Pumpkin Fun

This month we ended up having Family Friday on Saturday, and since it was so close to Halloween, I figured instead of playing a game we should carve our pumpkins.

Dad gave us 6 pumpkins he had grown this year (yay, free pumpkins!), Michael got two as well, and Mom hit up the store for a couple of last minute pumpkins for Karrie's last minute idea.

It was Mary Ann's first time ever carving a pumpkin as they celebrate the Day of the Dead instead in the Philippines. She did an awesome job. Ryan checked out the internet for some ideas and stencils. The rest thought up something cool all on their own, well except for me. I volunteered to clean out pumpkin guts for those who hate to do it, namely Ryan, who hates the smell of them. Then I sat there, and sat there, and according to my brother, sat there and delayed yet some more.

Mom did a spider. Michael did ..well I can't remember how to spell the name of the character he did, but it's a horned rat! Wayne did Mr. Happy. I did the next one in the line, no I don't know what it is either, and Mary Ann did the end one.  Ryan was still carving at this point. That's what happens when you have three little kids you have to help clean, design and carve, you end up being the last two done!

It's amazingly hard to get a good picture, in the dark with only candlelight. I have a ton of blurry pictures!  Anyways, in the back row, we have Blade's Storm Trooper and Hunter's crazy face pumpkin.  In the front row, on the left we have mine, then Storm's skeleton bunny, Clayton's crazy good pumpkin, and Ryan's amazing in person, but hard to see in this picture, tribal monkey.

The kids can't wait for tonight to get dressed up and go to the street Halloween Festival and then hit up the neighborhood for some candy. It's been a strange year for Halloween for me. I didn't buy any candy. I sold all my outside decorations and gave away the rest of my inside ones that didn't sell. Ryan and I didn't plan out any costumes for ourselves and no party in the works this year. Next year though! Next year I have some good stuff bookmarked on my computer to make.

Happy Halloween!

Lazy Sunday

This summer has just sort of passed us by. We didn't get in any camping, go to the beach or even hang out in the back yard that much.

Fall is upon us though, and on Sunday it was a fairly decent day. I thought we'd get out of the house and go down to the river with the dog and kids.

We searched for the perfect rock to skip.

There was even a lesson from the oldest to the youngest on how to skip.

In the end, Blade settled for making the biggest splash instead!

I managed to take a whopping three pictures, because of course my camera batteries were near dead when I turned it on. The dog had fun smelling things. The kids liked the water and rock tossing, but loved running through the trails in the nearby bush even more.

Perfect Sunday. Even better that it ended in ice cream though!

I'm not ready

Snow.  How can it be snow time already??

I guess I'd better transform my nice, neat (ha!) summer entryway back into the hot mess that is my winter entryway.

Away go the spring coats, and all the hoodies the children seem to think are necessary to leave at the front door.

This is really only a small amount that lives in my teeny tiny entryway. And somehow, those chewed up mitts of Blade's managed to miss the spring toss out earlier this year. Perhaps the worst part of this all is that I pre-wrote part of this post, without the pictures, as I didn't have anything done yet. It was just on my mind that I had better dig out the winter stuff, after I had to send the kids to school today in their fall coats and the only little skinny finger gloves I could find. And then, you know, I actually had to do it, since I had a post partially written with absolutely no pictures, because I was still in my pajamas sitting at my computer waiting for my coffee to be done. Which turned into me sorting out summer clothes to go into the donation bag, deciding I need baskets for Storm's sock drawer, eyeing the mess in my basement of left-over Halloween stuff that hasn't been put on Kijiji yet (and promptly going back upstairs for a coffee rather than dealing with it), realizing I still haven't bought the paint for the basement den, let alone painted it yet.

Forced ambition. Nothing good comes out of it. Back to the stuff I actually did get done....

Out came the glove organizer and baskets of hats, scarves and neck warmers.

Oh Winter, how I loathe thee.

Sugar is Important

Going to make your Grandmas a lovely Chocolate Cake??  Try to make sure you actually follow ALL the directions and add ALL the ingredients.

Because when you've poured your slightly smaller amount of batter than you remember having last time into your perfectly prepared pans, and then you decide you perhaps better taste that batter (just because), that taste of bitter bitter chocolate won't leave your mouth for quite a while. Thankfully I decided to test that batter, for quality control of course, before I baked the cakes!!

Perhaps I should just drink the rest of this and call it a day!

Forget baking and all its' stupid direction following!

Taking care of Number One

On the list that is.

Yesterday was the first day of install. These guys were super fast and within a couple of hours I was looking at this sight:

The carpet had all been removed and hauled away. The floor had been vacuumed and sprayed down. I was a little surprised how nice looking the stringers were. It made me wish I had attempted to hardwood them myself like I thought about doing a few years ago. I was just afraid of what kind of builder mess I would find under the carpet, and didn't want to pull the carpet up myself just to say "Ah, crap."

By lunch, they had the upstairs mostly done. Enough for me to take this dizzying photo of the difference between the old carpet and the new.

Huge, huge difference.

I'm so glad we went with the darker choice. It all looks amazing.

By the end of their work day even the downstairs looked like this:

They came back this morning and within three hours they had the downstairs totally completed as well.

It's still very strange to me. Darker. Plusher. Still catches me by surprise when I look at it.

If you have eagle eyes, you can see our sectional in pieces in the basement still. I couldn't wait to take some pictures!

Ryan came home and we moved all the computers and furniture back up to this level.  If I never have to move that freaking heavy awkward sectional again, I'll be a happy camper.

Wait, I have my computer and my internet back. I'm already happy!

Deconstruction

The part of the whole carpet process I've been dreading has happened.

We agreed to move our furniture out of the rooms. Mostly because I don't like other people touching my stuff, but also to save money. Let me tell you, I would have been mortified if anyone had seen the mess under my sectional!! Wowzsa. A pack of rats must have went under there and shed all the hair they had! So not nice.

Anyways, early this morning my sitting and dining room looked like this.

And in a surprisingly short amount of time, it now looks like this:

Ninety percent of the stuff from four bedrooms and a hall closet, including doors.

Not so bad really. It took way less time than I thought it would and took up way less space than I thought. We arranged to have the carpet installed in two separate visits, as I really didn't think we had room to put all the furniture from two levels into the other two levels but we did it. We even had time and space to empty Clayton's room, which we weren't going to do until the upstairs carpet was totally installed. The sectional is moved and downstairs. I hope to not move it again until we sell it! Wow, what a heavy awkward piece of furniture.

It will all be worth it though. The carpet we have now is nasty. I don't know as people actually notice the stains, but downstairs they are the most visible.

Even in this picture it's hard to see, but all those dark shaded spots are really stains. Stains that never go away. Having rolling office chairs has not helped this poor carpet either.

I can't wait.

The chairs have been sold. The furniture has been moved. The nasty hair has been vacuumed.

Bring on my new carpet!