Light the Night

I'm actually making SOME progress with scrapping my previous years' Halloween pictures! You know - I've told you a hundred times at least - I'm just not very good at getting motivated to scrap holiday pictures! But I've done a few fall-ish layouts this year at least. I still have TONS to scrap, but hey, one step at a time!

Journaling: "This was our first year in taking part in Light the Night. I was a bit worried you would feel like you were being cheated out of something since we wouldn't be doing trick-or-treating like we normally do. But as it turned out, I think you had more fun that you ever have before. We met up with the May family, so you got to spend the evening with friends. Plus there were games, candy treats, hot dogs & cups of cocoa. And we did step away and go around one block for trick-or-treating. Not only did we have fun, but we also got to be a part of an event that impacted our community."

I used the TLP / 9th & Bloom Collaboration kit (see my last post) for this layout.
(Click here to view full credits)


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The First Thing to Go

You may or may not already know this about Isaac, but he is a HUGE science kid. He reads dinosaur encyclopedia's for fun, memorizes random facts about sharks because he wants to, and loves anything and everything to do with ocean life, prehistoric creatures and their descendants, and, well, pretty much any animal that can tear it up in a fight. *lol* So it really peaked his interest when they were talking about the Woolly Mammoth the other day in science class. Someone mentioned that scientists had found a baby Woolly Mammoth frozen in ice with its fur and skin still in tact. He thought that was pretty cool. But his next thought led to this statement...

"It's too bad skin is always the first thing to go. I hope some day they find a frozen dinosaur so we can see what it's skin REALLY looked like. 'Cause right now, people just have to guess, but I wish we didn't have to just guess."

In case you are wondering, he has dreams of becoming a combination paleontologist / video game designer. Should be interesting where that career path leads.


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Too Many Legs

And speaking of spiders...
My layout for the most recent digi dare...

Journaling: "I have never ever considered myself to be a fearful person, and if you were to have asked me, I would have said, Nope, I'm not afraid of anything. This summer I was proven wrong when I was confronted face-to-face with a giant furry wolf spider. That thing just has too many legs and moves way to fast for me. If I ever see that guy in my house, I'm moving out!"

(Click here to view full credits.)

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I Love.

I love having a clean house. I love that it's clean because my kids cleaned it. (That sounds bad, doesn't it?) And I love that they cleaned it without whining and complaining (well, almost... Meagan had to get a few whimpers in before she obliged, but she still did it). The boys made their beds and put their clothes away. Meagan cleaned up her toys and started to clean her bedroom. They helped clean up after dinner, and they helped round up the trash to go out. And in the end, they all got to pick out their buttons for their charts. Happy people all around.

That is what I love the most.

(Just a note... what I don't love so much is finding out a bit too late that the last person in the restroom only left three squares on the roll. That I don't love... just as a note.)


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Easy Crafty Cuteness

30 miniature pumpkins.


240 pipe cleaner legs and 60 googly eyes.


A bit of glue in the right places.
Cute little pumpkin spiders.

This will be our Halloween party project in Meagan's class tomorrow. She saw my example spider guy, and she is super excited to make her own!

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Home Body & Other Randomness

Well, we had our first missed day of school today. Sebastian has been coughing a ton lately, and he was complaining of a sore throat. I thought, with Halloween coming up, and Daddy coming home in a few days, we better give him a chance to rest and recover. He had very little coughing today, which was good, but not a lot of appetite. He seems like he'll be okay to go back tomorrow.

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We had a windy, rainy, rather stormy day today. I got a cell phone notification first thing in the morning that our area would be under a tornado watch for the better part of the day. It rained a lot. The wind definitely blew, and the sky was as dark gray as it can be without being black. But it all passed rather quickly. Nothing too exciting. We lost power for about 1 second... just enough that I had to reset clocks and such. Isaac said the bells kept going off in the school all morning. But really, it was not that big of a deal.

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I went today and got the supplies for the craft that we will be doing tomorrow in Meagan's class for her Halloween party. I am HOPING they turn out okay. I've never done this craft before, so it could be interesting. I will be spending this evening preparing little baggies of craft goodies to get ready for the party. Wish me luck.

