More home improvements

Seems like there's always something going on in this house! The kitchen light decided that it didn't want to work anymore.  That was a few weeks ago. I finally had to pick out a new light fixture and fix it before my sister's visit. This was a little tricky because with the light not working, I wasn't sure if the power was still on since the breaker wasn't labeled. So... off to the local home improvement store again! I finally had to figure out how to use one of there multimeters.

Anyhow... here's the before. The fixture was just hanging by now on the wires.

And after.  Seems like LED is the way to go these days! It's amazing how much brighter it is compared to florescent lighting:

By the way, here's our new art display in our living room :-)

Hopefully the boys will not be tempted to pull their artwork down!

Poor Charlie

A few days after returning from Phoenix, poor Charlie started to have really runny diapers.  It was so bad that his school actually called me to pick him up early from school last Thursday.  His poor bum was so red and sore. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Pedialyte didn't seem to work. We figured his system just needed to run its course to get back to normal.

The next day, I read something about "toddler's diarrhea" on the internet. Seems that the too much fluid intake especially juice overwhelms the ability for the toddler to absorb water and electrolytes, resulting in diarrhea. After reading this, I realized that during our trip to Phoenix, while Charlie was at the daycare - he did not eat very well and all he had was water and juice. There we go! That made me even more upset with the sitting agency!... for not being able to find a sitter for us and having the boys at home vs. the daycare.
Reading on more, it seems that we needed more fat and fiber in Charlie's diet. Thankfully Charlie loves his milk so there was so worries about increasing fat intake. It only took a day for his digestive system to get back to normal.  And Charlie was back happy eating again!

Charlie loves to feed himself now and he's so happy when he eats :-)

Arizona Women's Open

I was determined to play well this time around after a not-so-good final round at my last event (the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia).  To add to the challenge, I had to find a daycare at the last minute to make sure the boys were taken care of while I was golfing.  The sitter agency failed to notify me about the inability to find a sitter until the day before the tournament - on a Sunday! So first thing Monday morning, I started down my list of places to check out for the boys. Luckily the first place I visited (at 6am!) was able to accept both boys.  Charlie cried as usual but I was really surprised with Graham.  He was a little hesitant, perhaps nervous by the large number of kids.  Graham normally only has about 10 kids in his classroom. There were more than 20 in this room! Well, needless to say, by day 2 and day 3, it was "I don't want to go to school" and "I want to go home!".  I felt so bad for Graham, which made me even more angry with the sitting agency!

As for the tournament (Dec 4-6), I played well enough to earn my entry fee back. I shot 73, 73, and 72 to finish tied 20th place. It was nice to be able to put three consistent rounds together. Too bad it was my last event of the year - would have been nice to bring that momentum to the next event!

Thankfully once the tournament was over, the weather continued to stay nice.  The boys and I went to the Phoenix zoo and the boys enjoyed just playing in the backyard with all the construction toys:

And Graham loved to practice his golf too in the backyard:

It's only a matter of time before little brother Charlie figures it out!

Butterflies!

During our trip to Phoenix last week, we decided to check out Butterfly Wonderland.

No, the photo isn't blurry.  It was actually that misty walking into the atrium. I guess butterflies love humidity!
There were butterflies everywhere:

There was a lot of pointing. Butterfly here...

Butterfly  there...

Butterfly on daddy...

Butterflies everywhere!

I guess the butterflies really liked daddy.  Bobby was very proud of his little new friend:

 Ooohhhh.... little friend getting a little adventurous:

Hmm... trying to get a kiss???  Bobby is definitely starting to squirm!

Nope, no kiss but the butterfly actually decided to check out Bobby's nose instead!  Bobby was obviously felt disgusted (and violated!) by now!

Well, if anything it was at least a really pretty blue butterfly:

After a while, the boys were more interested in the fish pond:

And after a while, all of us started to really sweat. So it was time to go.

The butterfly emergence gallery was kind of cool:

We did see one butterfly cocoon wiggling a little, but no butterflies emerged while we were there.

The place was fun and exciting for the first few minutes, but after a while there really wasn't too much to see. There were some fish tanks and an an active bee hive that you could see through glass inside the building as well, but for the price, we thought there would be a lot more to see.  Needless to say, we were a little bit disappointed so I think we are sticking to the zoo!

