Casper and Casper

Another trick-or-treating has passed and the boys had a great time. Wes has totally and completely gotten into the greed of getting as much candy as his tired little feet can possibly get. It was cold tonight but not raining! Connor went out for the first time and rode in the wagon and then walked up to the door. He was so sweet about it! I took both of them to a few houses and I could tell we were slowing Wes down, so I brought them back home and Chris and Wes really did it up. He sure had a ton of candy and lots of stuff that I like! Bonus. Happy sugar high!

Here are our pictures. They ended up being Casper the ghost and got lots of compliments. I like being origional...well maybe not the ghost part, but I didn't see any other Caspers out!

I didn't paint at all today, I'm feeling guilty about that, so it is back to the grind tomorrow. I was glad I spent the day playing around with the boys for Halloween.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone! It's raining here this morning but it is supposed to clear off later on today. I sure hope so. It seems the past few years have all been rainy!

We have a fun day planned today. We are going to carve our pumpkins, make cupcakes, do a spider craft and run some errands. As well as all the other day to day stuff like go to school! Unfortunately Wes' school doesn't let costumes go to school, so we don't have to worry about that today.

I will post pictures later on after our ghosts get into the "mood"! Enjoy your day and eats lots of candy!

Miss you, Chief!

It was three years ago today that my Grandpa passed away unexpectedly. I miss him very much and he has been on my mind constantly today. I wish I could visit him but his remains are in MI so it is out of the question. But, he sent a fire truck my way today, so I know he is looking down on us with a smile. He was a firemen all his life and a Chief as well. Miss you Grandpa! I'll drink a beer in your honor tonight!

Friday Night Mudbowl

This one is for the local boys who suffered through the worst ever Friday night sectional games. I felt so bad for Chris and all the kids playing last night. It was in the low 40's and pouring rain for all the games. Chris said that at any given point in the field water was over their shoes. His white pants were completely brown. I will probably never get them clean! I watched the highlights on TV last night and you couldn't even read the numbers of players for all the mud. And, I got to see Chris on the highlights of his game. I listened to it on the radio last night and laughed my butt off as the local announcers were giving their crew a hard time because of the slop. At least my husband wasn't the one who they were saying looked like he had an accident in his pants. However, I do think he was one of the "3 stooges" as they referred to him. Oh well. Great job for sucking it up last night!! It was the first game ever that he complained about doing.

In other news. I took the boys over to G & G's for dinner and to hang out. Larry had more clean gourds for me and I took him another nasty dirty batch to clean. I wouldn't be able to paint if he wasn't helping me. What a great Father-in-Law! The boys had fun just sitting around the fire and staying dry!

Wes has a birthday party today and another tomorrow. So he is all geared up for parties and cake. It will probably be Monday before he comes off the sugar high. I hope to get some more painting done while he is off partying.

And, Go Boilers! Not that it will help, but I can try cheering them on from home. Hopefully Penn St will not bring the "A" game to Purdue today...because if they do there is no hope for us. Most of the gang is tailgating today with the annual turkey boil/Thanksgiving tailgate meal. Chris was up at the crack of dawn making the dressing he always takes. It smells so good in the house and I got none! My thoughts are with our friends who are not at the game today and home taking care of sick little Paige. I'm thinking of you guys and hoping she is feeling better after another surgery on Thursday!

Have a great weekend. Go Boilers!

Paint till you drop!

The painting goes on and on. I got behind for a couple of days! Yesterday and today I made 14 ornaments, so I'm getting caught back up. We didn't have any extra activities other than preschool yesterday, so I had lots of time to paint. Today I had bowling in the morning, so I only got 4 painted this afternoon with the morning gone. But, I'm at least starting to feel like I will have something to put together for my craft show. So much more to go!

I finally got the ghost costumes finished. I ended up making a "Casper-like face" for Connor's teeshirt and the same face for Wes' sheet. Once the hats are on them and it is dark outside I think they will be okay. Not my greatest costume, but they aren't complaining.

