Weekend Update

My first update is that my kitchen floor is now installed!!  Thanks to Dean and his brother Mark I no longer have carpet in my kitchen.  I love our new floor!  The color is awesome but now I really need to change the color of my cabinets.  I had forgotten how many times in one day the kitchen floor needs to be swept.  Having a dirty kitchen floor drives me crazy.  The carpet didn't show all of the crumbs and playdough and moon sand so vacuuming a couple of times a week was good enough for me.  Now I'll have to be more diligent at keeping the floor clean.  The kids love it too.  Katie and Charles have been sitting on the kitchen floor playing for a long time. 

Here is Charles, my foot model, showcasing our new kitchen floor. 

Next on the update agenda: Trunk or Treat.  Our ward trunk or treat party was last night.  The kids were very excited to finally get to wear their costumes.  Eric was an awesome Dracula.  Dean painted his face and I slicked his hair and sprayed it black.  Katie was afraid of him.  I couldn't get her to stand next to him for a picture.  Charles was going to be a skeleton until he found Commander Cody from Star Wars the Clone Wars. He was really excited about being a trooper until he saw Eric getting all made up. He was really jealous of Eric so he pouted for a long time.  I finally sprayed his hair black and Dean painted a scar on his face but he was still sad.  Katie didn't want to put her ballerina tutu on but when she did she started spinning around and dancing.  She loved it.  Everything was going great until the end.  I put Katie in the car to come home and she started coughing so hard she threw up.  Luckily she had a jacket on so her shirt didn't get yucky but her tutu wasn't so lucky.  Now I get to clean vomit out of tulle.  When we got home the boys had to shower to get all the paint and hair dye off.  I was worried for a while because the black wasn't coming out of their blond hair easily and the paint would NOT wash off.  Eventually we got them clean (mostly).  Eric still had a few black traces on his face for church.  I almost forgot this part of the story.  I had been cutting out pieces of poster board for teeth and fins to decorate our car as a shark.  I left the scissors out and Katie got hold of them.  I hadn't realized until I got on the floor to finish cutting and I found a huge lock of hair. She cut a huge chunk ofher  bangs off.  You can't really tell in the picture but her right side is bare and she has bangs on the left side.   

Just a little something fun

I really wanted to do silhouettes of my kids this year for Halloween. I saw a spread in some magazine about hanging silhouettes as part of the Halloween decorations and loved the idea.   I remember having them done in elementary school.  The teacher set up the overhead projector and we sat in a chair as still as we could while they traced our shadow.  I loved it and still do.  Saturday was such a cold, ugly day I decided to do it.  I did not have any of the proper supplies needed however.  I had Eric hold a flashlight while I traced Charles' silhouette and I awkwardly  held the flashlight while I traced Eric.  I didn't have black paper either so I grabbed my black permanent marker and colored in their silhouettes.  They turned out awesome.  Just don't look too closely because you can see the marker streaks a little bit.  I would really love to have one of Katie but Charles had a hard enough time being still so I know it's out of the question for Katie.

Right Time, Right Place

The cub scouts had a martial arts activity scheduled for this morning, but it was cancelled because of super icy roads and freezing cold temperatures. I got a call from one of the moms saying she talked to the instructor and told him how disappointed the kids were that it was cancelled. Somehow her son and Eric and Charles were invited to go into the studio for a free class and then have a free private lesson afterward AND they could get a one month free trial period. This includes up to three group classes a week PLUS one free private class a week. I was super excited and said sure, why not. When the class was over they handed the boys a uniform and belt. I asked how much and the lady said they could have them. She also said that the guy (I can't remember what they called him, not Sensei but something else) never gives classes for free nor do they give away uniforms. I guess this was our super, lucky day!! The boys have been "practicing" their moves on each other since we got home. Every once in a while I hear a little wince or whine from the other room. I'm hoping for no major injuries to either of them.

Big Girl

Katie is officially a big girl . She has been potty trained for about a month now. I am ecstatic about that feat. Even though it was a long, hard process it seemed like it happened over night; one day she was having accidents and the next day she either told me she had to go or she went on her own. We started potty training a few weeks before she turned two and next month she'll be two and a half. There were many days when I thought she would never be out of diapers and now she is except for naps and bedtime. I feel so liberated from the constant trips to the potty trying to teach her that the potty is place to go. To top it all off , today is the first day in her new, big girl bed. While she was watching an episode of Scooby Doo I took her crib down and put up a twin bed. I've been asking her for weeks if she was ready for a bigger bed and she has always answered no. I decided to take matters into my own hands. To my surprise she didn't even care that her crib was gone. She climbed up on the bed, jumped around a few times then got down and ran off to play. When it was nap time all she wanted was the pillow she slept on in her crib and her favorite blue blanket. I know she was really tired but she didn't even get up once. I can only hope that bedtime will be as easy.

Random Updates

Okay, it's been a while since I've written something and my thoughts are a little random and scattered this morning. Friday was my 32nd birthday. This is the first birthday that I actually feel a little older, not that I think 32 is old by any means. The best part was that Dean surprised me with new flooring for our kitchen. Let me tell you the story of our kitchen. We moved into our house five years ago. The kitchen had carpet in it and we said that would be the first thing to go. Five years later we still have carpet. We've been talking for months about replacing the Berber carpet with something, anything. Anything would be better than carpet right? The big master plan is to knock out the wall between the kitchen and dining room and to put in hardwood floors in our new space. Well if it's taken us five years to get rid of the carpet who knows how long it will be before we do the big construction job. So back to the beginning. Dean bought me a new Brazilian Cherry laminate floor for the kitchen. I'm so excited for it to be installed I can hardly wait. The one problem is that the cabinets and the floor don't look the best together so my next project will be to refinish the cabinets. Hurray for birthdays! Before and after pictures will be coming soon.

So this story is really random but I thought it was so cute. Eric, Charles and I were driving in the car talking about getting married and how girls take their husbands last name. We were discussing people that we know and what their last names were before they got married. I told him that I was a Valentine then became a Crystal. The conversation moved on for a few more minutes and Eric looked at me with this face like he was trying really hard to remember something then asked, "so your last name used to be Thanksgiving or something?" I started laughing and he quickly corrected himself. Marcie Thanksgiving. Has a nice ring doesn't it?

Sunday was our Primary program in sacrament meeting. Those little children did such a great job. They sang their hearts out and were so cute saying their parts. We as a presidency were a little nervous because the two weeks prior there were so many kids gone. We ended up having about 45 kids. If a child wasn't there the teachers would pick a child to go say their part. It turned out so well. We combined sharing time and singing time and I did an object lesson on the prophet and the importance of watching General Conference to hear what the prophet has to tell us. Then we spread blankets on the floor and watched a movie from the Doctrine and Covenants and ate rice crispy treats. Ruth talked to them about prophets then we played a game. Primary was super fun. Thanks Ruth and Katie for helping me out.

For Grandma Kathy

Katie: "Can I go to grandma's?"
Mom: "No, we can't go to grandma's today."
Katie: "Please, I go to grandma's?"
Mom: "Why do you want to go to grandma's?"
Katie: "For 'cause I need to go to grandma's!"
Katie: "Let's go"