After Christmas Blues

Here is Ben setting out cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve right before bed.












Next, here is after Santa delivered the drums he was so badly wanting, with Collin watching him bang away.















Here is Ben and Logan playing with their pretend leaf blowers, that broke after very little use! And then when we got home, Ben had to try out his roller skates...another request from Santa!




We had a great Christmas this year. We did miss having family around, but it was fun, since this is the first year Ben has really gotten the whole "Santa" idea. He was super excited. He woke us up at 6:15 on Christmas morning, and we opened gifts, then we went to his friend, Logan's house for Christmas lunch. They had a great time playing all afternoon. At the end of the day, both Ben and Collin were exhausted, especially Collin!! Now it is all over, we have put down the tree, and it is a little sad until next year! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, here are a few pics of ours!! Angela Grace, I had to put these pics of Collin in here because I know you will love the outfit!! Now you can make fun of Earle for letting him wear a John John.







CB

Rockin' Out

Here is a little clip of Ben performing "Jingle Bells" with his toy guitar.

He had two programs this year, one at church, as a shepherd, and one at school as a reindeer. At church, he simply walked onto the stage and right down the steps to me. At school, he got on stage, spotted me and started crying and at the end of his class song, he dramatically ran off the stage to me. But he has them all fooled, he is not a shy boy. The lighting wasn't the best and our flash didn't help too much. Sorry for the dark picture. Enjoy!! Happy Holidays!!

Here is just a token picture of Collin...he was there to watch Ben's performance...but we just can't leave him out!!

The Greatest Gifts, An Abundance of Blessings

Okay, I want to reflect with everyone some of the greatest blessings of my year.

There are more than a few people who I would like to thank.

I want to thank the Postpartum Unit, Labor and Delivery, and NICU at St. Elizabeth's hopsital in Belleville, IL, for all of our care over our extended 5 weeks there. This is one of those circumstances when I truly felt humbled, and I was so overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation, I did not even know how to express. Chris, in post partum held my hand through some horrible times, made me laugh at myself and made life bearable. Kira did a manicure for me in the hospital bed, and many other nurses made me feel like a human, when I felt no where near human. Also, thank you to the NICU for caring after Collin as if he was their own. I am so indebted to you all. They took care of Collin and I in such an amazing way. They were truly angels tending to me. It is so strange, I got to know them, and strangely enough, when Collin and I were both released, I was sad to go because I had to say goodbye to these people, knowing, I will probably never see them again. What a gift they have given me!! Thank you to my parents for helping me with Ben during that time, and also, helping with our move. Thank you to the Starbucks people at Hart Food and Drug for always being so kind to me when I felt horrible and Ben was screaming in the Starbucks! Thank you to all of my friends in Illinois, who helped me this year. Angela, Becky, Jana, Jenny, Michelle, Debbie, April, etc....Thank you for the 2 weeks of "Carrie" goodbye get togethers that you gave me before we moved...that really made me feel loved and special and gave me strength to put myself out there when I moved here to Louisiana. Thank you to all of you new Louisiana people for accepting me as your friend...Angela C., Rachel, Whitney etc... Thank you Rochelle, for sticking in there for the past 13 years, I think! Thank you to Earle for still loving me through the gross pregnant stages...and there were some really gross ones this last time, and the crazy post pregnant phase which also included "crazy moving to a new state Carrie". Don't forget Ben, who makes me laugh, and Collin who calms my soul. I am so blessed by you. I am also so blessed each day when I hear from a friend or family member through this blog or facebook, that I have not heard from in years. That is truly a blessing. Through everything, it is so great and humbling to reflect on this years blessings. God is good. Here are a few pics of the boys, that did not make the "Christmas Card Cut"

Food for Thought on Holiday Cookie Exchanges...

Yes, it is that time of the year, gifts for everyone, decorating, Christmas parties, and lots of Cookie Exchanges! If you are anything like me, you enjoy these evening or afternoon events, if you can muster the energy to get out and enjoy yourself after a day of work or a day of chasing after your little elves. Here are a few tips I have figured out to help the Cookie Exchange season run a little smoother.

