Happy New Year, Monkey Style

And my Mom said it couldn't be done!!!

Since my monkeys can now tell time, she thought our tradition of telling them it's midnight at 10:00 p.m. would be ending. NOT SO!! We just told them we would be celebrating with Sydney Australia and pulled up the YouTube broadcast from earlier today. Gotta love technology!

Eric made confetti bags out of sandwich bags and paper and I made poppers with popcorn inside since I was a bad mom and forgot to get the regular poppers at the store today. I think everything turned out quite well! The dogs even cleaned up all the popcorn for us! : )

Closed up, waiting for a warm day to paint

The window has been in since Sunday morning, but rains kept us from finishing the siding until last night. Finishing the drywall inside will be next, and we will paint as soon as we get a warm day.

Demolition Day

This morning Eric and I took advantage of the nice weather with a home improvement project...

Replacing our master bedroom window.

One of our recent rains we noticed water dripping from the top of the window on the inside. Once Eric started investigating, he discovered that water had been seeping in behind the improperly sealed windows for quite some time. Under the siding we discovered soggy, rotten wood everywhere.

Since Eric was not happy with the quote we were given by a local remodeler, he decided to undertake the project himself (with my help of course). However, not being a master carpenter, he decided that cutting and framing this round window would be beyond his skill. And seeing how I hated these widows anyway, we ordered new ones : ).

Logan and Amanda had a ball climbing on the scaffolding and helping whenever possible.

Here is all the drywall removed, before Eric took out the rotten studs. Be sure to check out the video below of the kids helping us knock out the drywall.

At the end of day one, you can see the new framing for my new windows. I'll have a large rectangle on top, and two single hung window where Eric is standing. The sides will be new drywall. It's definitely a bigger window, but no weird curves so tomorrow's installation should go smoothly.

We absolutely must get it done on Sunday, because the weather man is calling for rain on Monday!

Drywall Demo

Surprise Tuesday

Surprise Tuesday has been a tradition in our family for two years now. It started when Logan was in Kindergarten and Amanda was going to Mom's Day Out on Tuesdays. Each Tuesday I would pick her and Logan up with some sort of surprise for them. The surprises range from treats (like donuts, cookies or cold Sonic drinks), to small gifts or acts (like picking them up with the dogs or cat in the car).

For me, Tuesdays have come to mean something more than just a treat. It's my special way of showing them how much I love and appreciate them with my small acts of kindness. My hope is that when they are grown, they'll look back on their childhood and remember that love... not necessarily that mom like to give them things on Tuesday. Some weeks I know exactly what I'm going to do. Other weeks I have to rack my brain to come up with something original, but they care not for the WHAT, only the WHY.

I love you, Monkeys, with all my heart.

2 Years Cancer Free

Yesterday we had a celibration... Logan 2 year anniverary of being in remission!!!! His last doctors appointment of the year found him to be in perfect health and we had cake and sparkling grape juice to celibrate. For the next 3 years he will visit his cancer doctor every 4 months for a checkup but his pronosis is VERY good!!! Looks like we might have whipped this nasty thing called cancer!!!!!

Trip To Nebraska

Over our three day weekend we headed to Nebraska. I've heard great things about the Children's Museum in Lincoln and I've been wanting to take the kids to the zoo in Omaha for quite a while so North we headed!

We started off in Lincoln at the Children's Museum.

They had this awesome interactive apple tree where you stuck the apples on and then they started to fall off, come harvest time. Super cute!
And Amanda loved the grocery store. She did a lot of shopping and price scanning.

Then she discovered the vet clinic. Not quite as awesome as the one in Houston but she was still in heaven! : )
Logan (and his dad) headed straight upstairs (this place spans three levels) and found a totally awesome rocket simulator. He spent over an hour pushing the sequence buttons to make the rocket blast off... the thing really shook!!!!
Then I was super hungry and wanted Noodles and Company but Logan wanted pizza so we split up again to eat. I think Logan lucked out because Amanda got this HUGEMONGOUS Rice Krispy treat for desert! It was so big that she couldn't finish it. Well, duh. It's almost the size of her head!
Then we headed back to the museum for some more fun... and body art.The family joined back up to play in the prairie dog tunnels...
... and Eric almost got stuck! : )
"Little Kid In A Big Chair... Big Adult In A Little Chair."
Amanda and I played dress-up and put on a show. We were jungle princesses.
Ride 'em Cowboy!
Then Logan discovered the post office and he was set for the rest of the day. He was a mail carrying fool. Delivering bills and letters to all the businesses and collecting their mail as well. Fun, Fun, FUN!
And that was just find by Amanda... she was back in the vets office hard at work.
We took our camper with us on our trip and camped at a state park halfway between Lincoln and Omaha. The kids and I took an early morning hike (while we waited for Dad to wake up).
The campground was located along the Platte River and the water was up!
Along the trail we spotted this nifty little fort someone had built. We just HAD to go over for a closer look.

We played on some fallen trees and scared up three deer... all in a day's hike! : )

Later that morning we headed over the the zoo in Omaha. The last time I was there I was pregnant with Logan and the desert dome was so new the wait time to go in was hours long... Not such a long like on this cold November day (8 years later!).

I see why it was so popular.

A lot of the animal exhibits were built up high. It gave us a rather unique perspective for animal viewing. And the details were amazing.
One of our favorite animals was the aardvark. He put on quite a show for us.
And bats, bats, everywhere. (But hard to photograph) It was a bat lovers paradise!
Here are a few other animals we enjoyed...


And Logan was ecstatic to find his favorite animal in the whole wide world there! In fact, they had 5 of them!!!! : ) He just loves those cheetahs!
It was a wonderful family weekend and the kids are ready to go back again soon.

Dentist Checkup

Thursday I picked my monkeys up early from school for their dental checkup. What a difference a year makes! Amanda sat still and didn't bite anyone. She let them paint her teeth pink (to check for plaque buildup) with minimal whining. They called Logan's name first so he walked back all by himself like a grownup. He also sat super still and was a great patient. Both children were given a no cavity report!!! :D I'm a super happy momma and very proud of both my monkeys.

FYI - We have a three day weekend and decided to take a trip. Details to come when we get back to civilization. I'm typing this post with my thumbs on my cute little phone. : )

Halloween 2011

For Halloween this year we did a family theme... STAR WARS!!!! We had settled on the theme a long time ago but we kept going round and round about who was going to be whom. We ended up with Princess Leia (me), Princess Amidala (Amanda), Anakin Skywalker (Logan), and The Emperor (Eric).

We had a dress rehearsal on Sunday night, then carved our pumpkins... That's why Logan's face is painted in these photos. : )

Logan didn't care for the slimy pumpkin innards but Amanda just dug right in!

And here is our finished pumpkins! Very Spooky!!!! The glowing eyeballs really add to the carvings.

We also did our Mr. Potato Head pumpkins with some mini pumpkins we had. Very cute!

Here are some action photos of us getting ready to trick or treat.