Sunday, October 6, 2019

Goodbye to the Old.........

By the end of October we were ready to start tearing into the interior of the house to make way for a new floor plan, addition and renovation.  So we took some pictures of the main floor of the house for our memory books.  The living room..... where we spent 90% of our waking hours.   

The old fireplace where we hung the stockings each year and the recliner we rocked Kate and Will to sleep in...... "I'm teary as I write this!)

The lunch counter that we pulled the highchair up to and the kids enjoyed their breakfasts, lunches and many snacks together.....

The tiny tiny kitchen with the awful checkered flooring! I can't wait for my new kitchen where I can actually open both doors of the frig without hitting the counter top :)

The dining room where we ate most of our evening meals and talked about our high point and low point of our day.   

And finally.... the tiny bathroom right off the kitchen that you hated to use if there were people standing in the kitchen right outside the door......... NO PRIVACY!!

So we started with moving our living room furniture to the front entry room.... the only room on the main floor that would be accessible during the renovation.   

The sofa barely fit up there to give us a tiny living room to hang out together. 

The guest bedroom in the basement became our dining room.  We stored the bed and set up the table and rugs in its place. 

Let's start the reno!!  Get those light switches off the wall!!

Kate kept saying she felt like Joanna Gaines!!

Brett's Birthday!

October is another big month of Birthdays at our house.  We start off with Brett's birthday on the 14th.  The kids love making special cards for his big day.  
We finally retired Brett's old messenger bag that he has been taking back and forth to work for 15 + years and got him a more trendy architecture back pack to carry his computer and drawings.  

Kate obviously thinks she is loved a bit more than her brother!

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We made Brett's favorite chocolate zucchini cake for dessert. 

And licked the bowl clean while the cake baked in the oven.  

Happy Birthday to our favorite guy in the whole world!!

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We try to head to the pumpkin patch on a day the kids have a day off from school in Oct to dodge the crazy crowds.  It happened to be a beautiful day this year!  We along with all the other students from West Des Moines Community Schools had a great time!  









Every got along well and had a great time.  We ended our visit with the yummy apple cider donuts for a snack on the way home.  I'm pretty sure Will fell asleep right after he took his last bite of donut :)

Clive Crazy Fun Run 2017/18

I continue my role as the fundraising chair at Kate & Will's Elementary School.  We held our annual Fun Run in the beginning of October and boy were the kids excited. 

Unfortunately it was a REALLY rainy day and we had to move the run inside.  Thankfully everyone was really flexible. The trainers from a local gym led the stretches and warm up in each classroom right before the students headed into the gym to run.  

Kate wore her crazy colored leggings and socks for the fun day. 


And they were off!!  Go 6th grade!!

Nana drove up for the day to help cheer all the students on!




Oh boy was Will excited for his class to run in the afternoon!  He was really into stretching his tongue for the event :)


Can we go yet Mom???

Will and his BFF Paxton ran the entire time!  No walking for them!


Way to go Tigers!!

We had SO much fun raising dollars for our school!  Until Next Year!

Birthday Celebrations with Friends!

Will has moved beyond the Chuck E Cheese bday parties (Yay!) and on to the trampoline park now.  Kate also Loves the trampoline park, so we had a joint party with all of their friends this year. 





Kate's friends spent the night.  Will and his friends are quite ready for the overnight yet :)  I was not going to take the chance on having to call some parents in the middle of the night to come pick up their little boys.  So Kate was gracious enough to allow Will to play with  the girls for little bit the next morning before they all left for home. 



Kate and Will's Big Days!

Brett and I always make a point to separate the kiddos celebrations and let them each have their own special day that's all about them.  I have to admit....it's a lot.  It was never planned to have them 1 day apart.  However, they both asked for pet frogs for their bdays this year.  So..... we decided to break the tradition and give both of them their gift on Will's bday so Miss Kate wouldn't have to wait a whole day knowing what was waiting for her :)  They were both so excited to add to their little pet collection.  

Will asked for donuts again for his bday dessert.  

Kate was excited to get a new cozy sweatshirt from Uncle Johnny and Josh.  
And out to dinner with a milkshake for dessert.  

And she still saved a little room for a scotcharoo when she got home. 

Will got a few new books that he was hoping for too!