Change of Plans

No school for AJ today, so we had a few things we planned to do.

But this changed everything.

At least daddy will get home early from work today.

He can put on the spare and take our van to the tire place.

Hopefully we will only need a patch. These tires are fairly new.

Instead of running around town with the boys,

we played in the backyard.

The boys drew pictures with sidewalk chalk.

Here is AJ's rocket ship. He wrote "BLAST OFF" at the bottom.

JJ's chalk creation. He said it too is a rocket ship blasting off.
(I think this picture is upside down - oops!)

The winds are really strong today. With allergies in full swing,
our outside time came to an end with AJ getting a
breathing treatment, JJ having a runny nose and
mommy working up a good headache.

Happy Friday!

Halloween Fun

The boys were astronauts this year for Halloween. These costumes were so cute on them! The past three years I have asked (mainly AJ) what kind of costume they want, buy/order them, then intentionally keep it a secret until Halloween day. The reason I do this - so they don't have time to change their minds about it! I dealt with this once and vowed to not do it again ;)

We started our day off with a couple errands & let the boys wear their costumes. After eating lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant we took them to a local bakery for a Halloween cookie.

The best part of Hallween - Trick or Treating of course!

They got so much candy! AJ was particularly excited.

This was by far the most fun Halloween for the boys.

Words from AJ

While driving in the van this afternoon, the boys and I got into a discussion of whether or not a particular candy bar had peanuts inside it or not. JJ insisted that it DID NOT have peanuts, AJ wasn't sure, and I said that it DID have peanuts.

JJ was in the mood to argue. Before long JJ was yelling "NO, IT DOESN'T"! At that point AJ shook his head and told his little brother "JJ, it has peanuts. Mom is ALWAYS right."

You know this momma was smiling the rest of the way home. We will see how long this line of thinking lasts :)

Welcome Fall!

Fall is officially here and we are excited about cooler weather, warm clothes, soup and holidays approaching. I finally got my front porch decorated. I had to wait for a non-rainy day which set me back about a week with all the wet weather we have had lately. The boys really enjoyed selecting their pumpkins and gourds.

I tackled a very timely project last week - rearranging the boys' closet for fall/winter clothes. This involved sorting through tubs of hand-me-down clothes for JJ, organizing summer clothes into save, donate, and consignment sale piles for each child, lots of laundry, and putting all the fall clothes neatly into the closet & one dresser that the boys share. Here is a picture of what was put back into the attic.

This is the "after" picture of the boys closet. I love the divided hanging organizers. It increases the functionality of the closet so much and you can see everything well through the clear plastic. Sometimes we use them to place clothes for each day of the week, but lately I've just been stacking things that I don't hang up.

Hope you are having a great Fall and staying healthy!

One Month Victories!

Both of our boys have an accomplishment that I want to share with you.


JJ has been staying dry at night while wearing real underwear for a full month! I was reluctant to put him to bed in underwear at first, but Jimmie convinced me to give it a try. JJ had been keeping his Pull Up dry for about a week. So we took the plunge and he has done great! He seems like such a big boy now!


It has also been one month since AJ got his new glasses. He has adjusted well to wearing them all the time. And we have yet to make a warranty claim - YEAH!!

Hometown Fair

Several weeks ago we were treated to a night at the fair. My hometown has hosted the county fair each fall since before my grandmother was born. It has been years since Jimmie and I have been and the boys have never been. So this year we decided it was time to make the trip back home and experience the fair. Papa T and Nana met us there with my grandmother, Mama Connie. She had tuckered out by the time we took this photo, but it was fun to have her "along for the ride."

The boys rode all the kid rides and had a blast!

Thanks Nana & Papa T for buying the tickets!

Most of my pictures turned out blurry from all the action. So this is all I have.

AJ loved the cotton candy and his foot long corn dog. JJ liked the funnel cake.

It was fun to revisit a place with so many memories. Jimmie and I remembered our first date being at the county fair 17 years ago! Not much has changed since then. I hope we can make this recurring event for our boys to remember too.

While Waiting In The Pick Up Line

Every afternoon JJ & I arrive at the drive through line behind AJ's school to wait until the bell rings. We get there about 30 minutes early so that we are one of the first cars in line. Thirty minutes can be quite a long time for a toddler to spend in an idle vehicle.

For the past two days, JJ has needed to pee at some point during our wait. When your newly potty trained son tells you that he needs to pee, you had better be prepared to take action. I actually have a travel potty seat stashed in my van that has been used on more than one occasion :) But it requires a supply of baggies that I had run out of :(

Plan B - a Sonic cup. Those who know me well know that I pretty much always have a Sonic cup with me. The past two days I have surrendered my Sonic cup for JJ to relieve himself in. Once AJ joined us in the van we promptly hit the nearest Sonic to replace my Coke before happy hour was over.

A side note - As I dumped the ice out of my cup today JJ told me that "God made the ice cold."