Twas the night before....

Shopping break

Bad idea

For the parents that can't say no. :)

Holiday traditions

Start of the holidays

Eggnog and Jim Beam whiskey.

Intel Winter Wonderland

Every year Intel puts on a winter wonderland where Santa comes to visit and they have all sorts of crafts and projects for the kids. Here Lauren and Cole are waiting to get some balloon animals from one of the many clowns.


Here Lauren is decorating her cookie. Cole decorated one too but wasn't too interested in spreading the frosting. He was preoccupied with eating the sprinkles.


"Seriously, when you asked if I wanted to make a crown, you didn't tell me I had to dress up. My facebook peeps better not see this."


"Now this is just ridiculous!"


"Finally a non dress up craft table. Wait a minute, is this a bracelet?"


Lauren concentrating intently.

Multitasking

Someone has been skipping naps recently. However Cole couldn't stay
awake even during his haircut.

Weekend Plumber

Our plumbing fixtures in the house definitely needed some upgrading. Here's one side of our kitchen sink. In addition to the plumbing work I did this weekend, Cole was doing a bit of his own plumbing.



Even worse was the garbage disposal side. The food would get stuck on the bottom of the rubber piece and start to stink. Even scrubbing it wouldn't remove the food/mildew stains. Needless to say, it was time to upgrade the strainer baskets and the rusting garbage disposal.



Here you can see the matching strainers for both sides of the sink. We had these in our old house after remodeling our kitchen so I bought these off of Ebay and efaucets.com for pretty cheap. The strainers are made by Mountain Plumbing.



Here's the new garbage disposal drain. It has a built in stopper too. Previously we didn't even have a stopper.



Can you tell which one is the new one? I bought a Viking 1 HP garbage disposal as a scratch and dent closeout. It's much quieter and performs a lot better than the previous Whirlaway model. In case you are in the market for a new garbage disposal, I recommend reading this thread on the best garbage disposals.



Another problem that plagued all of the faucets in our house was leaky cartridges that then rusted the hardware leaving stains on the counters.



Here I changed out the faucet to a model that the previous homeowner installed in the rest of the bathrooms. It's not the best quality but it gets the job done until we remodel the bathrooms.....sometime after the kids go to college.

Easy TJ's soup

We made this Tomato Lentil soup after tasting it at Trader Joe's. It's really simple and surprisingly very good. Just heat up the soup with the lentils on the stove and serve with sour cream (plain Greek yogurt for a healthy substitute) or Parmesan cheese.

Happy Halloween

We carved pumpkins again this year and the kids helped out a little more by scooping or attempting to scoop out the pumpkins. In the end, Daddy carved both pumpkins.




Here's Cole as a firemen and Lauren as a witch. They really enjoyed trick or treating this year and even managed to say "Trick or treat" a few times.

Life restored to normal

Our Tivo HD unit died recently. There's nothing that puts the kids faster into a whining mode than telling them they can watch TV but not have one of their shows available. Here I purchased a 2 terabyte upgrade off of Ebay. There are a few aftermarket sites that sell hard drive upgrades such as Weeknees.com. There price was $400 for a 2 Terabyte HD. Instead I looked at Ebay and found several "reputable" sellers that were selling them from anywhere between $111 to $150 for a 2 Terabyte HD. I bought mine from this seller.



Replacing the HD is quite easy. You need a torx screw driver but after removing the cover and then another 8 screws, you put in your new HD and then reverse the process. The HD came with instructions on how to do the install.


Here you can see the old 160 GB HD and the new HD. Our HiDef recording capacity went from 20 hrs to 320 hrs.

Super blender

We recently bought the Blendtec blender at Costco after seeing their roadshow and special pricing. Here you can see one of our fruit and spinach smoothies. This is by far the easiest way to feed Lauren and Cole veggies.


Here's the after picture. After having seen both the Vitamixer and the Blendtec at Costco, it was difficult to figure out which one was better. Both are extremely expensive and both seem to make smoothies, ice cream, soups, etc. very easily. If you want a good comparison, check out this comparison site. There are a ton of YouTube videos and sites that compare them as well. One big difference is that the Vitamixer won't fit under your cabinets on your counter whereas the Blendtec easily fits. The deciding factor for us was the price. The Blendtec was a little cheaper and had an 8 yr warranty from Costco.

Poor baby

Cole got croup last night. It was also the first time we have broken
our rule of not letting the kids sleep in our bed at night.

Big Bugs

We recently checked out the Big Bugs exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden because who doesn't like big bugs as well as it was free with our Phoenix Children's Museum membership.

Lauren and Cole sitting for a potential Christmas card picture although it was much too hot for them to sit still. This was probably the best picture from all the shots.

Pest Control

Saw this owl on our neighbor's chimney. You can easily hear them at night.

Summer vacation in San Diego

Every summer the kids have a week off from their all year school. For the last 2 years we have gone to San Diego. This year we rented a house with one of our friend's and their 2 kids.


Lauren and Cole at Sea World taking a picture with some sort of animal. Maybe a sea otter.


Here Lauren is trying to generate waves so she can create some electricity.


Cole offering up his starfish.


The kids enjoying lunch at the kids table.



After the aquarium and a nap, we headed to the beach where the kids just loved to play in the sand.


After going to the Zoo, Sea world, the aquarium, and the beach, we hit the Safari Park.


Amazing we could get all 4 kids to look at the camera.



Future BFFs?



The only thing that kept us adults from losing our mind. Scrabble too after the kids went to bed.

Barber shop

Cole's first visit to the barber. They even put on Dora for him.

Toy helicopter

Picked up this remote control helicopter at Costco for only $20. It uses 3 channels so you can go up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. Much better than those Air Hog 2 channel helicopters that you can't really control which direction it goes.

Big boy bed

It's official. I'm a big boy now! If I want to get out of bed after being tucked in, I can. If I want to read more books, I can. Finally my parents have realized how mature and responsible I am and have placed this great trust in me. This isn't the first time I've been "tucked" in a bed. I'm still not happy with Lauren about that.


My parents thought it would be funny to take a picture of me sleeping. Luckily I didn't fall off the bed.