Graham singing at church

We're not regular church-goers, but Graham's school is associated to one and since he was singing during service last week, we decided to check it out.
When we arrived, we headed towards the gym as this was where all the kids were gathered. Once there, we decided to just stay (and skip service :-) and wait until it was time to sing. Graham was busy rehearsing with his friends:

And Charlie was busy eating, as usual:

And then, it was time!  He was definitely excited to be up on stage:

Graham did much better during rehearsal but nonetheless, it was good to see him on stage and to see him enjoy himself. We especially loved how he was bowing to the crowd at the end!

Charlie is 15 months old

Charlie turned 15 months old a week ago.  And he's still not walking!  He did take my hand the other night and started walking or more like "wobbling" around:

And Charlie has a lot more teeth now.  When we were in Malaysia early October, I didn't even realize that his upper first molars (#4s) were out!

And now, his bottom first molars are out too.  I think his lower cuspids (#3s) are starting to cut too. He definitely doesn't have any problems chomping on his food these days!

And what else can I say about this boy... he loves his trucks and tractors!

That, and airplanes! Just like his big brother Graham!

Trick-or-treat!

Happy Halloween!  Thankfully, the weather last night was not too cold.  The boys were able to wear their outfits without having to cover it up with a sweater!
For whatever reason - for the last few weeks/months, Graham kept saying he wanted to be Spiderman this Halloween. I wonder if it had anything to do with his new Spiderman flip-flops that I bought for him this past summer! Thankfully I found a Spiderman pajama outfit just this past Sunday.  It came with little footsies so I just snipped those off.  He was so happy when he put on his outfit!

Here are the superheroes for the night:  Spiderboy with obvious empty trick-or-treat bucket, Batkid with original black cape, and Super(wo)man with red Hilti shirt/cape :-)

We practiced trick-or-treating with Daddy (dressed as "golfer) at the door before heading out and Charlie was so happy with his first pack of candy!

Here we go! Graham was so excited about ringing the doorbells, he barely waited for us.  As you can see, he's already at the door!

Halfway through and Graham is showing off his bucket of candy and Charlie is still hanging onto his packet of candy (showing me that he wants to eat it)!

Finally home and going through the stash of candy with Daddy:

The boys sure love their candy and chocolate, especially Charlie!

And as for school earlier that day, I put the boys in "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" shirts. That was actually the original plan - bright red outfits with blue hair, but Graham REALLY wanted to be Spiderman!
Anyway, Graham had to be in a black or orange shirt for school so I opted for black (since he didn't have an orange one!).  I went cheap and found some scrap fabric in my sewing box and with a handy-dandy permanent marker, I went to work :-)

Ta da!

The side of the fabric was a little fray so I used my glitter nail polish from last year's halloween witch accessory.  It actually worked quite well!

So here's Thing 1:

And Thing 2:

I couldn't get a picture of both boys together and Thing 2 was not cooperating very well.  He really wanted his ba-na-na!

Pumpkin Patch

It was another trip to the pumpkin patch before Halloween.  Graham didn't want to put on his Halloween outfit and as for Charlie, I found a bee outfit for him in the closet (a hand-me-down from his cousin in MN).

So, okay... the outfit was a little bit small for him.  And Charlie is doing that thing with his mouth again!

Hmm... which pumpkin should we pick???

Runaway bee!!!

There were quite a few more things this year at the pumpkin patch. And Graham did not have the same enthusiasm with the doll/play-houses like he did last year.  Instead, he liked the bouncy house:

And while big brother was playing, Mommy and Charlie decided to take some pictures - Giddy up, horsey!

And then, Graham got to milk the "cow":

At the very end of the pumpkin patch, the boys got to play a little more.  Charlie loved sitting on this little tractor and instead of going forward, he was pushing it backwards with his feet!

And Graham just loved piling up the gourds in his little wheelbarrow and pushing it around:

I'd say it was a good day at the pumpkin patch.  Until next year...!

More tree cutting

We had cut down and trimmed some trees last year and we decided it was time to cut down a few more trees this season.  Well, when I say "we", I mean we hired some people to do it :-)
Here's the before:

And here's the after!

We did decide to take that big tree down afterall:

And the guys started a big bonfire:

... which Bobby and Graham enjoyed tending to it at the end of the day:

Look at all that wood!  Eventually, the guys are coming back to haul that way. Eventually!

Our yard definitely looks a lot more spacious now.

Large enough for some golf pitching practice :-)