Photo Friday

Yep, that would be the SOLD sign for the new house.

 

Their second first day of school, hehe.

 

You find things in the oddest places when you move...

 

A forlorn Newfie in the background. Buckeyes in the foreground.

 

Scrumdiddlieumptious cookies from our neighbors

 

White breasted nuthatch above, goldfinch below

 

Stinkbug. He tried to climb up into my jeans =/

 

A cattail from out back. Fortunately we got him outside before he finished poofing seeds!

 

Home sweet home, Lalaith Havens. Lalaith is Elvish for "laughter", something we have plenty of around here.

Happy Halloween!

 

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That would be a picture. HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!

 

Today is Halloween and is Liam's 9th birthday. My yellow-loving, vegetable-hating, Lego-obsessed, Angry Bird and Star Wars fan Liam is nine.

 

He is so creative and sensitive and fun and I hope you guys get a chance to really celebrate him. Perhaps you could munch some Halloween candy in his honor. =)

 

He's at school right now, amidst the parade and party that his class is having, surrounded by new friends and not forgotten by his old ones. His previous class mailed him an entire manilla envelope stuffed with handmade birthday cards featuring the minions and Minecraft and every Halloweeny image imaginable. He lit up like the zoo at Christmas.

 

We did the birthday singing and cake eating and present opening yesterday. I thought he was going to combust. He was so excited to get Battleship and the mini Lego Millenium Falcon that he was up before 6:30 this morning and had the whole thing assembled before I staggered downstairs to supervise the getting ready for school. He's also excited about Trick or Treating in our old neighborhood tonight, even though it's raining, and he is thrilled that we're having pizza, his favorite, for dinner before we go looting.

 

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... waitaminute, that's a cloud nine Liam!

 

Happy birthday, buddy. You are so loved. And Happy Halloween to everyone out there. May your candy be especially delicious this year!

Last day of eight

I was giggling about a scene from "Finding Nemo" this morning while waiting for Liam's bus. It's one of my favorite scenes because Nemo is bursting with excitement about the first day of school. He's swimming in circles around Marlin, his dad, who is still asleep, and he's exclaiming nonstop, "first day of school, oh boy, I'm so excited, first day of school, first day of school, first day of school, oh boy, oh wow, first day of school!" Meanwhile, Marlin stirs and mutters, "I don't wanna go to school," and Nemo just about erupts. "Not you, Dad, ME! First day of school!"

I was doing the same litany this morning to Liam with, "last day of eight, oh boy,  oh boy, I'm so excited, last day of eight!"

Tomorrow our Liam the Lionhearted will turn nine.

NINE!

In the midst of all the costume craziness (we don't have all ours yet) and the school parties (Damon's today, Liam's tomorrow) and the encroaching cold and falling leaves and spider/zombie/ghost/Jack o lantern decor sprouting everywhere, our sweet boy has a birthday.

Last year I had the brilliant idea to celebrate it the day before, since actual Halloween day with kids is insane. There are the aforementioned school parties, possible homework, the mad costume scramble, and Trick or Treat is from six until eight, at which point you've gotta get home, sort candy, crow over candy, show off candy, be shoehorned into pj's and reminded twenty times to brush teeth that just got coated in candy...

so WHEN exactly are you supposed to A) have dinner and B) celebrate a birthday?

Tonight we'll have crock pot beef (not that he likes it, but I have too much to do to actually "cook" now) and a cake that is decorated as a purple minion from Despicable Me 2. Liam loves the minions. So do I, I must confess, but I was surprised to hear he wanted the purple, spazzing, freak out minion . Especially when he's loved yellow his entire life. Whatever. It's your birthday, kid.

Tomorrow we'll just pick up some pizza, like every other family in America, and have that before the descending madness of Halloween hits like a tsunami.

At any rate, now that I'm done with my Count Chocula cereal (hey, being a mom DOES have perks sometimes), I better go tackle all the Stuff that the Dratted Kitchen Fairy didn't before Grandmama comes, takes one look around, and gets back in her car to get outta Dodge.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Happy last day of eight, Liam!

How can it be the end of October?

What have we been up to?

Hmm. Let's start with today. We got the big kids out the door onto their respective buses, one at 7:10 and the next at 8:05. I fed the dog, including giving her the daily medications she requires to not be peeing all over the new house, since she's pushing 9 years old and all that.  We went to moms' Bible study, with the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon baked french toast in hand (Google that and start drooling). We then had lunch in the car while dropping off the library books and driving to preschool.

Did I mention Pepe now has 111,200+ miles on him, poor thing? The annual OBX drive has added lots of those, as well as the trip to Disney last summer, but I'm pretty sure the bulk of them have been sneaking on (like cookies to thighs) during the almost-daily trips between the old homestead and the new one. We're either there for the Y, like last night, or for karate, like later tonight, or working on the old house, like always and forever, amen. 

Anyway, then I got groceries all by myself (the sound you hear are moms everywhere sighing in envy) and I put them away by myself and I ate my lunch by myself. I threw a load of laundry in, cast one assessing glance across the kitchen, decided I really should do the dishes that are in the sink, since I am going to need them to make dinner later, but headed over here to blog instead.

Since there's only been one blog post this month, and all. You know.

But last week, Damon rode a school bus for the first time when his preschool class visited the Pumpkin Peddler. They got to ride the bus, have cider and donuts, pick a pumpkin, go on a hayride, and then ride the bus back to school. Woohoo! I even got to go with him. Poor kid almost fell asleep on the way back to preschool, but we all had a pretty good time.

