Halloween

We had so much fun!  Logan loved his costume and so did everyone else we were trick or treating around.  One girl wanted him to pretend he was eating her (she was a unicorn).  It all ended when it ran out of batteries and deflated.  Built in system for worn out parents...genius.  Everly was Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent teacher conferences today.  On my walk there I told Logan, "so I'm going to talk to the teacher about how you are doing in school.  Is there anything you want to share with me before I talk to her?"  Logan, "I've not been so good.  It's a long story."  After much coaxing...Logan, "well I talk in line."  Me, "Oooooooo."  Logan hurriedly responds, "I promise I won't do it anymore!"  Hahaha.

Then he admits, "well, that and I talk to Juliette."  Can I tell you how much I love that her name is Juliette?  I especially love that he gets in trouble with talking to her too much.  She's one of his best friends in school, playing at recess together with a few other boys from other classes.  Juliette had to move to a new group of desks because of their friendship causing problems getting their work done.  Probably needs more lectures from me maybe about focusing on his work, but I kind of love it.  Maybe I should name my next girl (if we have one) Juliette so some other parent can get a kick out of it.  Shakespeare...if only Logan new my inner Mom half joy...except the ending of course.  He'd be a bit embarrassed I'm sure.

As any story telling is only so good but blogging is about pictures...here you go.

This was us having as Logan calls it "family fun night" we made hopscotch in the backyard.  Logan felt bad having Everly left out, so he helped her.

What cat wouldn't love lounging in a bath tub?  Leela has taken to following me at my heels everywhere to the point I'm stepping on her.  She is all about the attention.  Fry could take it, but mostly leave it.  He seems to be becoming Logan's cat as they have their love fest every evening as Logan goes to sleep they cuddle together.  Logan rolls of the cat like a burrito in his blanket and that cat purrs like crazy in his little nest.

Finances

A few nights ago it hit me.  I attest it to the prophet requesting woman to go on the social media 10 day fast.  I dug out our pocket books and really started analyzing things and then I listened to an entire book in 2 days of Dave Ramsey and then 2 other personal finance bloggers.  All these things swirling around and lots of talking with my husband I decided I'm embarrassed about my finances.  People definitely have things much worse than us and others are much more responsible.  However, in the end, we can do better.  There's always more to learn.  So any personal finance people want to send me advise or pointers they've learned...I may have heard it, but send it anyways.  

Let me share a couple new things I learned.  The first are obvious it would seem...the normal your incoming better be better than your outgoing.  OR every purchase matters, especially the small ones.  The more interesting of which was a blogger sharing...do your dishes every night so that the sink is empty of dishes.  This leads to better finances (weird, right?).  Well, a simple explanation made me feel like I totally missed the mark.  If the dishes are done, you are less likely to have an excuse to not make a home cooked meal.  How many times have I turned exhausted to the husband saying..."I don't even want to make dinner, I have to spend an hour doing dishes before I can even get to making dinner."  Yeah...I should have realized that one.  I love just enjoying the evening doddling with my spouse or on the internet.  There's a better place to put my time (or at least more productive).

Dave Ramsey is full of great pointers.  The big one is we recently financed our used van.  We were actually proud of ourselves.  
1) Yay!  We bought used...good for us.  
2) We didn't get it from a dealership.  
3) We didn't get sucked into some stupid warranty.  
We felt like we learned from our past mistakes.  Then I listened to Dave Ramsey and man, we should have never financed the van.  We could have bought an older, higher mileage van or better yet a beater car and paid cash.  So...yes, more learning for us yet to do.

There's more that was learned...I hope we can stay on the path of watching my budget better and not letting it get away from us.  I'm sure blessed to have a husband that supports that plan with very little disagreements with any of the budget along the way.  Cheers to hopefully not being embarrassed about finances every again (hah! well hopefully not this embarrassed although there's definitely been worse lows in the past).  Growth...right, growth.

