Happy Halloween

Chris did a great job craving our pumpkin.

This is one of our neighbors dressed up to hand out candy.  Those spiders on his pumpkin were the kids' treats.  They are lollipops covered with paper and the legs are pipe cleaners.  How cool is that? 

Another neighbor had this decoration.

"Trick or Treat"

"The scary house" as the kids call it.

There they go.

They were out trick or treating for two hours.  They stopped by our house to drop off their candy collection twice.  They collected way too much candy, but they had a great time!

Halloween Party

If National Night Out is my favorite night in the neighborhood, the annual Halloween party is my favorite afternoon in the neighborhood.

Wesley dressed up like a Wampa. He had to explain to me what a Wampa is - the ice creature that attacks Luke at the beginning of the Empire Strikes Back.  Why are ALL the characters, the good guys and bad guys, in Star Wars celebrated?

Mickie and Minnie!

One of my neighbors is a very talented art teacher and party activity planner! She put plastic animals in jello, covered the bowl, and let the kids stick their hands in the bowl and pull out a "prize".  Her husband ran the game for the kids.

Wesley and Lydia loved it!

They liked their prizes.

Poor Josiah.  He didn't get it and just kept pulling out small pieces of Jello.  (He didn't mind though.)

My neighbor also organized a mummy wrapping game which was a lot of fun.

She had cool crafts for the kids to do too.  That's her handing out candy for the costume parade.  Josiah quickly ditched his cute costume.

We completed the parade before it started raining!

This family had on cute Toy Story costumes.  I completely forgot about my costume until I was already there and the party had started.  Next year....

The kids played on the playground throughout the party until it started raining.

My sweet neighbor who helped with the party with Lydia and one of the girls from her dance class.  The girls figured out we are neighbors at the party.

The kids also decorated cookies.

I think the party went really well and we had a great turn out.

Kitchen Remodel

Our house is 13 years old and we have lived in it for nine and a half years.  Our old kitchen was a little small and not laid out very well to meet our needs.  When we started asking people about remodeling it, everyone said to pivot the island around 90 degrees and to make the island much bigger.  This made a lot of sense to us since we were eating all of our meals at a little four person table. We only had two matching chairs and Wesley and Lydia sat in Tripp Trapp chairs and Josiah sat in a highchair.  We knew that after he outgrew the highchair, there was no room for him at the table.

We also needed more counter space.  We had a microwave setting on the counter taking up valuable space. In order for dishes to come out of the dishwasher clean, they had to go into the dishwasher clean.  We thought we would replace the dishwasher soon after moving in but it never stopped working; it just didn't work well.  Our gas cook top was rather problematic at times.  The exhaust fan came on almost every time the left burners were turned on.  Sometimes if we used the burners long enough the fan would turn off.  At various points different burners would not ignite.   At one point, I was using a candle lighter to light the burners.  No kidding.

All this to say, it was time to remodel.

This was the best our kitchen ever looked.  No clutter!  And no small appliances or microwave on the counter!  I was sad to see Chris' tiling project taken down.

We also had big plans for this area beside the fireplace.  Bye bye bookshelf that held toys.

One morning the kitchen looked the above the pictures and that same afternoon, it looked like the following picture.

The next day, we came home and all of the insulation was gone too.  This was done because they moved the plumbing for the sink and the gas line for the stove.

We were hoping the cabinets would be installed while we were on vacation.  Thankfully, they emailed me and told me the cabinets were delayed; otherwise, I would have had a melt down when we got home and found the kitchen like this.

Two days later, we had cabinets stacked up in our living room.

I would never want to go through that week of labor day again.  We came home from vacation to the biggest mess.  They had cut back a wall twice.  They cut it back to the water lines the first time, then a plumber moved the water lines over, and they cut back the wall again.  That combined with taking the walls down in the kitchen and cutting the ceiling in the basement, left the biggest drywall mess in our house. They had cleaned up the kitchen area but everywhere else was covered in drywall dust.  Thankfully, we had it cleaned up by Friday.  Just in time for the sawdust from the hardwood floors and cabinets.  At least sawdust is easier to clean up.

See that little table on the left?  That's our old kitchen table.  It served as our pantry during the remodel.

Here is the area leading to our family room.  You can see the additional floor boards they put down because the hardwood floor didn't go completely under the old island and cabinets.

 
The day before the cabinets went in.

There is our old refrigerator.  Thankfully, we kept it during the remodel.

New cabinets in place!

A couple of days later, the appliances were delivered.  This bad boy sat in that spot for about two weeks.  That range is not working right and we are waiting to see what the company does.  What do you do when a large expensive appliance doesn't work right?  We have had two service calls and two guys from the factory are driving eight hours one way to look at this week, but I was told they probably can't fix it.

The area beside the fireplace.

The microwave and wall oven installed.  I thawed a homemade meatloaf in the sink in the powder room the day the oven was installed.  I was desperate for a home-cooked meal even if it was something that I had made and frozen for later.  The roasted vegetable meatloaf was delicious!  We also had pizza one night from HomeMade Pizza Company.

The beverage center.

After the cabinets were installed, they were measured for the counter tops.  This reminds me of a dental xray machine.

A week later, we had new counter tops!

See the mess still in the floor?

Then we got the backsplash and working sink in the kitchen!

The almost finished kitchen.  We are waiting for our back-ordered pedants lights.

 We love the new layout.  So far, we love all the appliances except the range.  The burners work great except when the oven fans come on and blow the flames out on the burners.  Thankfully, we have that second oven but I would love to use both ovens and cook on the burners!  I pray this gets resolved this week.

The beverage center.

We also got a new sliding glass door.  We need new blinds for the door but we are not really sure what to get.

The little wall beside of the refrigerator is one that was cut back twice.

Well, that's our remodeling project.  We really like our contractor and we would recommend him.  Larry Richards Construction.  I asked a lot of people about their contractors.  All but one person said, "I love my kitchen but I hate my contractor."  We got an estimate from her contractor but he didn't want to rearrange the sink and stove.  He just wanted to redo exactly what we had with new cabinets and counter tops but we wanted a bigger change.

Balloon Shark

Wesley saw a balloon shark in a museum gift store and wanted it last Christmas. We ordered it from Amazon and gave it to him for Christmas. Yesterday (nine and a half months later), we let him play with it. Chris blew it up with a small helium tank. Wesley helped him put all the pieces on the balloon.

Chris said, "It is super cheaply made but it works better than I expected." One of the major plastic pieces was broken beyond repair when he took it out of the box but it still works.

Wesley loves it.

I feel like it isn't damaging the walls and ceilings because it is a balloon that flies slowly.  It basically floats while Wesley drives it around with a remote control.  

Oktoberfest

Yesterday was Oktoberfest at our school.  It was a beautiful day and we all had a good time.

Lydia loved dancing.  I missed Wesley's class dancing because it was my turn to serve beer.  Something about serving beer from a keg reminded me of college.  Last night I dreamed I was visiting one of my college roommates to celebrate her recent birthday.  In the dream, we were young and still in college and there was no resemblance to our real lives.  We are moms (we both have three kids) and wives who work part time.

Any way, here is a picture of Lydia dancing.

Here is a video of the dance.

Swinging

Josiah thinks he is a big kid like Wesley and Lydia. He tries to do almost everything they do. On the playground on Friday, he joined in Wesley's soccer game. I didn't get any good photos of the soccer game.

 After the kids tired of soccer, they decided Josiah should swing.

I got a little worried when Nathan started pushing him from the front and Wesley was pushing him from the back, but Josiah loved it.