It's raining and cold here today. Very dreary but I think we are all starting to get used to it. The boys have even stopped asking if they can go outside and play. Wes has two birthday party invitations for this weekend. The one I know he is going to for sure because Nolan is a bowling buddy, plus I know I can leave him! But the other is at the Y for a classmate and I don't know the parents so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to leave him or what is the drill. There will be swimming involved so I'm sure I will need to stay. Must paint, must paint.

Well, it's nearly dinner time and Chris will be home soon. I'm hanging out again tonight with Heather at our local dive. It is seeming to be part of the weekly routine. And, I'm all for it! Thanks Chris for getting the boys to bed after I leave!

Scary sheets

What 2 year old is afraid of a white sheet? Mine! This is the same child that puts blankets over his head and runs around the house.

Connor is scared of a simple white sheet and any attempt I make to turn it into a ghost costume. Wes thinks it's cool but not Connor. I was even cutting a neck out so that he didn't have to have it over his head. Of course he likes the white stocking cap but not the sheet. I eventually managed to get the neck cut out and while he was screaming put it over his head only for him to turn into Hulk Hogan and tear the sheet off of him like a thin tee-shirt. Now I have two separate sheets and no Halloween costume for Connor. Maybe I can just buy an oversized white tee-shirt and paint ghost eyes on the front for him. But, I'm still pissed that he tore the thing off like a rag. Okay Hulkster, easy on the droids!

As promised..

I'm still here

I'm still here, I'm still here. We had a great weekend and I'm finally ready to sit back down at the computer. However, I did try to post early Saturday morning and something wasn't working correctly. All was lost! Sniff!

One low point of the weekend, many of you may know that Purdue lost. That was my one home game of the season and the Boilers blew it, bigtime! Oh well. I did have fun going and Chris was so well behaved. I was very, very proud of him. Seeing the boys were spending the night at G & G's house we decided to take full advantage of that and also went to a opening night hockey game. The Komets just pounded on Quad City. It was a great game to watch. At least one of our teams won...and on that note, good job Tigers!

I have been painting like crazy. I finally have enough similiar gourds to take some pictures and post those later on today. I've had a bunch of orders lately as well. Those are keeping me on my toes too. Thanks to all my great friends and family, you know who you are! I just hope that they don't feel like they need to buy them from me. But thank you to all of those who have.

Well, on with my day. I have laundry to do, the house needs picked up, the ghost costumes need worked on and of course, I need to paint. Have a great Monday and I'll post again later on, with pictures.

Much of the same..

Life continues much the same as always around here. Another week of school completed. Wes got to take snack to school today and it was also picture day. I promised him earlier in the week he could have Taco Bell today after bowling. So, we brought a nice new clean shirt for pictures today and put it on right before he went in. Good decision too, there was much soft taco spillage.

Gourd painting continues on. I'm trying to average about 4 a day, at least during the week. So far I've stuck to that as well as getting one or two extra done a day. I'm trying to get a lot of ornaments and so far I'm up to 9 of those. Of course I'd like to have miniumn of 30. Lots to do, lots to do. I'll post pictures in a few days when I at least have enough of a series to take pictures of.

I bowled better today. However, we had a bit of a stand off today with the other team. Or, maybe I should say I did! No chick fights, sorry! There is a rule that children are not allowed down on the lanes during bowling. Hence the fact that they have two sweet old ladies (The Grandma's) who take care of our children while we bowl. All three of us on our team rely on this, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. Children around the lane can get hurt, are a distraction and quite frankly, exactly what I go there to get away from! So, of course there was a woman on the team we played today who routinely brings her children. That pissed me off right from the word go because they weren't even up at the chairs they were down with us sitting in the lanes. NO WAY! I gave it a bit to see if they were going to be getting picked up and that didn't happen. So, I approached our league president and inquired about the rules. And, we were correct. It was bothering all of us and even once I asked the little girl not to stick her hands on the balls because I was afraid she was going to get a finger pinched. I've done it, that sucks! Anyway...league president handles it and the woman is not happy and the children get picked up by dad (amazing). I even heard her say she knew the rules. I guess setting an example and following the rules for her children's sake never crossed her mind. She wasn't happy but settled down eventually. I don't think she knew I squealed, but I sensed she thought we were all evil. Oh well. At least we split the games against them today.

