Thursday, October 30, 2008

Pumpkin Time



Last night we carved the kids' pumpkins. Andrew took the sharpie and drew a face on the pumpkin and then directed me to make something bigger or smaller or a little different while I carved. Andrew's pumpkin is the one with the really big mouth. Tim carved Nick's pumpkin. Tim drew three choices for noses, mouths, and eyes and let Nicholas pick one of each to make the face. It worked out really well for letting a 2 year old help in some way. Andrew thought scraping the pumpkins out was really fun and was squishing his hands through the bowl of pumpkin guts any chance he had. Nick didn't like getting his hands messy at first, but when he saw how much fun Andrew was having he decided it wasn't so bad. I have some eyeball votive candles I picked up on clearance last year at Target that look pretty cool in the pumpkins, especially Andrew's.





My week has been more normal, thankfully. We now have new tires on the Subaru, which we needed anyway. While we were waiting to get the new tires on the Subaru, I noticed some cracking in one of the Jeep tires. Tim has located a tire for that too and will pick it up this weekend. Hopefully, that should be the end of our tire issues for a while.

I did do a bit of spinning this week. I have five very pretty skeins of yarn I have spun this spring and summer, besides the yarn I spun before, and I have only knit one thing with handspun. I decided that I needed to change that and cast on for a Lace Ribbon Scarf with some white Merino/Angora blend yarn. Spinning this yarn was slow because I could only spin it while Tim wasn't around. Turns out he must be allergic to Angora. There goes my plan for getting bunnies some day.

Monday, October 27, 2008

October Luck

I was planning to blog some happier weekend events, but I was about 5 blocks away from our house this morning, taking Andrew to school when I heard strange noises coming from the car. I pulled over to find a large hole in the side of a very flat tire. Thankfully I was able to park it safely, find a neighbor to get Andrew to school only a little late (thank you Sarah!), and another Kindergarten parent to bring him home (thank you to other helpful stay-at-home parents!). I am hoping this is the end of our bad luck for a while, but it seems bad luck comes in threes, especially in October for us. Cross your fingers!

We did have a good time Saturday on Grand Ave's Boo Bash. The weather was warm (right around 60 degrees) and the kids loved wearing their costumes and visiting the stores handing out treats. Nick work the lion costume I made when Andrew was two. He was very excited to be a Ly-lee (his version of lion) and even liked wearing the hood. Andrew is a knight this year, inspired by our visit to the Renaissance Festival at the beginning of September. I still have a couple things to do to his costume, but I did get most of it made in time for Saturday. I really was planning to have an extra week to finish his costume, but I'm glad I could get it together for the Boo Bash.


My knight and lion


I love the chain mail hood!

We visited many stores, including the new Wonderment store (which I had been meaning to visit in Mpls, but just hadn't gotten over there), and participated in the costume contest. Nicholas even won a prize for his costume, which happened to be a small collection of things from Wonderment (thank you Wonderment). It was a nice prize because, although Andrew didn't win a prize for his costume, there were things in Nick's prize they could share.


The lion and the lamb (sheep?)


Nick with his prize


Andrew in the bouncy fire truck/slide thing


Now I think I will take some time to spin and try to settle down a little after the rush around this morning. Hopefully, the rest of the day will be a bit calmer.


The clown fish I made for Andrew using instructions from my new Wool Pets book purchased at Wonderment.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The main reason we need to move...

Last night our garage was broken into, again. We are vigilant about keeping our service door locked, keeping the garage door closed (even unplugging it on the weekends when the Jeep usually stays in the garage). Yet, someone knew that there were tools there and managed to open our service door and take our table saw, miter saw and reciprocating saw sometime between 6pm and 9am last night. We have tried to keep tools out of the garage, but we truly don't have space for them in our partial basement and need them for the work we have been doing on our house. Tim called the police to report the break in and was told that he needed to call back Monday because they only handle break-ins to out-buildings Monday through Saturday. This afternoon was spend installing a deadbolt on our service door for the garage. Next, we will be installing motion sensitive lights above both doors. I know we don't live in a very nice neighborhood, but I am truly tired of having things go missing constantly.
 

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