Insanity

That's what I'm claiming right now. SO out of the million things I want to blog about here's a few.

Yeah that about sums up my life about now!

  I wanted to share this really amazing apple cake recipe with you guys. I made it once we all loved it, and I didn't take pics to document the process plus I always test the recipes before sharing them. anyways so One out of Four tries at this cake turned out good the rest it didn't. so yeah needless to say I gave up. If I ever get the courage to try it again I might share.

(what it is supposed to look like)

I didn't end up with fall wreath orders but I do have about 7 Christmas wreath orders for this year. So as soon as I find the spare time to finish those up and take some pictures I surely will post that awesome how to. Super easy!

I'm getting a job. Not because I have to, but because I want something that's mine. and right now I just don't feel like going back to school. I had my 28th birthday and went OK that's it, its time to feel like I've accomplished something with my life other than my children. Yes raising children is an AMAZING journey. And I do not take that for granted. But sometimes you just need a little extra. It looks like I will be taking over my old job at my husbands office. Not a bad gig considering that its pretty much the only job I can get where I work from 9am-2pm, so that I still can get the kids to and from school . Not to mention he could really use the help! (luckily its out of my house this go round ) I have a few applications out there floating but so far no bites. Its really hard to find a job right now because pretty much everyone is looking.

Halloween. Every year we enter our local Halloween fall festival costume contest (and every year we've won our age division) so after a long consideration and debate I decided to relinquish the title for the next family to take our place. It was fun while it lasted and I really enjoyed making their costumes, but Its a lot of work, and its more fun to watch. :) Here's a few of our costumes. I wanted to post how to's on these. but well i never got around to it. If you want to know reply and I'll email you some directions.

Huck Fin and Dennis the menace '09

A mad scientist and his helper Igor '08

Not homemade but too cute... 05

Poptart and Milk Carton 06

Superman and Batman actual Halloween '10 (not homemade)

Disco ball '10

 This was taken Halloween '07 (sorta homemade)

Space Alien and Robot 07

Totem pole'10




Sorry my pictures are all scattered I'll fix them later.
 My mom used to make our halloween costumes a couple of my favorites were the matching dinos my brother and I were, the unicorn costume (I'll try to find you guys a picture sooo cool!) and then the princess costume.
Whats your favorite childhood Halloween costume?

oh my, oh my!

By now I'm sure I've lost a few followers. What can I say sometimes life just happens and you have to choose where you focus your attention. Obviously that was NOT on my blog. SO lets fast forward past all of that and get reacquainted shall we?

Summer ended, school started. Along with school starting we now are involved with boy scouts, and soccer. And that's just to name a few things. We also now have Homework and daily routines that make the week fly by faster and faster.

Fall will officially be here on Friday. It surely doesn't feel like it's that close. We are still seeing somewhere in the upper 90's for our weather and if you had talked to me last week it was still in the triple digits. YEAH SUCKS! We really don't have traditional fall type weather here normally anyways but the HEAT for so long is killing me, just a tiny bit more, everyday! Come on 80's and 70's!!!!!

Anyways with fall comes some of my FAVORITE activities. Traditionally fall is not my favorite season if you'd have asked me a few years ago I'd have said winter. But I'm beginning to see the beauty in Spring and Fall. Fall Is fantastic because well I was born during this season. HAHAHA. JK JK but seriously yes part of fall's appeal years ago before I started rapidly inching my way to 30 was the fact that My birthday is in the fall. But so is my hubby's :) and my moms, and my brother in laws, and my grandmothers, and my cousins, and my baby brothers. (geesh that's a lot of people with birthdays in October and November huh?)

Another thing is this is Fall is considered ultimate CRAFT season. And NOTHING gets me more excited that staying busy doing Crafty things! Fall Wreaths, homecoming mums, Halloween Costumes, Christmas Wreaths, Christmas Decor, food, Food and More FOOOOOOOD. Want to learn how to make one of the above? yeah thought ya might! Stay tuned. no really stay tuned! ;) I'll show ya how!

Plus fall is the season where my "summer" wardrobe finally can be rested some. I get to mix pants and jackets into my normal monotonous t-shirt and shorts and flip-flops house wife style. Mix that with the fact that we can finally start being outside again and whew yeah Fall just might be my new favorite!

This is from Halloween 2 years ago and yes I made both boys costumes, Dennis the Menaces and Tom Sawyer.

What are some of your favorite fall activities?

Kindergarten Graduation

Here are a few pictures from the kindergarten graduation And the last day of school as I promised.

It wasn't a terribly extravagant event. We all showed up and sat/ stood on the back row so that we'd have better camera angles or so we thought, people kept standing up in front of us and walking in front of us so just when I'd line up a shot it wouldn't focus again on the child. but that's OK we still got some pretty good ones in spite of it. They all received their diplomas. and they sang a couple of songs and then they did a slide show at which it was difficult not to cry. It showed just how much they did throughout the school year and just how much they grew.  They can't wait to be first graders this year. MOM however wishes they'd go back to being babies. You know the kind that just want to be held and loved. *sigh*

(My big guys)

(Last day of school VS. First day of school. Look how much they changed!!!!)

(They wouldn't cooperate much I guess I can't blame them since it was 7 am)

(Chris receiving his diploma. I think this is funny because Josh always picks on him and says I'm older. (by a whopping 2 min. OH MY) and so now Chris can say you may be older but I graduated first!!!)

