New Family Pictures

This is a Christmas card spoiler post, but I know someone who is dying to see these pics, so I'm posting them anyway. If you want to be surprised when you get our card in the mail don't scroll down.

Here's the before....

And the after. What major change can you pick out? If you can find it, it's really funny!


And this is quite possibly the best photograph of all time. I'm going to have it blown up on a canvas. I'm so in love with EVERYTHING about it!

Thanks to my amazingly talented sister who froze taking our pictures and then spent countless hours editing and getting them to me. Your kindness and generosity are unparalleled!

Pizza Picnic

It was warmer than normal the other day. Austen was thrilled that he could play outside and not freeze to death. He carried all of his wood pieces from the garage to the backyard and made what he considered a picnic table. Then he insisted I let him eat lunch out there. Brian being the good dad that he is, joined him. It was too cold for me, so I snapped some pics and went back inside.

Christmas Prep

A lot goes in to preparing for Christmas, but I am happy to say that I am done Christmas shopping and I'm EVEN done wrapping! YAY!!! Now I can just sit back and enjoy the season without having to worry or stress. I even had a little helper that was wrapping presents with me.

Out With The Old

Or just outgrown maybe. We went through all of Austen's toys and boxed up everything that he has gotten too old to play with. It was pretty much all of his toys. Now we are ready for Christmas!

Where Do Baby Dinosaurs Come From?

This post needs a little preface.....I'll start by saying I just got Austen a really cool dinosaur movie from the library that he loves to watch. I've already had to renew it twice because he's not ready to give it up yet. In the movie it shows a dinosaur nest with eggs and then of course it shows them hatching. Well, the other morning I was on the phone in the office and I thought Austen was in watching his dinosaur show. He came in and said "Mom, I cracked the eggs" so I immediately got off the phone hoping that he didn't do what I thought he did. This is what I found in the kitchen.

I started to clean them up and I was asking him where he got the idea to do this to the eggs and he said "I was looking for baby dinosaurs".

Now how do you get mad about that?
I had to explain that the eggs in our fridge aren't the same as the dinosaur eggs from his movie. Hopefully he gets it because I spent the whole rest of the day needing reassurance that he wasn't going to get salmonella poisoning.....I don't want to have to go through that again. Not to mention, the eggs were a pain in the butt to clean up!

Decorating The Christmas Tree

We decorated the tree!!! First we had to figure out the lighting situation.....Brian decided to quit messing with the lights on the pre-lit tree and just add another string, or five to the tree. Let's just say it's REALLY bright.

Then it was time to add the ornaments and Austen's job was to get them out of the box....he took it very seriously and wouldn't let anyone else get an ornament unless he handed it to them.

The work in progress.

My pictures of the final thing turned out blurry, so there will be more to come.

Fall Clean Up

While visiting my parents house Austen saw a bunch of leaves that needed to be cleaned up. He got really excited and asked if he could clean them up.....he's so not normal.

Here he is scooping them up.

And then "throwing them away". Notice the leaves didn't exactly make it into the can.....it's the thought that counts right?