Labor-Day-Palooza

Brandon's work schedule has been beyond crazy and so we were all looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend!! For the first half of the weekend we spent tons of time "fall cleaning" our house! Much like spring cleaning (except done in the fall!) we shampooed the carpets, washed all the bedding, drapes and pillows, cleaned out closets and cabinets, touched up caulking inside and outside the house, prepared the gardens for the winter, scrubbed windows, soaked the window blinds, replaced two tattered curtains (I sewed them myself!) and cleaned out the garage! Whew! Then Sunday Maddox was sick with a cough and fever so by Monday we were in desperate need of some fun family time! The weather was so nice that we decided to get up early and go to the zoo!

I think next time we take a family trip to the zoo we'll definitely remember to bring the wagon! Brandon doesn't mind toting Maddox around on his shoulders but the bigger Maddox gets the more tired Brandon gets! HA!!

I don't think the gorilla wanted his picture taken...

After the zoo, we went to the mall for lunch and to do some back to school shopping. We were trying to wait for some better sales to kick in before we bought the boys fall clothes. Luckily we made it to Labor Day and so we found some really good deals but with the weather cooling off we had to buy some clothes today regardless. When I got all the fall and winter clothes down out of the attic we realized that Ashtyn had grown out of EVERYTHING from last year and it nearly all fit Maddox!! So Maddox has like 8 pair of jeans in his closet along with about 10 hoodies and poor Ashtyn had 1 hoodie and NO long sleeve shirts at all!! I mean, I guess in reality Ash is the lucky one cause he gets new stuff but it was sort of sad on those few cool mornings we've had so far to dress Ashtyn in shorts and a t-shirt! Ha! Oops! Oh well, he's well stocked up now!! While we were at the mall we were excited to see some of Brandon's graphic design on display! Besides his job for the Oklahoma District Assemblies of God Brandon also does freelance work for several of the churches in our state! One inparticular uses him nearly every month for their sermon series' graphics which go in display every single month in the mall food court!! We rarely make it to the mall to see Brandon's larger then life graphics but today it was cool to see his work as we rode the escalator down into the food court! It's really cute too because the boys know that "daddy's work" is on those billboards and so every time we DO get to the mall they always shout "THAT'S DADDY'S WORK! THAT'S DADDY'S WORK!" I think Brandon was quite proud on the inside...even though he "pretended" like he didn't want me to take his picture! HA!

The weekend was great! Now it's back to the 'ol routine! The weekdays are fun too, don't get me wrong, but I'll admit that I'm already looking forward to next weekend...