The Bins!

 September 6, 2013

My sister Julie and her kids flew into town and surprised me on Thursday night.  Apparently, everyone knew, except me.  I was completely surprised!
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On Friday morning, Jewels and I headed over to the Goodwill Outlet, also known as "the bins."  So named because it is a giant warehouse full of huge bins filled with clothes...like the pile pictured above.  It's the ultimate in thrifting, as you buy all clothing items by the pound.  Julie and I left with 69 items of clothing...all for just under $30.  That's an amazingly low cost of just 43 cents per item!  I love it!

 I always find great treasures when I go there!

This time I left with 4 pair of pants for myself!

Including a pair of 7 capris and a pair of wool pants from Banana Republic!  

 I also found a pair of Hurley shorts and 3 pairs of Levi's for the boys.  Plus these super cute T's for Paxton.

And I found a stack of T's and sweaters for a few baby quilts I'm about to make.  Pinks, creams, purples and grays for Josh's sister Ariel's baby girl.  And browns, plaids, oranges and greens for Josh's brother Jake's twin baby boys due in a few months!

T-Shirt Yoshi

 September 5, 2013

Paxton and I were in the Dollar Store and I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween.  He said, "Yoshi!"  Then I saw a stack of t-shirts and thought, why not?  We grabbed 2 green ones and one orange, for a total of $3.  Then we drove home and went to work.  Paxton helped me the whole time.  He was so excited to put it on, he wore it the rest of the night! It doesn't get better than a super comfy, $3 costume and one really happy boy!

(For those of you not familiar with Super Mario World, Yoshi is Mario and Luigi's sidekick and is some kind of Dino-dragon creature.)

Versii convinced Paxton to let him try it on too!

When the boys got home from school, Kaden and Versii both wanted to be Yoshi too...in different colors, of course.  Kaden has since decided to be a pirate and Versii is still leaning toward being a "Golden Yoshi"

Back to School

 September 3, 2013

The boys first day of school.

Kaden starting 5th and Versii starting 1st.

 I love this picture of all my boys together!

 10 years old and it's embarrassing to be seen with your Mom.  We were able to sneak this quick picture of Kaden in his empty classroom, without anyone seeing.

Versii still wanted me to go with him to his class.

Although, he's not embarrassed to be seen with me, he purposely will not look and smile if you are trying to take his picture and other people are around.
The boys had a great first day at school!

Soot Soot Everywhere!

 September 1, 2013

Paxton was playing outside and had been wanting to clean Grandpa's truck.  All of a sudden from inside, Mom see's this little black boy dart across the backyard and yelled for me to "Come quick!"  I race to the door to find this mess!  ---Apparently, Paxton discovered the inside of the tailpipe on Dad's truck.  It's about 4 inches in diameter, so it's big enough for him to reach right in and well...coat himself with the soot!

Lucky for me, I keep Ivory Bar soap on hand for spot cleaning clothes.  (It's excellent for getting out everything from oil and grease spots to baby poop.)  Anyway, between the soap and some eye makeup remover, I was able to successfully clean Paxton up without too much trouble.  But, it still took 48 minutes to clean him up!

This kid is just the cutest trouble maker!

Last Summer Swim

 August 31, 2013

We've had a lot of fun this last week of summer.

In the past week, we took the boys to Kid's Club, Playdate PDX and Inflatable Kingdom.  

And Saturday, we went over to my cousin, Kathy's, to swim.

Kaden's favorite thing is swimming!

It even ranks higher than video games, his other favorite.

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Kathy's little girl, Kylee, loves to swim.  She would just float all over the pool in her water wings.  But today, she wanted to be on one side of Kathy and she wanted Paxton on the other.  She would get so upset if he wasn't right there.  It's cute how much she loves Paxton.

 Kaden insisted on wearing this little life jacket for awhile.  He looks so funny wearing that tiny thing.

And after Paxton was done, Versii finally got comfortable floating around in the pool in the other life jacket.

Just one of several jumps. 

We stayed at the pool for a few hours.

Most of the time, we had the pool to ourselves.

Kaden could have and would have stayed there all day.

Might have been his favorite activity of summer!

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Thanks Kathy and Jared for having us.

And thanks for the cupcakes and queso.

They were delicious!

Jumping for Joy

August 30, 2013 

We started my 34th birthday off at Inflatable Kingdom.

It's one of the boys favorite places to go.

They say we went there for my birthday.

But I say it was the only open play before school starts, so it had to be today.

I just think Versii's hair is hilarious!

After Inflatable Kingdom, Mom took the boys and I out to lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  I love their spumoni ice cream!

While we were there the boys were cold and snuggled up together in Grandma's fleece.

The boys worked really hard to make me a special birthday banner.

Top Left: Art by Versii, Top Right: Paxton

Bottom Left: Paxton wrote "Mom" for the first time

Bottom Right: From Kaden

Mom and I.

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In the late afternoon, I took Josh to the airport.  

He had to fly down to Utah and take advantage of the 3 days weekend to work on our house, so we can sell it.

Last year he had to work on my birthday and this year too.

I told him, next year he'd better make it a point to spend the whole day with me. 

In the evening, my sister's card came in the mail.

These tickets were inside!

I can't believe she got me tickets to see OneRepublic!

They are one of my favorite bands!

She knew I wanted to go, because when I saw they were coming to town, I text her and said she should come up and go with me.

My sister Julie is always spoiling me!

You are the best Jewels, Love you!

(Josh says his gift to me is that he's going to the concert with me and won't complain.  Haha, we're going to have so much fun!  I can't wait!)

For dinner, my good friend, Liv picked me up and we met the girls at Olive Garden.  We had a great time talking and laughing!  I love these ladies! 

Thanks for a great night!

L to R: Me, Daya, Becki (holding Liv's baby Frances), Margo and Olivia

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I had a fantastic day!

Thanks to Mom for watching my boys so I could go out.

And thanks in advance for watching them while I enjoy the concert next week!