Before and after

This is for Brittany.

I recently reaaranged our living room. I had some GREAT help. I was a little concerned because Mark, well, he is an engineer. That means he has a particular idea of how things should be. He is not Open Minded. Our current living room is a really nice space, but like most really nice spaces, isn't really functional. When we first moved in we placed things in a pretty traditional way. This picture is really from May 2008. I forgot to take a before. (I honest said as we were moving the first piece of furniture, "I forgot to take a before picture")



Here is the after. I started thinking about a non-traditional way to use the space. We basically broke up the space into a TV watching/living space and a play area. I know that the toys will still end up all over, but at least the larger toys have a place to live. We got 1 piece stretchy slipcovers for our 10 year old disgusting couch and chair. They are washable.





Mark liked it! He said there was tweeking to do (of course) but he said he was so happy to get our couch back.



Thanks to Jenny for the muscles and "adjusting for Mark" and to Juliet for the staging items, cable, and adapter.

You have a mission!

I need a little help.

When James was born we receive many gifts including multiple blankets. In the last year, James has gotten attached to one blanket in particular.



He calls it "my banket" or "my wittlest banket". When he gets hurt or upset he always wants his banket and when he sleeps he has it wrapped around his head.

So, now his blanket is 3 years old, I have no idea who gave it to us or where they got it, but I would like another one...just in case. I think it might be from Target because they have a similar piglet blanket, but none like this one.



Good people, go into the world. See if you can find this banket. If anyone finds it somewhere so I can buy another one, I will make you a batch of brownies. Try your local stores, or if you are good at the internet searching, that will be acceptable as well. Good luck on your quest.



I just thought this was a cute picture of Andy. And by cute, I mean, not really cute at all...but that makes it cute. Love boys in their jammies!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

So, this is the 3rd year we have been to the pumpkin patch and yes, they did raise their prices!

This year was especially fun because now both boys are old enough to enjoy it.

James always starts off at the water pumps/duck races. I don't know why. They never work!



Andy didn't get it either.



What Andy DID get was the barley box. It is usually corn, but this year it is barley. I think they made the switch because this gets into your shoes and clothes MUCH better. Anyways, Andy LOVED it.





See, it even sticks to your runny nose!



While Andy hung out there, James did pretty much everything else. He tried to do the rope swing, but that really just turned into "jump while holding onto the rope"



There was also a really big slide that took James about 5 minutes to go down.



The cow train is always a favorite!



Andy liked it too, but more so when I let him sit in my lap.



We have not ventured into the large corn maze, but spent some time running through the straw maze. That was fun.



Of course we picked pumpkins as well. It was good day!

Self Portrait

I don't know if you can tell, but James drew a circle with 2 eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I am so proud!

Party tricks

One of the benefits of having Andy is daycare is that he learns all these party tricks that I never thought to teach him. He blows kisses, and points to his head, and now plays ring around the rosy. It was funny the first time he was trying to get us to play with him, because we didn't know what he was doing. We figured it out pretty quickly and have been all falling down ever since.