I have decided to start blogging all over again. To help me do this I have started a new blog. Here it is.

I am attempting to hang on to blogging through the business that is this holiday season. In short we had a fantastic time hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. I can't really take much credit, as Caleb did most of the work! I, however, used my skills to tackle Black Friday, starting at 9pm on Thanksgiving. Thank you to my mother, who held my place in line, while I ravenously scavenged the stores. We did well mom.

The last few months I have been living under a cloud of anxiety, as my company is doing mass layoffs. I will not write too much about work, as we all know what can become of that, but I can now thankfully say that I have been retained and will not be laid off. Hallelujah! We can continue with our Christmas plan!

We just put up our Christmas decorations, but I haven't taken pictures yet. However, we are continuing to generally decorate our house. Our downstairs is almost complete. We bought some packs of hardwood floors, in an effort to slowly and continually buy them, and then they discontinued them. So, we are waiting on our floors and that is ok. Aside from them, I am quite pleased with our decorating and eager to start on the upstairs, which Caleb promised we could do after the holidays. Here's a peek at our beloved house. We are not afraid of color!

Our living room... a blue/gray color...we only changed it twice!





Once again it is best appreciated in person, so come and visit! By then we may have our floors in...

Halloween this year was an adventure. The main part of the adventure was desperately trying to get a picture of Scarlett with her costume on. She fought us tooth and nail until fortunately Aunt Kristi was able to snap a few pictures.

I wanted her to be a little fairy and Caleb wanted her to be a garden gnome. It was the ugliest costume in the world. We settled on a pirate, which was actually what Micaela was for her second Halloween as well. I'm just thankful that Scarlett is still young enough that we got to pick her costume. Micaela decided to exert some Independence this year and wanted to be Hannah Montana. Caleb, who is in denial and does not believe that our girls will ever grow up, said no. We compromised with Tinkerbell. Only if it was a Tinkerbell costume that could light up, of course.


I had to dress up as well, working with kids and all. I was a witch. Caleb did not dress up, but he took on a new role of "master carver" this year. Here are some of his creations, some are from the carving kit and some are original creations.




These pumpkins are dedicated to my father. May I say the were very popular in our neighborhood.
Hope everyone had as much fun and got as much candy as we did!

I have sucked at blogging lately. And I know why. I have been lost in facebook land. A magical place that can be very time consuming...and somewhat voyeuristic that you can know what so many people are doing all through the day.

Anyways in my real life land things have been good. Micaela is back in preschool and loving it more than ever. She also started soccer and also loves this, except when kids on the other team push. She is deathly afraid of being pushed by another kid.

Scarlett is getting into absolutely everything all of the time. She still sleeps an abnormal amount, which is very nice for us. She also eats like crazy. Anything and everything all the time. It doesn't even matter if it has been on the floor or she finds a cheerio under the couch. It goes in her mouth. Yum.

Caleb and I agreed that we would never buy them matching clothes.
These aren't clothes, but pajamas, and they don't match as Micaela's is a two piece set and Scarlett's is one piece.

We have also slowly been "putting together" our house. We are big fans of color and initially I said "no white walls." Caleb has convinced me otherwise, but we still have some bold splashes of color in every room. We even finished our first room. The dining room. Complete...except for our custom made (by my mother) table runner. Here's a quick peek.

The top two things married couples fight about are sex and money. Not us, we calmly accept that one we have enough of and one we don't have enough of. We fight about home decor. However, we both agreed that green would be the color of our dining room.
I love this mirror. It weighs 70 pounds and my husband proved his love to me when he let me buy it and he installed it himself.

Hopefully we can finish the rest of our rooms in the next few months. And hopefully I can start taking more pictures of my kids to post. They really are adorable, in pictures at least!

For My Little Scarlett,

I can absolutely not believe it has been one year (and a few weeks, sorry) since you were born. Let me start by saying this summer has been so much more enjoyable with you out of my belly! Last summer was a killer...on my back, my feet, and so forth. One year ago we were driving to the hospital, listening to Led Zepplin and hoping that this was "the real deal" because I did not want to wait two more days to be induced. I remember the first time we saw you, and I thought you had the most beautiful lips (or pucker as Micaela would say). You still do.



This year has been full of challenges and changes for our family, and you have been the "biggest and bestest" of them all. You have certainly taken on your own personality. You absolutely know what you want and know how to get it.