MY BOYS

Even when I am having a "TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD DAY" these two boys just make me smile and remember the things that I am really grateful for!

Today I am grateful for these two!!

Can't believe this little one is almost 6 weeks already!!

And this little guy just has me laughing all the time!!

He is such a good big brother... always wanting to help!! J.R kept falling over so Ben decided to just hang on to him :)

J.R thought it was pretty funny though to be sat up then fall down!

Giving mom some big smiles!! Man I just can't get enough of him!!!

I always wonder what is going on in Benjamin's head. He just always looks so mischievous to me!!

My two boys just chillin... notice J.R is in a different outfit... he had the biggest blowout I have ever experienced. Oh the joys of motherhood. I actually had to change MY clothes as well :)

Again, Ben wanting J.R to look his way so grabbed his hand to pull him over!

Thinking that J.R's head was very cold so covered it up!!

JUST LOVE THEM!!!!

I am here!

So my parents are some what of slackers.  Its what, 22 days after I was born and Mom and Dad have yet to put anything on their blog .  Pssch! Some parents I got.

I have had to learn fast and do it myself.  That old addage of if you want something done right you have to do it yourself is true,  Good thing I spent those nine months in Mom's tummy learning HTML.

Here I am in one of the most uncomfortable positions I have been in at least that was until i got squeezed out. That takes the cake I am glad it is only a one way trip.

I am greatful that Dad didn't get a photo of me coming out.  I was all yucky.  I decided that I should put up a photo of me soon after that tramatic experiance.  Lets move on.

My Dad sure loves me.  To bad he brings the cuteness quotent down in that photo.

I was the most picturesque baby ever.  I came out singing angelic tunes.

Here is my older brother.  He sure loves me, well that is until he gets tired of holding me and pushes me off his lap.  Mom and Dad have to exercise constant vigilance.

I posted this one because I am just so cute.

Us boys are taking over.  Poor Mom.  I guess the upside is she won't have to worry about crazy hormones with girls.  Instead she will have to deal with Ben and Me beating each other up.

If anyone wants they can come and hold me.  I am ready and willing.

Such a happy family we are.  I sure love my Mom and Dad and Brother.

This update is so overdue I already had a bath by the time I put this post together.

More recently Ben has realized that I am not a fad but staying for the long haul. I might have had a stinky diaper at the time. I don't remember.

This is one of my more favorite days of my short time on earth.  Seeing  Great Grandma and Grandpa was a lot of fun.  I love you guys!

There are those times that Ben and Me get along.  I will continue to work on the relationship.  I am predicting that we will be the best of buds.

Here are a bunch of photos of me.  I sure am cute aren't I?

HALLOWEEN

I was worried that I was going to have this baby on Halloween... but I didn't and I am STILL pregnant. I was having alot of contractions on Monday and was probably just making myself have them as I was paranoid about my child having his or her birthday on Halloween. But we made it through and it was good as we were able to spend some time with Ben before this new one gets here!

Even though it was Ben's second Halloween, it was fun this year and he was a little more interactive (although still not grasping the whole idea of it all)

Dad came home from work a little bit early and we decided to carve our pumpkin first!! It was alot of fun to watch Ben help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_lPzvSRq4w

That is our bipolar son, one minute crying and the next laughing... we think he is pretty funny!!!

After we got it carved, all Ben wanted to do was to blow out the candle so we had fun lighting the candle and then blowing it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rqzj-xQ4PY

Here are some pictures of the night!!

My FAVORITE picture of the two boys in my life!! Ben LOVES his dad, I have to admit I get a little jealous some time!!

Amazed at what comes out of this orange thing!!!

Ben telling daddy where he needs to cut the mouth!!!

"Good job dad"

Not impressed when we had to put his costume on!!