We are going to play indoor putt-putt tomorrow with our buddies Sage and Rachel. Then the boys are off to G & G's house to spend the night and most of Saturday. I'm going to my one Purdue home football game of the year. And of course, it is against evil Wisconsin. Chris has promised to behave himself, but I have vivid memories of a game against evil Wisconsin from nearly 7 years ago where I had to practically drag him away from an evil Wisconsin fan to avoid manly fisticuffs! We were merely engaged then, so hopefully the threat of having to live with me pissed off by poor sportmanship will prevent further embaresment! They are pretty evil, though, I admit. Right up there with Norte Dame fans!

Later...

Not much going on..

There just isn't much going on around here. For the second day in a row it is raining and dreary outside. You would still think it about 5:00 in the morning if you didn't know better. Yuck. This can go away any time and the sun can return.

Wes has school and swim today. Chris got him signed up this weekend for indoor flag football. That should be a hoot. I was undecided between that and Y basketball. The basketball lasts for 4 months and the football only lasts for 2 months. I thought for the first attempt at a sport we should keep it short and sweet. Hopefully he likes it. It will be starting in November.

Connor was not fooled by the darkness this morning and came in to wake me up at 7:00. I figured that with the darkness I would have the luxury of sleeping until at least 7:30. No go!

There just isn't much going on today. I've been trying to get inspired to start painting my holiday stuff for my big craft show in November. It isn't far away but it is hard to paint x-mas stuff when it is still October. I think today will be the day to get going on it.

I shipped Halloween gourds to Uncle Stu and a friend of his in Arizona. He should be getting them today or tomorrow. Hopefully they will like them and they will also arrive in one piece. And, speaking of Halloween, I have a couple of ghost costumes to work on. That's what they wanted to be...so I need to get that under control.

Have a great day and where ever you are I hope you get sun shine!!

Weekend

The boys are tucked in bed and I finally can get caught up from the weekend. Wes and I had a fantastic time in Michigan. He is a completely different boy when his younger brother isn't around. He was just a little gentleman and so well behaved all weekend. Yeah for him. We both had a lot of fun with G & G. It was cold and sunny (no rain/snow) but turnout for the sale was just average. I didn't sell any gourds...other than the one my mom purchased and that doesn't count. Mom and I did a little shopping and dad and I watched some sports. Yeah Tigers!
















I have a couple of pictures of Wes enjoying the weekend with Grandpa. We were out in the gourd patch today and couldn't believe how huge some of the bottle and kettle gourds had become. A few looked like there were starting to rot from the wet weather so my parents picked most of them after we left. Wes went from gourd to gourd informing us that "this is the biggest ever!"
















Connor and Chris had a great time together this weekend as well. Chris was able to do a couple of odd chores around the house (thank you) and Purdue won (thank you). This was a great weekend for each of the boys to enjoy some one on one time. They both have earned it.

On a sad note and a strong dose of reality. After getting home I was devastated to learn some horrible news about a friend of ours little girl. Paige is not yet 2 years old and has been battling a cancerous tumor in her brain. The poor little thing has gone through so much in the past few months with surgeries, chemo, loosing sight in one eye and now only to learn that within just days of removing more tumor it just comes back and is spreading. Why? So senseless! There isn't anything more that medicine can do for her and her loving family is having to spend their last days at home with her. I just want her to be better but it doesn't seem that her body is going to let that happen. We will be thinking about her, her big brother and her parents constantly tonight and the coming days. Cancer is a evil monster that doesn't spare even the most innocent. If there is one cure I hope to see in my lifetime it is for cancer! So tonight Chris and I had a strong reminder of how precious life is and how important it is to savior each day with our children. Hug your babies tonight! I know we couldn't help but hold them tighter all night!

