J's eye surgery

It's the day before surgery. I got the call this afternoon that he has to check in 6:30am which means we need to leave here aroun 4:30am. His surgery is scheduled for 7:30am and is supposed to take an hr and 45mins. They say it's supposed to be 2hrs for recovery, but you never know. I'm just praying that everything goes smoothly and correctly the first time around. It will be an early rise and a long day....keep us and the medical staff in your prayers!

Halloween/Thanksgiving

I realized that I didn't post anything from Halloween nor Thanksgiving. So, here are some pictures from those two events:

Halloween
















Thanksgiving w/Brian

whose idea was it?

So, I wanted to get the family photos done in time for Christmas cards, and b4 J has his eye surgery bc who knows how long it will take his eye to heal from that. So, I decided that today would be the best day for it since we didn't have any appointments till this afternoon for Asher's OT. Well, I should have known not to schedule it bc the boys came back from a wkend w/their father UNCONTROLLABLE! They have been awful! Jaden was evidentally running in Shaun's parking lot and gave himself a scraped up eye, which should have been enough to make me cancel the pictures, but no. I put concealer on J's eye and scheduled the appointment. Did I mention the boys were being awful???

To top it off, the shirts that I bought the boys, I bought too big for BOTH of them. So, we get there early so I can exchange them. It was a big to do bc they didn't have J's color in the size smaller, so I had to change colors on the boys' shirts. So then she wanted to charge me more bc since they were different colors she had to return and resell and the shirts were more now. I was like, I don't think so! We got a manager over who told the lady to just over ride it which is good bc otherwise the boys would have just been in too large of shirts bc I WASN'T paying more simply bc I had to change colors. But we get there and amazingly they get us right in. I'd never seen any of the photographers that were there, but I guess it has been a year since we've had our photos done. People usually do change jobs eventually... So, we get this lady whom I've never seen, and she starts trying to take pictures. The boys aren't listening. Come to find out, they didn't take the security tag off J's shirt (not sure how we got out of the store w/out it going off), so we had to make sure it was hidden in every shot. Luckily it was in the back, but right on the top of the shoulder so it did make some poises impossible. But this woman is just snapping photos like it's a race to see how fast she can get us out of there. And, now that they're digital, you can't see the pictures as they're being taken. But, I could tell they weren't good even though she kept assuring me they were perfect.

So, it's time to look at the pictures. They were AWFUL! If one boy was smiling, the other was looking somewhere else or not smiling. She kept saying, oh that looks great, and I'm thinking, who approved you to be a photographer??? I straight out told her, I don't like them. There weren't any good family photo's to send out to friends and family, and only a couple of the boys that were actually decent. So now, I get another lady to do another shoot. The boys decide they've had enough. While they have PLENTY of energy to play in the waiting room, they have no energy to smile for anymore pictures. It was ridiculous! We did FINALLY get at least 1 pose of the family and the boys, and I said, we're done!

Here are the ones that the lady thought were perfect:





Jaden looked as if he could careless to even be present for the photos and half of the time Asher wasn't even looking in the right direction.

Now here are the ones I went with:
(this first one I didn't get any of, but it is cute)

the Christmas tree

So yes, I realize we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet, but today we went and bought out Christmas tree & set it up. The boys had been begging, and well, we had nothing else planned so why not! It was fun. Asher was being a little bit of a stinker, but did finally pitch in.

it's up

yeah, that was a little too heavy




doesn't he look thrilled!




complete

camping w/the boys

So, at some point in time, Shaun told J he'd take him camping. Now, I'm not sure if Asher was going to be included bc personally, neither Shaun nor I were sure he'd be the least bit interested, but none-the-less, J was planning on it. He was planning on sleeping in a tent w/a sleeping bag, fishing, and of course, making smores.

So obviously, summer has come and gone, and J never did get his camping trip. But this week, he's been talking about it an awful lot. And, I never realized that smores were in his idea of camping until this week, bc as he continually talked about it, smores were described on several occasions.

Any of you who know me, know I WON'T go camping. Yeah that has never been and never will be for me! My idea of camping is a cabin/motel in the middle of no where it MUST have heat/air conditioning and a bathroom. Fishing amazingly I have done and would do, but not by myself. See there has to be someone there to put the worm on the hook and take the fish off of the hook. But, smores I COULD do.

Now, I could have just made some smores over my gas stove, but I knew that wasn't what J was looking for. He had described the camp fire that the marshmallows are cooked over, but not too much bc then they get sticky and get all over him (lol, that's what he said). So, I went to walmart and PRAYED that they still had some grills around. I had to find a worker, but I got lucky. He had just the right size in the right price range, and I said "sold". So I bought all the supplies and home we went.

I really thought that putting together this tiny little grill would be no problem. In fact, I actually thought that it'd be put together since there wasn't much to it. Yeah, I was wrong on that one. I'd say it took probably a half an hour to put that little sucker together, but I got it together AND built my first fire ever.

The boys had a blast!!! They loved to see the fire burn and feel it's warmth. J thanked me several times for "taking him camping". Even asked that next time I make a bigger fire..lol. That's not going to happen bc as it was, I just kept envisioning something catching on fire and burning the house down.... All in all, it was a good memory...."camping w/the boys", PRICELESS!!