It's a Dinosaur Day!

This is my first Show Us How You Live blog post over at Kelly's Korner. She's asking about (what else!) Halloween costumes this week!

Perfect timing! Today we had a bit of a Halloween party at our favorite Thursday spot - Gymboree!


I've written about our dinosaur song before, but in case you forgot, you can find it here. He was really making my heart roar today! Steven even took a little time off work to stop by our apartment when he found out that Jackson had his costume on.


The cutest thing about this costume? Jackson's sweet little tail wiggling back and forth as he crawled around.

First we went to lunch with a bunch of Jackson's friends from Gymboree and their Mommies (and a Daddy!). I love that we're making friends at Gymboree - everything is more fun when you have someone to laugh with. Two of the other kids in the group even share Jackson's birthday (which is coming up... I can't believe he'll be a year old soon!).


I think the kids probably felt like they were celebrities today, not that any of them are used to VIP treatment. There were cameras EVERYWHERE throughout the entire class. Parents taking photos of their kids, each others' kids... it was a photo frenzy! My mother-in-law even brought her fancy new camera... I can't wait to get my hands on those photos. Jackson was the only dinosaur, but some of the other kids were dressed up as ladybugs, poodles, a frog, a witch, a few monkeys, a bunny, and even a pirate! Jackson's other costume is a pirate, but that one is much more cumbersome, so I thought it best to go with the dinosaur (since he couldn't wear his costume in his car seat - silly bulky tail!). The boy wearing the pirate costume was named Jack too!


"Hey guys!! I love Halloween! I can't wait until I can have candy! My mom says that chocolate is her favorite. Maybe I'll share my candy with her this year."


Gymboree days are the best. Especially when little dinosaurs are involved. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Pumpkin Patch

We took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Allen High School for Jackson's first Halloween!



Val got to come too and we all had a great time! Val loved greeting everyone when they arrived by sniffing their shoes and wagging her tail. Jackson picked out a small pumpkin (you can see it in the picture) and was having a great time checking it out and telling us all how great it tasted. We got his small pumpkin, a few more to use to decorate the house, a big pumpkin to carve, and some lawn art.


Steven had fun talking to the teachers who oversaw the pumpkin patch. They're hosting a golf tournament on Halloween and Steven's going to try to get a team together.

After going to the pumpkin patch, we went to Petco to get Val a kennel. She has had some serious separation anxiety and has been having accidents every time we leave the house. Knowing that I was coming home to a big mess made coming home that much harder. On the up side, we were keeping her in the bathroom and it's never been cleaner. I've already been through half a bottle of bleach solution since we got her! Steven thought that if we got her a kennel she wouldn't want to potty in a confined space, and he was right! Today we tested it out and she did a great job. To reward her, we took her to the dog park, where she did her business outside and had fun smelling all the scents left by other dogs. She still isn't very comfortable with the other doggies, but we hope that more exposure to them at the dog park will help.

And how does Jackson feel about the newest addition to our family?


He loves her! He loves going on "walks" and will even crawl to the door and wait for me to open it when he sees me holding her leash. Every morning he sees her and a huge grin comes across his face. He points to her and "talks" about her and sometimes it sounds like he's calling her "Bow" (rhymes with cow). So cute.

Every little boy should have a doggie!

Val Pal!!!

We have a new addition to our family...

thankfully, this one didn't require 9 months of planning and growing a giant belly.



Meet our new beagle, Val!!

We found Val on petfinder.com and made a trip out to the Wylie animal shelter to adopt her. She was a whopping $25! Woooo big spender!! They couldn't tell us anything about her, so we immediately took her to the vet (she's healthy and spayed - yay!) and then over to Petco for a grooming. She loved the pumpkin spice shampoo - delicious.

She's as sweet as sweet can be, and Jackson loves having a doggy to play with and talk to. He follows her all over the house and gives her kisses while she's sleeping (awww!). This also gives us a great opportunity to teach Jackson how to "be gentle." My mom took pictures of Jackson holding Val's leash and sitting by the front door, ready to go for a walk. I can't wait to show them off - too cute!

This weekend my mom and I are going to a craft fair at her school. I'm so excited! I really need to get started on my Christmas shopping and would love to find some cute jewelry.

House Update!!

Remember our before pictures? Well, our afters are starting to take shape!! Most notably, Steven has ripped up all the flooring in the front entry, kitchen, living room, laundry room, and all 3 bathrooms. Whew! It only took 2 days to get up the flooring and another 2 days to strip the floors down to the concrete. Steven worked SO HARD and he's a complete all-star. I, on the other hand, have taped one room to paint (so far it's about 80% primed) and shampooed the carpet in two rooms. In addition to this, Steven replaced our backdoor this weekend. It had a lot of weather damage and we even found a few worms on the floor after a recent rain - ick!!

So, here are some pictures of our tile work - it looks so good!!

This is the view from the living room to the front entry. We decided to extend the front entry tile all the way to the living room for a more cohesive feeling. Eventually, we're going to replace the front two rooms with wood floors, but for now the carpet stays. We are putting wood floors in the living room though - it's going to look so good!

You can really see the tile better in this picture (and the beautiful concrete floor in the living room). The door that Steven replaced in on the right. Steven's friend Steven (from high school) helped with that part! They just got in contact again and (other) Steven offered to help us with the house... and we took him up on it! They saved us over $200 by installing the door themselves, and it looks great! What a deal!

I'll continue to post pictures as our after takes shape. I am having way too much fun planning this house out and Steven is doing a great job bringing it to life! We had Cale's guys do the tile installation, but Steven and Cale are going to do the upstairs tile work together. Steven is becoming quite the handyman! It's so great to have a husband who is willing to learn and indulge all my home improvement desires!

Time for an update...

So I swore I'd talk more about our busy weekend.... over two weeks ago!! I know, I'm a bad blogger.

We had such a fun weekend with my best friend Jess and her fiance, Chris. We don't get to see each other very often (since they live in Indiana) but we always have the best time together! They came down for Jackson's baptism, which was on Sunday. We were so thrilled to have so many of our friends and family there to celebrate a huge event in Jackson's life. He is so lucky to have so many people who love him!

Switching gears, last night my sister found some pictures from a family camp we went to when we were little. Here are some gems she found:

This is a picture of our family with the family we went to camp with every year. My mom is in the front (check out that 80s-fab hair!!!), across from my Dad (we LOVED that mustache), and Emily is sitting next to him, with me on the end. The other people are Dan, Anna, and Katie. They had 2 sons, Matt and Davey, as well. We loved playing with Katie though, she was like our older sister for a week every year.

We used to go to a nearby swamp to go "frogging." This is my sister (check out those piggy tails!) trying to catch a frog. I think those are my Dad's legs next to her!

I thought I would share these amazing pictures. This makes me want to take Jackson camping too!