All over the place... (this post that is)

It's amazing how much there is to catch up on when you skip a week or two of blogging. Life is just so busy and the kids at this age have so many happenings and growing moments.
Before I forget, I must report on some oldish news. Our new old car is now running and cruising the town. We picked it up August 28 and towed it back home and were able to get everything ready to run Sept. 17. So, after nearly 3 weeks of seeing it in my driveway we were finally able to take it out for a family outing on Saturday Sept. 18. For the time that it sat at our house, Kalvin would ask me almost every day, "Mom, do we get to drive in the brand new car???". I think it was almost just as hard on him as it was on me having to wait. Kalvin and Tristen love the new car! Really, it's better than the truck in so many ways! Probably the best thing for the kiddos is that the bench their seats sit on are a standard sized seat where as the truck bench is narrow and the back is straight up, so their car seats were constantly slightly tipped forward. Kalvin's first words after getting to sit in the car for our first drive was, "Mommy, I lean back." I was sad to not get the first moments on video, but know they were both squealing with delight. Kalvin could hardly contain himself when we showed off the sunroof. They boys both get window seats where the windows actually come down. That was another thing Kalvin commented on being neat about "the brand new car'. It's funny that every time we're leaving the house Kalvin asks "Are we going in the brand new car?". He is so proud of it!

Kalvin was out helping with the car as much as Duane would let him. Here he is sporting the "sunglasses" that Daddy has him wear to protect his eyes.

I really love the car as well! I'm not ready to humble myself enough to drive a minivan, but real SUV's can be pricey so we compromised on a small SUV instead. Actually, there wasn't much of a compromise, really, Duane just got me what I wanted. He's good to me like that. I really appreciate that about him though sometimes my decisions are not the best so I wonder if he does it sometimes to try to teach me a lesson (like when we met him for lunch the other day and he recommended the fresh-out-of-the-oven cheese pizza, but I wanted the onion and bacon pizza only to discover it was about 20 hours old and cold).
There were several hurdles to get the vehicle here, but I am as happy as can be and the kids love it! It was a pretty big deal for me that Duane get it street ready. I postponed most shopping for at least two weeks till I could drive the new car and the last week before it was ready to run, Duane stayed up late any night he was home to finish it for me. Sadly, I was not able to join him in working on it (though I think he would have loved "a lovely assistant", but I had photography work to do...
Thank you, Duane, for sacrificing sleep to get the car up and running for your nagging wife!

Tristen got stuck under the kitchen mini island.

 What kind of mean mom am I to laugh and take a picture before helping him out?!

 Kalvin like to build cities with his blocks and then place the army men (that he got for his birthday from his Uncle David Mickelson) around and on roof tops.

 So, this may look funny with mud caked all over Tristen. I was laughing at the time, but really he eats a lot of dirt and I'm afraid it's because of the dirt that his lead levels are creeping higher and higher, closer to dangerous levels. His first test was three months ago and measured 9, but just a week ago they tested 20! Someone from the State is going to come inspect our house to find where the lead is coming from. I'm sure it's on the walls that have not been repainted, but my guess that in Tristen's case, it's more likely coming from the dirt he stuffs in his mouth. 

Ironically enough though, after the doctors appointment, Tristen hasn't put near as much dirt in his mouth. I am grateful for this because I was near banishing him from the outdoors forever!

 Judge me if you will, but I meet my clients at Starbucks a lot of times. I hate finding babysitters and this particular time, I brought Kal and Trist with me. I couldn't help but get a shot of at least Kalvin the first time he'd been in the coffee shop.

 What is with little boys and laying and splashing in puddles?!

Tristen's favorite thing though is to lay down and suck up the water in pooled areas (yet another theory for why his lead levels are high).

 A typical messy day in the living room with Kalvin half dressed.

 Alright, so for those of you married women who have not been out on a hot date with your hubbies in a while, GO!!! Find a sitter, drop everything else and get out! It took Duane and I over a year to do it out here and now I regret not doing it sooner because it was more refreshing than I thought it would be. We only went to dinner (though our waitress was ridiculously slow and it took 3 hours to finish), but I enjoyed every minute of it! We laughed together, ate, reminisced and ate more and joked and ate. We were practically rolling out of the restaurant by the end of the meal. It was an evening I hope to not soon forget. If we had a lot of money we would probably go there again, but it's just too expensive. I shot a wedding there a couple months ago and the restaurant manager wanted photos of the wedding setup, in exchange he was to give me a $40 gift card, but after putting the money on the card, he realized there was already $44 on it, but decided to give me the full $84 gift card anyway.
I was a little embarrassed taking a picture of the food after it came out and I only have this one, but you can see the mango shrimp (with a flower for decoration--or was I supposed to eat it... I dunno). It was to die for (almost anyway). The main entree average price was $15, so it wasn't terribly priced, but considering we have a hard time paying $1 for a hamburger at McD's, it's a little out of our price range.

 Kalvin's new favorite buddy, Olivia. Sadly, her family will be leaving the branch in less than 3 months. I know Kalvin will be upset and I think I'm going to be devistated. Really, we hang out with this family ALL the time! We have each other over for dinner at least twice a week on a spontaneous whim. These two like watching shows together and when they do, Kalvin is always sitting right up next to his buddy with his hand on her leg (really, it's not only this one time--I just happened to snap a camera phone photo).

 Here they're playing doctor. I was a little concerned because she was being a little forceful with her tools. She would say, "Does this hurt??" and I would see Kalvin's face cringe as he said, "No...".

 Kalvin likes creating his own sandwiches when I'll let him.

 So, I watched an hour long you tube clip my brother, Vaughn, emailed me about the dieing worth of the dollar. One point they made was to stop giving money to Walmart. It'd be a hard conversion to stop shopping at the super chain store completely because it's so ingrained into my shopping mind, so I'm not ready to give it up entirely, (mostly for the fact that it's SO much cheaper in most cases) but I've begun taste testing the differences between Walmart and other brands to help sway my decision.

Great Value Old Fashioned Oats: 

Great Value VS. Quaker Oats

outcome: they taste the same...

 Whipped Cream:

Great Value VS Cool Whip

Outcome:

Angie says Cool Whip, Duane says he's not sure.

 Tristen is at that stage where he is hard to keep up with. Church is hard because he just wants to run around and still has a couple months before nursery, and at home he likes to stick his hands in the toilet and drink the water after Kalvin is finished. Here, I found Tristen in the kitchen sink holding a pair of scissors.

 Pure Dedication. Running in the rain.

 So, I will NEVER take the car to the auto shop without a plan of getting home within the hour. I'm not sure what I had in mind, but I thought it'd only take an hour or hour and a half to have the car worked on and finished, but we were there for 4 hours! I will be leaving out of town in three days now and my list of things to do before leaving is growing. Tristen and Kalvin were starving because I got there just before lunchtime. I won't go into any other details other than I will never, NEVER go to an auto shop without a definite plan of how it's all going to run down and when I get to be home. Here is a picture of Kalvin when we went outside for a walk. We got there with the boys cleaned up and in nice outfits and left with them dirty from head to toe (you can see the Kalvins dirty face here).

 

Father and Son doing those boy things. Here they're playing the boxing game on the Wii. Kalvin will often come to me and say, "Come on Mom, let's go fight! (referring to the Wii Boxing Game--I think.)

Kalvin called these his brand new shoes.