Work A Barn. Done.

Finally, finally, finally, the barn is finished!  This was seriously the project that we all thought might  NEVER END. 

But it did end.  Thank God.  You know how you always go in to a project thinking, "This should be pretty simple.  One day, tops!" and then you get started and next thing you know, you realize you've GROSSLY underestimated the details and it's more like four days or a week?  Yeah, pretty much every single stage of this project was like that. 

There for a while, every time Tyler didn't know where Joel was, he'd say, "Daddy work a barn?"  And every time he'd come across his toy hammer or saw or other construction tool, he'd say, "Mommy, I work a barn, k?"

The weekend that the kids and I went to Evansville for the Fall Festival, Joel worked his hind end off finishing up the siding. Again, I was thinking, Joel's got it so easy!  We're going to be gone for 4 days - he can do the siding in 1-1.5 days and then he'll have time to relax.  PUH-SHAW!  He worked his fingers to the bone (I almost mean that literally!) and when we rolled back in to town Sunday afternoon, he was just starting the clean up process. 

And lastly, he got the fencing all put back in place.  We can now say we're DONE!  (Do you like my use of the word "we?"  See, even though I lifted very few fingers in the actual construction efforts, I still say I was an integral part of the barn raising as someone had to keep the house running, laundry going, grocery shopping done, dinners cooked, kids looked after and so on and etc.)

Creative Movement.

Welp.  It's official.  We have a dancer.  We bit the bullet and enrolled Lily in dance class.  It's an introductory class for 2-4 year olds called "Creative Movement."

She's been to two classes so far.  The first class, she just stood there the whole time and didn't participate.  Which I found out afterwards because they close the door so the younger ones don't escape and run for their parents.  This was no surprise to me at all given how Lily can practice the school Christmas program for 3 months and then just stand there on the day of.  

Anyhow, I asked her if she had fun and she grinned and said yes.  Then I asked her if she wanted to come to the class again and she said no.  Doh.

On the way home after that first class, I asked Lily about 5 more times if she wanted to go to the class again and every time she said no.  I kept asking her if it was fun and every time she said yes.

Then she randomly asked me if we could go shopping.  So it hits me.

Me:  "Lily, if we go shopping and buy a dancing outfit, do you want to go the dance class again?"

Lily:  "YES!  Can we get a dancing outfit right now?"

So, we went to Target and I dropped about $30 on a leotard, tutu and tights. 

She went to the second class, SUPER EXCITED to wear her dancing outfit and she danced!  And she loved it.  And she told me she wanted to keep going.  

So I officially enrolled her and paid our money.  $25 registration fee.  $75 costume fee for spring recital.  $55 for November classes (one 30 minute class per week).  Then off to Payless for shoes - that was another $20.  GULP.  

But look at these pictures.  Worth.  Every.  Penny.

While I'm Away.

Joel is an awesome Dad.  And an even more awesomer husband.

I like to travel for work.  I mean sort of.  I like to see new places and meet people face to face that I normally only get to interact with over the phone and email.  Sometimes I get to go to cool places - like a Major League Soccer stadium.  That part of travel is really exciting.  

The part of travel that I hate (other than being on WW and trying to find something besides salad to eat while I'm gone), is that I miss Joel and the kids TERRIBLY.  One night away isn't so bad.  It's kind of a nice break from routine.  But more than one night and I start to feel homesick.

Last week, I was gone for 4 days (3 nights).  That was a long time away.  The work part was exhausting:   I was in 2 different cities and 3 airplane rides in those four days.  I didn't sleep well at all and I ate salad 7 times (not counting breakfast, where I ate only fruit and drank coffee).

But this is where having an awesome husband comes in to play.  Joel is super thoughtful.  He sends me pictures and videos of the kids.

Tyler said, "I don't want to get up."

morning pee pee (can I put this on the internet??)

Out cold and drooling...

"hiding" cause he didn't want to get up

By the way, why is it that when we have to get up and go to work, the kids are ready to sleep in, but on the weekends, they are up at 5?  How, HOW, does that happen? 

