Chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp

I swear there's a conspiracy going on.

Chirp...chirp...chirp is the sound our smoke detectors make in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT and only in the middle of the night when the batteries are dying.

               

Why do they go off at 2 am instead of 2 pm?

Why have 4 of them gone off in the past 3 weeks and only between the hours of 12 am and 5 am?

Why are they always in the most INCONVENIENT places?

Picture this:

-4 am chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp

-Matt and I lying in bed.  "NOT AGAIN!"  "Where is it coming from this time?" "I think it's the one on the other side of the wall." "The one we can't reach without a ladder?" "Yup!" "What are we going to do?" "I don't know?" (We don't own a ladder.)

-Matt leaves the room to make sure.

-5 minutes later he returns..."I think I'm gonna need your help so I don't kill myself."

-We walk out to the living room and I see Matt has taken one of our barstools, set it under the culprit, with 2 big pillows from our couch sitting on top of the stool.

-Me: "You really want to do this?  Matt: "What else are we going to do?"  Me: "I don't know!"

-So I grab the legs of the stool and hold on for dear life.

-He climbs up onto the stool and with such balance, grace, and some ballerina moves I've never before seen, gets up on his tip tip tippy toes and reaches for the alarm.  He can barely reach with the very tips of his fingers, but some how miraculously unscrews the thing and yanks it from the ceiling.

-TA DA!!!

I wish I had pictures.  It was quite a sight.  Now with 4 of our smoke alarms currently down, I hope we really don't have a fire before we get them functioning again.

M.I.A.

Yes, I know I have been missing in action for awhile.  I haven't blogged or even checked blogs since before Christmas.  Life has been a little hectic.  Sometimes I wonder why Christmas is my favorite time of year.  We are often so busy shopping, cleaning, baking (okay maybe not me), and decorating that we have little time to enjoy it and definitely little time for the "normal" stuff.  Anyway, I'll try to get you caught up with what's been going on around this Kelly household.

Christmas was magical as usual.  This year we got to fly to Arizona and spend Christmas at my parent's house.  We were there with my parents, my brother, and my Uncle Ryan and his family (they also live in AZ).  We also got to see my Grandpa, and my other aunts and uncles on my dad's side of the family.

We spent our time doing the usual Christmas traditions like: decorating gingerbread houses, decorating my parent's house for Christmas (since my mom wasn't there to decorate before hand), baking and cooking (yes, I helped) for our traditional Christmas Eve get together of Chili and Cheesy Potato soup, and just spending a lot of time with family and loved ones.  Here are some moments captured on film (or SD card).

We made fun reindeer sandwiches for the kids when we got together with some of my cousins to do gingerbread houses.  They turned out really cute.

Brayden really gets into the decorating.  Andrew really gets into eating all the candy he can.

 

Here are the final products...

This one was my cousin Collin's, he is 7 years old.  We lovingly referred to it as the frat house.

 

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

So after we had our traditional get together with family on Christmas Eve, we got the kids ready for bed and settled down to read from Luke 2 and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in our Christmas pj's.

Then the kids went off to bed...Fast Forward to Christmas morning...

Our kids didn't even wake up until around 9:30, which was heavenly considering we are always up late the night before.

Here they are with their Santa gifts.  Brayden got his long awaited for Nintendo DS, and Andrew got his very own set of golf clubs with a putting green.  These pretty much sum up my boy's obsessions.

The boys also got a nice keyboard from Santa Grandma and Grandpa.  We are going to start piano lessons as soon as we can get the keyboard here from AZ.

Matt surprised me with my dream camera.  I actually cried real tears.  It was a total surprise.

Santa left the boys a note.

Then we went to my Uncle Ryan's for a delicious AND pretty Christmas feast complete with roast beast.

  

We played some Rock Band on their Wii which was sooo much fun.

 

The rest of the time in AZ...

The rest of our break we spent watching movies at home, going to movies like "The Tale of Desperaux", playing with our new toys, sitting in my parents spool (spa/pool), and just hanging out around the house. 

Since my parent's live on a golf course, Matt decided to take the boys to the driving range one day to try out Andrew's new clubs.  They had so much fun hitting the balls as far as they could and playing on a little putting green.  May we have 2 Tiger Woods on our hands?

There was also a lot of DS to be played by ALL!!!!!

 

I hope everyone's Christmas was magical.  We wish you all a Happy New Year!

He lost it! He finally lost it!

So I think Brayden is probably the LAST person in his 1st grade class to lose a tooth, but as of yesterday he FINALLY lost his first tooth.  We were all very excited.

The tooth had been hanging on by a thread for quite sometime, until yesterday during an assembly.  Brayden said, "It felt kinda wierd and so I started to wiggle it and twist it.  I just kept wiggling it and twisting it until all of a sudden it came out."  (in so many words)

 

Later on that day...