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That's all for now. We're getting ready to work on our clean-up and chores for the evening. Then some chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese for dinner. And hopefully some time for relaxing sometime after that.

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Daily Dining...again

I know YOU absolutely do NOT care what I'm spending on my food. So please be patient... the month is almost over. This has been really helpful for me and an interesting experiment I must say.

Over the weekend:
a total of $25.00 eating out
$44 groceries

Today:
$7.85 on snacks.

Where does that leave me? So far a total of $606.57. My goal was $500 or less, so I clearly did not hit that mark. But I am still a good $200 or more less than my typical month's spending on groceries alone, before I ever count dining. So I think I have made major progress this month in cutting back on unnecessary spending. Just a few more days to go... I should be able to keep my food spending pretty reasonably low for the rest of the month. I'm in the home stretch!!

Library Afternoon

This is what we did tonight... a trip to the public library for a Diary of a Wimpy Kid activity / class for the boys. They spent an hour and 15 minutes with other 7-10 year old's. While they were in there, Meagan and I spent our time in the children's area, where she played everything there was to play - puppet shows, doll house, Lego's, puzzles, kitchen, and on and on. We read a few books, and played I Spy. We were just running out of things to do when the boys' session let out. Perfect timing.


Cool thing... Sebastian won a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw. He immediately ensured Isaac that the book was really for both of them, which I thought was super sweet of him. He won it for knowing the most information about the Wimpy Kid books (or, if you ask Isaac, he won because his hand is just faster at flying in the air than everyone else's... *lol*)

By the time the kids each chose a book to check out, it was about 6:15. We stopped at Little Caesar's and picked up a $5 pizza on the way home. It was late, and we were HUNGRY.

The rest of the night was spent in pure Mommy bliss. These button chore charts are my most favorite thing ever! Despite the fact that Sebastian has said several times how much he likes it and what a great idea it was (he sure knows how to butter up his Momma), they work like a CHARM! This evening, they ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen, did their homework, made their beds, cleaned their rooms, and sorted laundry... all without having to be told. Isaac even came to me and offered to help me with the rest of the laundry tomorrow if I need help. Yes, I admit that a bit of the excitement might be due to novelty, BUT money is a HUGE motivator for Isaac, and a full chart is a great motivator for Sebastian, and picking out her own buttons to put on is a huge motivator for Meagan... so it's kind of a win all the way around! I'm LOVING it right now... hope at least MOST of the excitement sticks around. That would be great!!

(Here's the completed project, after the name stickers and the full set of velcro and all...)

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By the way, Meagan got her stitches out today. She is healing nicely, although she has a big yucky scab at her hair line right now. The stitches came out fairly easily, considering the scab and all... only one cry of 'ouch.'

I also dug Halloween decorations out of the attic. Maybe we can find some time to decorate a bit this weekend. If we don't do it this weekend, there is really no point, as any later and they will only be up for a few days. I'm so bad at holiday decorations... except Christmas... I never seem to have any troubles with that one.

Not much else happening today. Meagan and I snuggled on the couch for much of the day watching none other than How to Train Your Dragon... twice. Will she EVER get tired of that movie? I hope not, 'cause I like it. As we were heading to school to pick up the boys, she said, "Mommy this certainly was a super relaxing day!" I agree!

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Daily Dining... catching up

Okay, I sorta lost track of this over the past few days... add about $100 for totalled groceries & drive-thru's for the past few days. We were out of bathroom supplies, which is never cheap, but always necessary! Plus, I grabbed a salad for lunch and a pizza for dinner... still room for improvement in trimming out the extra junkity spending... but definitely better than in previous months when I paid no attention.

Notes on Today

Today was a no-school day for Meagan. She watched How to Train Your Dragon on a loop... really, I think she watched the movie 3 1/2 times and the short film that came with it twice.

I painted today. I trimmed and rolled all of the walls in the entry way. I have only one itty bitty spot left to do - the teeny little space that is squished in between our bathroom door and the door to the garage. I'll have to use a small watercolor brush or something to get to it. Maybe tomorrow when there's better light.

I like the new color. I LOVE the absence of the old color. Bye bye pinkish brownish vomit-bag-ish paint. I will not miss you. Not even for a moment.

