Trunk or Treat

Parades, Sculpting & Cookie Monster

-We had a lovely time at the local fall festival that our neighboring town throws every year. The kids sure love the parade and all the candy that comes with it.

-It was a sad day last week, we sold the van. We bought it last summer in the hopes of taking it on vacations and actually camping out in it. At least I was hoping we would camp out. It just never happened. I've deducted that we are not the camping type of family. My idea of a good time includes a nice hotel with a pool....not cramming four people into a van. Yes it had a pull out bed and a toilet along with a kitchenette but the only thing we used was the toilet. The kids were very sad to see it go, even giving it a kiss goodbye. I always knew its time with us was limited because it only had one captain chair in the back for the kids. Greta was secured onto the pull out couch which had lap seat belts but no shoulder strap. It worked while she was still in a harness style car seat but now that she's in a booster it was unsafe for her. Goodbye van, the idea of you will be missed. I have to admit it's nice to be down one more vehicle.

-Sean has been busy working on the Range Rover again. He drives it a couple of weeks to work and back while compiling a list of things to fix on it, then puts it in the shop for a couple of weeks and works on it. He's been doing this for a few months now in the hopes of creating a reliable snow vehicle for the upcoming winter. Now according to The Farmers Almanac you can tell how difficult a winter will be based on how many acorns pile up under oak trees. The more acorns = a rough winter. So by my deductions it will be one hellish winter. I've never seen so many acorns in my yard in the whole ten years we've been here. I hope I'm wrong. But if the Almanac is right then we should have one heck of a fun four wheel drive vehicle to use.

-I've been working on my normal sculpting in the evenings and have even begun sculpting during Greta's preschool time. It's nice to catch up on orders during the day when the house is quiet. I felt inclined to try something outside of my comfort zone the other day, a horse. It was fun and I might have to try doing some more in the near future.

-Last but not least I have to add a picture that made me chuckle. The kids really enjoy their stuffed animals. The kids are 5 and 7 years old and they have quite an array of stuffed animals that they love. One of the them is the ancient Cookie Monster that their dad grew up with. The other night Wesley declared that Cookie Monster was his wife and then dressed him up in one of Greta's dresses. He wanted a picture. So here I present Wesley with his wife (Cookie Monster in drag).

Fall Mornings

I was greeted by this lovely Fall morning when I opened up the blinds today. Fall is my favorite time of the year. I'm sure I've said it before. Spring is nice but there is so much to do. Fall is the season where I sit back in a chair with a nice cup of tea and my warm slippers and enjoy the cool weather.

Today I'm enjoying all this with two sick kids. Wesley and Greta both have a cold. Poor Wesley is full of phlegm. He had circles under his eyes this morning and I just couldn't send him to school. There is no school tomorrow so now he has four whole days to recoup.  Of course he's running around and playing with his sister and you wouldn't even know he's sick, probably should have just sent him to school.

I've been reading about all the benefits of spirulina. It's a blue green algae that is cultivated and sold in powdered form. It's full of vitamins, protein and iron. It's supposed to boost the immune system which is why I bought it. I make a green shake every day with baby spinach, a banana, ginger root and frozen berries. I've been adding a teaspoon of spirulina to it to boost it's health benefits. It's tasty! The kids even drink it! I, of course, do not tell them about the algae. Perhaps one day soon all of this will help their immune system ward off all the crud out there.

The Patch

Every year for the past five years I've posted pictures of the kids going to the pumpkin patch. Like clock work. It's a yearly outing that the preschool does. The kids love it, heck I love it. I'm kind of sad thinking that I won't be doing that with the preschool anymore. Miss Greta will be starting Kindergarten next fall. It might have to be a family outing from now on. Here are the pictures from today's trip to the pumpkin patch. Greta and I had a lovely time.

Purging

Almost every day I hear "Mom, can we please go do something?" from the youngest member of the family. She and I are home together during the week unless she's in preschool. Being home with Mom can be pretty boring. I always seem to be cleaning something or folding something or painting something and that's pretty boring stuff for a newly turned five year old. I think she counts down the hours until Wesley comes home so she has someone to play with.

Yesterday I had to opportunity to go into town for an errand and treated her to lunch at our favorite place, Panera Bread. She gets so excited to go out to lunch, it's a treat for both of us. She always orders the kids buttered noodles and I tried their new soup, Autumn Squash. It was delicious!

I've been in the fall cleaning mode for the past several weeks where I've been cleaning out closets and purging the house of unwanted items. I sold a few pairs of boots I no longer use on ebay and one pair of Frye boots sold for more than I paid for them new. Ha! Crazy people out there I tell you. I joined a local virtual garage sale on facebook and saw a few people selling car seats and decided to post the kids old Britax Marathon car seats up there by chance someone wanted them. Turns out about 40 people wanted them and I got a cool $80 out of them. Not bad for something I thought was worth nothing. Greta just moved out of her Britax this week. The height limit on that car seat was 49 inches and she's 48 inches, so it was time to say goodbye. Surprisingly she was still within the weight limits. We moved her up to a booster seat with a back (I don't think she is ready for just a booster seat). She's pretty excited about being a big girl and using a real seat belt like her brother.

