Happy Halloween

Jax and I had a little photo booth fun this morning!! Please notice the shirt he is wearing, I just finished ironing that bad boy on about 10 minutes ago! Nothing like last minute!!




Hope you have a great FRIDAY!!!

I woke up and Joey had already left. Jaxon was pulling clothes out of his drawer and was a:

What a great way to wake up on a Monday morning that turned out to be a HORRIBLE day! I guess it could have been much worse, I mean I have MUCH to be thankful for! I am very blessed. One of my blessings is a VERY funny boy. Seriously, he cracks me up! He had his beanie on and said “look Mom, it’s an ear pod, you don’t have to have the ear thingies”

What can I say, I’m in love with a funny three year old…He makes my worries melt away.

Jax sometimes gets a second wind right before bedtime. This is what we do to wear him out before the traditional bedtime routine!! It works like a charm and it’s good exercise!
The quality of this video is not great because I used my regular camera and not the video camera!
Sweet Child O’ Mine from Happy Chaos on Vimeo.

I started my blog in September of 2005. When I started it, I only knew one blogger, MEGAN. I began this journey with the intentions of posting about our day to day lives to keep our families in the loop. Jaxon was 4 months old at the time. I also figured it was a great way to document his early years so that I could publish my blog into book form. I never expected to fully reconnect with old friends, have real life friends start blogs too, or especially become friends with perfect strangers!
Quickly I learned that blogging is addicting. Not just the act of posting, but blog stalking as we call it is so much fun. I remember the first comments I left on a few “strangers” blogs. It was so out of my comfort zone, but they responded back and thus “blogland friends” were made! Now, if you notice on my sidebars I have a LOT of blogs that I read (even more on my reader) and I myself have a lot of readers (MANY who NEVER comment by the way – come on leave a comment!!). It’s amazing to me how deeply we can connect to our friends online.

This weekend I stepped over the line and met “blogland” friends that I can now call friends in real life.
So, 6 of us who had never met in person decided a while back that it would be fun to meet up. So we did! And it was amazing. We’re all from different backgrounds, but still have so much in common. Here’s what one of the girls wrote:

While sitting next to a beautiful lady in her late 50′s getting my aching, deprived feet masterfully massaged and lathered so well I proposed to the sweet little girl…sorry, I lost myself. What was I saying? Oh yeah, beautiful lady. After observing the antics, joking and harassing she asked me how long we’d been friends. I looked at my watch and said, “We met for the first time 17 hours ago.” Of course she needed an explanation. But how do you logically explain to someone, “Well, see this is a group of girls who we’ve met on the internet, shared more deeply emotional experiences with than most of our real-life friends and we’ve been planning this first time meeting outta state, away from our families for a long time”? You don’t. You just say, “Oh, we’re on-line writers. We correspond with each other regularly and decided to finally meet in person.” For some reason that sounds better and they say, “Oh, that’s great,” instead of getting this bug-eyed look of “OMG! It’s a gaggle of on-line ax murders!”
I digress. Again.
After a brief description her response was so very heartfelt. “You know honey, I have a group of girlfriends I’ve been friends with for 27 years and we act just like this. The difference is, it took us 27 years to form this kind of friendship. Treasure this. Keep this a priority. Women need these kinds of friends.”

We laughed a LOT, we shopped, ate, got a greatly overpriced pedicure, and slept in very comfy beds. We formed a sisterhood of sorts this weekend. I feel so blessed to have met these women and to have them in my life. Thank you girls for an awesome weekend I will not forget!

Speaking of meeting bloggers….Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting this Megan in real life. She is such a sweetheart and I really hope we run into each other again sometime, I think we could talk for hours!

My camera was not working, so when I get a chance to steal a picture from one of the girls, I’ll post it!

The last two nights Jaxon and I have made a Halloween project. He calls projects “projeks”!
I think if this pumpkin were human he’d be considered special.

last night we made a foam “witch house”

I just love $1.00 crafts that are worth a million bucks to my toddler! I also love his spider jammies!

I’m sitting here listening to an album I downloaded from itunes a few months ago. I am absolutely in love with this entire cd!

Priscilia Ahn is amazing!!! Here’s the first song on the album….I couldn’t pick a favorite song if I tried…love her!

Hope you’re having a good week!