Damon also asked Jesus into his heart last week during one of our many trips to preschool. As Dada says, "table for five in Heaven" for this crew. I'm so thankful for his tender little heart. Be sure to ask him about it!

Liam's been doing really well on the papers which come home in flurries from school. He's had more than one perfect spelling test and has gotten all the required points on his weekly word work, or more. One week he got an extra 10 points for his effort. He's super excited about his birthday this Friday, and the rest of us are nowhere near ready, let me tell you. How is it possible we'll have a 9 year old in the house again? Good gravy!

Miss Carrie has been rejoicing in the leaves. Specifically in the large pile of them which she raked and which she wants nobody else to dive into, look at, or touch. She is loving fall and claims to be getting straight A's and is, at the same time, missing her friends from her old school.

She went to an auction this weekend with Dada and our friend Chris. Seems she enjoyed checking out all the Stuff, which worries me slightly as our family genetics tend to run towards pack-ratted-ness. Packrattedness? Hmm, I like the hyphens better. At any rate, it sounds way better than hoarders. *Shiver*

Dada had been in Zanesville all last week and the bigwigs at work were in town the week before, so we really haven't seen too much of him, sadly. This week is better. We're back into more of a groove.

Grandmama is coming Thursday to play with us this weekend, and Trick or Treat is happening, Liam's birthday is happening, and school parties are happening, and YIKES there's a lot to do. Once again, the Dratted Kitchen Fairy has yet to show up, so I must be off! May your Halloween be delightfully spooky in all the right ways!

Scatterbrain

Eggs.

I always think of something to blog when I'm nowhere near the laptop and then nothing comes to mind when I sit down to actually do anything about it. Tonight, I'm actually sprawled across the loveseat in our library, our fireplace room, our living room, our hardwood floor room.

I like library the best. It's the first time I can think of that I've had a vision for a room. The loveseat is in the middle of one wall with matching bookshelves on both sides. The center of the room has a small, circular, double-tiered coffee table. The far wall has a black leather chair under each of the two windows and our big chair is in between. I even know where our art will go once we get the hammers and nails and hooks out from wherever they've gone into hiding during the move. The corner hutch that Pap made for us is- gasp- in a corner and has one spider plant and one Christmas cactus on top of it. There's a basket of throws, a basket of library books, a basket of kid books, a wire trash can filled with CDs, an empty CD display case, a small milk crate of CDs, and a CD player, unplugged, in the corner between the fireplace and a window behind a black chair. There is a single flame in the fireplace, ha! Woohoooooo!

There's even some items scattered along the mantel: matching candles from a wedding of friends, ceramic seagulls suspended from wires which used to reside at my grandparents' house (I think), a decorative pumpkin admonishing us to "Share the Harvest", a small owl from Grandmama, and an elegant glass cross from Uncle Rob and Aunt Jana.

There's another spider plant and a... um... portos(?) plant on one of the bookshelves. The kind that creeps around and can grow up walls if you leave it alone. The deep green and shiny leaves. Well, if you water it. Mine's looking dusty and curly and parched.

Anyway, we've survived this week into Tuesday evening. This morning was Muffins for Moms at Liam's school, so we had to get Carrie off to the bus and get ready enough to go have muffins and peruse the book fair. Did I mention I'd already baked a fritatta for my moms' Bible study which met after the book fair? And Damon had to get to preschool. And the after school the big kids had karate and homework. Thankfully I'd stuck a roast in the crock pot first thing this morning. I even threw in colorful carrots from our old garden. What's that you say? Yes, carrots come in colors other than orange. Tonight we had purply ones tossed in. Last night I'd used up the orange ones in the potato soup recipe from Aunt Chris. I think there's a single cream-colored one left, which always makes me think of the book Bunnicula, which I'm reading to Liam when we have a few minutes. It's written by the family dog when his family finds a bunny in the movie theater while they're watching Dracula. They also own a cat. I figured it would be perfect for Halloween, as the cat is convinced the bunny is a vampire. Suspiciously white-looking vegetables keep turning up, looking like they've been sucked dry...

Yesterday was a typical Monday. The weekend was busy with church and karate and Dada going to an auction and the kids home from school Friday for their fall break. We went to the Y in the morning, then to Mama Rita's, then we met up with a new mom friend of mine at a coffee shop/ bookstore, and in the evening we hit a pumpkin farm with another family from our small group. After consuming way too many fresh donuts, the corn maze, the hay ride, and general running around, we headed to their house for more running around and fireside goodies. Nice weekend!

PaPa, Grandmama, Hinrew and Muggin are all in Florida this week. I'm a teensy bit jealous, especially when the kids ignore what I'm telling them. I have to say, though, that the trees are absolutely gorgeous and it's not even their peak yet. I generally don't like fall because I hate despise loathe absolutely can not stand winter (I get grumpy when I'm cold) and fall means winter is coming. But. This year I'm trying hard to be thankful for small things, and the trees here at our new home are definitely helping. One half of the trees are almost completely naked already because of the crazy wind and storms we've had blow through in the last week. The huge oaks (there's at least two of them) are just now deciding to start turning colors. We're going to have leaves for YEARS.

So I guess you can keep Florida. I love trees.

I'd probably be singing a different song if it hadn't been 72 degrees today. Indian Summer, I'm sure, but I'll take it. It was 58 when I came home from karate at about 7:30 tonight. I ran around all day in my sandals and jean skirt and a light shirt over a tank top. As Gramps would say, "yippieeeeeeee!"

Alas, the Kitchen Fairy hasn't shown up, never mind the fact that I've already run the dishwasher once today. Whoever keeps cooking really needs to clean up after themselves. =P

Have a wonderful night, and happy birthday to Aunt Sherri!