 (Dad worked the video camera)

(Josh getting his diploma)

 (These were hanging in the hall, so cute to see what all their favorites are!)

Growing up is hard to do... and so is watching it happen! :(

OK so I'm going to bounce around a little and tell you a random story, mkay, stick with me.

 My boys have always, and I do mean ALWAYS, have shared a bed/space to sleep. You might think this is weird. Trust me I've heard the lectures about making sure twins are "INDIVIDUALS"  and you should always give them their own room and own sleeping space and their own clothes etc. etc. HA, LETS GET REAL OK!  They are about as different as 2 kids could be!

When the boys were younger there wasn't a whole lot of options for little boys baby clothes that were cute and DIFFERENT. So I dressed them EXACTLY alike though I swore time and time again I wouldn't do that to them. But really there wasn't much other option.

When they became toddlers and very independent toddlers I might add. They thought they HAD to dress alike because that's what they always knew. So it was a HUGE temper tantrum any time they didn't look exactly like the other. (AWFUL)

As they grew out of that so much they were OK in the store picking out different yet similar items. (For example 2 monster truck shirts of different colors.) lets rephrase that statement. They were OK with that until it came time to actually wear it then they'd pick one shirt and fight over it, So horribly bad I'd take a second trip to the store just to stop the future arguing.

They have now hit the stage of not wanting to look anything alike some days and others they want to match. Sometimes when asked if they are twins they now tell people no that they are just brothers. I know this is normal. It's just so sad to watch them grow up so fast! 

OK back on track, like I said they've always shared a bed.

We've been from this:

to this:

to this:

Isn't their room nifty! It's probably the single most awesome room in my house. I'm a little partial  I admit but that's because I DID 99% of the work on this room MYSELF! :) (practically everything glows in the dark!

To this:

Now sadly we have reached another stage in the sleeping arrangements :( They no longer want to share a bed. They want separate beds. They'd prefer different rooms, but sadly that isn't an option at the moment so they'll just have to stick with my decision on what type of bed. My husband and I were torn about having them a bunk bed because they don't sleep in one place. They tend to helicopter around the bed. So, me being a paranoid mother, was freaking out at the idea. but there really isn't much room for 2 traditional beds in their room either. So this left us with a dilemma, what do we do? One day when browsing the web I found THIS bed:

Of course in the space theme bedding.

So with that said my boys in just a few short weeks will be moving to the next stage of life.

Can we please go back?????????

*Sigh*

I knew it was going to happen one day. Luckily they aren't teenagers yet. Come see me next week  and they probably will be. (that seems to be how fast they change anyways!)

I guess the saying is true "Time Flys When You're Having Fun!"

A few things we've been doing this summer Part 1

Mostly this summer has been all about relaxing and enjoying simple little things. I'll list what all we have done but it won't be in chronological order.

I've done a whole lot of cleaning up the back yard and house trying to get it livable and "mine" so to speak. Its finally done and all I can say is WOW why didn't this happen sooner. I'm so much more at peace in my house! After practically having to Strangle, I mean cry (oops did I say that out loud) I finally convinced my hubby to remove the HUGE burn pile from the backyard, because we haven't had any rain since January and its above 100 and so a "bonfire" isn't in the cards.

The boys have had a blast in our back yard hanging out and playing on their pool slide thingy. and just being boys in general. We also bought them a slip-n-slide! This was/has been the GO TO activity this summer! :)

We went horseback riding with pawpaw.

Joshua got his first ever bee sting. OUCH!

We've been fishing numerous times!

We've watched a few Mega blockbusters at the theater. (Sadly of the last 4 Movies I've seen in the theater 3 were superhero related and the other was a cartoon.) I personally thought both movies were oddly pretty good, though I liked Green Lantern just a bit more (maybe its because there was more of a love-ish story or maybe the fact that Ryan Reynolds is in it I'm not really sure. Oh no don't go there I'm married, but hes not bad eye candy, and FUNNY!!! The latter of which is why I said his name to begin with. )

Movie posters and previews can be found here Greenlantern and here Transformers Dark of the moon

We did Fourth of July with my Family on my dads side. It was nice to see everyone, it had been a while since we were all able to get together.

 

Sadly this is the closest we've gotten to fireworks since January. Thanks to the Drought. :(

The boys had their first sleepover and we have plans for more before the summer is out! :)

We baked daddy and paw- paw cupcakes for Fathers day. And have baked a few things since. (one of my boys favorite past times)

The boys are having their birthday party in a few weeks and we've been having a blast together planning that.

(I'll give you a hint)

My husband and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary! We didn't do anything extravagant, Just had a date night and hung out together, something we rarely get to do anymore. and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT! :)

(This picture was taken on our honeymoon! 10 years ago!!!)

(This was taken last year, I think its the newest one of both of us together sadly I'm not a fan of pictures with me in them! )

That's pretty much the extent so far (that I remember) I still owe you guys a post on their graduation, and then I already have one typed for their birthday party planning. and I have one halfway finished on how much the boys have grown just over this summer! So I wasn't lying when I said I was going to post, I just haven't been around as much as I'd like to have been. We do have plans for more summer activities and I'm quite sure I've missed some somewhere. lol :)