Halloween Fun!

This year, we went trick-or-treating two times!! Manitou Springs' local businesses hand out free candy during the day, so we decided to go since we were temporarily living in Manitou (due to water damage at our house). We then went to Aunt Jo's house and ate dinner and trick-or-treated around her house with the Alivia and Nolan's cousins. We have done that every year with Alivia and plan to continue it as a tradition. Jo loves to have all the kids dressed up at her house. :) We kept a handful of candy (m&m's and Hershey's chocolates) and sent the rest with Billie (Ben's mom) to her work to get eaten. We don't eat a lot of candy/sugar in our house so we just wanted a few pieces. I think Alivia ended up with like 5-6 pieces altogether and Nolan can't eat any of it due to his allergies, so I waited until nap time or gave him some chocolate chips when Alivia had her Halloween treats.

Trick-or-Treating in Manitou Springs

'

Alivia and Nolan with there Papa

Nolan as a lion!

Nolan Trick-or-Treating

Adorable 

Another shot of Nolan enjoying himself with his very own candy bucket

Uncle Chris and Alivia

Cuties- (Alivia picked her Halloween outfit, she was originally going to match Nolan and be a giraffe)

I love my little ones!!!!!

Playing in leaves

Running through leaves

Here's the Scoop (our our life lately)!

It's been awhile...

because I have a broken computer.

because I may have, just may have lost all my pictures (1000's of pictures) due to not being responsible and backing them up like I was supposed to.

because I have been dealing with our insurance company, construction workers, and hardware stores.

because we are currently not living in our house.

because I have been preoccupied with everyday life.

It's been stressful...

because I was distracted and accidentally left water running in our upstairs bathroom with the plug in and then left the house to run errands for 2 hours. 

because this accident ruined a large portion of our house.

because our house is in shambles and will take at least a week to put back together after reconstruction.

because we have been out of our house for 2 weeks and probably 2 more.

because we have a lot of items to replace. 

because we all got sick.

It's been wonderful...

to see our church friends and family rally around us and help us during this unfortunate incident.

to have dinner brought to us for a full week while staying in a vacant guest home for the 1st week (that didn't have much).

to stay in a place that is warm, familiar, and close to home- Ben's mom's home. 

to work with construction workers that our honest and respectful.

to find out that damage on our home is not as bad as we first thought.

to find out that our insurance company will pay for all the damages when we first thought they were not.

to upgrade our flooring to lamanent wood from really worn carpet.

to have friends that our willing to help with the reconstruction.

to only have things damaged and that no one was hurt. 

to find that the damage didn't spread to our neighbors townhomes.

to have a loving husband who is supportive of me even when I make mistakes.

to know that God provides in the most mysterious of ways sometimes.

We have lots to be thankful for even during the everyday, crazy, sometimes unfortunate events. God has blessed us even through this accident. When it was looking dark and gloomy, He showed us his love and gave us another little opportunity to trust in Him!!

Water Fun (Round 3)!

Okay- this one really doesn’t have much to do with water except that I was filling up the baby pool in the morning (for afternoon water fun)and the kids were too cute, so I snapped pictures around the pool. Haha

enjoy…

Water Fun (Round 2)!

We take a lot of baths around here. Partly because what kid doesn’t like baths and partly because of doctors orders. Due to Nolan’s very dry skin (blah), the doctor suggested giving Nolan a bath every day for 15-20 minutes. Now sometimes (especially lately, due to laziness and business) I don’t/just can’t do it everyday. And, there are definitely days that Nolan does NOT want to take a bath. But, for the most part, Nolan likes his baths. Here are some pictures of our funny boy during one bath time. He can make some funny faces!

Water Fun (Round 1)!

This summer, we went to eat at the Nevada shopping center and the “sprinkles” (as Alivia says it) were on. Alivia and Nolan had so much fun playing with the water. We went home with a soaking wet girl who jumped with joy in the water. Nolan was a little more tenative with the water but still enjoyed putting his hand in the water! Oh, water fun!

2012 4th of July Pictures!

Super late and super cute! Going through pictures and wanted to upload some to the blog that I never got around to. So… there may be some random pictures from this summer showing up.

Pretty Alivia!

Breath-taking & beautiful! She is wearing a dress I once wore when I was her age. :)

{Our Week(s)}

A lot of crummy things have seem to to come our way over the past few weeks:

~ After finding out that 2 of our neighbors had smoke damage from the Waldo Canyon Fire; we decided we should have an assessment completed, and we did indeed have smoke/soot damage as well. We had to pay our insurance deductible for the remediation. Our insurance company and the cleaning company were not the easiest to work with.

~ The cleaning crew broke a picture frame and Alivia's piggy bank that I got for a gift when I was pregnant with her. I know it was just a piggy bank but it was perfect and cute and adorable!! It matched the piggy bank that I just found for Nolan at a garage sale earlier this summer. I am now on the hunt for one similar or a-like enough to match Nolan’s. After numerous times searching the web and looking at a few stores, I have come up short. I plan to order a hand-painted one or found a cute birdy one at Pottery Barn Kids, which is totally not the same at all but cute nonetheless.

~ The cleaning crew also shut off our freezer and we lost about $75 of food. I am thankful that I only had 2 freezer meals in that freezer. We have sent them the estimate and our just waiting for them to send us a check so we can replace our freezer food!

~ We had a major change coming our way with our insurance starting Oct 1. If we can’t change our insurance plan, we will increase our monthly premium by a lot and that is going to hurt come this winter.

However, even though we have been hit with some not-so-fun things, we have also experienced some awesome blessings and joys. Thanks be to God.