Below is a still shot from a video he took of the kids.  I'm pretty sure I watched the video 12 times in a row and subjected my coworkers to it over and over.  The video went something like this:

Lily:  LOVE YOU MOMMY!

Tyler:  LLLLUUUHH YOU MOOOOMMMEEEEEE!!

(Joel:  Wave bye bye!  Say 'See you soon.')

Lily:  LOVE YOU.  LOVE YOU TOO MOMMY!  SEE YOU SOON!

Tyler (waving frantically)

He also picks up the slack and works hard to juggle his inflexible work schedule in order to be there for the kiddos and their field trips.  Last week, it was pumpkin patch with Lily's class (would have been Tyler's class too but his day got rained out). 

And finally, I got home thinking I was going to have to run right back out to the store to restock my fruit supply (since we've already established that's all I eat for breakfast) - but he had already done that for me too.  

He's a good one.  I think I'll keep him.

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween.

This year, we got our pumpkin carving done just in the nick of time.  As in the night before Halloween, we finally got around to it.  And even at that, in the interest of time, it was a seriously abbreviated event.  Joel prepped the pumpkins (scooped out their guts) while I gave the kids a bath and then we gave them each a marker and told them to draw on the face that they wanted us to cut out.  Both kids were more interested in watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse than drawing on pumpkins...

After the faces (or scribbles in Tyler's case) were drawn on, Joel and I cut them out.  Lily's turned out really good.  She was pretty proud of it.  Tyler was melting down and not at all in the mood to pose with his.  That's ok, Lily hammed it up enough for the both of them.

For Halloween, Tyler dressed up as Spider-man and Liliana wanted to be Elsa With Wings.  I'm guessing that while there were probably at least 4,000,000 Elsa's running around on Halloween night, my Elsa was the only one with wings.  

I worked REALLY HARD on Lily's braid.  I was trying to get it to go kind of sideways on her head so that the braid would lay over her shoulder.  It didn't work so good.  I busted out the sparkly bobby pins I wore in my wedding hair.  Lily thought that was pretty neat.  

Unfortunately on Halloween, we got a crappy turn of the weather and it was misting rain and totally FREEZING.  As in, no-way-am-I-going-to-allow-my-kiddos-to-walk-the-neighborhood-and-get-sick-and-rack-up-$150-worth-of-doctor-bills cold.  Plan B was to head over to the mall and trick-or-treat there.  It was pretty lame, but a bazillion times better than walking around in the cold.  

Tyler was in rare form.  Cried and cried and cried.  I think he was super tired.  Couldn't get him to wear his mask at all.  He wanted to put it on himself but then couldn't get it yet didn't want any help so just got mad and threw it and yelled at everyone.  I think he has a little bit of his sister in him. 

Once he realized he could get some candy, he relaxed a smidge.  Well, at least broke his crying fits up  a little in between getting more loot.

Since trick-or-treating was a near total bust, we decided to treat the kids to eating out "at the restaurant" instead.  Lily is forever asking if we can eat "at the restaurant" which is totally mind boggling because she almost never eats any food from any restaurant.  Pizza Hut is about the only place we can take them where they actually eat the food that is served at the restaurant.  So that's where we went.  

We got a large pan pizza and between the four of us, ate it all.  We marveled at how much the kids ate.  Lily ate as much as I did.  We are really in for it when they get a little bigger.  We'll need two large pizzas to feed our little family of four.

After dinner, Lily asked if she could do more trick-or-treating so we agreed she could go to three houses in the neighborhood.  (Three cause she's three...some day this logic is going to backfire on us...)

After that, we headed home to pass out candy to any crazy fool trick-or-treaters who might stop by.  We had 3 different groups to which Lily immensely enjoyed passing out candy.

And now, due to the inclement weather, I have SO MUCH CANDY leftover.  Crap.

Oh, almost forgot to mention that Joel got in on the Halloween fun at work too.