We were driving home from gymnastics and this is where Brayden usually likes to ask endless amounts of questions.  He was quiet for a moment which means he's probably thinking REALLY hard about something and then said, "Mom, are you SURE you don't wake up in the middle of the night, and sneak into our room and put money under our pillows?"

Me:  "What?" (responding like I had never heard of such an absurd thing)

Brayden:  "Are you sure you don't wake up in the middle of the night, and sneak into our room, and put money under our pillows?"

Me:  "Why would I do that?"

Brayden:  "I don't know." (with a little giggle)

 

Yes the tooth fairy showed up last night and left him 2 whole dollars for his tooth.  Is this the going rate nowadays?  I know I got $1 for my teeth, but with inflation I figured it must be $2 by now.  Anyway fun times!!!

'Tis the Season!

So I really liked seeing Julia's Christmas decorations that she posted, so I thought I would do the same.  I bought new ones at the end of the season last year for like 80% off at Hobby Lobby, so I had a fun time decorating with the new colors and ornaments.

 

Here's our tree with red and silver ornaments, instead of blue and silver, like we've had ever since we got married.

This is the train Andrew absolutely had to have, so he bought it with his own money from his piggy bank.

Just like Jacob, we must have our sporting teams represented on our Christmas tree.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care, or at least on our wall.

Here's the garland on my half wall by the stairs.

Just a few fun things.  (Notice the same Santa decoration as Julia-from Grandma Kelly as well-Love it!)

I picked up this cute window cling at Lowe's this year for 50% off.  I LOVE it!  It's my favorite find and I want to leave it up year round.  I would if it weren't for the snowflakes.

I hope everyone is loving the season.  I am!  Happy Holidays!

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

if I can get them off Andrew's feet.

Children take things so literally!!!!

Did you see it? Did you see it?

                         

So, if you haven't seen the movie STOP reading NOW or else you may never want to see it.

Okay, so there were 21 of us all hyped up and ready to see the movie, 15 of us in matching Twilight Tee's (created by a friend of a friend), yes we are HUGE dorks, and maybe it was because of all the anticipation that caused the huge disappointment, but I left the movie theater completely unfulfilled.  I thought the acting in the movie left A LOT to be desired, and the special effects (I mean what special effects) were terrible.  Were we really suppose to think they were running through the forest at super human speeds?  I think what was most disappointing of all was the relationship between Edward and Bella.  I mean one minute he looked as if he were gonna vomit sitting next to her in biology class and the next time they were together they were friends and shortly after that they were madly in love?   I don't know, I think the best part of the books was the character development, and how into Edward and Bella you are by the end, that you never want them to be apart.  I just didn't get that in the movie.  Maybe my expectations were set too high.  I will say that the movie kept me entertained.  They did keep it fairly accurate as far as the plot.  I may give it another shot.  I WILL see future movies!!!  If you are one of the few who see the movie and haven't read the book, don't judge it from the movie.  You MUST read the books.  You will NOT be disappointed!

Halloween Festivities!

I have a lot of cute pictures of our halloween events that took place, so brace yourselves.

First we have the annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  We thought we'd try a new place this year, but the kids would have none of that, so back we went to the original spot.  We went with Brayden's BF from school Riley, and his siblings.  They had a blast!

The maze is their favorite part.  They probably went through it 20 or more times.

 

They have a not-so-haunted house as well.

Fenway even got in on the fun!

Here are the boys picking out their pumpkins!

Roasting yummy marshmallowy goodness!

Carving Punk-mens!

Here we are practicing our artistic skills.  We painted and carved pumpkins this year.  The kids really enjoyed themselves.

Look at that concentration! 

Sometimes I think Andrew had more fun painting the plate.

         

Here they are doing the nasty part.  Check out Andrew's face in the next pic.  He was so disgusted at first and then he got into it.

 

The final product!

 

Trick-or Treating!

In all of my MANY, MANY, MANY years living in Colorado there has never been a Halloween that we didn't have to bundle up from head to toe, and completely cover up our cute costumes to go trick or treating.  Well, miracle of all miracles this was the warmest halloween I can remember (aside probably from the few years I lived in Hawaii).  It was gorgeous!  We trick-or-treated for 2 hours, without coats, and no one ever complained of being cold!

Aren't my Jedi's the cutest!

Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!  (The kids probably chanted this a hundred times walking from house to house.)

 

The trick-or-treating posse!

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Matt had changed into a black faceless costume, brought out the fog machine, strobe light, and scary music onto the porch, and waited for victims (children) in the complete pitch black house (mind you all by himself) for the doorbell to ring, so he could scare poor, young, innocent children who just wanted some chocolate!  I don't think I will ever leave him home again for 2 hours all by himself.  Who knows what I may come home to.