Seriously, Best Birthday Ever

It started with a fantastic call from the Director of Admissions at ND telling us about B's scholarship. Awesome.

Then I got to spend all morning at my old company judging the out of control Halloween costume contest. Loved every second of the insanity.

I came home to a whole pan full of homemade Almond Roca (how is my husband so awesome?!) and a clean kitchen.

Then he gave me my present: he made me this awesome sewing table I've been wanting. Again, awesome.

Dinner was provided by Jimmy John's. Yum.

And I got to go trick-or-treating with the cutest little puppy dogs in town.

Of course, best of all were all the emails, Facebook messages, texts, cards, calls, hugs and kisses from loved ones. With a start like this, the 30s don't seem like they'll be too bad!

Best Birthday Present EVER

By now y'all know I don't use all caps very often, so when I do, it's a pretty big deal. And this is. It's a few days before the "big day" (turning 30 seems to be looming exponentially larger and larger the closer I get to it), but today brought the best birthday present I've ever gotten (at least in terms of life-long effect): my sweet, wonderful and genius husband got accepted to the MBA program at the University of Notre Dame!! And they even found a way to throw the number "30" into the mix. We are so very, very excited to be South Bend bound!

P.S. Added perk: BYU plays in South Bend both years we are there! So basically this is perfect timing all around. :)

Details

So I kinda lied before when I said this blog is going private. It's not. I'm just not going to post here anymore. All my posts will now be on our private blog that already exists. My brain just can't handle having two blogs so it's time to simplify. For those of you who already have access to our private blog, you don't have to do anything.

Also, good news! For those of you who hate private blogs and use Google Reader, you will still be notified of new posts on the private blog so you don't have to remember to check it. Each time I post something new on the private blog, I'll put a mini-post on this blog to notify you and include a link to the new post. The link to the real post will come to you in Reader and so you'll just have to click and voila! My blog posts! No more having to remember to check! I figure it's the best of both worlds.

So, the short version is... give me your email address to get added to our private blog and then starting in January look for links in Reader to tell you when we have new posts over there! Easy as that!

Going Private

Yes, it's happening. Not until January, but I want to give people plenty of time to let me know if they want to be added. I'll remind a few more times before then. You can send me your email here or at my email account or on Facebook and I'll be happy to add you... yes, even you barely-friends or friends-of-friends or whoever!

Outtakes

This picture would have been good, except I'm hunched over and have my eyes closed.

This one was one of my favorites, except the boys both looking off deadpan in opposite directions.

Again, the boys are struggling.

Look at the camera, kids!

Our photographer (a sweet young woman from church who volunteered to give up her Saturday afternoon because, yes, I'm cheap like that) took 321 pictures. Of those, not a single one involves all of us looking at the camera with open eyes and smiling. However, there were some great individual/small group shots and even a few that will be passable for a family picture. Next year, we're practicing ahead of time. Not kidding. 

Last Ones

Today I picked what I think will be the last tomatoes off our plants, and it made me sad. And I decided that in my heaven, tomatoes and peaches will always be in season.

Also, the hot water will never run out. Yep, that would be heaven.

family picture day

first thing this morning--b bangs left eye on dresser.

then he clobbers me above right eye with a baby rattle (on accident).

then s hits himself then in face with drumstick.

i get ready for pictures while the boys nap, then check the weather and see that there is a high wind advisory. so i take my blown-dry locks (used my hair dryer for the first time in about a year) and pull them back. wasted effort.

then s wakes up really, really early from his nap, like so early that he'll be wanting to go back to sleep right at the time we're supposed to take pictures.

then he throws up on me (and me already dressed for pictures!).

then b wakes up cranky and with a cowlick and we can't find his brush. and it turns out that wetting his hair three times isn't enough to fix the cowlick. unreal.

i think this outtake from our photo shoot sums it up:

Yes, that would be lots of crying and not a lot of looking at the camera. *sigh* There's always next year. 

p.s. thankfully, we did get some decent shots. i'll post some of those later (you know, after i photoshop the one person's eyes that were inevitably closed in every picture), once i get done laughing at this one and shaking my head at what a crazy day we had. seriously, someone make the crazy stop!

Even More Cringing

Today at church we became that family. You know, the one whose toddler makes a huge mess of his snack and gets it all over the pew, floor and anything else in sight. The family whose mom rolls her eyes and shakes her head when this happens and tries to collect some of the crumbs but in the end gives up because it's going to take a vacuum to get rid of all of it.

Then tonight we were getting ready for an out-of-town visitor and got out our air mattress only to realize that it had somehow gotten water in it (likely during our second office flooding this summer) and so it had all kinds of nasty mold growing on it. This happened right as our guest was arriving and so now he and B are making a Sunday night emergency trip to K-Mart to get a new air mattress so that he can have somewhere to sleep (because since we sold our couches Saturday night, there is literally nothing but the hard floor for him to sleep on). We're such awesome hosts.

Put those two things together (and add them to the couch incident yesterday) and suddenly I'm feeling so redneck.

Prepare to be Horrified

I'm a little scared to post this because I'm pretty sure some of you won't want to be friends with me after you read it, but in the spirit of "keeping it real" on the blog, here goes.

What do all of these things have in common? I found them in our couches as I cleaned them out today for the first time. Yes, that's one of Squish's shirts, a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon, a black pen, a USB drive, seven buttons, an air pump, a Lego piece (FYI, we don't even own Legos) a straight pin, a needle, a board book, a dime, a baby spoon, two forks, a barrette, my hospital bracelet from when Bubs was born, twelve pony beads. a hair elastic, two drum sticks and eight marbles. Not pictured: several paperclips, tissues and receipts, one Christmas card, a set of earplugs and a twist-tie.

I think my two-year old is a hoarder. Then again, if I were more of a cleaner, this probably wouldn't be a problem.