It's Cold!

Snow, yes we have seen snow at our house today. Amazing. A grim reminder that winter is just around the corner. We haven't even enjoyed Fall to its fullest yet. Sorry winter, but you are just going to have to wait your turn.

Per the weather, we had to break out the winter coats for the boys today. I was aware that Wes would need a new coat this year but the 30 degrees crept up on me and I hadn't made the purchase yet. So, he had to wear his old, just a little small, coat. Mind you, he hated this coat last year and it was always a battle to get him to wear it. So, when it was a bit tight today you can only imagine the battles that ensued.

We were in and out of the car a lot today for bowling (I really sucked), lunch at McDonald's (that sucked too), school (good times, I finished a book), playtime outside at school and a trip to the library after school (highlight of the day). So it was very necessary to wear a coat. He fought with me at every stop about not wanting to wear the coat. The highlight had to be him whining about wearing it into the library, him stopping just inside the door to take off the offending coat and throw it to the library floor - with multiple witnesses, mind you. The only thing that would have made it even more fun is if he would have stomped on it. I proceeded to walk away and told him for the last time I wasn't going to take care of his coat. So, brilliant boy wonder picks up one of the book baskets, stuffs his coat in it and proceeds to carry his coat in the basket. I had to give him props for that one! Oh, and Connor decided to poop at the library and unspecting me didn't bring a diaper and wipes along. As we walked across the main part of the library Connor kept telling me in his most non-libray voice.."poo-poo, poo-poo". I appologize to any library goers who smelled us.

Anyway, Wes and I are headed to Michigan tomorrow night for the "swap meet" and some more cold weather. Probably all the Halloween gourds I worked so hard to get ready will be coming home with me. I'm not expecting miracles. Wes is looking forward to more Grandpa time and I hope to go shopping with my mom. If she behaves herself! Enjoy Winter, I mean Fall!

Plumbing, swimming and ironing

Well, it's just misc. stuff tonight. It has been a busy day. Connor managed to plug a toilet in our house by unrolling the toilet paper and then stuffing it into the toilet. I swear he is completely fixated by the toilet. Maybe he is going to be a plumber. Come to think about it he does sport crack a lot..I'm always pulling his pants up. Sorry plumbers! I've unplugged so many toilets in my day that I'm starting to think about joining the profession! Despite plumbing issues I have managed to paint two more gourds so that I can ship them out to Phoenix to my cool Bro and his friend. Hopefully they will be dry enough to send tomorrow.

Wes had swim today and did really well. Drum roll please....After a year a half of swim lessons (uninterrupted, I might add) Wes has finally been moved up a level. While they register for lessons by age level his instructor did acknowledge that he is a higher level than he was! Wow, that was quick...but GOOD JOB WES! He isn't a lap swimmer yet but at least he can sorta swim. I'm not sure how to describe what he does, it is almost like sinking swimming.

I finally got caught up on the ironing. I was avoiding it like the plague and poor Chris won't say anything, but he was nearly out of shirts! He could iron them himself, but he never thinks the shirts actually need ironed...AND THEY REALLY DO!

My Grandma got safely back to Florida after a very delayed flight. Her very nice "friend" Bob had dinner and champagne waiting for her! Awesome! Good for her! Sign me up for that.

That's all for now!

Horse Show, Clifford and Michigan

Well, what do those three items have in common? Our weekend in a nutshell! I picked Wes up from school on Thursday and he was beaming with an extra bag in tow. I quickly discovered that the mysterious bag contained Clifford the Dog, the class mascot. Who knew?? So, it was Wes' turn to take Clifford home for the weekend. Lucky for Clifford we had extra room in the car on our trip to Michigan.




















