The Keene Family

So my summer family photos didn't look quite right for our Christmas card this year, and I didn't want to ask my family to get dressed up for another photo shoot. But. Jim and I had a date night planned, and Ali was coming to babysit, and it was a beautiful day, and our neighbors have the perfect spot for evening light in their backyard... so I asked everyone to just change clothes and have Ali take our photos. I am soooo glad they all put up with another photo session, because I just love how they turned out!

I've been blogging here for 10 years. (What?!) I have over 900 posts and over 56,000 page views, which means each post has been seen an average of 62 times. That's crazy! I started this blog in 2007 when I found out I was pregnant with JT as a way to keep our story, and also to share life with family and friends we don't see often. That was before the mass adoption of social media, and we weren't posting these little moments anywhere else. I'm enjoying looking back at how our family has grown in ten years. (And now, my nine year old is standing here beside me, cracking up about the fact that I'm blogging about blogging. )

We finished a great season of flag football last weekend. Jim was so thrilled to be able to be the assistant coach, and JT grew a lot as a player. We learned that he is fast . At least, compared to most of the other kids. He learned how to take an angle and run down another player, which was really fun to watch. We even saw in one game how the other team avoided his side of the field! He also learned how to run with the ball, something he did really well. Another mom on the team got some photos of him and sent them to me. They are awesome! Father & son

When we moved into our house, we made a list of things we wanted to change, as I'm sure most people do. The floors were on the list. We changed out the family room carpet as soon as possible, because it smelled like wet dog. But everything else has been on hold because our outside needed lots of attention. Now, with beautiful landscaping, a new fence, and a finished sport court, the weather turned and we are ready to work inside. Winter flooring project number two is complete! Jim worked so hard on this project and it turned out just beautifully. The mud room/laundry/office nook had vinyl flooring, which is great for that space, but it was dated and had a seam in one spot that never looked all the way clean. Poor Jim... this vinyl was glued down really well and took around 12 hours to tear out. Yuck. He made a template for the floor with rolls of craft paper and lots of tape, and then Jim's dad came over to help hold it still while he cut it out with a rotary cut...

There was a lot of excitement in our area this week as we had our first snow! It was quite a shock to wake up to a couple of inches on Thursday, November 2nd. (What?!) It snowed off and on all day and it was soooo pretty. Then on Sunday, we received snow again and it continued to snow all day long. There's just something about snow that makes for a very cozy house! On Sunday, we spent some time at our park sledding in the slush. The kids were determined to make it work with the snow and grass combination!

We had a wonderful time spending Halloween with our neighbors and friends again this year. Haley went to open gym at her gymnastics facility first, and then we met up with everyone for pizza at the Drew house. Then we went trick-or-treating with four families represented and lots of running around at dusk. After hitting maybe 12-15 houses, we transitioned to our church harvest carnival to wrap up the evening. Our kids were twinning all night with the Drew kids - super fun and planned by all involved. We made sure to swing by Grandpa Keene's house on our way to the church harvest carnival too!

Jim has been hard at work the last two weekends replacing the bathroom floor in our upstairs hall bathroom. Like any project, there were more steps than we'd planned but I am so happy with the results! He laid new floor, removed the random towel rack, and installed a new toilet. Next up: the laundry room overhaul...