1. Pick recipes that require only a few ingredients that are special. (Too many special ingredients require a pretty big grocery bill)
2. To make the most of your time, bake a few times for one event and freeze them (I try to do it during nap time for Ben and Collin).
3. Make your cookies or candies smaller so that they will go much further.
4. After you go to the exchange don't feel like you have to share all of these goodies in your home, take them to church and school programs and parties, so that you don't have to keep baking.
5. If watching your waistline is important to you, remember that the freezer is your friend. I know I am much less likely to take the rock hard frozen sweet treats out of the freezer and bite into them than thawed out ones...don't get me wrong, you will try this, but after a time or two your teeth will hurt too bad!! Plus your husband won't eat them all this way.

Here are a couple of recipes that I am going to use this year. I have 18 dozen cookies to make, and the ones I am doing this year are the same as last year because...we moved...so all of you Louisiana people haven't had them yet!!

English Toffee Cookies--------------This is my grandmother's recipe

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
2 giant Hershey Bars( I use the Symphony Bars with Toffee bits )

Cream together butter,margarine, and brown sugar. Mix in egg yolk, flour and vanilla. Bake at 375 until it is a golden brown, about 18 minutes. Spread Hershey Bars on top while hot and let cool. I double this recipe and make it in a half sheet baking pan. It makes quite a few depending on how small you cut them, and they are rich.

Oreo Truffle Balls

1 Package of Double Stuff Oreos
1 Package of Cream Cheese
1 Package of White Almond Bark
1 Package of Choc. Almond Bark

In food processor, mix together the oreos and cream cheese. Roll them into small balls and then put them into the freezer to let them get hard. Next, get the oreo balls out of the freezer, and follow the microwave instructions on the Almond Bark package, and dip them into one of the Almond barks and completely coat the balls, then after the dipped ball has set a little, with the other color, dip your spoon in it and drizzle over the top for a decorative finish. This is a great one to let the kids help with the dipping of the Almond bark. Then you just freeze them until the day of the party!! They are really tasty!

So anyway, hope you enjoyed the post. I would love to hear anyone else's easy and inexpensive holiday tricks!!! Have a good week!!
Carrie

Soapbox: Subject, Dogs!

These are our dogs, Max(black one) and Molly(brown one). They were our children long before children...and we love them. I choose this post to vent to all those who have inside dogs that require upkeep and you just can't bear to give them away are make them outside dogs...Here goes...

This week, I picked our dogs up from the kennel, and they did not get a chance to give them a bath because the worker pulled out her shoulder the day before. I decided not to pay another 60 dollars to get them bathed, because it had already been $264.00 to have them boarded over the Thanksgiving holidays...this was a mistake. It was too cold to bathe them outside, so I had to hoist these big dogs over the bathtub wall in our guest bathroom and bathe them. Unfortunately we do not have a sprayer on our shower in there, so I had to rinse out all of the soap by dumping bowlfuls of water over them until they were rinsed. By the time both dogs had been bathed, the drain was clogged with hair, and the walls were coated in a fine layer of hair from all of their shaking off... and our house smelled like wet dog for about a day an a half.

The next morning, the kids allowed me to sleep until about 7:30 and I got downstairs and told Ben to go into the playroom...he responded, "Mommy, there is something shew whee in here." The only room downstairs that is carpeted in our playroom and of course, Molly had had a huge bout of diarrhea all over the carpet. So I had to clean than before I fed the boys. Then yesterday, I discovered that the dogs had been all over my bedding and one of them must have had gas or something, there was a fowl smelling juice that had leaked from one of their hind ends, all over some of my pillows and bedding..so that entails much more laundry to do today. Not to mention that I vacuumed the whole house on Tuesday afternoon, only to wake up Wednesday morning and the carpet was so covered in dog hair that it looked like it had been 3 weeks since the last vacuum. Then this morning, I got the stroller out of our shed to take the boys on a walk, only to discover that from the shed to the driveway, I had accidentally ran the stroller through a pile of dog poop and it was now all over Ben's shoes and the bottom of his jeans because he had put his feet up on the wheel!! I guess that about covers it! I do love them both, which is why I can't bear to get rid of them, and I am afraid if we made them outside dogs, they would always be filthy...but for those of you who have kids or not and are thinking of getting a dog...think "small dog" and only one!! Or this week could be yours!! Have a great weekend!!