Happier because he finally got a piece of candy :)

At the end of the night he did not want to take his costume off. When we put him in the car to come home from grandma and grandpas, he made us put his costume back on!!! He had a great time trick or treating... LOVED that people gave him candy... DIDN'T LOVE walking from door to door!!!

Overall it was a great night, and he was the cutest little monster we have ever had!!!

SURVIVED THE BATHROOM RENO

So, I am proud to say that we are done our bathroom remodel and are still married and speaking to each other! We learned early on in our marriage that we have very different styles of doing things (like putting together furniture, reading instructions and so on). We swore to never put IKEA furniture together TOGETHER ever again. So when we (OK more me) decided that we needed to redo our bathroom we knew that it would be a test of our marriage :)

I know everyone asks why we would do this since we are renting and won't be here for probably much longer, but if you saw our bathroom before, it was starting to grow mold on the walls in the shower and was just nasty. So after talking to our landlord, he agreed to give us $2000 to redo the bathroom. I have watched to many renovation shows or something because I figured we could get this whole thing knocked out in a weekend!! They do on TV, so figured why can't we. So off we went to the store and priced out different things and decided on what we wanted to do. There was a sale so we bought mostly everything early, so we had it sitting in our house for about a week and a half before we even started. If you know me, you know that I go crazy when there is just mess everywhere. Not that I am a super clean and organized person but I just hate clutter so even starting off just living in clutter before the construction even got started was driving me crazy!

Here are some pictures of the bathroom before!!

The old linoleum dirty floor that no matter how hard I cleaned it it never looked cleaned! And the super old vanity and counter top with burns and stains on it!

The toilet and storage that we had!

Our nasty shower... just old and small and I always hated putting Ben in the tub for a bath (not that he even noticed)

Here is some of the mold and nastiness that had started to grow in this bathroom. With it being our only bathroom, I just didn't like the idea of all of us breathing in this stuff.

Here is a few of the in progress days. It made me really nervous when I saw this and realized that there is alot more work to do then you realize. Jeff and his friend Pat did all the demo and then the plumbing and then put it all back together. I tried to help as much as I could, but between trying to keep Ben out of all the "stuff" and being quite pregnant, I really wasn't much help. I sure do love Jeff for working so hard!!

I don't know why I didn't realized, but the amount of dust that happens when you redo something in your house is ridiculous!! It drove me crazy and I had a few breakdowns at night feeling like the whole house was covered in layers of dust, that I was sleeping in dust and eating dust! NOT FUN!!

So here are some pictures of the finished project... there aren't a ton of pics since my camera died in the middle of trying to get some pictures. But I LOVE it, and it makes everything so much nicer!

We put new tile on the floor which I love, a new toilet and put up some shelves for more storage then we had which I love as well!!! We painted the walls a light grey and replaced all the baseboards and everything as well.

The new vanity the Jeff and Pat built themselves ( I was super impressed), a new counter top to match the floor tiles, a new sink which I love!!

We put in a new bathtub, and then decided to tile the walls in the shower... this was a lot of work but we loved how it turned out!

New shower curtains and some new accessories and we are done!!

I didn't get a picture of it, but we did our own artwork for the one wall, and did pictures with our hand prints. It was fun and although Ben hated having paint on his hands, everyday he gets so excited to see his hands on the wall!!!

So there you have it, we are happy with how it all turned out! Even though there were moments where we were not speaking or I was having an emotional breakdown and Jeff was just holding my shaking body telling me everything would turn out and be OK, it all did and we survived this little project!! There are still a few things to finish, but we are so glad to have a bathroom back in working order.

I have told Jeff, that the next time I am pregnant and decide we should "redo" something he can tell me... "NO WAY IN HELL" and just remind me of this one and I will listen :)

So this pregnant women is super grateful for a husband that worked so hard to get it done and that puts up with all my craziness!!! LOVE YA BABE!!

Just so everyone knows too.... it will be a LONG time before we decide to Reno anything else!!!! Oh and we only went over budget by about $40!!!