Anniversary

Our anniversary was September 12th, and since we had already gone out to dinner in the name of it and it was awful beyond reason (Casa Bonita should be labeled: Not fit for consumption of self-respecting human beings), Shad told me at lunch that day not to cook what I had planned on cooking, because HE was going to cook for me.  Oh, my goodness! Did he ever!

 

Chicken and bacon (cooked together) on penne in a ranch-olive oil-parsley sauce, topped with shredded parmesan cheese

Ginger-honey glazed carrots

"Vegetarian Oysters" aka garden tomatoes he got at work that day

 

 

Oh, it was delightful!

 

And we got to share our meal with two of our favorite people.

 

I've been in love with these Swedish Dala horses ever since I read The Christmas Elves by Jan Brett in elementary school.  I love her books! These Dala horses are crazy expensive though! $18 for a 1 inch tall horse, $25 for a 3 inch one, and roughly $80 for the foot tall one pictured below. Guess how much Shad was able to MAKE that for? $2. Free wood, a can of clear spray paint, a bottle of orange poppy acrylic paint, and the rest we already had in stock.

 

I love seeing it on top of my piano all the time!

 

I made Shad a spooning sign.

 

 

And "I love us."

 

Halloween

This photo shoot is brought to you by Aqua, the 90s band, compliments of our recent snag of a guy's full 90s music collection during Trash Swap Weekend.

Dancy was ready for bed.

 

"Katie, show me how you dance!"

 

She's a big fan of swimsuits, and I had hidden them away for the season until yesterday when she found them while I was sick. Thankfully, she decided to wear it ON TOP of her clothes today instead of as is and then telling me she's cold.

 

Watching Tom put on his underwear because we discovered it was on backwards.

 

I told Tom that he was being a pirate for Halloween. He said, "No, I'm Captain Hook!" Alright, well, Captain Hook, Katie can be your wench. "No, she's Mr. Smee!" Shad said that's much better.

 

This boy's got moves.

 

She accessorized herself.

 

This kid is awesome.

 

So, Halloween last year was slightly sinful, in that we didn't watch Hocus Pocus OR The Nightmare Before Christmas. Who does that? We did, however, go trick-or-treating and to the Christian Church carnival. This year, Shad didn't really want to go to the carnival because Tom was overly crazy at it last year, and I didn't really want to go trick-or-treating because it took way to long last year, but I wanted to go to the carnival. I told Shad I didn't care if we participated in ANY of that Halloween stuff, so long as we watched those movies.

 

We kinda both won. We watched Hocus Pocus for Family Home Evening on Monday. We found out on Tuesday that the carnival would be on Wednesday instead of Thursday because of a sports game that would be taking away all of the high schoolers who run the carnival activities. Shad goes to Phillipsburg on Wednesday nights for youth activities, so I took the kids alone. By the way, HUGE POINTS to Sister Jones for coming up with the awesome Halloween service project of cleaning headstones in the cemetery and combining it with a scavenger hunt (points to the person who found the oldest grave). I'm SO jealous!

 

Shad helped me get the kids ready for the carnival, and then we left just a bit after he did. I explained to Tom and Katie that they were not allowed to run around and be crazy. They needed to stay by me, listen and obey me, and we'd all have lots of fun. But if they ran around being crazy, we'd have to go home. Oh, were they so good! I got compliments on my well-behaved kids. AND I got away only giving them each one chocolate coin and a mini cupcake. Score for that.

 

Our plan for Thursday was to have me go trick-or-treating with Tom and Katie, and Mallory, Haddie and Eden, while Shad and Paul stayed at our house handing out candy with Dancy and Micaiah. Remember how I was the one who didn't want to go trick-or-treating and Shad was? I still don't know how that ended up being our plan, but it was. Luckily, my digestive system decided to rebel against me Thursday morning, and so we called in sick with Halloween. We popped some popcorn and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, despite all of Tom's protests that he hates that movie. Psh! He's never seen it before, and was begging to watch it again tonight. Ah, the education of Little Tree in filmography...

Missed Pictures

Just a few random things...

 

One Sunday Dancy messed herself at church and I didn't have a change of clothes for her in the diaper bag. Only one of Tom's shirts. Tommy thought it was awesome that Dancy was wearing his shirt.

 

Nope, not from my garden. The green zucchini was given to me and that's actually a golden zucchini next to it. I scored 8 of them at a garage sale for 3 for $1! Yum! Tom and Katie didn't take interest in  zucchinis until my mom gave me some in September. They ate them then because I told them, "Remember, these are the zucchinis from Grandma's garden that she gave to you." So we love zucchini now because it's Grandma's zucchini.