CB

Thanksgivng Road Trip!

We left on Friday morning for a week long road trip to my parents in Paducah Ky.

We decided to try and pack as many visits into one trip as possible. Our first stop was in Murfreesboro, TN to see our good friends the Coggin family. We had a great time visiting with them. Here is a picture of Ben enjoying a fun morning at Gerald and Joanne's house.

Monday evening we met some friends from St. Louis in Mt. Vernon, IL for a quick visit at the Cracker Barrel. We spent a quick couple of hours trying to catch up while also trying to wrestle our crew of kids. Where are built-in babysitters when you need them??

We had a great visit with our family. Ben spent a lot of time playing with Lauren, his cousin. We had three new babies in the family this year, Collin, Luke and Lukas(my uncle Scott's 4 month old)

My grandparents spent the day with all three of their children...a first in many years. We tried to take lots of pictures!

We had a great time with the entire family. There are many more pics I could have posted, but I am afraid the post would be too long.

It was tiring but well worth the trip!!

1st Big Easy Girls' Night

Well, I finally did it!! I finally talked enough friends into hanging out with me that we were all able to go out for a kid free night! Some of the ladies here at the Tamany Oaks C of C agreed to join up for first Girls' Night at the Olive Garden in Slidell. To those of you who I have left behind, I miss you terribly, but the fun must go on! Everyone actually had a good enough time that we are planning to do something next month as well. My sister, Lorie was able to come up and hang out with us. We had a great time and ate lots of pasta. Earle was nice to hold down the fort at home with the boys. Here are a few pics from the evening, and then a few of the boys.

CB

Trunk or Treat and Other Things

Yesterday was an eventful one for us at church. Ben was in rare form and topped it off during the communion/offering time. I was serving and he was causing a scene b/c he wanted to do it with me. We had to get him to go stand with Carrie until it was time for all of the little kids to put their money in the kids offering jars. To make us feel better, our preacher brought his four year old up to say the offering prayer. Ben could not believe that Conner was getting to go up on stage and "preach the gospel" into the microphone (that is his phrase for just about anything that takes place on stage). So after the offering, Ben asked if he could go over to Conner and give him a hug and Carrie thought that would be okay. So Ben (never really intending to go see Conner) headed straight up to the stage and over to the podium and did his best impression of the song leader. Sadly, the song leader was singing from his seat so Ben had center stage all to himself. After the shock of what he had done wore off, I tucked my tail and went up on stage and got him off. Needless to say, we were horrified. Its funny to you all but it wasn't your kid. That's right, we have the little boy that everyone thinks is hilarious and precious b/c of the things he does but is secretly glad that their child doesn't do the same. The lesson here: NEVER trust your 3 year old when they say they want to walk across the church and give one of their friends a hug.

I'm not done there. Lesson #2. For all of you dads, don't teach your kids that it is okay to pee-pee outside. If you do, it is very likely that they will end up doing said trick on the playground at school and you'll be hearing about his new trick from his teacher. That was our surprise today when we picked Ben up from school. I felt horrible because that one was all on me.

Finally, last night was our church's annual Trunk or Treat and we all had a great time. But since I am on a roll with the sage advice, here is Lesson #3 for this post. If you are going to dress up, either for a church Trunk or Treat event or ANYTHING with little kids, please don't wear this costume...

Yeah, I think a few kids (and quite possibly a few adults) went home last night with a new phobia of clowns. There was one little boy who I don't think will ever be quite the same. Ben was a little scared at first but once he realized who was under the mask he was okay taking candy from her (that's right, it was a she under there) but approached with caution. Others were not so lucky.

