Earning his keep....

Gorgeous fall day? Yard full of leaves? Toddler who loves to do whatever daddy is doing? Sounds like some free labor to me! :)





As usual, Gracie chooses a supervisory role in most housework:

Zoo Boo!

We got Jake's Halloween costume about 2 weeks ago...nearly everyday since then, he had been asking to wear it. Finally, the big day arrived...Zoo Boo Day! Time to get out the costume! We pull into the parking lot, grab the costume and....he doesn't want to put it on. *sigh* After a bit of coaxing from me ("look Jake, all the other kids have on their costumes! You have to wear one if you want to trick or treat!") he agreed to wear it. Crisis averted.



It was much more crowded this year than last, but we still had a good time. Jake enjoyed his first lollipop, I think he was totally intrigued by it...and it kept him quiet & occupied in the stroller for a long time...score one for the parents!! :)



We're supposed to go trick or treating twice this weekend, at my parent's house on Saturday night, then at our house on Sunday night...so keep your fingers crossed that he agrees to wear the costume this time!

It's (almost) the most wonderful time of the year...

If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE Christmas. LOVE IT. I love the entire time from Thanksgiving-Christmas day....the music, the decor, the hustle & bustle....everything. I find that I'm looking forward to Christmas this year more than ever; I'm excited to be in our new house, and I'm excited that Jake will get it even more this year. Brian is super excited to have more space for a Griswold-like tree. (see post from last year here-yes, he has dreams of going even bigger this year).

And so the countdown begins....exactly 37 days until Black Friday (the OFFICIAL kick off to the holiday season for me...yes, I'm one of the crazies out there at the crack of dawn and I love it), and only 66 days until Christmas!!!

Pumpkin Patch

We figured that we'd take advantage of the warmer (non rainy!) weather and the Steelers bye week and go on our annual pumpkin patch trip. Yeah, good idea in theory...but I guess everyone else had the same idea, it was packed!!

Obviously, since we're in a different area now, we had to find a new pumpkin patch to go to, so we hit up Soergels. The only thing I was a bit irritated about was that they told me you couldn't just walk to the pumpkin patch, you had to buy tickets to take a hay ride up there. (I actually found out later that isn't true, you can walk...grrrrr) But no biggie, I buy the tickets, we wait in line for 15 minutes and as soon as we go to get on the ride, Jake says he doesn't want to ride it because the tractor is too loud & hurts his ears. *sigh* No pumpkins for us!

But, he ended up having a good time...we let him use the tickets up on the bouncy house and balloon chase instead.



I had to settle for getting his picture with some giant plywood pumpkins since we didn't get close to the real pumpkins :)



They also had a little "tiny town" area with tractors, trains and buildings for the kids to play in.

While not the biggest pumpkin patch success, not a total loss either :)

Bathroom Mini Makeover: Part 2

Up next on our list of mini makeovers was our powder room; here is the before:



The walls were a light purple color, and while you can't tell in this picture, the mirror had huge black streaks going all down it (not sure what it was). When I posted about our bathroom ideas before, we had intended on doing this one in a latte/chocolate brown color scheme. Unfortunately, that idea didn't pan out; when we got paint chips, we realized that the counter is much more pastel-y than we realized (it almost has a pinkish hue to it) and the latte colors up against it looked horrible. So we changed it up completely and went with a grey-blue color...we loved the way that it turned out!



Here's what we did:
-Painted the walls Behr's Arctic Ocean ($20)
-Ripped out the old mirror with the stains and replaced with the framed mirror, purchased at Kirklands on a super sale! ($42)
-Took out the brassy towel rack & replaced it with silver (kind of free in that it wasn't a new expense; we had bought the towel rack for our old house on sale for $15, but never put it up)
-Hand towel: free, we had it at our old house
-We took down the curtains, not sure if we'll put anything up or not, so it's bare for now
-For decor, I bought a little bowl at Walmart for $2 and filled it with pebbles we collected while on vacation this year



Total cost for makeover: $79

Eventually, we'll swap out the gold faucet fixture and the gold knobs on the cabinets and the makeover will be totally complete!

Book Review: Millennium Trilogy

I can't review the full trilogy yet, as I haven't read the 3rd book, but I can't wait to get my hands on it. (I'm too cheap to buy the hardback, so I have to wait patiently for my turn to check it out from the library) If you haven't read these books, I'll give you a little warning....they start out a bit slow (especially the first one), and at times, they're difficult to follow...but I can assure you that once things get rolling, they are purely addictive. So if you try to start the first one & have problems getting into it, don't give up!!

