just a trim

I have been noticing that Callie's bangs are getting long wispy ends that are starting to get in her eyes. I try to side sweep her hair to keep it out but her hair is so silky that it doesn't stay over. So I try bows.. HA!! You would think that she would leave those things in since she has had something in her hair since birth.. PLEASE.. The moment I'm not looking she yanks it out.. hair and all!!
So I decided that she needed just a tiny trim of her bangs.. Good Grief what am I about to do, I asked myself.. Was it not just this week that I messed up Owen's hair due to wormy pants and now I am actually gonna attempt to trim ms.antsy pantsy's bangs!!
I started with a good bath! Let her play a Lil and then my plan was to cut them just before I got her out so I wouldn't have Lil red hairs everywhere. Oh my gosh!! that slippery Lil worm would barely let me comb her hair. So after I was done with her bath I wrapped her up in the towel and sat her down on my bathroom counter.. where she had way too much stuff to get at!
Luckily enough when I got her hair combed just right(after she was done trying to comb it) she held really still while I snipped every so gently.. maybe she was hold still because I was squeezing her cheeks. Well whatever the reason she held still!!

this one really isn't a good BEFORE pic but I adore it...




AFTER..

Jack-o-Latern time....

Well I had the biggest plans this year to go do something fun at pumpkin patch on a Saturday afternoon but that never happened.. thanks to all the weekend rain we have had this month. Luckily enough Owen won a big ole pumpkin at his school's fall festival last Friday night. Yay Owen!! Last year everyone had their own pumpkin to carve but Owen's pumpkin has now been dubbed the family pumpkin.
So tonight we carved it.. Owen picked out the design after me telling him many times.. NO, that's too hard! this one seemed easy enough for all the lil hands
involved!

Owen & Callie cleaning out the guts



Owen Carving on the pumpkin


Carter's turn.. lil sissy is watching you!!


the finished product

dreams are coming true!

When Jason and I purchased our home 3 short years ago, we never thought we would start seeing some of our dreams come true so soon... like our lil fire pit area.. That was a dream of mine when we 1st came to the open house. I remember walking the property with Jason and saying how awesome it would be to have a patio way up here (the back corner of the property). Somewhere I can come and sit, drink my coffee and watch the children play.. Well We have it already! It was one of my must be done summer jobs!
Our newest dream come true was a privacy hedge along RT.272 side of the yard. There was a long span of yard (I think Jason said it was around 85ft.) that opened up to a yard that borders RT.272.. not a real big problem but we were thinking about our future.The land is owned by and elderly woman and it wouldn't surprise us if once she passed away if her property wouldn't be sold and developed,not a lot can go on the land but I still wanted to be able to know that I had our privacy if that would be the case years down the road. Anyway on the 19th we were heading to my sisters for a birthday party(Happy 1st B-day Scottie)and I happened to spot a bunch of Arborvitae shrubs at a discount grocer. On the way back I made Jason stop so we could check the price.. ONLY $12.49 EACH.. these arbs were 6-8ft tall.. what a bargain!! we scarfed them up that week.I went back on Monday with my dad in his truck and trailer to pick up some. Jason got them planted and we decided we needed more to finish the hedge up. We went back on Sat. to get more but they only had a different breed of them. We got them anyway hoping once they grow and fill in it won't be noticeable. I called a local nursery on Saturday and for the size and quantity that we got our hedge would have cost us $1400.00 We paid a small fraction of that cost!

Our trip to Hershey, Pa!

Today the boys had off of school for a teacher in-service day and I used that to my advantage! We went to Zoo America and Hershey's Chocolate Factory Tour! All Free for me thanks to our membership for Baltimore Zoo!
Anyway I asked Jason's sisters(Ruth Ann & Esther Mae and niece(Katelyn)) to go along. We had lots of fun. Esther Mae hadn't been there before and it had been years for Ruth Ann.. they changed a lot!

Zoo America isn't a "normal" zoo.. they don't have monkeys, lions, elephants and animals that you find in BIG zoos. They have wolves, eagles, otters, owls... all the animals in zoo America are animals that you will see in the wild in the Americas.
Carter's favorite part was the Elk.. they were huge

Owen said he liked everything! But I think he really liked the animals of the dessert exhibit the best. They had a part that was for the nocturnal animals.. that was really neat.. In it were skunks, bats, snakes of all types, foxes(those were one of Callie's faves), and a few more animals that I can't think of right now!
The river Otters were my favorite of all. They have such cute lil noses

The Wolves were really neat to watch.. there were 4 total: a black one(Dakota), a grey one(an illegal pet rescue)and a brother & sister pair that are still young(16 mths). They trotted around the exhibit for us. Callie loves dogs so this was a favorite spot for her.

After we were done, we ate a packed lunch at the zoo and then walked through a couple of favorite exhibits again and left for the Chocolate Factory tour.. a 5 min. drive which Callie fell asleep!!
Hershey Chocolate Factory was very fun! It took you on a ride through a "factory" and showed you how the chocolate was made.. from harvesting to the candy bar!! It smelled really yummy! At the end of the tour they gave a free CHOCOLATE!!!
Owen & Carter with the Super Sized bottle of Chocolate syrup!!