Collin was the cutest one there and had there been a contest, I'm sure he would have won (I am a little biased though). Here are the rest of the best. Enjoy.

Will you take me home with you?

Hmmm...what do we have here.

Almost there....

JACKPOT!!!

A well deserved break. Please tell me we don't have to go back to the clown. Have a Happy Halloween.

Earle's Birthday--

Yesterday was Earle's 34th Birthday! We had lots of fun. Ben helped me make a cake for him and we had a special day. To top it all off my mom was here for the night, and babysat for us. Earle and I got to go to Emeril Lagasse's for dinner in New Orleans. We had a great time. Here are a couple of pics from the day.

Also, once again April has tagged me... and I thought it was pretty appropriate given the time...and no, don't worry, it is not 100 things. So here goes...

MY MAN

1. Who is your man? Kenneth Earle Brown

2. How long have you been together? 7 years

3. How long dated? 3 months

4. How old is your man? 34

5. Who eats more? Earle

.6. Who said "I love you" first? I think we both did

7. Who is taller? Earle

8. Who sings better? Not him...no offense

9. Who is smarter? We scored the same on I.Q. tests, but he is more left-brained and I am more right brained.

10. Whose temper is worse? Mine

11. Who does the laundry? I do.

12. Who takes out the garbage? Earle does

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do

14. Who pays the bills? Earle does

15. Who is better with the computer? Definately Earle

16. Who mows the lawn? Earle does, when I do, it is kind of all over the place

17. Who cooks dinner? Mostly me, but he will grill the meats for me.

18. Who drives when you are together? Earle

19. Who pays when you go out? Earle

20. Who is most stubborn? probably me

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? usually me

22. Whose parents do you see the most? Mine

23. Who kissed who first? Earle kissed but I complied.

24. Who asked who out? Earle asked me out

25. Who proposed? Earle came to my music classroom

26. Who is more sensitive? Earle

27. Who has more friends? Probably me, but Earle has a few longtime great friends.

28. Who has more siblings? We both have a brother and a sister

29. Who wears the pants in the family? I think we share the pants, but in different areas, and I am good with that.

Okay, I tag, Angela Grace, Becky, and Rochelle(hint, hint...start a blog!!) Oh yeah and Sandi

Texas Fun!

Okay, I realize we are not keeping up with the posts as frequently as I would like but there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get these done sometimes. Lucky for you, I have every other Friday off and I am finally getting to sit down and get this done.

We have been very busy as of late. Two weeks ago we made a trip to see my parents in Kilgore and on Saturday we headed over to Forth Worth to see my niece Summer perform at her HS football halftime show. She is a senior this year (I don't even want to think about that) and is the drum major for her band.

Not that anyone else would really care, but I made my first trip offshore last week on Thursday and Friday. It also marked my first time in a helicoptor. Pretty cool stuff. I'd post pics but

1). I am probably the only one who cares

2). I didn't take any pictures

These platforms out in the Gulf of Mexico are actually pretty impressive. One of mine floats in 3,800 feet of water. I think these things are pretty cool.

But back to why you all check this site. The boys. Ben seems to grow up a little bit more every day and Collin is still quite possibly the best baby we have ever seen. He never fusses and can pretty much go with the flow, which we be critical for him as he gets older and has to keep up with Ben. One quick story, over the past month or so we (mainly Carrie) have been teaching Ben about 911. We told him that if he ever sees Mommy on the ground and cannot wake her up to dial 911 on the phone. Well, about 2 weeks ago Carrie was doing something and Ben got ahold of a phone and proceeded to dial 911. Carrie thought she caught him in time before the call went through and went on about her business. A short time later there was a knock at the door and a squad car had been sent out to check on the call. Apparently it did go through. No harm was done and the officer was very nice about it all. On to the pics.

Collin LOVED the drums at the football game. Everytime they were playing he just flailed his arms and kicked his feet.

Me and my buddy.

I'll try and do a few more this weekend. Enjoy the weekend.

100 Things About Me(Carrie) that you might not know...

Okay, April tagged me, so here goes, by the way April, I really enjoyed reading yours!