Somehow I managed to wash and dry three loads of laundry.... kids clothes. I did not, however, fold them in any way, shape, or form. My front room now has three baskets full of clothes waiting to be tended to. You know, I think folding & putting away clothes is on the new award charts. Sounds like a great job for my darling children to tackle.

I don't think I was very nice today. It was a crabby Mommy day for my kids. Idunno why. Tired. I painted. They're crazy. Who knows. I think it had a lot to do with how messy the house was today. I don't do well in the midst of clutter. And since I painted, I did not clean. At all. Until after the kids went to bed. So they were with me when the clutter was making me feel the craziest... the toys! the dishes! the crumbs on the table and floor! the laundry! the painting supplies! aaaaaahhh!!!

We did our 30-minute clean-up tonight (which I think I forgot to blog about... I meant to, just forgot... a few times a week, we set the timer for 30 minutes and clean as much as we can, which is usually either straightening the kitchen or picking up toys that are everywhere... when the 30 minutes are over, we stop, even if not everything is clean... works pretty well... so far). Meagan had toys all over the living room... tinker toys and lincoln logs and zhu zhu pets and dragons. It was a disaster zone, and she was the culprit of it all (as the boys were in school all day, I knew it couldn't be them). Isaac offered to help her pick up, but once he started, she stopped. She went and sat down at the kitchen table and started playing while he was cleaning... her mess! That did not go over well with me. One too many times hearing "It's hard" and "I don't want to clean up." Gaaah! She got in trouble. I yelled. Sometimes she just drives me bonkers!! Lucas says it's because she acts just like me. Maybe he's right.

Tomorrow is Meagan's last day with her stitches. Wow time flies. Seems like that JUST happened. Anyway, she goes Thursday morning to get them out.

I have pictures from this weekend's trip to the apple orchard, but I am just too tired to mess with them tonight. Again, maybe tomorrow. We'll see what time allows. For now, I'm off to bed. We'll chat again soon.

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Award Charts

Once upon a time, we had a decent system in place for rewarding the kids for keeping their rooms clean and generally picking up around the house. At the time that we moved, that system sort of went by the way side, and has since been totally pushed out of the picture.

For a few months now, every so often, one of the kids will say, "Why don't we do our Clean Room Awards anymore?" or something along those lines. Honestly, I was starting to feel a wee bit dissatisfied with the set-up of the old system. I wanted to be able to be a bit more specific with my expectations... that way, not only do they have a better idea of what is being asked of them, but I also have greater room to better recognize and reward their behaviors.

Finally today, I put these little guys together. I basically revamped the old chart... added some lines, got a bit more specific, and made one chart that I will be able to use over and over again (rather than having to print out a new chart each week, which was one of the major downfalls of the old way... not sure if you know me well, but I'm REALLY good at forgetting... not so good on the whole "being consistent" thing).

Each kid has their own chart that hangs on the side of the refrigerator. There are little velcro tabs on the charts, and I used the buttons (yes, Meagan's favorite toys) I had to make the markers. I just stick little bits of velcro on the back of each button, and when they fulfill something on the chart, they'll get a button on their board.

Unfortunately, I ran out of velcro tabs, so I'm gonna have to make a Wal-Mart run to get another box... I have to finish up Isaac's chart and do Meagan's altogether (which is why Sebastian has more than the other two at the moment). I think I might also see if I can find a set of letter stickers to at least put their initials on the charts so they can easily tell whose is whose.

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WHY?

In the van today, Sebastian asked me, "Mom, why did people invent smoking?"

About a million thoughts ran through my mind... what little I know of the history of tobacco, the motivations for smoking, blah blah. But, as I was feeling rather lazy and not in the mood to go into all that, I took the easy way out and simply said, "I don't know Bud."

Then (of course) Meagan chimed in... "Maybe it's because they want to die faster. Smoking makes you die, doesn't it?"

I smiled. I guess I won't have to have the 'don't smoke' talk with her!!


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Daily Dining - Catching Up

Well, last Thursday, we ended up doing our Chili's trip at Meagan's request... $43 bucks for all five of us to eat. *sigh* But super yummy.... so, okay.

