Halloween Decor 2015

It was so fun to decorate our new house for the first time for Halloween. We missed our decorations the year before since they were in storage! After we put our friendly ghost out on the front porch, Nora begged to go out and see him nonstop for the first few days: "I wanna see it-the ghost, mommy! Peez? Go ow-side and see the ghost!"

Coy's 5th Birthday!

My little Coy turned FIVE back in August! Wow, how I love this kid. He is such a joy and makes us smile and laugh every day. He has a spunk and zest like no other. I am so happy and blessed to have him in my life. Even though he turned five in August and could have gone to kindergarten this school year, we decided to wait a year and I am SO glad we did. This has been such a special time for me having one more year with him before I send him off to school. I have enjoyed this school year so much getting to spend extra time with him and Nora. I am glad Coy can be my little boy just a little longer. He just loves life so much! He loves to play, loves to help do anything and everything, and can be a bit mischievous

We let him open a couple presents first thing in the morning.

That morning, we also woke up to a tree that had fallen in our yard from the windstorm the night before. It was the first, and I am sure it will not be the last based on our location! We had some nice neighbors help Russ chainsaw it down and get it out of the yard.
I always have to get some pictures of the birthday boy on his special day! All of his faces and expressions crack me up.
I have always been afraid of fondant, but finally gave it a try. I am so glad I did! It really wasn't bad at all! I am glad I have expanded my skills on cakes and am excited that I have opened more doors since trying fondant. That doesn't mean I particularly like making cakes. I really don't enjoy the process all that much, but the end results and the kids' reactions make it all worth it!
In addition to the cake and ice cream and presents that night, we played some games outside and also had a movie night out in our back yard. We had little sodas and bags of popcorn for that. Coy got Big Hero 6 for his birthday, so we watched that...He also got How to Train Your Dragon 2, which went with his cake, but he chose the other movie instead.
  No one could resist the little oreos, especially Coy! Bennett was such a sweet brother and wanted to make Coy something for his birthday. He had the idea and vision for a Baymax beanbag toss. It was fun making it with him and it turned out so good! (It also came in handy later for our Ward Halloween Carnival when I was in charge of a game!) Gotta love the Oreo beard that Coy is sporting in the rest of these pictures!

Bittersweet~

Back in early March, Russ started talking about selling our house and building just a street back and over from it. I kind of shrugged and thought, sure, whatever. I was in no hurry to sell our house and move. We weren't ready! That was something that was always WAY down the road. We'd always hoped/planned on it for someday, but I never thought the time would really come. So I just told him go ahead, whatever, we could probably make it work, but I wasn't going to do anything about it. I guess I didn't really think he'd make the plunge. Pretty much in our marriage, it is always me that gives the OK, or the "it's time", for the big decisions. We support each other, but to be honest, Russ is not usually the take-charge sort of person. So suddenly when we had meetings scheduled with builders and he had a Realtor come to our house I knew he was serious. But it wasn't until a "For Sale" sign was being hammered into our front yard did I realize just HOW SERIOUS he was. See, I'd been so busy dealing with Nora's crazy condition, surgery, and recovery, plus the pleurisy I'd developed in my rib cage (ouch!), I had no energy left to worry about house selling, etc. So come April 1st, our house was listed and we sold it by mid-June, and were out on July 12th.

When I was expecting Nora, I had great plans for rearranging kids' bedrooms: turning Mylie's room into Coy's, moving Bennett downstairs, and making a cute room for the two girls to share! Talk about a lot of effort when we just up and sold the house a few months later! At the time, I had no idea it would be like that. I thought we'd be there a few more years. But the time was right. We prayed and searched and really know the Lord was guiding us in the decisions we were and are making. We will get to stay in the same neighborhood and Ward, and our kids will get to continue going to the same school.

So it is bittersweet! I really miss my house in some ways...I loved it! I sobbed and vocally told each room goodbye when I finally shut the door at the end of moving day. We had all four of our children there! In fact we discovered I was pregnant with Bennett just 4 days after we moved in. I felt like our home was us. It was our family. But I am so excited to build a new one! Right now it is just hard because we are crammed in a 2-bedroom, dark apartment until at least Christmastime. We really miss our space, and I do miss my kiddos cute little rooms. I think once our new house starts to take shape, it will not be so hard. So here are some photos of their rooms.

