Hell Hath Frozen Over!

Eric and I have been discussing the pros and cons of getting a cat. We are both not cat people... it's not that we don't like cats, it's just that we prefer the trainability of a dog as a pet. However, our children LOVE cats. The love petting, cuddling, picking up and caring for the little fur balls. We have also been lax in our dogs' training and they think cats are play toys (and small dogs for that matter). After much deliberation, Eric and I decided to adopt an older cat from the Humane Society. I guess the deciding factor was when I realized that my daughter asked for a "for real" kitty from Santa last year and Santa mistakenly thought she asked for a "Fur Real" Kitty (the stuffed toy that looks and sounds like a cat and moves). : (

So, meet the newer member of our family. We are still debating his name (since we didn't like the one he came with) but he's a very loving pure white cat with one green eye and one blue. He comes from a home that had both dogs and young children so he already knows how to handle both and so far has done a stellar job with both our kids and our dogs!

I was quite impressed when I carried him in the door this afternoon and he glanced at the SUPER EXCITED dogs immediately dismissed them and started looking around his new house. He even jump down to explore right in front of the dogs (I had them on a leash) and they "mouthed" him (like really wet kisses). He just slowly walked away... no running, no hissing, no clawing!!!! What a trooper! Hopefully the newness will ware off soon that the dogs will come to accept him into our family.

So there you have it! The Monkey House has a cat resident! I NEVER thought a day would come when I would willingly become a cat owner. Oh, the things we do for our loved ones! : )

Our Relaxing Saturday

As promised, I let the kids help me paint the master bath today. They were very patient with me and reasonable careful with the paint.

Then they entertained themselves while I finished the room. Logan even talked his dad into letting him take apart a computer. Looks like he'll be following in his father's footsteps in this department as well. : )

And we finished our wonderful day with a tea party!

Now I feel some baking coming on... see you later!

What Are You Thankful For?

The kids have been bringing home some super cute thanksgiving crafts and I was inspired to make a "thankful turkey" with them to add to our collection. I have recently realized that our days of cute little craft projects are numbered. It won't be too long before they are too "mature" to make little turkeys with their mom.


Amanda is thankful for music, her friends, her mom and dad, her stuffed animal Meddy, yummy food, and her two dogs.

Logan is thankful for for his family, being born, good food, his stuffed animal Teddy, and his house.

Eric and I are thankful for our two happy, healthy children. Life is good and we have no complaints.

What are YOU thankful for?

How I Spent My Mom's Day Out

So, this morning I got a bug up my butt and decided to FINALLY paint the hall bath. After dropping Amanda off at Mom's Day Out I picked out my paint colors at Lowe's and headed home to get busy. Here is the before shot... my ugly yellow-brown walls (with some patch's painted over from the when I tried out some colors and rejected them all).

Boring, boring, BORING!!!

And my new color... it only took me 3 hours to finish (with no "little helpers", it's amazing how fast things can go).

Gray Marble

Not as dark as my living room, but still on the gray side of the spectrum... I guess I'm having my gray phase right now. : )

Next up, the master bath! In the same color I think : ). But the kids got their feelings hurt that I painted without them so I'll have to include my little helpers for the next project. Wish me luck!

Amanda's New Doo

Amanda has decided, in all her worldliness, that her hair style just doesn't fit her image any longer. Today, I took her to the salon for a new doo.

Here are some before shots to remind you... It was always a tangled mess (and the girl tried VERY hard to keep it brushed but it always ended up looking like this), and always in her face because she's not so good at keeping her hair diddies in her hair.

And her curls just weren't perky anymore.

The lady at the salon was SHOCKED when Amanda showed her how short she wanted her hair cut! We had to make her go back THREE TIMES to get the right length. But in the end, the head strong 5 year old got what she envisioned.

A cute and perky bob!

"Happy Days Are Here Again!"

Still Cancer FREE

Logan's November checkup was the best so far. All his numbers looked great! No weird flags on the CBC to cause us heartburn. Dare we start to breath easier? He has one last checkup to finish out his first year in remission and we are oh so hopeful that we truly beat this nasty beast called cancer.

