Halloween

So, Halloween is just around the corner. It is my least favorite of all the holidays. I hate to be scared and so I only remember ever going trick or treating twice in my entire life and one of those times was when I was a teenager. I have yet to take my kids trick or treating either. Thankfully this year, our church is doing a Halloween alternative that we are super excited about going to. It is a carnival from 5-9 and there are rides, games and food and the best part is that everything is FREE!!! I don't know about you, but I LOVE free! Also I have the entire day off so I can't wait to sleep in with my hunnie and just relax until going to the carnival.

Other than that I have just been drowning in homework. I've been trying to make sure I can get everything done before the middle of November because we have a 20 page paper to write (our marketing plan) instead of a final at the end of the quarter. As much as I despise tests, I'm not sure I'd rather write a 20 page paper than take a quick test. Oh well, the professor didn't give us the option. So, I get to do my first focus group on Friday November 6th. It is a requirement for this class so it should be interesting. The cool thing is I get $100 for doing it AND I get 30 points for the paper I write on it in class! I just keep pressing on and looking forward to our 4 week break over Christmas and New Years!!! We only have one more year until Pat and I are BOTH finished!!! We can't wait!

Our Early Morning Visitor

We do the parents as teachers thing and my kids LOVE it! Well this morning I was laying in bed just relaxing and being lazy when Declan came in and said "mommy, someone is knocking on our door." Believing him, after the last fiasco, I jumped out of bed thinking who in the world is knocking on our door, no one ever comes over unannounced to our place. While looking through the peephole on our door I realized it was the Parents As Teachers lady. I opened the door and let her in, meanwhile I was wearing penguin pajama pants and a t-shirt that has about 10 holes in it. I told her to come in and I would be back in just a minute. I went in the bathroom to change and throw my hair up in a pony tail. How embarrassing. Oh well! She said that Alaina is right where she should be for her age and she didn't screen Declan this time, but he's ahead of where he should be. It was a good visit. Alaina got to play a game and Declan got to read two books.

School.....uuuugggghhhh

I am currently in a marketing class. It's not bad, the work is not difficult it is just time consuming and BORING. We have to do these case studies every week which seem completely irrelevent and pointless to me, however our teacher has us doing a three page paper for every case study just to answer a simple two questions at the end. I cannot wait for December to come because we get a 4 week break from school!!! Most of you know I have switched my major from Communications to Business (B.S. to be exact). I would like to do something with numbers such as accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, something of the sorts. We shall see how everything pans out. I have only been back to school for three clusters or 36 weeks and I'm already wishing I was finished.

On another note, Pat and I are going to see if we can qualify for a home loan because we are getting really crampt in this little two bedroom apartment. The craigslist selling is going well and we have made enough cash for one of Declan's Christmas gifts! Other than that, we have just been busy with homework, kids, and life.

Is this normal?

First of all, I have been cleaning all day. I cleaned both bathrooms, dusted, cleaned the kitchen, vaccumed, did laundry, and even got down on my hands and knees and mopped the floors by hand. Believe me, if you've been to my house lately you know how badly it needed to be done. So, I let the kids stay up a little later than usual for their nap because I wanted to vaccum before I laid them down. So they ended up laying down about an hour late. All I wanted to do was sit, relax and get some homework done.

Then, I was sitting doing my homework and I heard Declan "Moooommmmmmyyyyy" so I ignored it, they had already been in bed for about 45 minutes and he should have been sleeping. Then, I heard it again, "MMMMOOOOMMMMMMYYYYY" so I went in there only to find he was refusing to take a nap and just trying to get me in there to "tell me something". I was pretty aggrevated that he hadn't gone to sleep yet, but seemed to keep my cool until I realized that in the process of him yelling for me, he woke up Alaina. I was LIVID. I had never been more angry at him. Now, not only is Alaina crabby because she only got a mere 45 minutes of nap time, but he is also crabby because he won't go to sleep if she's awake. UUUUUGGGGGGHHHH the "joys" of being a mother.

Costume Party for 2

Craigslist

I finally figured out how to resize my pictures to sell stuff on Craigslist. However, I did not do any research to figure out how much things are going for and I sold some stuff WAY below what I could have asked for them. So far I have sold 5 out of the 11 items I posted. I am pretty happy about it. I figure since we're mainly selling the kids toys, we're going to put all the money in an envelope and use it for Christmas gifts this year!