I started an app called "Gratitude".  You should too.  Every day I have made it a goal to write in 1 thing I'm grateful for.  It's amazing when I think frequently through the day what my thing will be.  I end up with coming up with more than 1 often times.  Realistically this has only been going on a few days and I'm sure it will get harder some days.  But, it's nice to think more on things I'm grateful for than what is pressing or hard in my day that my mind may otherwise go to.  Refreshing.

Legoland

Oh, Lego throne...now listen my minions!

Out of Africa

Our plans were all over the board for these days off...from Disneyland to camping to staycation.  Well, part of our time landed in Out of Africa in Camp Verde, AZ.  What a treat!  

It started out with what felt like a real safari.  So neat!  The zebras came right up to our shuttle jeep thing.  There is a video of how the giraffe came right into the vehicle to get celery from everyone.  Logan, Everly...we all gave it to him.  So fun!!

Jimmy as we were walking by that giraffe later came in overhead trying to seeming to lick his hair right off...if only the man would have let it happen.

This trip we sure landed our timing right on for some events.  This tour guide (although he seems to be the one in charge of the park- Dean) was feeding the grizzly bear for the VIP tour and we got to watch all the same!

One of our favorite parts was the tiger splash show.  So fun watching 5-6 people playing with these fully grown tigers.  They were jumping in the pool trying to get the tigers to jump with them.  In the picture they are playing tug of war with the tiger.  They showed us them running up the side of the cage jumping high in the air.  Amazing.

Just a black panther and a lion hanging out overhead together.

Not pictured...Logan taking some mud home as a souvenir on his pants (seriously the only puddle in the entire place) or the massive snake we saw out of it's exhibit the zookeepers were getting it out of the cage for the next show.  It weight 175 lbs!  Jimmy seemed to somehow trigger the cobra so it was fanning out it's neck standing up.  Jimmy was not touching the glass or anything.  Who knows.  Crazy.  Only 1 1/2 hours away from us.  Love me some fall break!!

Good Morning!

More Plumbing Issues

Boring picture below, right?  If only it were boring.  So, our beautiful floors got completed a couple days ago.  See that discoloration on the baseboard.  So annoying, it almost looks like a bad paint job...not.  Plumber is coming tomorrow thanks to another water leak.  This time from the toilet.  Make it stop!

We are 100% in the phase of regularly deleting a million pictures below.  It's amazing how quickly she figures out that the phone is locked out, but can access taking a ga-jillion not so great photos of her nostrils.  Good things she's cute!  She's also our climber.  Up on chairs and the table a ton.  She frequently has her baby in her arms tending to it, if not that it's the cat whom she squishes and rubs her face into Leela.  Poor kitty...why doesn't that cat learn to run?  Sometimes I think that cat likes it.  

Kitten Squabble

Every night Fry's wild side comes out.

Also, side note...That 70's Show is super distracting in the background.  Eric's parents just found out he sleeps in the nude.  Hence so much talk of "Mr. Nude."

Logan's Room

Out with girly Frozen theme, in with dinosaurs.  It took FOREVER for these boys (Logan and Jimmy) to settle in on colors they both are happy with.  Here we are! I want it to not get too cluttered with decorations, but I don't feel like it's all the way done.  The next thing to tackle are curtains.  This room gets to be one of the hottest in the house thanks to the way his window faces.

The sign is from Hobby Lobby.  it says "Always be yourself unless you can be a dinosaur.  Then always be a dinosaur."

It happened, he's 6!!

The grandma's were on the same wave length...watches.  He loves them both!  Not just a watch of course, a dinosaur watch (along with other dino things).  He was in dino heaven for his birthday!

 These storms have been insane.  The day this video was taken there was the dust storm with major wind at the beginning, then the below with rain and wind, there was even a bit of hail.  Did I mention lightening and thunder? There were so many trees uprooted from this storm.  Fun to watch from the window nice and safe.

What do I paint our kitchen?

Making decisions...NOT my strong suit.  I got paint samples to get a better look at each one.  I like and don't like them for all different reasons.

This one...this gray looks really green in the evening.  Then it picks up on a ton of blue during the day.  I don't get it, but I like the contrast it has to the white on the ceiling.  I am annoyed though with the cabinets as they seem out of place and I would likely feel the need to paint them white.  Another project...

