Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope all my friends and family have had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  It was just the 4 of us, be we cooked up a feast.  Not pictured is pumpkin pie and yellow cake with Almond joy frosting.  Yum!!


Ahhhh. All cleaned up! Time to relax...... :)

Happy Veteran's Day

Giving thanks to all the veterans today, especially my husband. :)

Happy Halloween!!

Lucas already had several costumes at home, so I told him to choose one. He chose to be a mail carrier.

Logan had asked to be Link from the Legend of Zelda. I had originally told him no because of the cost of the costume. Then I found some videos on how to make the shield and sword so I thought I'd give it a try. My plan was to make the shield and sword, I found a hat on Amazon and then I was going to get him a green shirt and brown belt. He could just wear a pair of jeans and it would be good enough. To me, the shield and sword were the main parts of the costume. We went to the thrift store to look for a green shirt. Logan and Shaine were with me. We came out with tan pants, tan long sleeve shirt, green shirt, belt, and boots. More time and money was put into it than my original plan, but Logan absolutely loved it!

We took the boys to the church and then did a trip around the neighborhood when we got home.

11 years old!!

I know I say the same thing every year, but time truly passes so quickly and I can't believe that Logan is already 11 years old!! We had planned on taking him into DC to do a river boat tour (that I'd already bought a voucher for), but they were canceled due to the govt. shutdown. Not sure about the reasoning behind that. Turns out, it rained all day on Wednesday (his birthday), so it all worked out in the end. He chose to eat at a new restaurant he hadn't tried for lunch, then we went to get him a new soccer ball (his exploded in the Jeep), and then we went to The Cheesecake Factory for birthday cheesecake. :) We haven't had his party yet, so I'll update his video once we do, but here is his last year! He got to see both my parents and his dad's parents in a years time and I think the last time that happened was from birth to one year old for him (he didn't get to see my step-mom, his Mimi, because she was stuck at work when my dad came)! Yes, it was a good year!

Logan, I love you very much and want you to know that you can do anything your heart desires if you put your mind and heart into it! Be your own spotlight!!

The goings on around here....

Do you have any idea how hard it is sometimes to keep from laughing when trying to decipher what your child is saying?? Tonight at dinner, Logan was complaining about how hard it is for him to tie his shoes. He can do it, but can't get them tied nice and tight. He said he can't do it with one hand. Shaine pointed out that he has two and it is possible because millions of people do it around the world. Lucas was listening to this and exclaims that he has seven hands. He then goes on to say that his hands do something and for the life of me I could NOT figure out what he was saying. Logan and Shaine weren't any help either.

Lucas: "My seven hands make ?????"
Me: "Your seven hands make what?"
He repeats what he said. I told him I had no idea what he was saying. He said it again, this time more slowly. This went back and forth a few times.
Me: saying the only thing I could even come up with, yet knew it wasn't right. "Your seven hands make sandal sex" I'm dying here.

Lucas looks at me. "NOOOOOO!!!! Souuuuuuundal sex"
Me: "OHHHHH! Sound effects??"
Lucas: Big smile. "YES!!"


The next morning he was asking me about it again, so I took a video:

Hair cut day . For the first time ever, I got to just sit on the bench while Lucas got his hair cut. Usually I am standing close to him helping reinforce what he needs to do and repeating what they ask him to do. Sometimes I am even holding his head still. Yesterday, I sat and Lucas did everything he was asked. He sat still and followed directions. We've been going to the same place for about 6.5 years. They gave Lucas his first cut, so they know him well. I'm just proud of him!

Also, we went to Olive Garden for lunch (Shaine wanted never ending pasta ). Lucas ate lunch without any prompting at all. Usually we are having to say, "Okay, now take a bite. What are you going to eat next? Lucas, eat. Take another bite." Sometimes we are even feeding him because he is kind of in his own world and can't focus enough to even pick the fork up and take a bite. He happily eats when we give him a bite, though. However, yesterday, none of that took place. He ate a whole breadstick, all of his pasta, his grapes, and his salad (deconstructed, but he ate it all....tomato, lettuce, cabbage, carrot, black olive, and crouton)!



Helping me chop the veggies for dinner.... 
Lucas picked out some new cookies at the store tonight. I think he liked them. He had cookie all the way up in his eyebrow.  They were raspberry Oreo fudge cremes. I tried one and I must say they were yummy, but I managed to keep my face clean while eating mine....LOL!
And we started soccer!!

Oldie but a goodie....

In honor of Father's Day, I'm sharing a couple of my favorite "dad" posts! Here and here.

