Happy Halloween!

Tonight we went trick or treating. Cold!!! Freezing!!! Literally!!! We went with Derek and Elise and their son, Scotty. We only lasted outside for a half an hour or so. Then we went to a Noah's Ark party at a nearby church. (What am I saying? All the churches are nearby.) The boys had fun being a lizard and a gorilla. They were, of course, thrilled out of their minds at the sheer quantity of candy.

Trick or Treat

These are the pictures from Eli's party at school. I realized that I don't have a great photo of him in his costume. But here they are anyway.


Here is Eli's class and his teacher, the bumble bee. See if you can find the pirate and the little lizard we snuck into the party.




Eli was a very nice big brother and let Evan hold his hand during their parade through the school.






This is Eli's friend, Coner. We got to know him and his mom through toy library. I guess I can say that she's my friend by now too.



This picture cracks me up for several reasons. The main reason is that each little group got to carve a pumpkin and by picture-taking time, these are the 2 that are not having a melt-down.


Well, tomorrow night we have a Noah's Ark party to attend. I talked Eli into wearing his gorilla costume when I relayed the news that everyone who comes dressed up as an animal gets an extra goody bag. Better photos to follow.

Here are some pictures of some of the fun details we've added to our home. It's been fun to come up with ideas and work at them together. Kendall is really creative. Our minds work well together on this kind of project.

I take great inspiration from Jodi, a very creative bosom buddy. (Okay, so I memorize things I see in her house and try to copy them later.) She has a mind that is able to see junk reincarnated into beautiful, quirky pieces.


This is a bulletin board. We found the window frame way out in the bush. It was leaning against a tree with lots of other junk. It looked like a disassembled house. My favorite thing about this piece is that it didn't cost us anything except for the dollar or so for thumbtacks. It is styro-foam covered in burlap and other fabric. The burlap was cut out of coffee bags from a friend who roasts coffee.




This is a jewelry hanger made out of driftwood we found on the beach. Eli has already picked from this selection the jewelry he wants me to wear for Karissa's wedding. It is, of course, the most gaudy (umm, I mean beautiful) necklace and bracelet I have. He pretends to detest anything "pretty," but he sure enjoys beautiful things. Just don't call them "beautiful."




We added this shelf over the kitchen sink. It gives me something other than a 50-year old backsplash to look at.




Copied off of Jodi.




This was my birthday project. Kendall let me run off for the afternoon on my birthday. I went to a friend's cabin on the lake. I sat at the picnic table and painted this. Then I sat in the sun on the dock. Oh, for summer days long past...

The Joy of Diarrhea

Eli has diarrhea. (If you don't like gross stories, stop reading. I like gross stories, so I'll keep writing.) I won't go into detail about his little accident- we'll just fast-forward to where he's sitting on the toilet. I'm thinking, "Poor guy. He has diarrhea. His stomach must hurt."

And Eli? He's sitting on the toilet watching the show through his legs and laughing hysterically while exclaiming, "It's like pee! My poop is coming out like pee!" Evan came and joined the occasion for rejoicing. So Eli excitedly filled him in on the entertaining new discovery.

Boys!!!

Proud and Muddy

Here's my 2 muddy men. Eli didn't have school today, Kendall works tonight, and Evan and I had swimming lessons. So Eli and Kendall went grouse hunting. Kendall told me more or less where they were headed and said they would be back by noon.

Well, they weren't back by noon, but I didn't get too worried until 1:00. Then I knew something was wrong. Kendall is considerate enough to not be an hour late. I knew that they were probably stuck in the mud somewhere, but of course I had to work to not let my mind go to other possibilities. At 1:30 I just had to talk to someone. So I called Kendra at the office and told her what was up. At what point do I get worried? Dave was there and said that he wouldn't get worried until 3:00. So I tried to do other things and just wait patiently. I was sure, though, that something wasn't right if Kendall was this late. If he would have been out with a friend it would have been different, but I knew he would know I was worrying and he wanted to have a big chunk of time to sleep this afternoon.

I could go on with the suspense and the possible scenarios, but then they were home. And very muddy! Turns out they had gotten terribly stuck, had both fallen in the mud, and had built a couple fires while they waited. But I'll try to get their sides of the story for that part.

When they got home, Eli was pumped. He was so excited and feeling very manly. He had to shower with Dad and then ate his soup ravenously. It was cute. I think he is feeling very bonded to his Daddy after a long, muddy morning together.

Hopefully, they'll share their sides of the story...So...to be continued.

First Snow!

Today was the first snow we've seen. It was actually fun to see. The Canadians I was with at the time weren't so thrilled, but it was such a cold, dreary day that the snow improved things a bit. And it was just kind of exciting. So these photos are supposed to be of the boys standing in the snow. Of course, I now see that you can't even see the snow in the pictures, but trust me, it's there. I'm posting the pictures anyway cause they're just plain cute.

We went on a walk tonight and when we got home the deck was icy. Our thermometer says 0 right now. (Don't worry, that's 32 Fahrenheit.) But I just looked at the 10-day forecast and it's supposed to get up into the 50s midweek. And sunny!

Today we got to eat lunch at Kendra's with Derek and Elise and little Scotty and Marvin and Yvonne and Rachel who works at the hospital with Kendall. It was fun to have people to eat with. We had a relaxing afternoon then forced ourselves to get off our butts and go on a walk before supper. We went to the place where Kendall grew up and walked back in the bush behind his house. It was nice to take the boys back there. Then we came home and made soft pretzels with Kendra. Don and Marilyn Showalter are staying upstairs right now so we invited them as well. Aside from a bloody lip, poopy pants and a nasty scrape (all sustained by- but not all inflicted by- Evan), we had a good evening.

Kendall works nights this week starting tomorrow night. He's all excited because he's staying up late tonight. He wants to be tired enough to take a nap tomorrow afternoon. :) We'll see how this goes. I'm mostly looking forward to it. At least he'll be around for supper and most of the evening. He'll sleep in one of the bedrooms upstairs during the day. He works Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. Then he has a training Friday during the day and will go along moose hunting all day Thursday.

So there you have it- a summary of our day and of the week to come. Just be glad I left out the gory details. And hopefully the week to come will have fewer gory details than the week behind us had. I'll just say it was not the most shiningest week of our married life.

So we start the new week with hope.

Pirates and Hunters

This is a preview of Halloween. Someone had given Eli a big furry gorilla costume. He was very happy with it until kids started talking about Halloween at school. Then he definitely did not want to be a fuzzy gorilla. No, he wanted to be a superhero. And not Super E with his homemade cape. He wanted to be Superman or Batman or Mr. Incredible- someone real, you know. As you can guess, I wasn't too keen on the idea.

But my heart was starting to go out to Eli having to be a huggable monkey when all the other boys were much "cooler." I didn't want to attempt making a superhero costume and neither did I think we should spend money on a costume at this point. So after looking at ideas on the internet together, we agreed on a pirate. Kendall helped Eli make a sword out of cardboard and foil and our next-door neighbor gave Eli some red fabric to tie around his head.

More photos to follow later this week. His Halloween party is on Wednesday and I get to be a real live room mother! Woo hoo!





Kendall took the boys grouse hunting yesterday morning. They got three and we promptly ate them for supper. Kendall marinated them in some special sauce. They were yummy!