On a happier note...

I forgot to blog that Matthew obtained his first pet in June thanks to Grandma.

Introducing to you: 

"Whiskers"

a male manx kitten

Grandma said he needed a pet to bond with now that we have a new home, and I am happy to 

announce, they are the best of friends.

The cutest picture ever of Whiskers.

Crazy cat.

Whiskers' Momma "Hum"

"She was my sister..."

"... now I don't have a sister." --Matthew Zane

It is with a heavy heart that our beloved family dog "Ruby" was laid to rest today.

She was a good old dog. We always teased Matthew that Ruby was his sister because he is an only

child. He hated us saying that but eventually it grew on him and he did consider her his sister.

Unfortunately, Matthew didn't cry when he heard the news. He takes death differently than most people

do. That dog was a special part of our family. She was very fond of the boys and would have done

anything to protect them. She will be greatly missed.

RIP 

"Ruby Tuesday"

10-31-05 to 7-25-13 

(she was only a few months younger than Matthew) 

Ruby on our wedding day.

Matthew and Ruby

Family Photos 2011

Phoenix and Ruby 

A big thank you dinner for my parents!

My parents have been more than amazing. I can't begin to thank them enough for the all the help and support they have given us throughout the years. They are the only ones who've been there for us through the ups and downs. 

This past Sunday, I decided to make them a meal in our new home. It was quite a change from me making the big meals for them at their home. 

The menu consisted of: French onion soup, porterhouse steak, baked potatoes w/all the fixings, and cucumber salad. :) 

My happy spoon working on the onions. 

Love our big table that seats 6. And my Mom found this table for me. 

Onions cooking down. 

Dad and his boys. 

Steaks on the grill. 

Love my new soup bowls. 

What a fantastic meal. 

Love that soup! 

A little look inside our new home!

A housewarming wreath from a friend.

Matthew.

Downstairs living room. 

Downstairs living room. 

Pretty proud of my rustic decor, laundry room. 

Downstairs bathroom. 

Master bedroom. 

Living room. 

Dining area. 

Love the kitchen cabinet handles we found and my Dad installed. 

Kitchen

Upstairs bathroom.

What's Yellow, Black, White, and Gray???

Matthew's New Room!!!! 

Thanks to his Daddy for doing all the painting and me for finding the idea off of Pinterest!

The start, painted the white stripes. 

They call me "mellow yellow." That's the name of the yellow paint. lol

Matthew's Daddy is working hard to get his room done!

Starting to come together. 

All done! Matthew's pretty happy! 

Now all we need is some wall decor and Matthew's yellow shag rug should be here any day now. :) 

3 semesters down 1 to go

Can't believe at this time last year, I was 1 down 3 to go..... now I've only got 1 semester of Nursing School left. Time flies.

Crazy Ice Storm April 2013

So the first few days of April wasn't too bad. Nice enough to stop sending the boys their snowpants and snowboots to school...until this happened....

They ended up missing 3 days of school and having a late start on Friday. Sounds like some more wintery weather is on it's way but the high will be 50 degrees next Friday-Saturday so hopefully it all melts. We definitely need the moisture. Guess we'll take it how we can get it.

Coming Soon! May 6th!

Our Family is officially becoming more and more official. Sean and I decided it was time to be done with renting and looked into buying a home in January. It has been a very interesting and painful process to say the least. We found one, but the sellers didn't want to go down in price too much. We didn't really like the neighborhood either. We really want to get out of the big city and out into the country more.
So a few more weeks slipped by and I noticed a new listing in a little town on March 15. Of course that was a Friday that the listing came out and we couldn't see it until the following Monday. So we celebrated our 1st Wedding Anniversary on St. Patrick's Day and hoped this could be the house for us.
We liked it and put in an offer on it and they counter-offered and we accepted. :) I've learned a lot in the past few weeks. We have a great realtor and our mortgage officer has been pretty helpful too. We found home insurance, had the house inspection, re-negotiated some work to be done, I took a first time homebuyer course, and we've been figuring out how we are going to decorate.
Matthew has been very excited too. We'll be painting his room a mix of yellow, white, gray, and black stripes. I've already found him a cool yellow computer chair.
Of course I've gotten a lot of help from Pinterest coming up with ideas in what to do.
I can't wait to take ownership of our new home in May!

Yoshi Family

Matthew has been a little in love with Mario and Luigi lately and all the characters that go with it. So much that he actually refers to himself as "Baby Yoshi," and I in turn have become "Mama Yoshi," and of course Daddy is "Papa Yoshi." It's pretty cute to hear him say "you mean Baby Yoshi," if I say "good night Matthew."

What a great little boy I have.

Forgot to Post this funny question

I forgot to post this question that Matthew asked me one night while we were getting ready for bed.

This was totally out of the blue too... He asked, "Mom, what's this squishy sack called that holds my nuts?"

I had no idea what to say! So of course, I said, "uh, scrotum?"

Um....How thoughtful?

Yesterday marked the 100th day Matthew was in school so far this year so of course it comes complete with fun activities and what not. Each kid had to bring to school 100 pieces of something to eat to combine into a snack and 100 pieces of something else to count. Matthew brought fruit loops and tooth picks.

Anyway, Matthew came home with his packet of papers celebrating the 100th day. I was looking through it and noticed a page where he was to draw a picture of what he will look like at 100 years old. So he drew a picture of him and Phoenix looking like old men with glasses on each holding a cane. Then I noticed a gravestone beside Matthew, it was hard to make out, but I could definitely see RIP on it. So I asked Matthew about it. He said, "oh that's you Mom. I put Mom-RIP." Oh my. That child of mine.

As far as his Dad goes, who knows what happened to him, there was no grave stone, when I asked Matthew where his dad was, he said that he was 1,000,000 years old. Sheesh.

Not sure who's better off? Living to be a million years old or dead in the ground? At least he was thinking about me, in a creepy, dead sort of way! LOL

Happy New Year!!! 2013!!!!

Here's to a new year, a new me, and a new "us" in 2013. We are going to work on our eating habits by eating smaller portions. It'd be hard to cut out everything we like to eat, that would just equal failure! We are going to ex.... uh.... exercise more too. Our little family could definitely use more of that. Sean goes to the gym currently and now just to get Matthew more active to. He's definitely not the athletic type but I figure I can plan for more days at the park or something to sneak exercise in on him. I am starting out slowly... a few push ups here, a few crunches there, working with some weights and up-ing my water consumption.

So here's to hoping!