Mea Culpa

I apologize, little blog, for neglecting you this month. Sadly, I have been busy both at home and at work, and when else is there for me to post? I resolve to do better for you and all 3 of my loyal readers, come the new year. And hopefully I'll be able to get a few more posts up before the end of 2008.

Anyway, to make it up to you, I'll add a little something down the sidebar: a button that links to a blog a friend of mine just turned me onto: THE MEANEST MOM. And here I thought that was me! That will teach me to believe what my kids say.

A couple of human beans

Quoth Matthew: "Mom, if Jon and I were beans, and you tried to eat us, we'd jump off the table and land on the cats to get away. Jon would land on Emma and I would land on Mindy."

I'm glad he's planned this all out.

Overheard in our house

Tonight at dinner, I told the boys that on Friday we were going to make pumpkin cookies. Well, they got all excited and said we should make bats and ghosts too! I explained that these are not cookies shaped like pumpkins, they're cookies made from pumpkins.

"Moooom," said Matt, "they're not made from REAL pumpkins."
"Yes Matt, they are."
Blank face, then matter of factly, "That's gross."

* * * * *

Jonathan helped me make our traditional cranberry-jello salad this evening. He loves to cut the grapes in half for me because I let him use a paring knife. Matt opted to stay in the living room watching A Charlie Brown Christmas (we'd already viewed A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving), but Jonathan really wanted to show off that he was using the adult tools.

Jon: "Hey Matt, I've got a sharp knife!"

Matt: (from the living room) "Can I have one?"

Before and After-ish

So a ways back I wrote about how we were getting ready to remodel our basement to turn it into a playroom. Well, in case you were wondering, it's DONE!! As I mentioned in the earlier post, this is Phase 1 of the project. The idea here was to turn this dark, unwelcoming basement into a bright, inviting, usable room, and I think we've succeeded pretty nicely. This past Saturday we finally put down the foam flooring and I was able to get some After pictures that show what the completed (for now) project looks like.

Phase 2 will eventually consist of finishing off the long wall that the closets are on and building some shelves and closets to store toys, games, videos, etc. etc. But I think you'll agree it's already quite a transformation!


I forgot to take true Before pictures, so this one is from Day 2 of the project, after the guys removed the doors, took down the ceiling, and ripped up the floor tiles. Here Rob is in the process of installing one of the six recessed light fixtures that were added to brighten the room up (we did keep the existing single-bulb fixture at the bottom of the stairs, and the recessed lighting is on a separate dimmer switch).


Here's a view from the opposite end of the room, looking toward the stairs. This was taken before the yucky single-pane basement windows were replaced with glass block.


Ta-da!!! A light, bright, colorful, cushioned space for the kids to play, make noise (within reason) and generally hang out. That's a futon to the left there, and on the cabinet that now encloses the sump pump and water meter, we have a TV, VCR, and DVD player.


Here's that second angle looking toward the stairs again (with a little moppet on the stairs!). Rob and his crew painted pretty much EVERYTHING--walls, doors, ceiling, ventilation ducts. The room seems so clean. It's too bad this was taken after dark so you can't really see how great the glass block windows look. That's a post for another time I guess. By the way, we are planning to get new doors for the closet at the bottom of the stairs...it just hasn't happened yet.

A Halloweenie Time

Just wanted to post some shots from Friday's Festivities. We had two Halloween parades at two different schools. Thankfully, Matt's parade was at 2:00 and Jon's parade was at 2:30 and the schools are less than a mile apart, so it worked out fine. We went trick-or-treating with our neighbors across the street and some other friends, and then the neighbors across the street had everyone back to their house for a casual Halloween party. It's good when Halloween is on a weekend!


For some reason, the boys insisted on carving pumpkins with no shirts on.


Both boys were Power Rangers for the second year in a row (and I think this is the 3rd straight year as a Power Ranger for Jonathan...)


Cutest little unicorn you ever saw!


My trio, and the trick-or-treating gang (minus 2 who were struggling with costume issues)


Grace was one gung-ho trick-or-treater!



I didn't get too many pictures of Jonathan trick-or-treating because he was usually 3 houses ahead of us (good thing we had almost as many adults as we had kids!)

An update

Just thought I'd update my loyal readers ;-) on the two families I wrote
about a couple weeks back.

Mike's cousin Art was discharged from the hospital on October 14th,
happily less than a month after his accident. As of last Friday, they
report that "His burns are continuing to heal well and he is feeling
better each day. He has a good energy level and appetite and, most
importantly, he is thrilled to be home. The healing process is going
quite well..."

My friend Steph Emailed me earlier this week with an update on Joanne
and her adoption saga: "Joanne and Duncan and baby are back! They were
given their Sentencia quite suddenly about two weeks ago and flew home
within a week. I went to see them on Saturday--everyone is great,
adjusting to a family life."

Terrific news on all accounts! Isn't it great when things looks so
bleak and sad and frustrating, and then everything works out? Sorry, I
have nothing profound to say about this except thanks for all your
thoughts and prayers for these friends/family members.

Now in Nursery!

Grace turned 18 months old on Saturday, which means today was her first day in Nursery at church. So how did she react? Well, I carried her to the door, and I hadn't taken two steps into the room when she launched herself out of my arms and ran to the toys yelling "Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!"





(This is the best shot I could get with Mike's cell phone)









(In the interest of full disclosure, 20 minutes later, when the novelty of the toys had worn off and she realized Mom and Dad were nowhere in sight, she wasn't quite so thrilled. Sister Goodrich brought her to me and said she did fine until they sprayed the hand sanitizer on her hands before the had their snack.)