100 -- I sometimes find myself singing along to Laurie Berkner even after Ben has fallen asleep in the car and that scares me...especially when Earle is singing along too!!


99---I load the dishwasher and clean the kitchen every night before I got to bed, or else I am annoyed at the situation in the morning.


98---I really hate putting laundry away!


97---I hardly ever iron, and if I do, it is probably for church.


96---I generally wash my hair every other day, and sometimes I wake up and realize it has been 3 or 4. (The big clip is handy)


95---If I had time, I could sit and watch the Real Estate channel for an hour...Earle has caught me before.


94--Some of my favorite shows other than prime time shows are: Any Rachel Ray show, Property Ladder, Hidden Potential, Flip this house


93--I occasionally have to pluck a long chin hair.


92-- I don't always use lady like manners at home...I sometimes fear what Ben has learned in that regard!


91--I like having fun with friends, both as couples or just girlfriends.


90--I often over analyze things that have happened in conversation with others and I worry about what people think about me.


89--I love being a mommy to Ben and Collin


88--I love being Earle's wife


87--Though I was blessed by being able to have my babies...I did not love pregnancy itself.


86--I think there are times in my life when looking back at myself, I was a little weird, and somewhat dorky. I worry about what others think of me now, if they only knew me during those times...college was one of them, high school was another, it is a good thing Earle and I hooked up after!


85--I was baptized when I was nine.


84--I have to admit at nine, I was a little excited about the communion cracker and grape juice...


83--I have always worried about my weight, but never the less, I love to eat! So I fluctuate.


82--My hot drink at Starbucks is a grande, nonfat, mint mocha


81--My cold drink is a Venti, Java Chip lite, with no whip(only 7 points for WW when I am counting....if I am really trying to be good, I will get the Mocha lite, only 4 pts. for the Venti.


80--I used to get starbucks everyday, but now I can't afford to get it that often with the two boys.


79--I like singing classical music, but I really don't love listening to it for a really long time.


78--I don't love to exercise but I try to do it when I can because it helps my day and I am good after.


77--I do love walking, especially on a cool fall day.


76--I have a hard time sitting and being still.


75--I started trying to read through my Bible in 2004 when I was pregnant with Ben...I am almost through it, I go through spells when I don't read at all, and sometimes only a chapter on the toliet...but slowly but surely, I am almost there. I just put my little ribbon in the spot where I am supposed to start next, and the Lord has kept it from coming out of its place.


74--I am very close to my family, but we all live far away.


73--I am the most close with my sister Lorie she is one of my very best friends.


72--I am not the best about keeping up long distance friendships, but if I really care about you, after a few years go by, you will hear from me. I am trying to do better about this...horray for Blogs and Facebook!


71--I love CHOCOLATE!!!!


70--I really hate RATS... and we had some in our garage when we lived in TX! I was horrified!


69--I am all about communicating and not really passive aggressive. It goes against my nature.


68--I am not really into politics, but around voting time, I always pipe in to make a somewhat educated vote.


67--I am always changing, my perspective always changes.


66--For some reason, I am really not a fan of Winnie the Pooh. I hate it when I am at Target and I see what I think is a cute outfit on sale for one of the boys, and then, Oh, well, it has Winnie the Pooh on it.


65--I love decorating my house, it just takes me a while to figure out what to do. I think I am acutally pretty good at picking out colors and stuff.


64--I love playdates, but I hate that many times, it is really hard to visit because the kids are going crazy!


63--Christmas is my favorite holiday.


62--I like to bake, but I can't keep it in our house, because Earle and I really will eat the whole pan!


61--I love my boys' feet, I think they are so cute.


60--I like people who are genuine, and don't mind just being themselves.


59--I admire my husband.


58--Sometimes..I can be a little bossy to Earle.


57--I am more of an organized person than I percieve myself to be. In order for me to not be a little stessed out about a cluttered situation, I like things to be about 15 min. away from being a pretty picked up house. Mondays can be hard, because I try not to worry about all the cleaning on the weekends.


