More Halloween

I found this crow at the Dollar Store. He's nothing fancy, but he looks good on the top of my kitchen cabinets.

This is my Martha Stewart inspired silhouette. She has mice all over her Halloween ad, but I thought crows would be fun, too. I have some mice to put up, but need to find places where Riley won't want to rip them down.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It's no secret that I love Halloween. I've made mention of how many boxes of decorations I have squirrelled away in my garage. I can hardly wait for October to come to put them out. In fact, I didn't wait. Most of them are up. I thought I would share a few pictures with you.





I have fall leaves all around the top of my kitchen cabinets. They add a bit of fall color to my house and go great with my retro orange countertops.







I love this candle holder that hangs in my living room. I changed out the usual burgundy candles for some orange ones and then tied on some wired ribbon that has a subtle leaf print.





This skeleton has been in my family for almost 20 years. My mom used to joke that it was the skeleton of my little brother who wouldn't behave... at least I thought she was joking. The bat hotel sign is from the Dollar Store. They had great decorations this year. And, who can go wrong with just a dollar?

There are more pictures, but for some reason they aren't wanting to load. I'll try with another post.

The stores are decorating for Christmas!

Who has all their Halloween decorations up already? Me, me, me!

I love docorating for Halloween. I have 7 totes dedicated to Halloween. I'm a bit early getting everything out this year, but wanted to get the fall stuff out and since it is mixed in with Halloween, I thought I would get it all put out in one fell swoop.

The only new decor I'm planning for this year is to do the boys table. I have the perfect candleabra, but need to make a tablecloth for it. Watch for a trip to JoAnn's tonight!

Are you really voting for that person?

Guess what? Political season is here and unless you've been held prisoner in some strange man's basement for the last 6 months, you already knew this.

I've about had my fill of all the mud-slinging and name-calling that a person can take, but the thing that is really getting to me is the assumptions that people make about who I "must" be voting for.

I have one set of friends that make constant put-downs and tell the stupid jokes that have been making the rounds about the candidate I also happen to be voting for. I know that these friends assume I am voting for their candidate and so making these jokes is OK. How wrong they are. I think it is unfair to presume to know how a person is voting just because they are your friends. Just because we hang out, can stand each other, and can carry on conversations together, does not make us the same person.

Where the hell did all this crap come from?

Today I decided to take on our front hall closet. You know the one, the place that everything gets shoved into and you have to quickly open and shut the door hoping that your movement will not topple the the mountains of "stuff" that has been shove in there?

The pile of pots and pans and Tupperware, etc. that was on the top shelf has always frightened me. I've had dutch ovens stacked on top of tiny plates in a Dr. Suessish (Look everybody, I just invented a word!) pile that is only standing by the grace of You Know Who. I managed to pull it all out and get rid of five cake pans. I don't even bake cakes. Why do I have so many cake pans? I also parted with some Pampered Chef baking stones which I guess is a sin according to my mother, but I've had them for six years and never used them once. Time for them to find a new home!

When all was said and done, I had two small piles of mixing bowls and roasting pans, a much more manageable amount.

Now I just hope it stays that way.

Biggest mistake this week

Bill and I made a huge mistake this week. We honestly had good intentions, but I'm afraid those intentions have now backfired. Things have gone from bad to worse at our house and I don't see any improvement in our near future. In fact, this issue has me pulling my hair out and even locking myself in the bathroom just to get away. I don't know of any other way to tell all of you what is going on other than to show you.

Yes, we bought Tate his first movie and it has been playing in our house nearly non-stop for four days. I have seen this damn movie 9 times now. Please, make the madness stop!

I reconnected with an "old" friend from my single days this past week. When I say old, I don't literally mean old... you know what I mean. When we used to hang out, it was to party, ride motorcycles, and basically cause he**. We had a great time together, but lost touch through the years.

It was fun to see that we are leading almost parallel lives. We both have two kids that are 20 months apart (She has girls, I have boys.) We both stay at home to raise our kids while the husbands slave away. (Or don't have to change as many diapers.) And we both are going stir-crazy from lack of adult conversation.

She invited me to meet her and some of her friends to see the movie "The Women". It was a cute film about many of the things that go on with married people.

It was so fun to get together with other moms and not have to wrangle children at the same time. I definitely hope we get to do this more often.

What to say, what to say?

While pondering about what to write this evening, I reflected back on what was happening 7 years ago. I made the mistake of watching a re-run of the 9-11 attacks from the Today Show. I was trying to rock the baby to sleep while bawling my eyes out. It's surprising how quickly one is taken back to the feelings of that day. I then came to my senses and turned it to an old episode of Sex and the City. (doesn't usually make me cry uncontrollably)

I then decided I would write about the local music venue that takes place at a different park around the capital of Montana every Wednesday. We've taken the kids a couple of times this summer, hoping to expose them to new music. The only thing we've been exposing them to at these things though, is all the transients, teen moms, meth heads, and uncontrolled children the town has to offer.

You know all the people you see at the fair and always wonder where they are the rest of the year? They attend these concerts. We've given it a try and I think we will probably pass on these events next year. We'll just take them to Wal-mart if we feel the need to "expose" them to different people.

