Merry Christmas!

Last week I got off work early and we decorated our Christmas tree. It turned out ok. Next year I'm going to get a 'fraiser fur' as this current tree requires daily vacuuming. Argh! I've also decided that I should not pick out a tree on my own and while stressed out... it's a little crooked. =) All in all, the kids (and us) did a nice job and it's all in the right spirit.

In other news, I have officially completed my associates degree in nursing. =) It was a long pass/fail weekend of no fun. Though I did meet some nice people. I'm still waiting for the official paperwork but........ I'm a nurse now!

Duvet cover finally done!

I think that it turned out pretty well, as long as you don't look too closely at the edges. =) It's rough managing that much fabric thru the sewing machine. I haven't quite decided which color I'll have up, right now I'm going with the gray.


And it's of course important to break it in right away.

Now, I just need to decorate the rest of the room. Maybe starting with some paint on the the walls. Ya know, finally cover that contractor white-tone we have going.

If I stop moving, I'll fall sleep...

So, to keep moving... I worked a bit on my duvet cover. Here's a sneak peak...

Then we decided that after quiet time we'd do some baking. Our baking afternoon started with the idea to do something with the apples received from grandma this morning. We decided muffins sounded yummy.

And then I remembered that I still had some canned pumpkin chilling in the cupboard... pumpkin bread it was! Instead of just making loaves, we did a few muffins as well. Mmmm....

All of our cooking afternoon...

And here is a pic of the kids enjoying their labor as dessert.

Due to the kids REALLY wanting to watch tv and the rain and the need to cool the muffins (and that I'd like to keep my sewing area clean), we had a picnic and watched "Return to Neverland". Cute, though like all sequels, not quite as good as the original.

Happy Halloween!

Yes I know it's a bit late. =)

PIctures by Colby

And one from the "Black and Orange" party because it was so cute.

Monster Attack!

Lately we have been having a lot of issues with Mason being scared. He's come down any number of times before falling asleep to tell us that there's something in his room that scares him. Last night, it even caused him to wake up and come into our room at 1am. Yes, that was ONE AM. So, today I decided that we needed to come up with a plan to make his room a safer place to be. At dinner tonight we talked.

This is the design that Mason come up with to get the monsters.

The final product. We have it rigged like a trip wire. (The original design called for a mousetrap trip.) He also determined that the monsters maybe coming in thru the entrance to his secret lab, so he piled up a bunch of stuff on top of the entrance, as seen in the bottom of the pic.

A place to hide if needed. We also tacked up the one corner so he could jump down and slide inside quickly.

And, as a last line of defense, we have the protector robot. This robot will jump off the wall and become bigger to beat up any monsters that make it past the other defenses. It was explained to be similar to the movie Toy Story where the the toys only move when humans aren't looking at them. This line of defense is perfect for protection while sleeping.


All this talk just made Mason giddy that we were coming up all these different ideas together to defeat the scary monsters. He thought it was great! Colby on the other hand.... didn't have a monster issue with her beforehand, but she cried for a majority of the time we set stuff up, refused to leave my side and kept asking if we could all play downstairs instead. We might have created a situation there. =)

Happy Birthday Mason!

On Oct 3rd we celebrated Mason's 6th birthday. (Wow, I can't believe he's 6 already! Seriously, we have a first grader.) The party seemed to go well and everyone tells me that they had fun. Mason of course requested a Halloween themed party which is great because there is SOOO many things out there to decorate with but bad because his birthday is in the first part of October and none of it is on sale yet. =) We had lasagna for lunch followed by the wonderful cake you see below then presents and of course, the pinata. (Seriously what kind of party doesn't have a pinata.)

After going thru 8 bottles of wine, the kids were a little toasted...


I was hoping to have more fun pics of people in costumes but not everyone dressed up this year (sad) and our camera died (yes, BOTH batteries). We will hopefully steal pics from Lindsey in the near future.

Few updates

well, it's been a busy world here in Freemanland. A couple of weeks ago, Kevin took part in a week long training for TRT. He learned a lot and really seemed to enjoy it. The best part, it was located just down the street. Ahhh... nothing like a 5 mile commute. =) Last week I went to San Antonio to learn about what I'll do to for the final part of nursing school. It was a nice trip and I learned a lot. I just wish the weather would have been better so I could have done a bit more sight seeing in the few off hours. Mason has lost his first tooth! Though he lost the tooth a few days ago, the tooth fairy was finally able to visit him last night. Colby has decided that she will potty train on her OWN schedule and not even the lure of M&M's are going to change that. Ahh, kids. =)

Also, we realized that the UM v. MSU game is on the 3rd and we didn't want to have the game be a reason people didn't show up... so.... we want everyone to know that the game will be on our nice TV for kick-off at noon and people are all welcome to come early and watch the game with us.

Save the Date

Mason's b-day party is gonna be Oct 3rd at 1pm-ish. Feel free to come early, hang out late, let us know if you need any special accomadations... And don't forget to dress up! Mason has requested a Halloween theme again. =)

Busy, busy

Ah... a day to update the blog with a bunch of different posts. =) Enjoy!

