Friday, November 19, 2010

Halloween Neighborhood Party

Our new street had a Halloween party the day before Halloween which ended up being perfect for us. We were able to meet all of our neighbors at one time. The trick is remembering everyone's name :). One of the highlights of the party was the local fire station visited and brought a fire truck! My boys (especially Cooper) were SO excited. I was so excited b/c one of Cooper's 2 costumes was a firefighter, and Jackson was a dalamation! Perfect for a photo op! Unfortunately I never got a great one of both of them, but at least they got the experience.




The evening after the party we had Laura and Tom's annual Halloween party to attend. I took NO pictures ( awful!) but we ended up spending the night so here are a few from that morning.
I know I know, Jackson's a little too old to wear that pumpkin outfit. But I thought he looked SO cute!




Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Moving Day!

Goodbye house! We loved living in you for 6 years! (Crazy how time flies)

Ryan and I have a picture in this exact same spot the day we moved in, with no furniture as well. Fun to see how our family has grown since then!
Hello new house! I have a photo of the front but I haven't downloaded it yet, so for now you'll get the backyard. We're on a corner so our yard is kind of strangely shaped. It's not too deep but very long, then we have a really big side yard. This area is on part of the side yard.
We had an... eventful moving day, to say the least. Ryan's mom and dad were nice enough to come down to help us out during the move, which was SO nice of them and very very helpful. The entire month of October we had beautiful weather and I don't think it even rained. Maybe once or twice. Well, during the move it POURED rain a few times, and at one point the tornado sirens went off. A tornado was coming and (since we didn't have cable or anything yet) my mom looked it up on her phone and it was coming right to our new home! Of course. So the kids and the women were smart enough to sit in the closet under the stairs (no basements here!) but we couldn't get the guys to join us. We had movers there at this time and I kept telling them they could take shelter if they wanted. They stopped moving for probably 10 mintes and then just kept moving. Then, right as the sirens were going off, our refrigerator was delivered. They just kept on working as if the weather was just perfect. Crazy. Luckily no tornado came and everything was moved in. I later had multiple neighbors say they sat and watched us through their windows running in and out to our cars moving stuff. Lovely, huh? :)
Taking shelter.

I'm posting a few pictures of the house, but we have made some changes so I'm going to do a post giving a tour of all the house once it's clean. (That's my goal tonight, to get it clean!)
Here's our bedroom. Ben and Cooper had so much fun with these mattresses. They'd run and throw themselves against it, then fall down on the ground. Over and over and over.
Here's a view of the family room, from the hallway by our bedroom. The family room connects to the kitchen as you can probably tell.
Look at all the boxes! Those are just kitchen boxes, I have so many things for the kitchen! One of our projects that I am hoping to start on soon is painting our kitchen cabinets a cream color. I hope it turns out well, we'll see!
More furniture and boxes. This is the dining room, immediately off of the hallway (the front door is to the right). We're going to use this room as a library right now.
Cooper loves climbing in our trees in the backyard.
The boys have loved playing in the boxes!
One of the first things we did to the house was have wood floors put in the family room and all the bedrooms. Unfortunately that meant we didn't have many places we could be while the work was being done. We moved in on Sat/Sun, and they started laying the floors Monday-Thursday. So we all basically lived upstairs. Our upstairs is just one big room, which we are going to use as a gameroom/office/craft room/workout room. But for these few days it was basically a sleeping dorm! Here is Jackson during his nap...
and this is what Cooper did while Jackson napped! Poor kid, we didn't even have furniture in the house since the floors were being replaced in this room, so he improvised :).
This is what our one room looked like when we were all sleeping there. For one day the boys and I spent the entire day upstairs, playing and everything. They actually had lots of fun just running around and being crazy on the mattresses. Me, not so much. Got quite boring! But I had to wait around for various workmen so I couldn't leave. Just glad it's over with!
Jackson learned a new skill while we were moving!
Ahhh, the fun of packing paper!

More Fall Pics

This has been the boys' favorite activity lately. Taking off all the pillows on the couch and being wild and crazy on them. (this is in our old house)
I don't know if you can tell, but Jackson is working up a sweat playing!
awww, had to share the picture of Jackson hugging his "baby G." Cooper has a "G" (a REALLY big giraffe) that is his lovely basically. Jackson has a mini one that I call baby G.
Last year I got some cute fall pics of the boys in our (old) front yard, so I wanted to get some more before we moved. Unfortunately there was just a tiny pile of leaves, but I was able to get a few.

Notice the lovely for sale sign in the background? I thought that would be a good memory!


Jackson's favorite part was tasting the leaves!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Bounce Houses!

We spent a lot of time in bounce houses this fall. The first was at a festival near our (old) house. Cooper LOVED the bounces houses. He looks a little scary-obsessed here :).

The little girl dropped her bracelet and Cooper very nicely ran and got it for her. I was so proud of him!
The only picture I could get of him sliding down the slide.
What an adorable picture, right?? (I'm being sarcastic!)
We also met some friends at a pumpkin patch near our house. Cooper had a great time once again going down the slides.
Victoria going down the slide with most of our kiddos.
Jackson watched the fun. (side note, since this picture Jackson has gotten a haircut and it makes me sad to see pictures with all of his hair! :( Although it was getting a little shaggy, I will admit!)
The kids: Cooper, Ben, Jackson, Amelia, Zach, and Josh

A much better picture!

Zoo walk

I'm finally back to posting! We are slowly getting settled in our new house, I'll post pictures soon. I need to get caught up on all of our fall activities! It has been a busy but fun past few weeks.

The week or two before Halloween we took Jackson to the Botanical Gardens to take pictures in his Halloween costume while the boys were in school.

He's a dalmation! (Cooper was a firefighter)


We also had our first "zoo walk". In class they walk to visit different animals, and once a month the parents are allowed to join them. My mom came along with me and Laura so she could walk with Jackson. Here's Ben checking out an animal.
and Cooper!

Photo op before we get started!

This is the rope all the kids have to stay on during the zoo walk. Makes me feel safer with him being on it, that's for sure!
Showing off his art project for the day.