56--I hate it when folded piles of laundry explode all over our house like little ant hills. Does that happend to anyone else?


55--I love it when my boys laugh.


54--I wear the ugliest things to bed...I really need some girl pajamas...poor Earle.


53--I realized today that I was high time that I threw away my pregnant undies, they are not very flattering and really way too big, even for spare pairs.


52--My favorite ice cream is mint choc. chip.


51--I have cut tags out of my clothes before if I am going on a trip so that people with me might not see the actual size. (Not as bad as Seinfeld scratching out the 33 and putting 32 or whatever)


50--I don't like really scary, disturbing movies.


49--I do like movies that are somewhat action/adventure with a twist.

48--I have two dogs, Max and Molly, and yes, I do still love them.

47--The dogs sleep in our room, and yes, sometimes our bed.

46--Because the dogs get on our bed, I have to wash our bedding often, so I never buy expensive bedding, because I replace it probably every year.

45--The first place I shop for my kids clothes are consignment stores. I look for things in the 2 dollar range or cheaper, if I get to where I am paying four dollars for a shirt, I take my 4 dollars to target and buy the shirt there.

44--I have decided that in most cases, shoes are easier to find at payless or somewhere than at consignment stores. Plus, you can't really skimp on the kids shoe size.

43--I generally never spend more than 20 dollars on any item in my wardrobe, unless my mom has gotten it for me. When first I enter a store, I go straight to the 75% off rack.

42--I do however think that a good pair of jeans, and a good bra are worth more than the 20 dollars.( those are the exceptions.:)

41--Earle and I did Crown Ministries when we first got married and we really try to keep ourselves in check with those principles...the link is provided to the right of the page.

40--Someday we would love to have no mortage payment, but that is still a very long way off. Other than that, we try to stay living debt free...thanks for Earle to teaching me, I knew nothing about budgeting before we got married...but as most of you know, he does all of the bills, and I think that is a great thing. I would hate doing myself. It is not my talent.

39--One of my favorite resturaunts is Carrabba's, and I have not had it in a long time. I keep moving to places that don't have one.

38--I love Qudoba...I wish we had one here.

37--I like spicy food...I can sometimes hang with the guys in that division.

36--I hate that I am having a hard time with more things...

35--I love being a mom, but it is definately not as easy as it seems...Ben teaches me new things everyday.

34--One thing I have learned this week from Ben is that he gives the most amazing apologies, I mean, he takes responsibility for what he has done and verbalizes it and tells you he is sorry, many times with no prompting. It has been an example to me.

33--I once had my picture in a Scotland newspaper with the Queen of England..and so did April...she stopped and waived at us.

32--I am a housewife that needs to get out once in a while....I like to keep myself busy.

31--I like to dance, even if I am not the best at it.

30--I have colored my hair since I have been out of college...but over the last year, I am back to my own....only to discover like 5 gray hairs?!!!

29--When I sleep at night I prefer that the sheet is not tucked in so that it does not pull my toes down.

28--I also like to sleep with one leg in the covers and one leg out of the covers, and when I am really sleeping, I can't be touching anyone.

27--I repaint over toenail polish many, many times before I actually take it off and start fresh.

26--I would love to get away with Earle, especially to Scotland, he has never been.

25--I am a little afraid of going on a cruise because of just being on water for so long and probably all of the scary left at sea shark movies like Open Water.

24--I am the tiniest bit afraid of flying, I am nervous every time.

23--I hate passing semi's on the road when I am driving, and I get nervous being the passenger of someone else driving by one.

22--I am nervous driving in heavy rain.

21--I don't think I will be voting for Hillary.

20--I am so thankful that God has blessed me with such a wonderful family.

19--I think I am really getting somewhere now.

18--I like to write poetry and stuff, it has been a few years, but I think I might be really good at writing sappy hallmark cards...seriously.

17--Generally speaking, I am not a touchy feely person.

16--Earle says, and I think he could be right, that I am not really as nice and sweet all of the time as people think I am. I think it just must be how my talking voice sounds.