Egg Victory

Farm fresh eggs are wonderful. I find great joy in collecting my own eggs every evening. Chickens are one of the few (if only) animals to pull their own weight around here. The only problem with fresh eggs is they are completely horrible when it comes to hard boiling them. You can ask anyone that has hens and they will tell you the same thing. The fresher the egg the harder to peel. Usually a large portion of the egg white comes off with the shell. It looks like this:

It's so frustrating. To the point I buy a carton of eggs from the grocery store if I plan on doing some hard boiled eggs. Pretty much defeating the purpose of having hens. I gave up on the idea of hard boiling my own fresh eggs until I ran across an article online from another gal having the same issues. She swore by a certain method and I thought "what the heck, let's try another way!" Since, you know, I've tried every other method in the book.

She said just boil a big pot of water and slowly lower the eggs into it with a slotted spoon. Cook them for 12-15 minutes and put in a cold water bath (like the normal method). So the only thing different, from the normal method, is to wait until the water is boiling to put in the eggs.

OMG! *Yes, I just wrote that!* It worked!

 I now have a way of using the hordes of eggs I have in the fridge (my kids LOVE hard boiled eggs).  It's so exciting. Anyways, just thought I'd share my victory over the eggs and perhaps pass on my new found knowledge to another frustrated hen owner.

Family

I feel bad for my kids. We don't go do much together as a family on the weekends. I'm usually cleaning or doing laundry or perhaps, on rare occasion, I've been able to go off by myself for some much needed shopping therapy. Sean likes to tinker around in the shop on one of his ongoing car projects. We tend to do our own thing on the weekends. The kids play really well by themselves and keep each other entertained for the most part. But I got to thinking how we don't do much together, as a family. So I told the Hubby that we need to try harder. Every weekend we need to do some "family together" project. Whether that's going to a park, or out to eat, maybe just a movie all together or some WiiU time.

So yesterday evening we took the kids out to eat at their favorite rib joint in town and then we went for a nice walk around the park. It was very nice and we even got Wesley to say it was "the best day ever!!" (which we hear whenever we do any extra curricular activities). Next weekend is our little towns festival and parade so that will count as our family time, then I think we need a zoo trip all together. It's been too long.

Accessorizing

I went to the store yesterday and found the perfect fashion accessory. It's a giant over sized bag in red and blue. It's got a hard plastic insert for the base and I can stuff it full of all sorts of fun things.

What do ya think? Stylin I tell you. But am I really the type of person to blog about my fashion accessories? Not so much! There has to be another reason I would get excited about an over sized bag right? You got me there.

This is what's in the bag.

I finally found a tortoise carrier that works. This is me excited. You see, I've been hauling them outside from their upstairs bedroom pen in a laundry basket for awhile now and my lower back is starting to complain. These are large tortoises that are only going to get bigger. There had to be a better solution and I found it. Yea me! So now they get transported outside into their big pen via a stylish over sized bag.

So there ya go, that's accessorizing......tortoise style.

Happy Retirement!

Big week! My parents both retired on Tuesday. I'm excited for them and their new found freedom. I wish it meant they weren't moving to their retirement cottage in Colorado, but we'll still see them plenty I'm sure. Congratulations you two! (Oh and apparently a new chapter in life meant a new look, my dad shaved off his mustache. Looks good Pops!)

Birthday Celebrations

It's that time of year again. My youngest child and my father had a birthday over the weekend. Greta is now 5 (time really does fly!). My sister and her family came to visit and we all headed into town to the amusement park to ride some rides and have some fun.

That last picture cracks me up. They ran out of small life jackets so he was in a larger one that didn't fit. What a nutty kid. We had a nice time. The favorite ride of the night according to the kids? This big pumpkin that you pile into and then it turns really fast, plastering you up against the wall. Grandpa got it going really really fast.

Greta had a nice little birthday party with her cousins, Alex, Abby and Evie. She wanted bunny cupcakes so I gave her bunny butt cupcakes (hey they were easy).

Happy birthday to Miss Greta and a wonderful Dad!

Motivation

We've officially been in our house for a decade now. I find that hard to believe since we moved in just the other day. Time really does fly when you're having fun. Funny thing about our house, we needed new siding when we moved in. A decade ago. My husband is good at doing pretty much anything that he puts his mind to and he put his mind to replacing siding. One wall at a time.....with several years in between walls. I am not complaining. You do not hear me complaining. I am eternally grateful that I am not out there siding this freakishly tall house.  You will recall several years ago we rented scaffolding and the hubby resided the east wall. HERE is the link. You can ask Sean, that was probably one of his least pleasurable projects he's ever accomplished. So after that wall we redid the siding on the back of the house because we had to, before putting on the new deck, last fall. Half the house has been resided. That is as much siding as Sean wants to do. For the rest of his life. So I called up a local company specializing in siding replacement. I mean seriously how much could it cost to put new siding on the house?

