Our House

We finally got our place painted and we are so very happy with the way it's turned out. Having (almost) all of the house painted the way we want has made such a big difference in the way we feel about our place. It finally feels like it's our house. For those of you who enjoy a good before and after, here are the before (and slightly during) pictures.











And the after pictures. We are really happy to have the faux... whatever they were thinking gone. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it feels like we're over the hump.

Da Boys

Boys ...


...will be...

...boys.

Clever Boy

Don't let the mittens fool you, Owen is getting clever.



Carrie: Owen, I want you to pick up your cars.

Owen: No, I want to pretend. Mama, you be Owen, I be Daddy.

Carrie: Okay, I'm Owen, you're Daddy. What do you want to play Daddy?

Owen: No play, Owen, I want you to pick up your cars.

P.S. Owen loves to pretend he's me and Carrie is Owen. You'd think he would assign the role of Carrie to me but, alas, I am always the role of bad guy...? It's very interesting to see what his perceptions of how an adult acts are. He's usually pretty close. He really likes to discipline as Daddy, but he's always really fair and gentle. It actually lets us see what he understands about the rules and consequences of the house and what we've found is that he understands them really well.

Scenes from the House

We're getting the inside of our house painted in two weeks and are very excited. If you've been to our house you know that it's long over due. We *think* we have our paint colors picked out. The overall feel we are going for is Mediterranean Spanish. Of course the color we thought would be neutral, when put on the wall, was not at all what we wanted. And now after playing with the neutral color, we are leaning towards a less neutral color. Paint is so tricky.


Halloween is fast approaching. We get a ton of kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Plus Owen's preschool has "Trunk-or-Treat" this Friday which involves trick-or-treating (parents decorate their cars and the kids go trick-or-treating to each car), a chili cook-off and a movie on the lawn. So in preparation we bought 20 lbs of candy. Owen's eye got huge when he saw it all.


Speaking of Halloween, Owen is adamant about being a race car this year. Every time I ask him what he wants to be, he says, "race car." Specifically a green race car. I tried to get him a race car driver costume and when he saw it he said, "that not have tires!" In all honesty, I really didn't have it in me to make a race car costume but my co-workers dropped hints that I was a bad/lazy mom and stated it would be, "soooo easy to make." (In my defense, they are engineers. To them it probably does sound easy.) So this weekend Ed and I are going to attempt to make a race car costume. I'm hoping it's the thought the counts.

Goodbye Work Week; Hello Ice Cream

Yeah for Fridays! And what a nice Friday it was. Our weather finally cooled off and today was a wonderful 75 degrees. After having the windows closed and living in air conditioning for almost four months, it feels great to be able to open all the windows again. Owen and I decided to enjoy the nice Friday by going out to breakfast before work/preschool.


Quick pit stop before breakfast. Owen's new favorite thing to do is help pump gas. I still had the camera in my car from working a public meeting the night before so I was able to capture Owen in his happy place.


Every Friday after work, Ed picks Owen up from preschool and we meet up at the local ice cream shop in downtown Scottsdale. It's a very nice routine and a good way to end the hectic work week and begin the weekend. We've been doing it for two months now. It's funny how much I look forward to having ice cream with my boys.

Saturday Adventure

Ed had to take a test today for school so Owen and I decided to get out of the house. Owen has been wanting to go the library to check out some books about bones. We decided to make an adventure out of it and take the bus to the library. Along the way we saw police cars, climbed trees, pretended we were interested in a college fair so we could snag a free balloon, and overall had a fun time exploring our city.


Hands behind his back, with a cheesy grin, in front of a police car is cute when 3 years old. Same scenario when 18 years old is not so cute.


Ever since he saw the skeleton in Ed's classroom, Owen has been obsessed with bones. We hung out at the library for a couple hours reading books about bones, the body, and of course race cars.


Can't go to downtown Scottsdale without playing on the LOVE statute.


Just standin' on the corner, waiting for a bus with the balloon we took from the Princeton table. Score!

Sidenote: Doesn't he look so grown-up in these photos? I can't get over it. Hardly any baby, just little boy.