Then over the weekend, I spent another $67 at the grocery.

This morning, $6.50 on breakfast (taking Lucas to the airport... breakfast on the go... hmmm).

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She Loves Leaves

My layout for the speed scrap... it was a lot of fun! Will definitely do that again some time!

Journaling: "This was a great day for being out in the yard. The sun was shining, the air was crisp and cool, and the leaves were freshly fallen. Meagan and Ailey had a great time raking big piles and then jumping in. There are not words to describe the joy on her face as she spun and jumped through the leaves. The girl LOVES leaves!"

(Click here to view full credits.)

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Speed Scrap October 18th

Hey all! Just a heads-up that I'll be hosting my first ever speed scrap this coming Monday at TLP.... 12:00 EST.

Here's the gist... every 10 minutes (starting at noon and ending at 1:00) I'll give an instruction. At the end of the hour, you'll have another hour to get your page completed and uploaded to the TLP gallery. Just for playing you'll get a this...

Come and play along if you can!!

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OUCH.

Goodness, the day can take a drastic turn in the matter of a moment. We were having a wonderful day yesterday. The kids were home from school, the house was clean, and dinner was started. Things were good.

I was doing a quick wipe-down of our main floor bathroom when I heard a HUGE thud... followed quickly by a horrible horrible scream. I ran to the stairs and found Meagan at the top, holding her hands over her forehead, crying "it hurts, it hurts, it hurts." I got to her like a super-mom who can fly, and when she reached for me to hug me (thus, taking her hands off of her forehead), I was horrified. Her forehead was gashed open and bleeding like crazy. I scooped her up, took her straight down to the kitchen, and got her a wet cloth and an ice pack to put on it. Straight to the ER we went.

We got there and the woman working the front desk looked at her and said, "Oh dear. She's bleeding profusely. Let's skip the paperwork." Mama like. We got quick, great care, although it still took us nearly 3 hours from the time we left the house to the time we got home. 8 stitches. But she got a whole bunch of Tinkerbell and Fairy stickers, and a handful of silly bands. Plus, she sat in the room for 2 hours and played Jewelled on my phone (which is a fun little matching game). So yes, she was entertained and handled the waiting quite nicely.

So she went from this...
To this... (much better, don't you think?)The one thing she was worried about was that I ended up throwing away the kitchen towel that she had bled all over. She was devastated that we threw away that towel. So, I have promised her a trip to Wal-Mart today to pick out a new pack of kitchen towels... she has requested Halloween towels, specifically 'ghosty' towels, which we have never had before. But I don't mind a pack of festive towels for a sweet baby girl who has had a rough day.

She also asked if we could get Chili's for dinner when we left the hospital. Well, we actually had a dinner guest yesterday (so Lucas grilled steaks and they ate steaks and the green beans I had made... so I sorta felt like I should go home rather than to Chili's). So her Daddy made her a special box of macaroni for dinner... she was happy. Plus, Sebastian made her a Lego race track to surprise her (how sweet is that!). So that made up for not getting Chili's for dinner. Maybe tonight or tomorrow we'll head to Chili's... we'll see.

At any rate, yesterday was, thankfully, her last day of school for the week, so she will have a good long weekend to recoup. We have an appointment next Thursday to have her stitches removed. She's already looking forward to that... this morning, when her friend B came over to go to school with us, she actually hid from him. "I don't want anyone to see me like this." Poor thing. She warmed up and came out of hiding, though, when I reminded her that B had stitches this summer, so he knows what it's like. Plus, he was SUPER sweet, when he said, "Meagan, I think you look really pretty like that. I like you're stitches. They look pretty and red" (I didn't tell him that it was dry blood that was making them red... I didn't want to ruin the sweet gesture). At any rate, I think she's out of hiding for the day, but she is definitely not going to be sad to have them taken out.

*Sigh* Life with three kids is never boring.