I decided before I even had children that it would be cool to celebrate half birthdays. Some people think it’s a little over the top…but that’s me! Now, it’s not like we have a huge party or anything, we just note the date and make it a little special. So, for the past three years we’ve celebrated Jaxon’s half birthday! April 11 is his birthday, so October 11 is his half birthday!

Well, today is the day!! Despite our loss earlier in the day (see the previous post), we had an amazing day!

To start with…It’s no secret that Joey and I have a hard time capturing a good picture together. Today was no different… we’re such dorks! This was during the game…the part of the game that we were still ahead!


I wanted to spend some quality time with Jaxon this afternoon. After his nap (yes he’s 3.5 and he STILL takes a nap….I am blessed!) he & I headed to get an ice cream treat and to the park. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we had the park all to ourselves. It was so much fun to get on the big play thing and play with him. We played like we were pirates, then superheros. I was able to talk him into riding down the huge winding slide with me (this was a first). It was such a great time!
Here are a few outtakes from our little photo shoot::

It was so cool to have this butterfly hang out w/ us for a few minutes!


I took a little break from playing and caught up on a little reading:
Jax headed straight for the bath when we got home. I had to run up to Mardel (where I ran into a fellow blogger that I didn’t know yet in “real life” – more on that later) to pick up a book. When I got home this is what I found:
they were practicing for an upcoming camping trip! Notice the junk food – a camping must!

So, tonight I was feeling a little sentimental, so I pulled out the first year DVD that we made at Jaxon’s first Christmas.

this is my favorite part of the video:

I snapped this without looking at the boys first….melts my heart! Can’t you feel the love!that is Joey’s hand in my hair in case you’re wondering…I do not have a growth on my head!

Me & my precious boy after the tears had been shed. He could sense my emotion and was so sweet. He said “hold me mommy”, and I asked him if he would promise to always be my sweet boy….he said yes. I’m glad I have this in writing and plan to publish this blog into book form!
I love you Jaxon Josiah and I thank God for you everyday! Happy 3.5 years little boy!

James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above……”

Finally….I present to you some of our fall decor….
The entry table:
a closer look at my favorite:
These look much better in person: I love them!
There are some pumpkins on the second shelf from the bottom: Joey did some redecorating while I was away on Saturday… He rearranged these two areas!
Pumpkins on the table:
Pumpkins on the floor:
Pumpkins outside…they are everywhere and I love them!!

If you have pictures of pumpkins on your blog – please leave me a comment so I can go see them!!

Happy Tuesday!

Here are the pics from Saturday. Jax and I had so much fun with Renee & Isabelle. Unfortunately, we never found Holly and her family. There were SO many people there, which was so awesome. This was my first time to participate and it was amazing. As I was getting ready that morning, Jaxon was being 3 and it was stressful. Then I thought to myself about how this was absolutely nothing compared to what these women have to go through.As we were walking, we spotted one particular group wearing a shirt that was in memory of a girl who died last year – she was 32 years old, and had children. It gave me chills.
Here’s my sweet boy being silly. He and Isabelle kept holding hands while we walked. They both had so much fun. When we got home Jax kept saying that he wanted to go back to the race!
Our little group:
I’m not sure what’s up with his smile!
So Sweet…
I’m so glad we were able to be a part of yesterday. Renee and I decided that we wanted to train to run next year!

Have a wonderful Monday…… Pumpkins coming tomorrow!!

It’s so crazy how time and life just kind of get away from you. I have so much to share, but no time to do it!!
This weekend is going to be crazy as well. Well, at least tomorrow! In the morning Jax & I are walking in the Race for the cure with Renee & Holly.

After that I am hosting a baby shower for a girl at work. I have so much to do still for that!

I can’t believe I haven’t had a chance to tell you all about what’s been going on with us. Here’s just a brief glimpse.
I’ve started trying to decorate the playroom: I’m not sure why this is so blurry or why I forgot not to post these pictures in the largest size!
I haven’t been able to share all my great fall decorations with you:
or the way that these fabulous pumpkins turned out:
or that I chopped off my hair:
or the fact that Jaxon had a HUGE absess (this pic was taken in the early stage) on his foot last weekend that Dr. McMahan had to cut off on Sunday. Or the fact that Jaxon has fifth’s disease. He is of course not contagious, but his skin feels like sandpaper.

So…needless to say, I’ll be back with more pictures and updates!

Happy Friday!!!