Fred Claus

The kids and I saw the trailer for this movie on tv tonight.

We've been waiting for it to come out because about a year ago, Carter and Cooper auditioned for the role of Vince Vaugn as a young boy. The movie was shooting in London. Cooper still blames Carter for not getting the role. They wanted the boys to hold a teddy bear and say something like "You'll always be my little brother." Carter wouldn't do it because he thought it was stupid. HaHa!

The end is in sight...

With the exception of a few details, most of the remodeling of our house is complete. My plan is to do a before/after slide show, but things are a bit crazy right now with the new business...so here is just a sneak peek!

Hmmm...

"So Cooper, how is school?"

"Good"

"Have you met any new friends?"

"Yep, I have three new friends. They are Mohammed, Abdul, and Ahmed."

Congratulations Mark

Grandpa Mark threw a killer party on Friday to celebrate 25 years of Dakota Bumper.

Great Conversation

Just added to my list of favorite things is this new product called TableTopics. I just got them last weekend and think they are such a fabulous idea! In general, I don't think we (as a society) engage in great, stimulating conversation often enough. It really is a skill, and I am hoping to teach my kids (and maybe even my husband) to value a great conversation. We are planning to use them around the dinner table to provide some topics besides what did you do at school today? Some of the questions are "what do you complain about more than anything else?", "if you only had 5 more years to live would you change anything about your life?", "would you choose to be the worst player on a winning team or the best player on a losing team?", "has anything bad ever happened to you that turned out to be for the best?" I got the original edition, but some other editions are family, couples, teen, and girls night out.

Big Day

Get your copy today!

Here we go!

My photography website is officially live, so take a peek!

rialeephotography.com

You might think of this as the beginning of my journey, but to me this also represents the culmination of a lot of hard work. A lot. So, just for a minute, I'm going to sit back and be a little bit proud of myself. Feel free to share the link with anyone you think might find it of interest. I am off to the Junk Bonanza in the cities for the weekend to see if I can find any good treasures for our new house!

A day late...

Here are the kids on the first day of school...even though it was yesterday. All reports indicated that the first day was "awesome!"

School Starts Tommorow

We had a great "last weekend of summer". We spent time at the pool and the lake, went to a parade and a football game (which felt more like fall), cleaned the house and garage, and went out for our annual "first day of school eve" family dinner. Tomorrow starts the days of waking up early, bus rides, homework, fall sports, getting to bed early, and best of all eating lunch at school! (That's best of all to me since I am tired of making it!)The boys played alittle water football with their cousins at the lake this weekend.

I went shopping today to stock up on snacks for the kids to take to school....perhaps I went alittle overboard?