Nikki's Monster Story

This one made me laugh. I'll transcribe it for you....

by Nikki Robbins
If I took a monster to school... He would either do his homework quietly... or... eat the principle. And then I would take him home and .... Eat, sleep, play with my monster at home so he doesn't eat anyone. And what do you think he would do next.... Yep he'd play piano! So he would wake up my baby brother. And then mom would come and take that monster and put it in the trash can. But when Mom is sleeping I would sneak outside in to the dark at 10:00 pm. I would get my monster and tuck it under my bed just in time. I love my monster. the end

October in Review...

Well, we have been doing lots of fun things throughout October that I have been taking pictures of, I just haven't been posting them on the blog. So, instead of trying to find the time to give each activity its own post like I should have done, I'm just going to slap them up here in this post and be pleased that I did it before next Halloween.

 We started out October with a Spurting Spider. Only he didn't spurt at us because I didn't want it to leak before Nate got home from work and stuck it in the fridge. Well, a smart person would realize that the Jell-o inside the cake will harden if you do that, and therefore won't ooze out when you cut it. But I'm not that smart.

 

 This was a ghost party the girls decided they wanted to have. When I told Nikki that we didn't have any sheets that she could cut up to make ghost costumes out of, they just jumped into pillowcases. Then they turned out the lights and went crazy.

 

Painting pumpkins. Always a favorite.

 Carving pumpkins. Nate was out of town, so there was no question whose pumpkin was the best this year. Of course, I would have beat him anyway. :)

 Halloween lunch -- mummy faces and apple bites.

 Halloween sprinkles on cupcakes (well, it was really muffins with cool whip on top because I had already made muffins that day, and somehow I convinced the girls it was good enough)

 Jell-O Jigglers (and yes, my kitchen has been a wreck for most of the month -- I couldn't avoid showing it in most of these pictures)

 

 Haunted gingerbread houses

 Ryan had more fun cleaning up than decorating the graham crackers

Caramel apples

Decorated cookies

And Ryan got sick as we were helping set up for our party at church Saturday night. That didn't stop Hannah and Nikki from having fun at the Trunk-or-treat, though.

The nicest witch and prettiest devil around

Okay, I'm impressed if you made it this far!

Can we postpone Halloween?

 Poor baby. He wanted nothing to do with Halloween, except for the lollipops. Can we just get everyone to dress up next weekend so he can have some fun, too?

Cute baby

I have some more pictures that I'll try to get around to uploading sometime soon. This is just a video that I think is cute because, well, I think my baby is cute. It's a perfect example of how he yells when he says anything, and it has his cute little laugh when he's proud of himself at the end.

Mom

For some reason I was just really missing Mom this morning. Sometimes it just hits me that it would be really nice to pick up the phone and talk to her. Maybe it's because last Sunday was her birthday. Maybe because I was thinking about how Hannah's love for Halloween is much like hers. I really don't know what triggered it today. This picture was not even taken at Halloween, though. She would just do crazy things like that. Love you, Mom.

Hmm...

Nate's on a spending spree!

I got such a good laugh tonight, I just had to write it down. I know I've mentioned before how cheap frugal Nate is. Well, I think last night he was doing something in the kitchen and had a run-in with my broken whisk. It has a spoke that keeps popping out, and I just have been pushing it back in for quite some time. So, when he got home from work today, he gave me a set of 3 whisks that he bought for me today. So sweet! I was really happy that he would do that for me. Then, he said, "Well, I think they should last. I didn't get them at the Dollar Store at least. I'm learning not to be so cheap anymore."

Oh, well where did you get them?

"K-Mart!"

Scary witch

For some reason, Hannah absolutely LOVES Halloween. I don't understand why. I like cute pumpkins and friendly decorations, but I really don't like to be scared. I guess I haven't collected enough Halloween decorations for her taste because she decided she wants to make a new decoration each day of October. She even got a head start and already made this life-size witch for our front door. Every time I walk around the corner, or come down the stairs in the dark this thing scares me to pieces. I catch a glimpse of this dark silhouette standing at the door, and I jump every time. I wonder what would happen if I hung it up on her closet door! :)

Laundry or ...

This one is for Kellee. My excuse for avoiding laundry this week had nothing to do with making improvements to the house. This was a book that definitely topped doing any housework. Nate's just glad that I've finished it and Book 2 hasn't come in to the library for me yet. It's a fantasy novel, and I know you like those, Kellee -- if only you had some extra time these days! I thought it was a really fun and captivating read. The author is a professor at BYU and lives in Orem, which I thought was fun since I went to BYU and I lived in Orem. :)  It had some "Oceans 11" kind of elements along with some mystical powers thrown in with some great action scenes. (Now we see why I'm not a writer, with sentences like that!) Okay, now I guess I'll go sort my Mt. Washmore.

What do you think?

So, really these pictures are for my own good. I plan to come back often and remind myself that we really have come a long way on this house since we moved in. However, I do need some advice on my light fixture over the kitchen table, so feel free to just skip to the bottom if you need the shortened version of this post.

First, the kitchen cabinets. It's a bit ridiculous how long it took me to finish painting these, and add on top of that the fact that I still hate them and can't wait to replace them... well, I'm just glad this is done.

I don't think anyone who did not have the pleasure of scraping grime off of these cabinet doors with a razor blade and then sanding off still more grime can fully understand my loathing of these cabinets. Anyway, moving on!

The kitchen walls (which you already saw in the cabinet pictures, but I'm posting these anyway)...

I've been pretty wishy-washy on what I think of the color I painted the kitchen walls. The lighting in that room is terrible, so I need something light. But I'm just afraid of extending that color into the living room and then deciding I really hate it.

Now, I have to post a before picture of the chandelier I just hung up over the table. I thought I had a good picture of it, but this is all I can find. You can kind of see it on the left side of the picture hanging in the formal dining room. It was an ugly brass monster, and I wanted to spray paint it to have an antique brass finish.

(this ugly foyer leads me to posting this finished picture of it)

Okay, so here is a better look at the chandelier. This is my question: What do you think of this color? Well, I'm not sure the coloring on the computer will come out very well. This isn't exactly the finish I was expecting, but you know there are no labels on spray paint cans of what color it is. Looking at the tops did not help me much in this situation. I also bought some black spray paint, so if you think this is ugly feel free to say so. I have to take it back down anyway because I forgot to put the nut back on the chain that holds the cover up against the ceiling. And yes, I have to replace some of the lightbulbs, too.