Noah Lost a Tooth!

Ben and Noah tend to hold on to teeth longer than most.  While a lot of kids in Kindergarten have gaps in their teeth, my boys never did.  Emily did though.  Noah's been wanting a wiggly tooth for years and it finally happened about a week ago.  Then yesterday after school, he was eating a banana and his tooth came out.  He was so excited and I'm so glad I was there to see it.

If he's anything like Ben, he'll lose teeth in rapid succession, which means the Tooth Fairy better stock up on ones.  He got $2 for his first tooth.  After that, I think it goes down to $1.  I don't remember what she does, but she did sprinkle glitter all over my counter. Those darn fairies are so mischievous!   

This is when we seem to notice the biggest change in how our kids look.  It's not the gaps, but the appearance of adult teeth that changes their whole face.  They stop looking like babies and start looking like little adults.  But, this little guy will always be my baby!

A Wonderful 5 Days Off

The kids had 5 days off, and it's been lovely.  I could get used to not waking up by 6:30.  Here's a recap of our time off.  

We headed to my Dad and Suzy's house in Phoenix for Thanksgiving.  They just moved into a smaller home on a golf course lot.  And by smaller, I mean 2800 square feet.  Still extremely large by most standards.  There home is awesome and it's a great place for them to retire and still be active every day.  The golf course was closed for the holiday, so the kids got to go out and play on the 15th hole.  Emily did handstands.  Is anyone surprised?

This is my beautiful niece Tiffany.  She looks so much like my sister.  

And I showed my Dad Snapcat.  Here we are as cute bears or something.

David carved the turkey.  It was soooo good. 

Suzy truly outdid herself.  Everything was wonderful.

Then, my kids got a ride on my Dad's golf cart.

We strapped them in for safety.

Since nobody was on the course, my Dad let each kid drive. Emily did really well.

Ben was a little more freaked out and said he'd wait a few years before trying again.

Noah couldn't reach the peddles, but loved to steer.

And almost took out a palm tree!

Then, David took Emily around.  They had a blast driving all over.

Awww....I love these two.

Us and my sweet Mommy.

Us, with Dad, Suzy and Tiffany.

It was a great Thanksgiving.

The next day, we decorated for Christmas.

And while the kids were waiting for us, they had some fun of their own.  Noah got in the voluntarily. 

And David did this for 5 hours....  Never, ever buy a prelit tree.  We got this tree about 5 years ago and love it.  We loved that it was prelit, until one of the strands go out.  But, it's not the whole thing, it's only like 50 of the lights on the strand.  We tried to change out the bulbs and a bunch of other stuff and nothing.  We had dead spots all over the tree.  So, David cut the lights out...for over 5 hours!  And that's with us all helping at times.  Each light is wrapped around the branch and then fastened on there.  It was a nightmare.  We could've just put working lights on top of it, but we wanted it to look nice and get it over with.  So, it's done.

Then, my best friend Pam came up on Saturday.  It was so nice catching up with her.  We went to lunch and went shopping.  We were going to do a fire with smores, but it was freezing out.  Windy and cold and we couldn't bare it.  So, we made smores over the stovetop!  They were actually very good!

The kids wrote a play a few days ago, so they performed for us.

It involved Noah being a pumpkin pie and Ben was a turkey.

This is the after show bow.  

Then, they did some yoga with Aunt Pam.

Noah did good and hung in there.  Emily did excellent.  Maybe she'll be a yoga instructor!

Noah turned me into a pumpkin pie.

Today, David and I ran some errands and we are getting ready to head back to the grind this week.  It's been a fun 5 days!

Quite Possibly The Best Dog

Rocko is such a sweetheart. He's big and stinky and uses my $1500 chasie lounge from Crate and Barrel as a dog bed, but I love him. When we got Rio, we were pretty sure he'd be okay with it. We had Max for several years, but about 6 years have passed since having a cat around.

We usually feed Rocko outside, but last night, he was inside, so that's where he ate. Rio was most interested.

Now, a lot of dogs would snap at this point, especially around food.

But not Rocko, he didn't  mind one bit that Rio was making a move.

And when there was just a few kernels in the bottom....

He decided to let him have it.  

I don't think Rio even ate any of it, but it was nice Rocko left him 3 pieces. 

I don't think there are many dogs out there who would do the same.
Rocko is sweet like that.

Toy Store

It seems every few years, I have to do a complete overhaul of the boys rooms.  They just get awful. We are having house gets for the holidays and there is no way that I could let them sleep in the pit that had become their bedrooms.

People have been asking what the kids want for Christmas and they are really struggling to come up with stuff.  And now I know why....they already own the whole freakin' toy store!!!

This was mid way through Noah's room.

And here is just one corner in Ben's room.  Emily was such a help and organized and dusted so much stuff.  The boys were at the movies, so it was a good time to go through stuff.

However, I don't want to throw out or get rid of anything the boys want or need.  But, I did move pretty much every single toy to the hallway and they  had to pick what they wanted to move back in.

This was both of their dress up bins.  So many costumes.  And I love that they play with all of this stuff.  But, it's too much stuff.  They can't find anything they want and half the stuff is outgrown.

