Things that Make Me Happy

Christmas lights. Lots of Christmas lights.

Mickey Mouse with my family.

Watching my two older boys do something I lost my nerve to do...

(PS...I did ride this coaster after all and it was AWESOME!)

Watching my boys fight Darth Vador.

Because we weren't certain Collin wouldn't accept his offer to join the dark side...:)

Creating life long memories.

My heart is SO happy!!!!

Disney

Florida isn't as warm as we thought, but we came prepared and it's not slowing down the fun or magic!!!!

We've spent two days at the Magic Kingdom and with low crowds, we've only had to wait over 10 minutes for ONE ride so far....amazing!

We even took a fake grumpy picture

And the boys have done great with all the walking and waiting!

And we even did some park hopping today after riding the monorail.

At Hollywood Studios Collin impressed all by riding both the Tower of Terror and rock 'n roll roller coaster! Mind you, he wasn't a fan of either afterwards!

And now it's "warm" enough for pool time at the resort. 

Best. Vacation. EVER.

The tree

I have the most wonderful husband for many reasons!  This weekend he agreed to put up the Christmas tree for us (after pointing out it was two weeks before Thanksgiving).  Not only did he agree to this, but he had the tree up and assembled before any of us were awake on Saturday.  It was such a fun surprise that thrilled all of us!

Mitchell and I continued our tradition of putting together most of the tree (Collin puts on all of his decorations at the end....he likes to play with them all first :)).  And this year he discovered that he can put the star on the tree with no help from a step-stool.  Whoa.

At the beginning of the month I had the great honor of being notified that I was one of 4 finalist for Counselor of the Year through the Kansas School Counselor Association.  It was such a surprise and again an amazing honor to be considered for this.  I love my job and the people I work with!

Weekend and Extended Forecast

We won't be able to make it to Nebraska for Thanksgiving this year, so we decided to make a weekend trip to Hildreth. It's always fun to see our nephews and how much they've grown!

Wyatt is old enough now that he really plays with the boys and it is so cute to hear him call out their names. And Aiden is such a sweetie....trying to keep up with them all the time!

Thanks to grandma and grandpa....we were also able to get away on Saturday evening and meet some good friends in Kearney.

While the game didn't  turn out like we would have liked it to....we had a great time with the Croghan's...only our time together was too short!

And palm trees and Mickey ears can now be  seen in our extended forecast!!!

Very shortly this will be my boys....minus the pigtails!

Trick or Treat 2014

Our ninja and Batman had a great Halloween season.

It started a few weeks ago with trick-or-treating at the zoo. We've done this several times over the years with our friends, the Ingram's, so it was fun to spend time reminiscing with them while also making new memories together!

It was a chilly but fun evening of trick-or-treating in Manhattan last night.

And the boys had a great time showing off for great grandma 

and got to see grandma Ammeter's latest crazy get up!

On a sadder note, our crazy cat Leo did not come home Tuesday morning and we have not seen any signs of him. Leo always wanted to be outside and truly just wasn't an indoor kitty, so we knew letting him out like we did/he wanted that this could happen...but we are all still very sad and missing his friendly meow and giant fluffy tail.

Fall Walks and Four Day Weekends

We just got home from picking up the boys from a fun filled weekend in Nebraska with grandma and grandpa!

They had a long weekend with conferences last week and had so much time during their four days off with them.

Before they left we took advantage of the beautiful fall days last week and walked home from school....there was some protesting but we still got it done.

And while the boys were gone we had more exciting mail from Disney 

World...our magic bands arrived!

While the boys were gone, Chad and I enjoyed some time together doing things we don't normally get to do like watching an entire world series game at a local sports bar...it was such an awesome atmosphere having everyone cheering on the Royals!

But we are glad to have the boys back this afternoon! Mitchell recently presented his first book report and we are very proud of how well he did.

Fall Picture...2014

While taking care of things at my parents while they were away this past week, I was able to get the boys to pose with some awesome fall back drops.

All these photos were mostly pain free with very little bribery....mostly.

They really do get along most of the time, however they do have their moments. But they pretty much realized that mom likes pictures...and if mom isn't happy no one is happy. 😃