Siding dude comes out last week. He gets here in the evening after hubby gets home from work. He talks a lot. He talks about walnut trees, guns, dogs and a little bit about siding. After a walk around the house he starts measuring and calculating square feet. All the while talking. He's here for 3.5 hours. He informs us that cement fiber board siding is bad stuff. Lots of class action law suits. Apparently it's a bad product according to him. He tells us we need to buy his top of the line resin/stone product that is gorgeous. I am totally sold on it's sheer awesomeness until he tells us it will run $32,000. Hahahaha! I wish I was kidding. We then asked what it would cost to reside the half of the house with the same wood siding that is already on it. Just half the house. That would run $15,500. He tried to talk us out of the wood siding because it only lasts 7-10 years according to him. We talked about it after he left and decided we'd have to sell a kidney or two or three to make either of those estimates a reality. I'm not willing to refinance the place and go back up to 15 years. No way man.

So as I write this I'm listening to the sounds of hammering as Sean is pounding in nails to the new siding above the garage. I think we're doing it ourselves. Heck the money saved might just allow Sean to replace the corvette with a newer one. I think that's pretty good motivation.

Funny story. I'm in the truck on Friday on my way to Lowes to buy siding. I had just dropped off Greta at preschool and was half way to the store and I started feeling strange. I felt buzzed. Like I had drank a beer. I'm no drinker, I'm lucky it I have one alcoholic drink every 6 months. I started thinking about what I had consumed in the past hour. I had eaten a turkey sandwich, an apple and tried a new tea I purchased from the natural grocery store in town. I had the misfortune of having my very first kidney infection last week and was on a round of antibiotics to cure it. I was shopping around for some good probiotics to take while on the round of antibiotics and found that Kombucha tea is very helpful in restoring good flora to your gut. I drank half that bottle of tea and found myself a little bit drunk....while driving. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so frightening at the time. I turned around and got myself home as safely as possible. Turns out there is a bit of alcohol in the tea that is created from the fermentation process. And I sure felt it! I'm such a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.  I'll remember to only drink that tea when I don't plan on going anywhere from now on.

Changes

So my youngest missed the kindergarten cutoff date by 20 days so back to preschool again. Her school started back up again last week and she's so excited! She did great with no anxiety when I left (which was so nice). With no kids I was able to go get my hair cut and relax a little. I could get used to this!

A funny little story. Our lives have changed a little with all the dogs becoming indoor dogs. Before all we had inside all day was Chance, out tiny little geriatric terrier. He ruled the roost. The black lab, Cody, and the setter from Hell, Sophie, lived outdoors during the day and came inside during the night and bad weather. This setup worked fine for us for a decade now. Then something in Sophie's head just went off and she decided she was an indoor dog.....could be the gun fire or thunder who knows. So now the kids and I are figuring out how we are all going to live together.  The big dogs steal the couch from the kids, there is a severe amount of whining about the dog "breathing on me," some one is always getting licked and kids toys are getting eaten on a daily basis.

The funny part? Now that Sophie (the red setter in the above picture) is indoors Chance has his girlfriend around at all times. Chance, the black terrier, has always been in love with her and likes to show it at all times. In other words there is a huge amount of dog humping going on in my house. Everyone is fixed, there are no problems there. Chance was a stray and not neutered until he was nearly a year old. I think he just retained his boyish characteristics. Lucky Sophie. She doesn't care. She just sits or lies around and takes it.

The kids think it's hilarious. They have no idea what he's doing. I've said he's "dancing" with her because I'm really not ready for the birds and bees talk just yet. Yesterday Chance was in marathon mode and did this for about an hour. Greta decided to drag a chair over and "watch the show."  My kids are going to be so scarred.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a really nice Labor Day weekend. It's amazing how much it feels like Fall out there already. I'm really ready for Fall. I haven't done a monthly challenge in awhile and decided to do a sugar free month again. Last time I did it I lost six pounds (I think) and it would be nice going into Fall a little lighter. The key to this challenge is just bypassing the sugar filled isles at the grocery store. I still get ice cream for the kids and hubby since it doesn't interest me. Day 2, so far so good.

We did a few home improvements this weekend including installing a new kitchen faucet. The old one was dripping and driving me insane. The new one is super cool, has a industrial feel to it. I hope it holds up better to heavy use (aka: kids using it) better than the old one.  I also picked up a few new floor lamps while at Lowe's. Our living room is super dark at night which makes it difficult to sculpt and paint. It's so nice to be able to see what I'm doing! Now we need to tackle siding when it cools down. Some of the siding above the garage that we replaced when we moved in is already rotting again. I wonder if everyone has to deal with rotten siding all the time?

I took a road trip with the kids on Saturday to visit my sister and see their new house. Sean stayed home to babysit the insane dog, feed animals and get stuff done on his car projects. My sisters new house is super beautiful, I'm really excited for them. They live within a short walk to a playground, pool and walking paths. I don't know if I could live in the city again but with kids that would be a bonus for sure. I'm really happy for them.

The kids played really well together (it was crazy and loud of course). My kids sure like their cousins.

My sister hadn't had the awesome opportunity to see the Beard Booth app on my phone so I gave her and Emery a beard.  Now that's some funny stuff.  At least I think so. ;-)