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Attacking my Nemesis

Since the day we moved into this house, our kitchen has been my nemesis. Even in unpacking, we fought as I tried to put together the puzzle that was fitting everything into the cabinets. I got the stuff put away, however, and moved on with life, concentrating on painting and putting together the rest of the house. Now that most of the house is in shape (barring one bathroom and the front hall), I have come full circle and am back to the kitchen again. And I'm going NUTS. Until this point, I've not paid much attention, but NOW I am staring down the realization that my kitchen is not so pretty. It's stark and blah... white walls, dark green counter tops, black appliances. Very dark and dated. However, we are NOT going to replace the counter tops or appliances, so I have to find a way to work with what I've got. I think the key is to make it look like I WANT to have dark green counters. Right.

So I've been stalking Pier 1 (like I said) and Hobby Lobby and online sites to get some ideas. And I think I've got a plan in my head. I'll just have to do it bit by bit. So for now, I'm doing what I can do and I'll do more as I am able.

Yesterday, I don't know what came over me, but all of a sudden I got in the mood to hang pictures that have been lying around for months. And I put them in the kitchen... the LAST place I would have thought when I first got them. But I think I like how it turned out. I'm going to let it hang on the walls for a few days to see how I like it in a few days. At the moment, though, I am feeling quite partial to it... I think it's unique and gives a cool character to the room. I dunno... see what you think...

I hung the FAITH, PRAY, LOVE pictures (from this post) under the cabinets. I figured I'd try it and if I didn't like it, I could easily fill in the nail holes for a quick undo. Also, hung up some plates above the cabinets, as you can see, and hung up a few things over the shelf. Like that. We replaced the knobs on the oak hutch with some little green glass knobs for a bit of a new feel. (Have I ever mentioned how much I like green. I think I have. *lol*)

This or That

After the grocery trip, I determined that I really had no idea what was in my Lazy Susan cupboard. So I pulled everything out and started sorting. I stopped mid way to go check on Meagan and her friend, who were playing in the front yard.

So, when I should have been doing this....

I ended up outside with my camera doing THIS instead....

(Love bare feet on crunchy leaves. Yes, as a mother I was cringing to think of my child walking around outside in the chilly air with bare feet. But... well... )

Life is good.

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A Few of My Favorite Things

Pausing once again to take notice of the little things here and there around me that brighten my day and make me smile. As fall is in full swing, and winter is quickly approaching, I decided it was time to forgo the fresh flowers for a bit. So I threw together a quick bouquet of silk flowers with shades of green and white. Green absolutely puts me at ease and makes me happy. ***** I'm definitely Feeling festive this month. Look at these cute little glass pebbles we found at Pier 1, which is quickly becoming my favorite browsing place... I love to go in and look around. The colors and textures in there are amazing. I'm sure by now the sales people sort of roll their eyes when they see me walk in... 'Oh it's her again.' Bet they wish I would buy a bit more often! But I must say I've gotten some great ideas in there! And this fall planter that I found at Meijer.

Aaah, and candy corn. I don't particular LIKE candy corn, but I LOVE the way that it looks! And the kids like having it around, for sure!

And because I like the look of candy corn, it's only fitting that I have candy corn lights on our holiday tree.

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One more of my favorite things... fresh grilled veggies! Yum! Super easy and one of my favorite additions to any meal. When it's warm enough to grill, that is the absolute best. But on cold days, steaming the veggies instead of grilling works almost as well.

To make them on the grill:

• Chop up your favorite fresh veggies... we've been known to use broccoli, squash, zucchini, onions, peppers, mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes... you name it.


• lightly coat them with olive oil


• then sprinkle Italian dressing mix over the veggies and toss until evenly coated


• grill... we use a grill basket... works like a dream!

To steam them instead, chop and steam the veggies first, then toss them in olive oil & dressing mix.

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Daily Dining - Oct 12

Another grocery trip today... sheesh! I had to go because I was out of baggies for lunches, running low on milk & fruit... that kind of thing. I got sucked into the sales, though. I had a bunch of coupons for stuff that was on sale buy 10 for $10 get 1 free. *sigh* I'm a sucker for sales. Anyhow, I still ended up getting out of there spending only $125.15. However, we went to the grocery after dropping the boys off at school, but before eating breakfast, so I ended up getting Meagan a bit of breakfast at McDonald's again... blah! Total fast food spending was $2.87.

Grand total so far since I've been tracking groceries & eating out this month = $313.22.