15--I give side hugs.

14--I am already feeling bad for the people who have taken up so much of their time reading this.

13--It is morning now....I started this last night.
12--There are many more interesting things I could post here, but I am not sure they would be appropriate for everyone to read.
11--All four of my grandparents are still alive.
10---I love reading Sandi's Works for Me Wednesday
9--I am not a morning person...it takes me a while to feel like talking.
8--Earle and Ben are morning people, they talk a lot, so it can be a little conflicting.
7--It is now day 3 for the hairwashing.
6--I wear pretty inexpensive make-up...I usually by it at Wal-Mart.
5--I do splurge for Biologe Shampoo and Conditioner.
4--Collin is waking up.
3--We are leaving for a trip to TX today.
2--Collin was up much of the night with a cold.
1---I say "Halleleuiah, when I am scared and I sing strange high pitches when I hurt myself on accident!!!!!!!
Yeah...I can't believe I am done. I am going to tag Sandi, Angela Grace, Rochelle, Becky and Lorie!!! Have a great Weekend!!

For those of you that I tagged and you don't have a blog yet, use this as a starter post and go up to the top right of this page and click on "Create Blog"
Carrie

Home Improvement

Well, this week we had a new countertop installed and bought a new kitchen faucet to go along with it. Being the handy man that I am (note the sarcasm) I was confident that I could install a new kitchen faucet. I quickly ran into a problem when I realized that our new sink was lower which now made the plumbing for the old disposal obsolete. This caused me many headaches and countless trips to Lowe's trying to make it fit with the limite space. Then on Saturday when I had just about decided that we were going to have to do w/o a disposal if Carrie ever wanted to have running water in the kitchen again (yeah, we went 3 days w/o running water and were washing dishes in our bathroom sink), she asked me if I had considered moving the disposal to the other side of the sink. Sounds like she should have been installing this thing herself. Well, that sped up the process and after a couple of more trips to Lowe's to get the right pipe, I successfully intalled the faucet and disposal. It may have taken 4 or 5 or 10 times longer than what it should have but I saved $200 in installation fees between the disposal and faucet.

Why am I telling you this, b/c I had a little help while doing this and I got a few pictures out of the deal so all in all, it was worth it. Ben loves to mimic just about everything that I do that involves work (mowing, vacuuming, whatever). Its very cute and he actually watches very closely and does almost exactly what I do. Well, when he saw me doing this he had to get out his tools and give me a hand.

Not quite, the typical plumber's view you would expect but its pretty close although I don't know too many plumbers who wear Spider Man underwear.

It was funny to watch because he tried to go in on his back like I was doing but he quickly decided that was too difficult and uncomfortable so he stuck to the position you see here.

Ben does not typically go around shirtless but he had just gotten through eating an ice cream sandwich and we didn't want him to get it covered in ice cream but I think it added to the overall look of the picture.

Finally, I would hate to leave out Collin so we here is a picture of the two boys in matching outfits that they wore to a BBQ we went to on Saturday with my team members from work.

Have a great week.

Catching Up

I sat down tonight and realized that it had been awhile since I posted. When I started this I had grand intentions of posting a few times per week. As you can see, I am lucky to get one or two. I'll try and make up for quantity with quality. So over the weekend we went to a hibachi grill (the Japanese restaurant where the chefs do all of the tricks with the knives and food). We weren't sure how Ben would react but he loved it. They even had some chopsticks held together by rubber bands that he used to eat his rice. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera so we didn't capture this Kodak moment with pics. So, instead here is a treat of Ben singing the song he learned at school last week.

In case you can't tell, he's singing God our Father. Its his prayer of choice before dinner.

Next up are some pictures of Collin we took the other night. Sometimes we think he looks allot like Ben at this age and then other times we think he has his own look. It really varies from picture to picture.

And finally, since I can't guarantee I'll post again before the weekend we would like to wish Mops (my mom) a HAPPY BIRTHDAY a few days early. I'll not divulge how old she turns on Thursday but Ben wanted to leave you with a special message.