My new morning alarm clock

My kids always have a hard time adjusting to the time changes. We even kept them up late this weekend in preparation, but to no avail. Since we have a rule in the house that no one can get out of bed until 6 a.m. (there's a clock in their room so they KNOW), Logan chose to not break the rule (at 5 AM WHEN HE WOKE UP) but made sure the whole house knew he was awake by sounding his own unique alarm.... FART NOISES ON THE ARM!

I must say, I was a very relieved when I fully woke up and realized he was using his mouth to make the very realist noises. I was dreaming of a HUGE mess in the sheets! Amanda was none to happy to be awoken by such a rude noise and told him to "Knock it OFF!" (She so cracks me up). To which Logan answered "PPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFF". Then my A girls shouts "Okay, that's IT! I'm telling Mom. MOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! Logan won't stop farting and it's waking me up!" Lo-man answers "Hey, I can't help it! Sometimes I just have to PPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"
What a wonderful new alarm clock I have inherited. : ) But I did wake up laughing so who am I to complain.

Battle Wound

***WARNING***
If you suffer from a weak stomach

read no further

!

Logan suffered a battle wound on Friday and it looks like he will soon be missing the tip of his thumb. During family game night, he graciously offered to make everyone a beverage and skipped off to the kitchen. A few minuets later he came back with a VERY BLOODY thumb and calmly stated that he had had an accident. Apparently he had tried to cut off the plastic soda bottle carrier with his dad's SHARPEST KNIFE. The only reason he still has a flap of skin left is because the knife hit the underside of this nail and stopped (but not before slicing off a corner as seen in the photo). It didn't require stitches, but I'm pretty sure he's going to lose the tip.

As a weird mom quirk of mine, it physically causes me pain to see my children hurt and every time I look at this I cringe. The good news is that it doesn't seem to be bothering him. (shrug)

Are they Rabbits or Monkeys?

I am always amazed at what my children will eat fresh from the garden. Last year I got ZERO peas because my monkeys beat me to them. This fall is the FIRST time EVER we've been successful at growing carrots and the kids reaped the benefits (I got exactly TWO carrots!). Check out our harvest... and this in only a fraction! We're going to let the rest grow bigger.

I tried something different this time... I mixed 1/3 sand, 1/3 perlite, and 1/3 potting mix and filled two 5 gallon buckets (with holes in the bottom for drainage). I put the buckets right out in the garden and watered as usual. What a success! It won't feed us all winter, but it's a fun family hobby and a great way to teach the kids about where our food comes from.

The taste testers approve! I even heard Amanda ask Logan for one of his carrots after she had eaten all hers! AND HE SAID NO and told her to go pick some more!!!! HA!

Trick Or Treat

We couldn't pull off a family theme this year, Eric refused to wear the green tights required to be Peter Pan and Amanda changed her mind last minute about being Tinkerbell so this is what we ended up with (after a quick Wal-mart trip Halloween morning).

Two pirates, a cat, and a playboy bunny.

We started out at Amanda's Mom's Day Out church. They had a trunk or treat event with games, a cupcake walk, and a hunted house, but I didn't get any good photos at the event.

After that we stopped for dinner and headed to Trick Or Treat Street. It's an street in Wichita where the residents of some awesome old houses really go overboard on decorating for the holiday. Last year we went after trick or treating and it was a MAD HOUSE. This year we decided to try it first thing (before dark) and I'm so glad we did. There were still lots of people there, but it was mostly little kids and not nearly as many as we would see later in the night. It also wasn't as scary in the daylight so two gold stars!

The pirate trick or treating the pirate ship.


Watching the animatronics of the alien and space ship. (we stood there a while)

Scary skeletons, smoke, and other creatures who lit up and moved to the spooky music.

Giant spider web with flying ghosts (on pulleys)

My two pirates!

These were just the highlights... there was SO much more to see.

After our trip down trick or treat street we headed over to a friends house to trick or treat their neighborhood with them. It was getting dark by then.

" GIRLFRIENDS!!!!"

"Don't you just LOVE trick or treating?!?!?!? "

" LOOK AT ALL MY GOODIES! "

Happy Halloween, Everyone!