So, the boys came home and were shocked at the organized mess.  They started going through stuff and then I started getting all sappy over some of it.  I mean just look at this Spiderman costume.  It's so shredded, but Ben still loved it.  I couldn't toss it.  So, I saved this costume and a few others that were his favorites. When I picture Ben as a little boy, he is in one of these costumes.  Then, I got teary eyed and then Ben got teary eyed.  So, I put his favorites in a box, and we moved on.  At first Ben was not happy with doing this, but in the end, he was loving that he could find what he wanted and even found toys that he thought had been lost.

Here's Noah's room all finished.

And Ben's.  He likes to display all his Legos.

In the end, this is everything that needs to be donated or sold.  Not to mention, we took out 6 bags of trash, not little grocery bags either, big bags.  

It only took about 10 hours!  And I still have about 5 more to go to sort through everything.  I group it by characters and see if I can put something together on Craiglist.  It's a lot of work, but makes way more money than a yard sale.  

Between the sofa moving and cleaning and the boys' rooms, I think I  need a vacation!  Luckily, the kids get Wednesday thru Sunday off, so it'll be some nice down time.

Of course, we have to decorate for Christmas and Pam is coming up for a visit, but that's just fun stuff!

Around Our House

Emily is involved in some special group at school that helps kids focus on college and find careers they'll love.  Emily still doesn't know what she wants to do when she grows up, but she had a fun trip down to Phoenix with the group on Wednesday.  They got to tour Grand Canyon University and go to the Humane Society.  Emily loved the kittens.  Oh, and she loved that the college had a Chick-Fil-A, Starbucks, and Panda Express.  Hello, freshman 15!  HA!  Plus, she got a cool swag bag full of goodies.  It was a neat experience for her and I'm glad she went.

Noah came home from school on Wednesday not feeling well.  I don't know why he didn't go to the nurse earlier in the day, but he didn't.  He gets a cold and basically runs a fever and coughs for a day straight.  Then, he's totally fine.  It's bizarre, but, it's how he rolls.  It's a good thing we still have the breathing machine from when he was a baby.  We just put saline water in it and it's like a personal humidifier.  And it's typically the only thing that helps.

David and I went for a walk that night and David talked about how exhausted he was.  He had an overnight the night before and slept beneath an elephant at the hotel who was walking around at 5 AM.  We get home and this great husband of mine sat there and held Noah for like an hour.  It's just another reason why I love him.  When he feels like he can't give more, he somehow manages to do just that.

Noah didn't wake up the next day until after noon.  I couldn't believe it and had to check to see if he was still breathing a few times.  I'm so lucky to work from home and I can just take care of him when he needs it and still get my job done.  Poor little guy woke up for 2 hours and then was out again.

Luckily, he was better on Friday and we had friends over for smores at our new firepit. 

David and I were going to have a date day today since we didn't get to go out alone for our anniversary.  But, Emily woke up and seemed like she needed some time with us.  So, we took her with us.  We scraped the movie and took her shopping and to Canton Dragon, our favorite Chinese restaurant.  This is me having the egg drop soup.  It's so yummy.  I took this picture and sent it to my friend, Dakri, because it's her favorite and I'm just evil like that.

So, while we were out shopping, we found a sofa that we liked at Sam's.  We bought this sofa less than 2 years ago, but the leather was so disappointing.  Literally, the color was totally come off of it.  We tried to buy dye and color it and that just came off too.  

Here's a close up of the seat.  This is where Emily puts her feet all the time.  Leather shouldn't do this:

We bought it at Costco in February of 2015 and the last time we were there, we talked to them about it.  Guess what?  They'll take it back.  Costco rules.  So, we got to talking about the sofa we saw at Sam's and it didn't have a loveseat, but do we need a loveseat?  We never all sit at the same time in here.  And, even with the sofa and the recliner chair, we also have another recliner, so we still have room for 5. And then, we found this like bean bag chair at Sam's.  It was $60 and quite possibly the most comfortable thing I've ever sat/laid on.  I was ready to get 5 of them and call it a day.

But, we got home and David said maybe he should just return the sofa to Costco and get the one from Sam's today.  Ok, so we got the sofa loaded in our mini van.  Yes, it fits in our mini van, but he'd have to make two trips and get the loveseat on the second trip.  On the way home from Costco, he'd grab the sofa at Sam's and then when he returned the loveseat to Costco, he'd swing by Sam's again and get the recliner.  So, he took off after we loaded it up.  And Emily and I vacuumed and played with the cat. Emily put marbles in the box.  This cat loves marbles.  Especially at 5 in the morning.  

David actually ran in to one of our friends who lives around the corner at Sam's and she was able to get the recliner in her truck.  So, we got everything set up.  David still has to return the loveseat to Costco tomorrow.  It looks very similar and it's leather.  Hopefully, this one will hold up.

Oh, and this was our nuclear spaghetti of a coffee table.  Wires everywhere.

And in this new sofa, the armrests have USB ports and plugs, so the kids can put all of their devices in the armrest!  How cool is that????

And here's what it all looks like.  And that's the bean bag chair on the right.  We bought a soft big fluffy pillow to go on top.  I could sleep on it.  Seriously, it is the most fought after spot in the house.  The good thing is 2 kids can easily fit.  Actually, I fit on there just fine with Emily and Noah, so it's plenty big for several of us. 

And Emily found these super cute fox pajamas today.  Thanks, Aunt Pam for the gift card!  I think she just needed to spend some time with the 2 people who love her most in this world, a little retail therapy and a Starbucks because she was good to go after our little date.

David is taking the boys to see Doctor Strange tomorrow, so everyone gets some date time this weekend.