First day of school

Mason started first grade today. Excitedly, there's another little girl riding the bus at our bus stop! He made it to and from school alright and had just as much to say about today as he has in the past. =) Colby seemed totally ok with having some one on one time today.

Big Girl Bed

The transition to the big girl bed has gone very well. There's only been one instance where I've had to put her back in bed because she was up when she was supposed to be down. Please excuse the mess, but this is a pic of her "new" bed and updated headboard. Her blanket looks so tiny in the big bed. The headboard used to be Kevin's and the mattresses are a great gift from Dick and Glynda.

Made by Rae Jackpack Backpack GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Made by Rae Jackpack Backpack GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Congrats Mikey!

New House

Well, it's official, my parents have a new house! They closed last week, moved in this weekend and I helped to put together their bedroom the last couple of days. It was a delicate organizing operation. =) Today my mom had some more back surgery and so far is doing well; gotta love spinal blocks. I have yet to get some pics of their new house, but maybe the kids and I will break in this afternoon. =) In the meantime, here are some more random pics from vacation.

Life steps

Today Colby hit a couple of milestones. First of all, we switched her to a twin bed. She did fab with it! I think she made the transition better than I did (in my head of course as I don't want to predispose her to thinking it was bad). The switch ended up being a little more exciting to set up than I had originally thought. The twin bed being longer than the crib didn't fit in the same space and I ended up having to completely rearrange her room. (Pics to follow, the space still has a lot of holes in the wall from rearranging wall things and needs some touch-ups.) All in all, she took a good nap in it and went to bed wonderfully this evening. The only thing I didn't put on it was the headboard as I'm hoping to do some work to it first. =)

Colby's second milestone... today she got her first haircut! I again don't have pics because I was the one that cut her hair and Kevin wasn't home yet and Mason was in the shower getting the hair off his neck from his cut. It was a bit spur of the moment as she insisted on it after Mason was done with his. Her hair looks very similar to what it did before, but combs so much better! I hope both of their haircuts look good as we have our yearly pics on Weds.

And for the last milestone of the day... Mason has 2 adult teeth that are coming in, one that is in and one that is just poking thru. The problem is that the baby teeth are still there. One is loose, the other still holding tight. We'll stop by the dentist on Thurs hopefully to make sure that things are progressing well and that he's not going to have issues and need assistance.

Tomorrow we're on our way to GR to hang/play with Laura's new baby, help my parent's pack a bit (yes they sold their house and are moving) and get our yearly family pics done, this year at the beach! (Oh, and I think that my sister has a small honey-do list for Kevin as well.)

We could all ride!

For more info....(sorry, I can't seem to get the link to work)
http://www.trail-a-bike.com/product/trail-a-bikes/original-tandem/

Ready for snow!

Well, aside from the jelly shoes anyway. =)

Climbing the dune

We spent one day of the TC vaca climbing the dunes. Kevin and Mason took off with a strong start and beat Colby and I up the dune by quite a bit. Colby complained the whole way up and the way down and kept asking to be carried, but she made it all by herself. In the end, she tells me that she really like it. I don't know how Mason did as he was way ahead of us with Kevin, but I'm pretty sure that Kevin didn't carry him either. =) Colby and I just did the first dune while Kevin and Mason did the next one as well. If you want to see a pic of Kevin and Mason at the top, you'll have to join facebook and befriend my sister. =)
The kids playing in the sand. This, I believe was Colby's favorite part of the climb.


The kids and I up atop the first big dune

Mmm.... Smores!

As you can tell, vacation out at Long Lake went well. More details to follow as I get pics organized and edited.

DC trip

This past week the kids, my mom and I headed out to the DC area to hang out with my brother. We all had a great time! The kids took some time figuring out how to fall alseep in the same room together. =) Colby insisted on bringing "baby" everywhere she went. And, both kids did wonderfully on the 9-10hr car rides.
The first day we had headed out to Ikea to buy some stuff to decorate Uncle Jon's apartment. The ride home was quite interesting; I'm not sure that we could have fit more things in the cr-v. =)

Kitchen updates

Art over the couch

New corner light. I wish this had been there the night before as I finished my book. =)

New tv stand

And to help decorate Uncle Jon's apartment, the kids pitched in and made some art decor for the dining room.


To start out day of sight-seeing, we took the metro into DC. The kids thought it was great! They both found it amusing that we rode backwards and everytime we were in a tunnel portion, they claimed they could see worms through the window. =)


After a brief walk through the scuplture park, we arrived at the air and space museum. The kids seemed to enjoy checking stuff out.... I on the other hand, was too concerned about losing a kid that I'm afraid I missed out on most of the info learning part of things. (Kevin and I were thinking of heading out there the two of us so we could get a good look at things.) Some air and space pics...




And these are some pics of us visiting the natural history museum. Colby was a little short for most of the hands on things but all in the all, the kids seemed to enjoy everything. We'll have to head back at some point as we only saw about half of the place. It was huge!!!

kids peeking through part of the fossil exhibit.

Kids lying in front of the 3-d chemistry picture

Uncle Jon taking a turn helping Colby to play with one of the info computers.