 

And Grandma, Tom has a new hiding place to play hide-and-seek with you when you come to visit again.

 

Katie generally sleeps like this. Or on the very edge of her bed where any slight movement sends her thumping onto the floor.

 

After playing outside one day, I came in and set Dancy down to go to the bathroom. She cried and screamed and I thought she was just acting in the bad habit she picked up (it was a month of that and thankfully it's over). But then she stopped. And when I came out of the bathroom, I found my sweet little thumbsucker asleep. Yep, just that fast.

 

We started feeding Dancy Cheerios a month ago just shy of 4 months old. I've never started a baby on food that early! Breastfeeding has become frustrating for both of us, though, and that was the only solution to getting her satisfied. Tom and Katie love feeding her Cheerios after I breastfeed her now.

 

Yum!

 

Wedding Weekend

Remember a month and a half ago when we went to Colorado for Lorinda's wedding and for me to decorate her cake? Well here it is:)

 

We played Ryan's awesome board game Superhero book with him the one morning we got to see him.

 

 

Shad had this brilliant idea for an anniversary dinner: "Hey, you wanna go somewhere that would be gross, but a lot of fun?" "Ooooh! I'm intrigued! What do you have in mind?" Any Colorado people wanna take a guess before I tell you where we went?

 

Casa Bonita.

 

 

It was worse than I remembered. Gross doesn't even describe it. No self-respecting person should ever eat that food, and I will never make that mistake again. Vile and disgusting. Gosh, I wanted to vomit.

 

But Shad was right about the fun. They had flashers for sale!

 

But we didn't buy any. We're not into that sort of thing.

 

The kids really liked the water fountain out front, and Tom's into shaking his head when he's really excited and wants to be silly for pictures.

 

Katie was ever determined to pull the cooler that's almost her size.

 

Look!! There's an N on the sign! I've hated these signs ever since they first went up...5 or 6 years ago? All-America City is grammatically incorrect. Congratulations, Aurora. You're finally educated!

 

We took the kids to play at Expo Park one evening and this cute little girl adopted Katie. Aw, they were best friends! It was so fun watching them run and play and do everything together.

 

And there she goes again, dragging a bag behind her all the time.

 

Oh, hey! Katie found a marker in Ryan's room one morning. Thank goodness it didn't get anywhere but on her. Unless if Dan says otherwise, and we're sorry:) Katie is an artist.

Summer Painting

We painted 4 rooms this summer. Did we lose our minds? Maybe just a little bit. The real crazy part was when we bought the paint in...April, I think...and Shad thought we could do all the painting before Dancy was born. Psh! Say hello to 6 weeks of 56 hours at work...

 

Anyway, the too dark with little natural light dining room before:

 

And after:

 

Garage entryway:

 

I asked Shad, "So how many canaries do you think it took to make these three gallons of Canary Song?"  We spent a few seconds making wood chipper sound effects:) The whole dining room area took us a week. 3 colors of paint, 2 coats each, every weeknight after the kids went to bed (9-11 or midnight). We made the hour glass pillars with a stencil (created by Shad with a flattened Special K box) and loads of tape.

 

No real before picture for the living room. It was just white walls. Shad did have to fix a spot of drywall. Story behind that is that two of the brothers that previously inhabited our home were wrestling and the younger brother's head went into the wall. Shad had to ask youtube how to match the texture. We ended up still having furniture in front of that spot anyway!

 

And here's our After:

 

We painted the brown the same days as we were using it in the dining room. It was a 5 gallon bucket we scored on clearance for $30!

 

The upstairs guest bedroom needed some serious wall help. I did an internet search to learn how to remove wallpaper glue. Diluted fabric softener and a sponge, in case you were wondering.

 

This is above a window frame. I can only imagine that the boys sat around with a push pin when they were bored. How else to you explain that above a window? There were actually holes like that all over the walls. Would you believe it if I told you it took over an hour to do the spackling? Oh, and they had a dart board without a back. Lovely.

 

Yuck.

 

Yuck.

 

And yuck.

 

Ah, serenity!

 

Beautiful, clean serenity!

 

Garage sale:)

 

I'm actually pretty envious of the guest room now. My room will get attention next year after we replace the a/c unit.

 

Downstairs bathroom. We love the blue!

 

So glad to be done painting for the year! The next big house project will be to clean all the carpet before Thanksgiving guests arrive.