More Upgrades - Master Bathroom

Since it looks like I'm going to win the last poll (I voted for countertops), here is another one.

This deals with the Master bathroom. Currently, the master bathroom does not have a door between the bedroom and the bathroom (this is the shower and sink area, the toilet is separate). Plus, there is carpet all the way through the master bathroom.

Would you put a door in or get rid of the carpet and have linoleum? One or the other, not both.

Help us upgrade!

So, we are going to have a series of polls over the next few weeks asking for your opinions regarding what upgrades we should add to our house. The first is about the kitchen. Should we extend our cabinets to the ceiling or should we upgrade our counter tops from laminate to corian? Vote in the poll on the right and share your thoughts with us in the comments. For the google reader users you have to go to our actual blog page to see the poll.

And so this blog post isn't just words, here is a cute pictures of our boys.



Oh, and the upgrades in this poll are roughly the same price so don't let that influence you. And there are no "both" or "neither" answers, it's one or the other.

Check Out Our Dirt

Melissa and I are proud owners (at least the purchase agreement was signed today) of some dirt. Actually, we are planning on building this house on the dirt. This is a picture of the model home, so our house won't look exactly the same (no grass on our driveway), but this our chosen model. We are very, very excited to say the least. We'll post more about the house later, but we wanted to get these pictures up.

Here is a picture of Ryan, Casey, and I taking a walk on our dirt.

More pictures of dirt.

It's a little hard to tell how big the lot is, but our lot is basically the shape of a slice of pizza. Here is Melissa standing at one end of the property line and Ryan is at the other end. You probably cant' see Ryan (he blends into the dirt), so I drew a black line showing the other side of the lot.

Here is a picture of a really big park that is just around the corner from our lot.

Let the Mugging Begin

Casey and Ryan are in to giving each hugs these days. Casey actually just likes to give Ryan a hug and then pull him to the ground. Yes, this is Casey trying to pull Ryan to the ground, not Ryan. Enjoy the pictures and the video!
Big Bear Hug!

Yes, I know I'm smaller than Ryan, but I can still take him. (One of these days Casey will really thump Ryan. Right now, Ryan enjoys teasing Casey).

Here is the hugging getting a little out of hand.

Here is a video of the two trying to hug. This is not the best video as it doesn't really show that Casey is the instigator and wants to pull Ryan to the ground. As it usually turns out, Ryan ends up hurting Casey.

Monsters vs. Aliens

During the Super Bowl, there was a trailer of the new DreamWorks Monsters vs. Aliens movie. The trailer was in 3-D and, luckily, we were at the grocery store the day before and got 3-D glasses for the boys. I was excited to see the trailer since Brandon (my brother-in-law) worked on the movie when he was working at DreamWorks.

Here is Casey getting excited about putting on his glasses.



Daddy, we're ready to watch!
Do these glasses make my head look small?
Casey, got excited about the football game so we taught him how to signal a touchdown. He ran around the room with his arms up. Too bad though, I was routing for Arizona.

One HUGE Preschool Post....

I LOVE preschool (and so does Ryan). With my friend Ali from church we got our boys in the local Adult School Parent Participation Preschool. It's $125 for 4 months of preschool!!! (There is an additional materials fee and then money for field trips, but still, so cheap.) What's not to like? It is actually a parenting class that I am enrolled in but Ryan gets to go more than I do. It's Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30-11:30am. Ali goes on Tuesday with Ryan and Jake while I watch her daughter, Alisa and I go on Thursday while she watches Casey. It works out great.

Ryan has come a LONG way since starting preschool. At first he didn't want to participate in any of the activities. For example, those are rhythm sticks he's holding and he was supposed to walk around the room hitting them together with the music. Let's just say that didn't happen.

This is a reading station at preschool where they have a story read to them through the headphones.

Ryan and Jake listening during rug time.

Ryan doesn't particularly like cutting, and usually doesn't watch what he is doing. He likes to look around the room while he's cutting. He definitely gets lots of practice because sometimes it feels like that's all we do.

Our first preschool field trip. We went to the local university and went to their Botanic Gardens.

Every month we have a party. Our first party was a Luau. The kids wore their bathing suits and grass skirts (not Ryan) and did the hula (not Ryan). Casey gets to come to the parties too.

Field trip to the local pumpkin patch. The kids got to pick out a pumpkin to take home and we went on a ride in the wagons behind the tractor.


Ryan probably picked up 5 pumpkins before deciding on one.


They had a really cute maze for the kids. There were several ways to get around and the kids just ran wild.

As you can see the adults could see over the bails of hay but the kids couldn't, this was probably Ryan's favorite part.


Ryan patiently waiting and watching for Ali to arrive.


What's not to love?


Field trip to the local apple orchards. Here is Ryan helping to crush apples to make apple cider. Do you know the difference between apple juice and apple cider? For apple juice they cook the juice out. For apple cider they squeeze it out.


Jake demonstrating how the apple picking bag works.


Attempting to take a group photo.


Here is Ryan with all of his preschool art projects. The white foot print at the top is a ghost, and he's holding his spooky house.


That is the apple tree they made in preparation for their trip to the apple orchard.

O.K. so this post wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be. The original plan was to include everything from preschool up to this point. But I'm tired so that's it for today. I promise to try (the key word being try, of course) to post more regularly. This is basically my journal and I need to be better about keeping it up to date.

Well, at least I made my sister, Kristin, and her roommate, Morgan, happy tonight. Goodnight Girls.

Gingerbread Train

It's the annual "Build A Gingerbread House Day" or in our case "Gingerbread Train". I remember making gingerbread houses every year during Christmastime. Melissa says she never did. Since she missed out, Melissa and I tried last year to build a gingerbread house. Needless to say, it almost fell over. We had to use a ton of frosting and use toothpicks to keep the roof from falling off, and it still looked terrible. This year she decided to build a train which was much easier. The boys have a great time building the train (actually just eating the frosting and candy). I think Melissa had the most fun. Check out the pics.

Here is Casey with his cheesy smile. He doesn't know how to smile like a normal person.

Here is another one of Casey.

And another.
Here is the train nearing its completion.

I finally got Ryan to look at me and smile.

I had to get Melissa in here, since she was the master architect.

I had this one so you could admire Ryan's teeth. I actually took Ryan to his first dentist appointment this week. He did really well. A little bit of crying and whining. Once the dentist told him there was a "treasure chest" of toys to pick from he was a perfect angel. No cavities!!

Here is the final masterpiece. Very nice!!

I had to add this final picture. Even after I bathed the boys and got them all clean Melissa was still working on the train. She was really trying to make sure every inch was covered with frosting and candy. Perfection!!!