So, off to Michigan State University on Friday morning to watch a couple of hours of my parents horse show. I say a couple of hours because that was about all I could get out of the boys...watching the classes was a bit boring to them....unless Grandma and Grandpa were in the ring showing and I had a box of popcorn to bribe them with. I think Clifford brought G & G luck because both Mom and Dad won their respective classes while we were there! We also made sure to take pictures of Clifford doing such things as posing with the horses. We put together a nice photo page and essay on what Clifford did with us over the weekend for Wes to take back to school today.

While we were there Clifford was able to ride in the golf cart, help pick gourds and pumpkins, ride a bike with Wes, ride on some lawn tractors and have a near miss with a chipper shredder! Well, not really, I had a little fun posing Clifford in hazardous places while Wes wasn't looking. We kept those pictures at home. Chris wanted to me post a ransom for him and see what the class was willing to pay to get him back. You know..."Five thousand, or the dog gets it!"

Anyway...we had a great weekend. The weather was fantastic and the main reason why I love fall so much. We came back Sunday and put our pumpkins out at home, went for bike rides and played some backyard football. Enjoy our pictures.

Uneventful is good!

It's been rather uneventful around here, which is a good thing. I've been painting away, Wes is back to complaining about my dinner choices and Connor keeps us all on our toes. He ran off with a paintbrush today, but thankfully it didn't have paint on it!

I was very proud of both boys today, especially Connor, for being so good for their haircuts. Wes is an old pro and just walks in and climbs up in the chair. He then proceeds to chat away with John Jr. while John Sr. cuts the Con-man's hair. Con hates it and the past few times I've actually had to sit in the chair with him on my lap. Today he just sat there and didn't say a word. I couldn't believe it! John looked at me like "What did you give him??" Nothing, really, nothing! I was just as amazed as him!

I/We have bowling tomorrow and then Wes has school. I'd like to get together after school tomorrow with our little friend Sage, but the weather has been hit or miss. Hopefully the sun will shine and we can go to the park.

The boys and I are headed to Michigan on Friday morning to visit with Mouse (my Grandma) for her birthday and before she heads back to FL for the winter. We are also going to make a stop at MSU to watch G & G at their horse show. I always like to keep my distance from mom (she scares me), but with the boys there we can sit in the stands and eat popcorn! Safety in numbers! Throw in some pumpkin and gourd picking from the fields, some tri-cycle riding, golf cart racing, horse petting and cookie eating and we will all be exhausted by the time we head home Saturday night.

Till then..enjoy life.

Halloween gourds

Wes went back to school today, thank goodness. I kept him home yesterday because he just didn't seem up to it but by the afternoon I could tell he was going today! Which, finally gave me the chance to start painting again!

I have a small show, if you could call it that, in less than two weeks and I want to have a lot of Halloween stuff for sale. So, laugh if you wish, but here is what I have to show for myself so far. My favorites are the "Frankies"! I like the scarecrows the least...they need some more work.

Great weekend

Well, it is back to the old routine today. But, everyone around our house, exception of Wes, had a great weekend. Wes still isn't feeling well. I returned yesterday expecting to see him looking much better and instead looking as bad, if not worse than Friday! I'm undecided as to if he is up to going to school today. It will be a gametime decision. He just doesn't have any obvious symptoms but I can tell he isn't his charming self.

Chris seemed to enjoy the "boys only" weekend, also with one exception, Purdue lost! I was nervous about leaving the boys during the ND/Purdue football game (the biggest game of the season)...but it seems no one was worse for wear! Wes said he didn't learn any new words. Thank you honey for watching the boys and not teaching them any new curse words while watching Purdue lose!!!

I had a great weekend. Heather and I did lots of shopping at the Circle Center and I really didn't buy much, just a couple of cool shirts! We stayed at the Hyatt, ate a great dinner at Claddagh, did some major people watching over wine and champaign, got to watch firemen driving around while I waved like an idiot at them (I have a fireman weakness), I nearly ran into a bagpipers pipes and then to top it off, went dancing only to feel really old and left! All in all a great weekend was had by all...thanks to my understanding husband and really cool friend!! And, also thanks to Heather's parents for dog sitting!