Sum-up and Preschool

In the long abscence, I've had tons of fun stuff going on. My mom and sister, Allison, came out to Colorado to visit me for my birthday in November! I was so excited to have them, and to have a place to put them. It was a blast for me, and I loved that Allison could stay a full week to make the drive with me and the kids back to Utah for Thanksgiving.
We were very fortunate to have the entire family (on my side) together for Thanksgiving, since Christmas will be a no-go. We had fun doing girly crafts (the girls did), eating, movies, talking, and even pulled an all-nighter for Black Friday--something likely not to be repeated again...
After getting back home, it was back to life! We are loving Colorado, especially the great people we are meeting in our ward. It's nice to fit right into the main demographic: 26-34 years old, 2.4 children, etc.

This week, I got to step-up to the preschool teacher plate and have our co-op preschool over. I really think that if I hadn't become a nurse, that my second choice would have been a teacher. I really love getting all ready and thinking of fun little things to do with the kids. My topic for this week was Christmas, so of course we had to do a nativity with the kids. I also made little baby Jesus decorations for each of the kids, so that they would have something special, just for them, to remind them of what Christmas is truly about.

our little Nativity players--a handful of shepherds, Joseph, Mary, a sheep and a donkey

--Logan kind of played the lone wiseman, but lost interest once he gave his gift to Jesus.

Happy Halloween!!!

Love, love, love Halloween! We were sad that Ryan was out of town for all the festivities, but we still had a great time.

I love any excuse to dress up, and any excuse to bust out the glue gun and make some costumes. This year, we were featuring Thomas the Train, and a Witch (Annie couldn't decide between nice and mean, that's why she is kind of a smattering of both.)

Annie's favorite part of the costume was her orange hair. It was also Logan's favorite part, so he got a little spray of orange on his head too. He also insisted on having some make-up on his face, that's why he's a grubby little engineer.

We went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat, then back home to hit a few homes on our street. I made the mistake of leaving our bowl of candy on the porch, since nobody was home to pass it out. Sure enough, it was completely empty when we got back (even though we only hit a few homes and never even left our street.) Little hoodlums...

I ended up stealing candy from Annie and Logan's buckets to tide over the next few trick-or-treaters--although it hardly put a dent in the stash, and I didn't give away anything really good.

At the end of the night, the kids chose Toy Story 2 as the perfect end to a spooky Halloween.

Now to raid the treats for Reese's and Almond Joys...

Eggs.

Eggs have been on sale everywhere! Plus, I've had really good Safeway coupons and eggs are available for 88 cents for 18. I stocked up last week, only to have Ryan make a grocery run and end up buying more. We were laughing about the prospect of surviving on eggs for the next couple of weeks to make sure they didn't go bad. I guess Logan must have sensed this was a real source of frustration for us, so he offered his own solution:

Problem solved.

update: oh, and p.s.

while I was posting this, he got a bottle of maple syrup and painted that bench and floor. Didn't take a picture. Too mad. Just take this same photo and replace the eggs with syrup. Grrrrr......

Fire Station Fun!

(I didn't turn the flash off, so it's a little blinding...)

Annie's preschool group had the opportunity to go to the local Fire Station for a field trip. Moms and other kids are invited when these things happen, so it's a fun day for almost the whole family.

Annie was excited to see the station, but Logan was freaking out! He had to get his hands on every piece of that firetruck, and kept yelling, "See Mommy? See? Firetruck! Wooo-WooOOOO!" The guys at the station were so fun, and let the kids experience the whole bit: holding the water hose, "driving" the truck, and acting out "stop, drop, and roll", among other things. I wouldn't be surprised if Logan has found his calling in life.

I must do this a lot...

I got after Annie the other day for something or other, and sent her to her room. After a cooling down period for both of us, I headed for her room with Logan on my heels. Annie was lying in bed with the covers up over her head. I knelt down beside her and apologized for getting angry. The whole time I was talking to her Logan kept trying to get her out of bed to play, but she kept brushing him off. When I finally finished and started to leave the room, Annie sprang out of bed and said, "Okay, Bubba, now I can play with you. I was just waiting for mommy to come in and say sorry to me."

Room for 2 (year-olds)

I love both my children, so lest anyone think otherwise, here is Logan's room:

Kind of dark, and kind of a weird angle, but here you go!

New and Improved

A LOT has happened in the last several months, including my husband finishing his Secret Service training and our family moving to Colorado. An exciting change that went along with all of this was being able to buy our first home! It was an interesting experience going through that process while my husband and I were in different states and we were buying a home in another state and yada, yada, yada. But it worked out great and we are really excited! I love that I can finally throw some paint on the walls and put nail-holes wherever I want to.

Our first order of business for the home was painting Annie's room. Since the whole "we're moving to Denver" process has started, we've promised Annie she could have a room decorated however she wanted. Her immediate request was a "purple princess room". She has not wavered on that at all, so we felt a strong obligation to deliver. After a few coats of "grape-o-licious", here's what we have:

She loves it, but also asks why some of the trees are square, so maybe I didn't get it exactly right. Oh, well! We are having fun!

Something New

I've decided to start a new blog--sort of because wordpress was boring.