Be warned that the characters are all Swedish, so their names are sometimes a bit strange. On top of that, the author jumps back & forth, referring to a character sometimes by his or her last name, then a few pages later by his or her first name, making it very confusing. And there are a LOT of characters to keep straight, especially in the first book. But I promise, you'll enjoy the books....read them now, before the movies start to come out! :)

Up next: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Weekend Recap

We're still working on settling into the new house, so the weekend was spent tackling some house projects (hanging up pictures, unpacking more boxes that somehow keep turning up just when we think we're done, yard work, etc...) and having some fun in between the projects :)

On Saturday, the Carnegie Museums were having a free admission day, so Jake & I took advantage of the freebie & headed there to give daddy some time to mow the lawn & pull some weeds in the flower beds. Lucky for Jake, his buddy Lucas from his old daycare was at the museum as well and the two of them had a nice reunion :)



That night, we enjoyed Sir Pizza; I had heard of this magical place from some friends that live in our area and I will admit, this was the 3rd time we have enjoyed it since moving in. 3 weeks ago. Oh well. Clearly, Jake enjoys it as well:



Sunday brought cooler, fall-like weather and we took advantage of it by playing outside most of the morning.



After looking for a year, I finally found one of these Step 2 roller coasters on Craigslist for a really decent price a few weeks ago.



Sunday afternoon brought the Steelers game and this pot roast recipe for dinner. A fun and productive weekend!

4 years!

Happy Anniversary to us!

It's been a great 4 years filled with lots of memories, and I look forward to a lifetime more.

Awwww!!!

Last weekend, Jake found his penguin & said to him, "I wuv you, Penguin. I feed you now."



Does it not melt your heart??

Bathroom Mini Makeover: Part 1

Remember my problem last week of not knowing how to make the colors in Jake's/guest bathroom work? Problem solved! Thanks to a great shower curtain suggestion from my friend, Blogless Erin, I was able to make the colors flow and base them around a theme that is kid-friendly without being babyish.

Here is the before of the bathroom (the pic on the right is the actual bathroom; the one on the left shows the shower curtain they left behind that I've had to look at for the past few weeks):



And now, the after:





Ta-da! The bathroom has a whole new look, and the best part is, it didn't break the bank!

Shower curtain: $24.99 (Target)
Little fake plant: $2.99 (IKEA)
Bath mat: $8.99 (IKEA)
Shower curtain rings: free (from our old bathroom)
Hand towel: free! (we had it in our old house, too)
Total cost: $36

I do plan on adding 2 pictures to cover up the holes left on the wall from this Etsy store. I just need to pick between these few prints:



They're all so cute, I'm not sure how I can be expected to choose just two :)

Book Review: "The Book Thief"

The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

Do you ever read a book & you can't find the words to describe it? That's how I feel about this book. All that I can really say is, GO READ IT. Seriously, it was great. Suspenseful, gut-wrenching and heart-warming, all at the same time. I couldn't put it down, and it's one of those books that I'm still thinking about even after finishing it. The sign of a good book, right?

Up next: The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson)

Too cool for school.

You may remember from a previous post that we were pretty nervous about switching daycares when we moved...we loved our old daycare and we knew that as a creature of habit, Jake might have a hard time adjusting. But, we had to do it, so we said a weepy goodbye to his old school, friends and teachers and made the transition.

I'm not going to lie...it was AWFUL the first few days. Awful as in, lots of tears (mine and Jake's), sobbing hysterically and pleas of "mommy, don't leave me!" on day one of drop off. UGH. But, day by day, it's been better. I dropped him off one day this week & he even said "I excited to go to school!" What a change from last week!

His teachers assure me that even if he's a bit upset at drop off, he's fine within minutes and enjoys his day there. He's made friends with a boy named Thomas, who he talks about at home. He is also a huge fan of one of the teachers, Miss Rachel, and they seem to spend a lot of time together during the day. Miss Rachel told me the other day that Jake is the best listener in the class & there have been a few occasions where they've used him as an example ("boys and girls, do you see the way Jake started cleaning up as soon as we asked? What great listening!") While hearing this surprised me (since he seems to practice a lot of selective hearing at home), it of course, made my day. Proud mama moment!

Here's his "first day of school" picture, all ready to go with his lunchbox!