Halloween Preparations

We're getting all ready for the big day! We've been keeping very busy. Here is a quick recap....

Wednesday night we went to the fall festival at church. The boys had a blast! I had planned on setting up a table with Jazzercise info, and I did, but I left it sitting there and went and played with the boys. They had two jumparoos set up in the gym and tons of games for the kids. The boys played the bean bag toss, the duck game, find the coins in the hay, and the cake walk. Nolen won a cupcake! They had so much fun and we really hadn't even planned on going so it turned out to be a great night. This church is really great. They have some many cool programs for the kids and everyone is so nice.

These are the pumpkin shirts I made for the boys. We already had the orange t-shirts. I used black felt and sewed on the pumpkin faces. They turned out really cute. The boys were being really goofy here. I don't know if you can tell or not, but Nolen is huge! He has shot up like a weed!

Friday night we had our first fire in the fireplace. We burned some wood that Ed cut down out of our trees in the backyard. There are a lot of branches that are rotten or too close to the house and one of his projects has been to cut them down. As soon as he got them lit the boys started asking for marshmellows. They were tooooo cute to say no to, so Nolen and I jumped in the car and ran to Winn Dixie.

On Saturday we went to the Boll Weevil Festival in Enterprise. I set up a Jazzercise booth and pestered people all day long. "Have you heard about Jazzercise?" It was a wonderful day for it! I sat out there for 7 hours and it was so cool all day that I didn't realize I was getting sunburned! Oops! The boys came down and visited. We all had some fair food for lunch and the boys rode the Boll Weevil Train. It was pretty cute. Hopefully I've generated some interest for Jazzercise too.

Saturday night I took the boys to a haunted house at Fort Rucker. I wasn't too worried about it being scary since most things on post are FOR kids. You can see where this is going. We got there and the line was out the door and around the corner. We waited in line for an HOUR! The kids were great though. They ran around and played with the other kids in line. We finally got the front and Max and Nolen were high-fiving the ghoulish door man so I was thinking we were golden. Well, I was wrong. The gym was pitch black and there were about ten tents set up to walk through. We were guided into the first tent and no one was in there but there was a huge box of balloons. Being the haunted house professional that I am, I knew someone was going to pop out of there. It scared the boys to death! When we backed away from the clown that popped out, another one popped out right behind us and then another one after that. Nolen was freaked out! We went out of the tent and I couldn't convince him to go on. He was shaking but he wasn't crying. When we were leaving he told me, "I was brave, Mom, that's why I was shaking." It was still a good night. I think the boys still thought it was cool. I also think Max could have kept going. He was scared but not quite as scared as Nolen.

Last night the boys decorated some Halloween sugar cookies and today they dressed up in their costumes for Jazzercise. There seems to be a whole lot of Halloween celebrating going on this year. I'm excited to take them treak-or-treating tomorrow night too!!! Its hard to see us, but I am the Cat in the Hat, Max is Scooby Doo, Nolen is a ghost, Kim is a football player, her daughter Madison is Princess Dora, Katie is a ladybug, her daughter Ellie is a ballerina and Kathy is...well, you figure it out. I'll give you a hint, she had a black eye.

Happy Halloween!

A trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Happy Birthday Brittany

How did you do that??

Several people have asked me how I recovered my couch so I thought I'd give a quick description here. First, I read an article from 1974 describing how to do it. The best advice I got from it was to carefully take the existing fabric off of the couch. If you search around the couch you will find the piece that should come off first, next etc. Some of these pieces will be attached with tack strips which you may be able to keep and reuse. Other pieces are attached with staples which you can easily pop off. As you take each piece off, it may help to label where it came from and which side is the top or bottom and left or right. Keep these pieces because you will use them for a pattern to cut the new pieces of fabric. Once you have the couch apart, you can begin cutting the fabric using the old pieces as a pattern. The first piece you will reattach to the couch will be last piece you removed from the couch. Once you have cut your pieces you may need to sew some of them together. If this is necessary, a helpful trick is to lay the pieces on the couch right side down and pin them together. REMEMBER that because you are pinning it inside out, the right side (e.g. right arm) will actually end up being the left side (e.g. left arm). Sew any seams. And when you're ready, start stapling! It is VERY gratifying to see your NEW couch take shape! It is really not too difficult. The hardest part was having a torn up couch in our living room for a week! Haha! Good luck!

Feels like Fall

I love it when the seasons change! It is 52 degrees this morning. We slept with the windows open last night and air in the house is crisp and fresh. This morning I put on long pants and snuggled up with my coffee. I think spring and fall are my favorite seasons in the south. We're so lucky to have a taste of cool weather in the mornings and evenings while its still warm enough for the kids to run around outside without jackets and all of that mess during the day. For the record, Fairbanks is expecting snow this weekend with a high of 30 and a low of 0! I love Alabama! Roll Tide! (Just kidding Dad)

Backyard Fun

We are finally settling into the new house. It seems like we spent the first two months busy with unpacking, house projects and lots of errands. But things have slowed down this week. We still have a long list of things to do in the house but we had a nice long weekend. I went to New Orleans for a Jazzercise meeting on Saturday and Ed and the boys went to visit Aunt Linda and Uncle Neil at the Lakehouse. On Monday and Tuesday we all chilled out at home. Ed has been tackling more do-it-yourself projects and he hung the tire swing for the boys. It may not be as perfect as he had hoped for (I didn't buy the right rope) but it works and the boys LOVE it. Ed said he is surprised how much the boys love it. I asked him if he ever had a tire swing growing up and he said no. Well there you go then! Carol Ellis and I used to play on a tire swing in the very back corner of the playground at Almost Angels when we were 3 and 4. It was our favorite thing to do after digging for the devil in the sandbox.



We also did some neighborhood trash picking this week and got the boys a pool. They didn't have a chance to play in it until last night. As it was getting dark they jumped right in. They didn't mind that the water was FREEZING.

Did you get a new couch?

Nope! This is the couch that Edward bought right before I met him in 2000. It was in desperate need of some new "clothes" so after much convincing by Edward I tackled the job. And after much nudging and hinting from Edward I managed to FINISH the job too. I'm really proud of how it turned out. Its not perfect but I like it better than I ever liked this couch even when it was new.

Bugsy is so helpful!

Our family is actually DECORATED! For the first time, I feel like I have a decorated family room. OK, so the pictures aren't actually hung up yet, but everything MATCHES! Its a miracle!

What were YOU doing at 7am?

Apparently this family likes to start the fun early! I don't know how it started but Nolen thought they were going to see if apples would sink or float at school on Friday. Well, they didn't get to, so I told him we could do it at home. So of course, as soon as Max woke up on Saturday morning, he told me it was time to see if apples sink or float. After convincing him that we needed to eat breakfast first, we got the boys dressed and went outside. I filled up a bucket with water, brought out 3 apples and let the boys go to town. They played with the water and apples for about an hour. Who knew it could be so fun?!?!

First the boys found out that apples do in fact float. They had fun throwing the apples into the bucket and watching them splash, go underwater and pop back up. They were pretty wet from all of the splashing.

Then they tried bobbing for apples. Of course that is too hard for them, so they used their hands. Getting a little wetter.

SUCCESS! Look at me Max!

Anything you can do I can do better!

The kids ended the morning Alabama style. We're not too proud to admit that this is their swimming pool!

Like I said a whole morning of fun!
Bucket - free
Water - free
3 apples - $0.99
splashing around on the patio at 7 in the morning while Mom and Dad drink coffee....priceless.