Aunt Ruth Ann with Callie & Katelyn & their cute lil bears she bought them!

Picture Time!!

one more tree.. PLEASE!!!

So after we cut down the 2 pine trees out front it still wasn't what I was hoping for. Don't get me wrong, I loved how it opened up the front of the house and how you could now see it from the street.. BUT there was 1 more tree in my way.. the cute lil maple! It was hardly noticeable when the pines where there because half of it was growing into the big pine. After much convincing, Jason agreed to cut it down. So that is what we did yesterday! We worked all day long on the front yard... We got out close to 8 or 8:30 and didn't come in until dark.. which is around 7ish! After Jason got the tree cut, all of us helped clear it away. Callie even tried helping. Once that was done it was noon and time to go rent the stump grinder. Oh what fun that was!Jason rolled the dang thing! I came back from taking load of debris out back to Jason motioning me to hurry with the tractor because he rolled it.. He made one bad move and that is what happened. When I got out front smoke was billowing down the street from where it laid over and all the oil and gas ran out onto the hot engine. We used the tractor to pull it back up right and started again...
I used some of the grindings around the kids swing set up back. It made really nice mulch.
After Jason was done grinding we put some seed and straw down hoping to get a nice green, lush front lawn.. that will be totally awesome. Jason isn't too happy right now with it looking so barren out there but he said once the grass comes in nice and lush he will be happy and it will look much better. He said today as we were driving to church.. well you got what you wanted once again!!!!
I'll put up a picture when I take one from the same spot as the other ones

Sleep.. that is surely not something a mother needs!!

Something seems to be going on with our sweet lil princess.. Callie. It all started 2 nights ago. She went to bed at her usual 8 o'clock bedtime but was back up at 9:30. She wasn't up to play, she was up to fuss!! Nothing worse or at least not to me..LOL!! She tossed and turned, moaned and groaned all night long. Yesterday she was a bit of a hand full, one might say. She was into EVERYTHING! and would throw a full blown tantrum when scolded or told no! Last night's sleep wasn't any better. She was up about every hour SCREAMING! I am not sure if she had a belly ache or is she is cutting teeth... she still only has 6 (4 on top, 2 on bottom)! She is by far my worst out of the 3 to cut teeth.. she takes 4EVER & is miserable the whole time! Today sadly enough didn't get any better.. she was a bear all day long. I put her down for 2 naps instead of her usual 1.. I put her down around 1:30 for her second... she didn't go to sleep on her own like normal.. she screamed and cried for a good half hour or so. I went to her and here she had a stinky diaper(poor baby) and she had thrown all her things out of her crib..(her pillow, teddy & her dinky) .. not only did she throw her things out but she bit a chunk out of her dinky.. WHAT??! Now I have to mend it. She would be lost without that and her nipper, which I should start weaning her off of it.. but it really helps on days like today! I am praying(for the past 2 nights) that she sleeps much better tonight and we at least make it to 2 a.m. before she wakes to join us in our bed.
On a brighter note we (I really mean "I") have broken Callie of her bottle. She is now only allowed to have a cup.. Yay for Callie.. now if I could get her to go on the potty and lose her nipper...
HA! I really am tired!!

Silly Face

Callie makes ridiculously cute silly faces when I whip out the camera.. half the time I miss them cuz she is just so quick. here are a few that i did capture

TIMBER

After close to 2 years of talking about cutting down our 2 big pine trees in the front yard we finally did it this weekend.. Oh what a JOB they were....
The big blue spruce wasn't any trouble at all. Jason climbed up the tree as far as he could go and cut the 1st 5ft. off.. it was a perfect Christmas tree! After that top he cut smaller chunks off.. he cut, I cleaned up, Carter supervised!! After we got the BIG one all finished up, Jason was ready to take on the smaller one.. It was pretty tall but very lean. All in all it was probably 1/2 the size of the Blue Spruce. Jason convinced himself that there was no need to scale this tree and cut chunks off like the other one cuz the base of the tree was leaning a particular way and that would redirect the tree away from the power lines.. that and the guide wire in our yard... TIMBER!!! The tree fell right into the power lines.. Luckily enough the telephone pole stopped it from crashing the wires... Jason was then in a mad rush to figure something out ... he got on the skid loader and tied chains to the tree and pulled it away.. My heart felt really funny... I was SCARED!! VERY SCARED!! He pulled it away into a safe zone. Man that could have been costly!! So now the pine trees are gone.. well mostly. The stumps are there until we can rent a grinder and plant some grass seed. We are hoping we can do that this weekend as we are running out of planting time.

"BEFORE"



"AFTER"

good bye Oreo

When we took the boys to the fair they each won a fish... Carter named his Oreo. This past week Oreo died... sniff sniff!! So Carter had a lil ceremony for him.. ... I said a short prayer as Carter flushed him down the toilet!! Carter was sad after it all took place and whimpered for him all evening.. so sad. So I did as any mother would do and told him that once Owen's dies we will buy new ones from Wal*Mart. That made him instantly feel better.. I thought I would share Oreo's service

The boys school pictures...

Here is this years school pictures of the boys.. I thought they got "goot"