13 down, lots more to go.....

June 4th, 2000 I married my best friend. I know that when I met him online just after I turned 17 (1996) and he was 21 no one thought we'd actually make it this far. But we have and it keeps getting better and better. I love you, Shaine, and I'm so glad we found each other! Thirteen years down, lots more to go.....
 

And for a blooper.... After noticing Shaine wasn't looking at the camera in our picture, I pointed to the little camera at the top of my laptop and said, "Look at the camera right here." This was the next picture I took. We laughed so, so hard at this! What is especially funny is that Shaine said his eyes don't even open that wide. And they don't. He can't wear contacts because he can't open his eyes wide enough to put them in. You wouldn't know that from this picture. :)

JEEP!!

After a few weeks of trying to decide what we wanted to do, we decided to get rid of the Jag that was giving us trouble. There was one vehicle that my husband was particularly interested in. After looking at used prices, we decided it made more sense to just get a new one. We love it!!

Resagna

Lucas has started pretending that he is Garfield. He calls me Odie, Shaine John, and Logan Nermal. Well, Garfield likes lasagna, or "resanga" as Lucas calls it, so he decided he should try it out. Yesterday at lunch he ate a pretty large serving of it and liked it! So proud of him for trying something new!!!

Family Fun Day!

We decided to get season passes to Kings Dominion and have taken the boys a couple of times so far. Lucas LOVES the rides! Logan has fun, but gets upset that he can't ride all the things his brother can (he doesn't realize how much he is growing!!!). We try to point out that he is tall enough to ride lots of things that his brother can't, he just chooses not to (he's NOT a fan of roller coasters at all). Anyway, it has been lots of fun. Here are some pictures from our last two trips!! A friend and her daughter have passes as well, so we meet up and all go!

Don't we look scared?!?

This was Lucas's favorite ride.  He was so serious about catching ghosts!!



Poor baby couldn't figure this ride out and just sat there for most of it.  Someone finally came and pushed him around in his car.

Logan loves getting to drive the cars!

Logan before the roller coaster ride.  He refused to even look towards the camera afterwards.





I think this may be Logan's favorite ride!

Happy Easter!

It rained most of the day here, but we still managed to get out to hunt eggs!

My "baby" is 7!

Today my sweet, sweet boy turned 7 years old.  I truly can't believe it.  Time is going by WAY too fast!!

If you know Lucas, you know he LOVES the number 3.  So, when it comes to blowing out birthday candles, he likes to do it 3 times.  Now, you can't just light the candle and blow it out 3 times, you must sing "Happy Birthday" 3 times, too.  :)  Here is round 3!

Christmas!

I'm a little late getting these up, but I wanted to share!  I've been saying for a while that I really wanted to cut back on Christmas.  The thought of buying a gift just because it is Christmas makes no sense to me.  To me, it should still be a thought out gift, so that is what I aimed for when buying gifts for the boys.  This resulted in fewer gifts, which resulted in fewer things to have to find a home for after the gifts were opened!  :)

I love this picture. They really are becoming friends. They tell jokes that only the two of them think are funny and they stay up late talking.

Getting the gift opening under way!

Lucas loves the 3 Little Pigs, so I knew he'd love this book: The 3 little wolves and the big bad pig!

He was so excited to see his new "park in the poop shirt" from Yellowstone!

Logan was happy to have a new Yellowstone shirt that fits, too



The company I ordered the shirts from sent the Santa hat for free! They also sent a free Yellowstone Christmas ornament. I thought that was super nice of them!

A new book from Gran and Papa, In the Night Kitchen.  Shaine loved this book when he was a little boy!

This picture cracks me up. Lucas was done! We had to bribe him to continue. This was the last gift we managed to get him to open! 

Logan had to help him open this one.



Building blocks from PaBob and Meme

I got a box!!



Lucas was done unwrapping, but he was still interested to see what was in that box!!

More building blocks from PaBob and Meme!  The boys have been wanting some, so I knew they would be happy!
Lucas asked for a bell from Santa, so he got them each one.

Reading the letter from Santa!

Lucas was so upset about going to sleep on Christmas Eve. We chose some cookies for Santa from the sugar cookies we made and Lucas really wanted to stay up and share cookies with Santa. Santa was super nice and saved a bite for him. As you can see, he was super excited about it. 

Lucas's line up. He already had Mario, but got the others for Christmas.

Stocking time!

Brunch....YUM!
The sugar cookies we made a few days before Christmas.  I'm a bad momma and didn't even get a picture of the boys decorating them.  I was icing them and they were decorating them faster than I could  go.