Then there's a lighter gray.  It has a very airy feel about it.  But it is very close to white, in fact if the ceiling weren't white it might be hard to tell.  Again would need to paint the cabinets white.  Another bonus on this one is it does not pick up on weird hues as easily as the other gray.

This is a yellow white.  Jimmy says he's pretty sure it's white.  I like that it's cheery and light making an open feel.  It does feel a little too close to white after Jimmy mentioned that.  Again, the cabinets feel out of place.

Finally this the latest one I picked up and last night I thought for sure I'd do this.  Maybe I was excited to see more color?  I don't know, but it really looks nice with the cabinets and countertops.  My ONLY concern is how dark it is.  Our kitchen and room is big, so I'm not worried about it making it feel smaller.  Meh...I don't know.

I'm overthinking it.  It's not that hard to repaint it in a few years anyways.  What do you think?

Life on Overload

You ready for my crazy long post!  I am...well, I hope.  So, just before our trip to Oregon we ran into this little critter IN OUR NEW HOME!  Did I mention it was alive...ugh

Our first outing in Oregon was to jump on the strawberries being ripe.  It was hot, but so good.  Everly was just shoveling initially strawberries in her face...then the dirt apparently was too good to pass up.  Seriously loads of dirt clods into that precious face.  What is she missing from her diet?

The cousins needed very little warming up and were just thrilled to spend all their time together.

This was a favorite moment.  We got to see my grandparents and we missed the best shot...she was snuggling for a good while on grandpa's chest.  It was so cute.  You know those moments you try to memorize and then you realize you have a camera.  Bah! So cute!

Did I mention how friendly those cousins get? My goodness Naomi and Logan.  I felt uncomfortable being in the room with them for their level of cuddling.  I mean really...worst than a newlywed couple.  We had to start putting rules on cuddling, hah!

The ocean...doesn't matter the weather there sure is something great about it.  Everly was grabbing the crab shells and chomping on them to Jimmy's dismay.

Berry picking...never enough time for that and never enough things to eat with fresh berries in them.  Picking with Papa is just that much better.

Naomi's performance in Cinderella was terribly cute, ballet.

 Saw a dinosaur store in Lincoln City and that had to be a trip!  They got REAL fossils.  You would have thought it was an awesome baseball cards collection to trade with.  

Bubbles waiting for dinner.

I think it's safe to say Naomi is excited about having another girl in the extended family.  They were so fun to watch together.  Naomi is such a great big sister and cousin looking out for the littles.

And more relaxing in Lincoln City

Their dinner night...spaghetti.

We loved the parents farm.

Oh yeah...Logan and tractors.  If he could have spent the entire time on that tractor he would have.  He was such a nag for Papa to get on their as frequently as possible.  Papa needed a break at one point so Logan needed to take a bathroom break.  Well, he knew that the tractor break was going to be over and couldn't find Papa.  He was flying around the house, down to the shop, to the chicken coop to find that man...haha.  I've never seen that kid more motivated by something.  Too bad that motivation can't be replicated at home, hah!

Nana and Papa's trophy business.  All Logan talks about now is what trophies he's going to make next time he is there.  Currently he wants one for the most ringworm spots...definitely one I want him to win!

Helping Papa set up the metal shear.

And more tractor.  Living the dream.

We won't be seeing us doing this in Arizona anytime soon!

4th of July dinner..ham dinner with a side of Oregon rain

My surprise for Jimmy.  Which these little turkey have really done me in.  I have 11 spots of ringworm currently and counting.  Good thing they are terribly cute because man...  We did name them Fry and Leela.  Jimmy listed a few acceptable names and Logan stuck with the one that had a name like "French Fry".  

My source of headache.  Currently that washer drain hose has been replaced with a new one that won't leak all over the floor.  Still figuring out the details on how we'll get all our downstair floor replaced. 

A surprise visit (with a few days notice) of Grandpa & Grandma!  So fun...they got to experience the ward with us for the first time and our little splash pad/playground.  Not to mention those crazy blowers & dehumidifier in our house.  They were troopers and it was a joy to catch up with them.