~5 years ago in the beginning of our marriage, Ben's car got hit by a lady driving drunk. It was a hit and run but with there being witnesses, we found the lady. We had to pay our deductible since she did not have insurance to pay for it. We never thought we would get that money back and actually forgot about it until this week. We received a check for the deductible. It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time! God has the best and perfect timing. Just when we thought this month was going to be rough, God brought a totally unexpected blessing our way!

~ Ben’s work, The Garden of the Gods club, set up a fund for people who had damage with the Waldo Canyon fire and this fund helped pay for half of our deductible for our cleaning/remediation work.

~ Several ladies from my church prayed for me and encouraged me with some struggles I have been dealing with, and I have had the best week in a while.

~ We took Nolan to a homeopathic doctor in Boulder and got a few more hints as to why Nolan is STILL having skin issues. Hoping to be away with Nolan’s scratchy skin soon.

~ Nolan’s skin issues as well as mine are seeing some improvement

~ We enjoyed the Butterfly Pavilion and a pumpkin patch that delighted the kids! They had a blast.

~ We have enjoyed a lot of quality time with family. LOVE IT!

~ I had such an enjoyable 27th birthday yesterday! I am a firm believer in a birthday week, so I still have lots of celebrating to do. haha

Nolan’s 1st Birthday Party!!

We celebrated Nolan’s birthday on his actual birthday, August 17th, 2012. It was an enjoyable day. With close to 40 people in attendance, we decided to have it a local park. The park has a fun fountain, and it was supposed to be the last day of the fountain for the season- unfortunately, winds were too high and they closed down the fountain before we arrived. It was a little disappointing, but we celebrated and enjoyed our little guy nevertheless. We played in the park, ran the grass, ate some yummy food (sandwiches, grapes, hummus, chips, and of course cupcakes), and enjoyed being with friends and family. We love Nolan and think he had a great 1st birthday!

Friend time:

Cupcake time:

Play time:

Our family:                             

Cuties!

Here's a picture of my cuties! Updates from the last two weeks and how life has been in the Spiers' household to come soon. Happy Fall!

{Our Week}

Fun week, fast week, tired week! 

Big highlights below:

 

Build a Bear fun! We went to Build-a-Bear in the local mall and used a gift certificate that we have had since Alivia's 2nd birthday. She choose a pink bear and named her "Puppy". :)

Helping to make her bear



Washing her pink bear

 

 

Instituted family movie night on Friday and picked Sesame Street (hoping for family traditions in the making). We were all on the couch for a good 15 minutes before Nolan was ready to play. 

Totally into Sesame Street, aka Elmo

Lots of play time. Here Alivia wanted to nurse her new bear "Puppy". She had to feed her on "both sides" :) 

Nursing time

Learning time is going wonderful. I think I could crack down a bit more and get some more done throughout the week. But, she is having fun and for the time being that is my number 1 goal: to make learning time fun. She asks for almost daily! I love hearing her ask "can we do learning time". This week we learned about the letter "A". I'm enjoying teaching her some basic concepts.

Letter "A" fun



We went to Uncle Chris' football game this weekend and enjoyed ourselves! I almost didn't go due to a really awful headache, but am so glad I decided to go. It was an absolutely beautiful day with a perfect breeze. Fall is almost here. His team lost but we had fun cheering them on. 

 

 

Kiddos and Grammy

Alivia practicing cheer

 

Alivia practicing cheer

Uncle Chris taking the kids out to the field after the game

Uncle Chris and the kiddos

Alivia loving being on the field



... And, a random picture of Alivia's beautiful hair



{Our Week}

Yikes, this week has been busy. A good busy, but still busy. I am finding that I can get a little overwhelmed when super busy. i love people, and I love being around/with people. But, I still need my down time- more than ever now as a mama. :) We have been hanging out with family a lot. With both sides in town, we see family 2-4 times a week. Ben has been so busy, so we have been eating dinner a lot with family. So, mainly it's our nights that our busy. This weeks highlights consist of....

1. Alivia's 1st ballet class. CUTE! She loved it and asks to practice each day, along with asking when she can go back to ballet/dance class! She is taking it with one of her little buddies and they had so much fun together. Just look at the cute "uniform" she gets to wear to her (once a week) class.

2. Visiting the train park here in town and making a new friend for a few hours. Nolan is enjoying one of the train pieces in this picture.

3. Taking a trip to the Happy Apple Farm with the Grandma and the Spiers' family


Spiers' kids & Alivia

 

Lauren & Alivia (Cuties)

Alivia picking her own apples

Nolan giving it a try

The apples, we went with Gala



Almost 3 feet tall

Finding the perfect "itty bitty" pumpkin

Nolan wants a pumpkin too :)

 

 

Playing in the pumpkin field

 

 

Wow, how I adore these two little pumpkins!

 

4.Shopping at King Soopers with Ben and getting a random drink from Starbucks (we don't shop together much in the summer and we rarely get drinks from Starbucks, I'm more of make-it-home gal or Kangeroo coffee fan)

5. Starting a 6 week study/mentoring session with some ladies from my church
6. Getting my first bulk purchase from a local co-op

This week, I kept to my "rhythm" pretty well. I did go off a bit on the evenings as we went to eat with family a lot this week, but I stayed pretty much on top of it during the daytime this week. We ended up only doing 2 days of learning time rather than 3 this week, but I am going to do a review session tomorrow after church and before we celebrate Ben's big 28th! :) Gearing up to spend a fun day with Ben and celebrate him tomorrow!!