So, later tonight we sold a couple of Declan's toys and at first he was sad, but I told him that we are selling stuff so that we have room for new stuff and he was happy. Then he said, how about we sell some more of my stuff mommy and can we sell the couch too?!?! I wish, one of these days we'll have new(er) furniture that all matches, but for the meantime our couch is SUPER comfortable and we have looked at other couches and have yet to find one as comfortable.

Anyway, tomorrow I am planning on going to another park or something to take some more fall pictures of the kids. I hope the weather is nice and the kids cooperate. I would love to do some family pictures, but if we do those it will have to wait until Saturday or Sunday. In the meantime I am LOVING the fall colors in the leaves and the smell of people having fires in their fireplaces.

Fall Weather

Yesterday, since it was 70 degrees or so, we spent majority of the day outside with some friends. We went to the park and took pictures and all the kids had a great time. I couldn't help but take pictures of the beautiful fall leaves...some of the colors were just stunning. Here are some pictures from our day!

Six Flags

Well we had our last six flags trip of the season. It was fun! Declan and I rode the Old Mine Train and him and Alaina rode a bunch of the kids rides. We all rode the Scooby doo ride together and then Declan and I rode the scrambler, flash, whatever you wanna call it. It was fun, but when it started to turn to dusk, we had to leave because all the scary things started going on and not only was it freaking out Declan, but me and Pat, too! So on our way home both of the kids fell asleep (and me too)! It was a fun family filled day!

Eventful

I was sitting on the couch doing some homework last night and I fell asleep pretty quickly. Then, I woke up at 12 or so and couldn't go back to sleep so I stayed up until 3 am and then the kids woke me up early this morning. Oh well, such is life I guess.

Anyway, I'm in a marketing class right now and as our final project we have to write a marketing plan for a product or service, so I am thinking I am going to do a photography "service" as mine. I get to make business cards and the whole 9 yards. I am pretty excited about it! Besides that, we usually get loan refund money from school and I was told our refunds wouldn't be available until after the 16th and on Tuesday, we got mine in the mail. It was a complete blessing and reminder of how God always takes care of us!

Our family is doing well. Alaina, so far, is the only one that has gotten a flu shot, but we all plan on getting it. We all had the flu really bad last year and we don't really want to relive that. We will probably be moving at the end of February into a bigger apartment or if we're lucky a house (renting). We are quickly outgrowing our apartment. Also the reason I decided to put a bunch of stuff on Craigslist, which by the way, I can't figure out how to load the photos on there with the wording. I think my file sizes are too large, so I shrunk them in photoshop, but now I can't figure out how to find the smaller sized pictures. It's a learning process!

On top of this stuff, I went to take a shower and the kids were watching cartoons (or so I thought) and when I came out Alaina had dumped the ENTIRE box of corn pop cereal all over the table and floor and was eating them. So needless to say after I got out of the shower, I got a workout vacumming and picking up all the corn pops.

De-Cluttering

Well, tonight I decided that I was tired of being overtaken by our kids toys. I have taken pictures of a ton of toys and some shoes, clothing will follow, to post on Craigslist. I am so happy to have finally done this because I've had this stuff sitting around FOREVER. Declan got all sad when I told him I was taking the pictures so that we could sell the toys to other little boys and girls, but he overcame his sadness when I told him that since we're getting rid of a bunch of stuff now when Christmas rolls around he'll have a place for all the new toys. He was pretty stoked about that. Alaina obviously didn't care one way or the other. So, now I'm on to posting all this stuff on Craigslist. If the toy selling goes well, clothing will be next. We have WAY too much stuff.

Today I did not wake up until about 10:00. For some reason, ever since I had strep, I can not seem to catch up on sleep. Well last night while I was working the kids were crabby and acted up so Alaina went to bed at 7 and Declan was in bed by 8:15. So, needless to say, Declan was up by 7:00 this morning and Alaina actually slept until about 9:00. It's been so rainy and cloudy here the past week I have had a hard time getting up when I should. Hopefully this weekend brings better weather!

What's New

So, we bought Declan a preschool workbook and he has been doing some fun activities in there. He has learned how to cut in a straight line, wavy line, and a zigzag. He LOVES it and he thinks he is so big since he can do it. He has also been putting together puzzles that he got as birthday gifts and he's really good at those, too. Alaina is just as rambunctious as always. She loves getting into things she is not supposed to and she is a climber.