one and they looked like they had fun doing it. I thought, sure we can do that too! I started reading the instructions first (take a clue men!) and quickly realized that this was not a job for a 6 year old. I made the icing (it came with everything but the water needed) and piped it along the walls and roof to build and found out that this was not going to be easy. You know things aren't going to go well when you start snapping at your kid because the icing was dripping and not thick like it needed to be and the walls were falling as she innocently asked me how it was going. Really Alli, get a grip!

Here is the picture on the box of how it was supposed to look:

And here is what it turned out to be:


One word: UGLY! The consistency of the icing was not meant for detailed work and the black icing it came with was almost non-existent. So just orange and green it was! The kids put on the candy corn and I did the rest. As you can see the green icing was constantly dripping off the eaves and onto part of the house. Nice. The only thing that looked good was the ghost...because it was pre-made and only required a dab of icing to glue it on the house. :) Yes, I am really hard on myself.

Below are the pumpkins Sammi and I carved. The first one Sammi drew on it for me to cut out. You can't see but she put a small scar on the forehead like she has. Cute.


And this one is mine. I had a hard time getting a good picture of it in the dark to really show the cut out. I use the patterns you can buy and have done that for years. I love doing it and the detailed work it requires. It's Dracula with a spooky sky behind him.

Now for Halloween. We go every year to my friend Amy's neighborhood. It's very picturesque with tons of kids and parents walking up and down the sidewalk, in the streets, people decorating their entry ways or garages. So fun. There were more parents than kids, so we were able to keep an eye out on every kid. Whew! We started before it got dark, much to the surprise to several, so they got in a good 2 hours of trick or treating. For some reason, Joshua was clingy the last hour and wanted me to carry him between houses. My arms were sore! Normally he wants down if I hold him, but I think his poor little legs were tired. So I sent Jason back to our car to get the small stroller.

We knew they were done when 3 of them laid down on the front lawn of a house. We got so much candy that it filled an entire plastic grocery sack. Now I am trying to give it to friends and family we see....I don't need to eat it and neither do my hyped-up kids!

It was fun fun fun and we were pooped pooped pooped when we got home!