What do you wear to play?

Today, this is how I caught the boys playing "tools" on Tater's bed. Notice the Tony Hawk get-up and the skewed fireman's helmet. I think the orange boots are a nice touch too.

P.S. The hot pink screwdriver is not mine. It was given to Bill by my dad. I think he was trying to make a point.

Too tired to post today. Maybe if the baby sleeps all night.......

Wake Up!

My kids have never been too keen on taking naps. I can count on my fingers the number of naps the Taters has taken in his whole life. Ri likes to nap now and then, but no set schedule

Luckily, they do usually sleep well at night. Taters will sleep 9p.m. to 9a.m. If you wake him earlier than that, get ready for a day from hell. Usually that will be a day Ri takes toys off the head like he's on a firing range. I try to avoid waking the beast if at all possible.

About a year ago, I joined a mom's group so that the kids could be somewhat socialized and I could have conversations that didn't include the word "Bob the builder". These meetings start at 10a.m and if I get everything ready the night before, we can just about make it on time.

Fast forward to this morning and I find out they now want to move the meetings to 9:30 so those with kids in pre-school can leave at 11:00. Now I have to make a decision: wake the beast early or miss precious adult time? We'll see how this plays out.

still have all the digits

Today I started cutting out little blocks to make a simple decoration for Thanksgiving. This was the first time using a table saw, but after a short tutorial from Dad I was able to cut out five blocks. No blood in the place.

I've got them painted fall colors and just need to let them dry. Then I will add lettering to spell "gobble". Plus I have a little turkey that take the place of the "O".

I'll try to post pictures once I've got it finished.

While in high school I drove the baddest car around. A '79 Chrysler Cordoba with one primer grey door. (That's a long story. Maybe I'll save it for later.)

I bought my car for $300 during a drawing at the dealership in Great Falls. I had saved all of my paper route money for months to be able to buy my first car and she was mine.

The first downfall I found is that it still had the original stereo installed which means it came with a kick-ass 8-track player. (All you people under the age of 28... Google it.) For a music junky such as myself, this was tragedy. Luckily my parents still had their collection and I dug through it for something, anything worth listening to.

Deep in the box of dusty 8-tracks, I found a recordable 8-track. I quickly recorded my favorite music at that time (Motley Crue) and popped it into the player. It didn't sound too awful and would work until I could save for a new stereo.

I'll never forget the look on my friend Justin's face when I put in my 8-track tape of the Crue. I could see the wheels spinning. This is my same friend who had just updated to the new-fangled CD player. He was the first of all my friends to have one. "How could I have the latest Motley Crue album on 8-track?"

The next downfall of this car was one that should have been a plus. This car was supposed to be the cadillac of muscle cars... automatic windows and locks, automatic seat, air conditioning, the works. Only thing is, they only worked properly when the temp was 68*, 34% humidity and it was 5:47. Most of the things not working didn't bother me, but the automatic locks proved to be tricky. I would have to base my dress on whether or not I was going to have to get into my car "Dukes of Hazzard" style. Nothing like trying to crawl through the window of your car while wearing a skirt.

One great thing about this car was the V-8 engine. Several of my friends were buying new sports cars and wanted to prove themselves. My car may have been old and battered, but it kicked every one of those boys "sports" cars off the line. (And fit 10 of my friends at the same time!)

My least favorite toy of the boy's has to be their sandbox. They spend most of their time in it throwing sand on each other or toting it into the house.

I once changed Ri's pants and found at least half-a-cup of sand in there. I bet that chaffed a bit.

Potty Training for Dummies

I always heard from other "mommy bloggers" that kids will potty train when they are ready. I also heard constantly from my mother that The Taters was already three and that he should be potty trained by now.

We tried all the tricks... stickers, rewards, books to read, sitting for all hours with him, putting him on the potty every half hour, etc. Nothing worked.

I knew I didn't want to use Pull-ups. I'm sure they work for some people, but they were just too much like diapers for me. I looked high and low for training pants and figured that in this day of eco-friendly, green parenting they wouldn't be hard to find... wrong! I finally had to order them online (and pay a pretty penny for them.)

We were headed to our family cabin for a short vacation and thought that would be the perfect place to begin our dry pants quest. We put the training pants on first thing in the morning and had a "discussion" about using the big boy potty. We also put him on the toilet after filling him with water hoping he would get the drift. No luck.

After a few tries, we sent him out to play with his best friend, Papa. They were happily playing with tools when it happened. "Mommy, I'm all wet!" He had peed himself. We rushed inside to the bathroom, changed his clothes and sat on the potty for a bit and talked about how that was when he was supposed to go to the bathroom.

We then went out to clean up Papa's garage floor, the holiest of holy places for a three year old with a thing for tools.

Only one more little accident with wetting and a small nighttime accident and he's trained. It took about one day to get the concept and one week to perfect it. It's still stressful traveling, but more for me than him. We've taken 5 hour road trips without a single mess. (We are finding out which camp spots have bathrooms, though!)