What we've been up to

Nothing too exciting has been happening the past couple weeks around our house.  It's pretty much life as usual! Blake's been pretty busy at the store.  He's working at getting some new displays and stock out on the floor for spring, ordering plants and preparing for the greenhouse we'll have this year, getting other spring items out like fertilizer, trying to look at Christmas stuff for next year that he'll have to order at the Ace Show the 2nd weekend in March, and just handling day to day operations.  He needs a filing cabinet in his head to just try and keep everything straight! I've been trying to get the house somewhat organized before baby comes while trying to keep Brooks entertained and keep up with the store books! Busy busy for our 'slow' time of the year! 

Here are just a few pics of what we've been up to.  A few weeks ago before we had our snow storm, we had such nice weather that Brooks and I spent a couple of afternoons exploring the backyard. 

 Cheyenne sure loved the company!

Brooks has also discovered a new place to play his iPod :)

We finally got around to getting our shelves put up in the living room.  Blake hates to put up these kinds of shelves, so he dragged his feet on the project for a while.  Finally I got all the shelves marked and measured and leveled on the wall and all he had to do was drill the screws in for me.  Worked pretty well and we didn't have to redo any of them! Thank goodness! I think they will be up until we move out of this house they are that much of a pain! Brooks had to be a little helper throughout the project and get his toy drill out to be like Daddy.  At least one of us could have fun with it!

 

 

Here is the finished product!

Brooks has also really enjoyed coloring lately.  We color in his notebook or coloring books at least once a day.  Finally he is wanting to color on his own and not make mommy draw things for him as much! (I was really getting tired of drawing bird after bird on every page!!)

Happy Valentines Day!

I woke up this morning with plans of running some errands around town, but when I saw the temperature was below zero and was only going to get in the low teens for the day, I decided to alter those plans.  I didn't want to have just a boring day at home, so I tried to come up with something Brooks and I could do that was out of the ordinary.  Since it's close to Valentine's Day and I have a heart shaped mini cake pan I got at ACE this last year (it had been in inventory for a long time and Blake was going to put it on the big clearance sale so I said, sure I'll maybe use it someday!) , I decided Brooks and I should make Daddy some heart-shaped cakes! I wanted to make red velvet, but without the right mix at home, we had to settle for Dark Chocolate cake...I think Blake liked that better anyway!  I wasn't sure how into it Brooks would be, but turned out he had a blast helping!
He looks a little unsure what we are going to do with this big bowl at first! 

He wanted to help crack the eggs, but luckily he settled for watching mommy crack them and he could stir them!

 

He did such a good job stirring and not spilling over the sides!

It got a little messy when he tried to help me fill the hearts, but not terrible!

Waiting for them to come out of the oven and cool on the rack

 First round done!  I wasn't sure how full to fill the pan, so they got a little puffy, but close enough to heart shaped! 

Now for the frosting!

I think we need more milk mommy!

We made pink and red frosting along with the white.  That was fun to see the color change!

Now for the really fun part, sprinkles!!!!  He chose pink frosting for Daddy with red and pink sprinkles

The finished product! Brooks was pretty proud of them! (and Cody, he has started opening his mouth wide when I ask him to smile just like Lane used to! so funny!!)

He only stuck his finger in the very last cake we made...not sure why he all of a sudden thought it would be a good idea, but that's ok! I tried to get him to try it and lick off his fingers, but my little picky eater wouldn't do it.  He wasn't too happy with the messy hands and wanted them cleaned off right away!

I only made 2 pans of the hearts and did the rest of the cake batter into cupcakes that I sent to work with Blake for the ACE employees.  Turned out I think my frosting was a little too thick this time for the hearts because it was really hard to frost the sides of the little cakes.  Next time I think I will use a more runny frosting so it kind of falls down the sides like a glaze and you may actually be able to see the heart shape better!  Overall though I think the project was a success!  Sure kept Brooks and I both entertained this morning!

ACE!!!!

I've been meaning to put up pictures of Brooks' new ACE play mat he got for Christmas from Grandma and Papa, but I just hadn't taken any until last week.  Brooks absolutely loves to play with it...in several ways! He does the typical driving of cars and trains on it, but he also loves to run all over the ACE building.  The kid loves ACE!  We have this air pump that blows out air (it's to fill up his bouncy dog) and he loves it when I pump air onto his face.  Once he's 'pumped' up he runs to his ACE mat and yells, 'AAAAACCCCCCEEEE, AAAAAAAACCCEEEE' as he spins in circles over the ACE building.  It's quite silly! Anyway, Brooks is getting good use out of his new play mat.  It's perfect for him since it has an ACE building, a football field, train tracks, a duck pond, and even a dog in the park!  Pretty much all of Brooks' favorite things!

 Brooks made Daddy drive the ACE truck to ACE to deliver the weekly order :)

Winter!!

Finally it actually feels like winter around here! We have been enjoying the nice weather, but we really missed having snow around! (especially for our snow related merchandise that needed sold at the store!!)  To our delight last night we were blessed with an 8-10 inch snow! Yay! It was actually very pretty when we woke up this morning.  Although it meant I had to leave an all evening scrapbook work night a little early, I was still happy for the storm!  Here are some of the pictures I took today. 

 We lost a few branches from this little tree from the weight of the very wet snow, but other than that, no real damage!  And we never lost power, only a couple of flickers in the morning...thank goodness!

Brooks loved seeing the snow again!

I thought about taking him outside to play in it, but since the silly boy won't wear any mittens, I knew the time would be short.  I just didn't feel like getting all bundled up for 10 min of play!  Maybe tomorrow or later in the week!
So we just enjoyed watching Daddy snow blow the driveway (twice!)

And play a little with Cheyenne.  She loves the snow, but it makes for a messy dog! It is better than rain though since she just gets wet instead of muddy.