Coy's Room:
I think I will paint stripes again for Coy's room. They were so cute, even though they were a lot of work! But I only got to enjoy them for a few months.


Mylie and Nora's Room: I love all the cute fabric options out there! I literally spent hours on Fabric.com and Hawthorn Threads staring at fabric and trying to tie it all in. I am happy with how it all turned out! Bennett's Room: I miss Bennett's room the most, and I think he of all the kids misses his room the most! It may have not been the best decorated room in the house, but it was just SO HIM! It was our playroom in the basement that we turned into his bedroom. He absolutely loves to read, so the little corner shelf was just perfect. He read with his lamp on every night, and the shelves along the walls were just perfect for all his books! He and I were so sad he didn't even get to be in that room for a year! We will have to find him a good headboard with built in shelves at our new house! I surely miss tucking them all in at night in their cute, individual rooms! But it is fun seeing now them all lined up in their beds at night when they have all FINALLY fallen asleep. We luckily were able to fit three twin beds all in a row, plus three dressers in one of the rooms here in the apartment. They think it is a party/sleepover every night and bedtime is kind of a joke, but they are getting a little better now. It's fun to kiss them all when they are sleeping. But I am sure we will be good and ready to separate them all when our new house is done! Oh, and Nora shares a room with us. It's all kind of crazy, but I am sure we will have good memories of it all. I just keep telling myself it will all just be a distant memory someday...We will get through this!!!

Bennett's Birthday~

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Bennett's seventh birthday! He got to do a lot of celebrating! A couple days before the actual birthday, he invited some friends to see a movie--Hotel Transylvania. Then the day of his birthday we had all of the family over for some Halloween food, music, and dancing. He also got taken out and spoiled by Russ's parents the next weekend, and taken out to eat the next week by my mom. He got his fill of celebrating. I think he is excited to be seven.

Here are some pics from the actual day:



He got to open one present real quick before he had to leave for school. It was an Ultra Stomp Rocket! He was excited to finally have one of his own. Plus it helped pass the time later that day while he waited for his guests to arrive.
I love getting to be the mom of this boy.
Bennett with his dad. I am surrounded by great guys in this family :)
Bennett & Mylie = best friends (well, most the time)
He wanted a spider web cake this year (which was nice for me...pretty easy to do that one) and then mummy hot dogs and Halloween fixin's just like last year.




The little witch hat cookies were so fun and easy to make. What did mom's ever do before the internet...Oh, I guess just be creative all on their own.




Jack-o-Lantern vegetables...Yum! And Mummy dogs. I also loved the Halloween-colored tortilla chips I came across at Walmart.
About his presents: Bennett received the first set of Magic Tree House books for his birthday last year. He has since "fallen in love" and has read almost every single on in the past year. I think he is currently on #45. The only thing he asked for for his birthday was Magic Tree House books. However, since he has discovered them at his school library and the public library, he had already checked out and read every single one I got for him. He didn't care though, he still wants the whole collection, and he now almost has it. He loves to read them to Mylie (even though I don't think she really listens most the time). He will just follow her around reading. He wants to make sure she hears all of them. He also just loves playing with and looking at t he actual books. He comes up with all sorts of games to organize them and sort them.   He also got a nice chess set. He has always loved the game chess, and at seven years old he is probably better at it than me.   Mylie wanted to get him a stuffed dog, so she picked out one that looked like Aspen, the golden retriever my parents used to have.   We also got Bennett his own digital alarm clock for his room. He is obsessed with numbers and time and always  has to know the exact minute he goes to bed so he can calculate how much sleep he gets. Now he doesn't have to ask us to check the clock for him one last time before he goes to sleep.   He also got some great books (science, activity, and piano) from relatives, including one about "Trees" that Franklin, his cousin, wrote and illustrated for him (it is the most darling book ever.)
Happy Birthday Bennett!