Well, Halloween came and went and I survived it! The boys were adorable in their costumes. Adam wore his almost all day. He had a preschool party this morning and then we visited Lee at work during lunch. Ran into a couple of friends there that I hadn't seen in a long time, too. Here's a picture of the boys in their costumes. I didn't finish Adam's until this morning. I never did get a test run of Matt's costume, so it was the first and only time he wore it. I had to rewrap him several times to get it right. Of course, it started unwrapping as he was running around the neighborhood. That's ok. He liked it, he had a good time and now we're done with it. I offered to "dirty" up his costume tonight, but he said that it was ok as it was. I had let it soak in tea for several days, but most of that washed out. I was afraid that if I didn't wash it, it would start to smell... Adam loved having a mustache and a beard, lol!

My pumpkin pictures didn't turn out. We lit them with glo sticks rather than candles and they look really cool that way. However, the camera couldn't pick up the light from it... The pumpkins in the pic above are the fake kind.. Strange thing happened with out pumpkins, though. I could not get the tops off either of the two that we carved! I'm not sure how but it almost seems as if the pumpkins got glued shut. Another of my neighbors mentioned that happening to one of theirs, too. I can just picture it: a neighbor sneaking around the neighborhood, superglueing pumpkins shut. Hee, hee!

Good news!! Lee didn't work today!! It's the first day he's been off in two weeks. It was so nice to have him home, although we were busy.

We hosted our annual pumpkin carving party today. I had almost cancelled it, since I've been so stressed out with the boys, the work on the basement and Lee being at work all the time, but I'm so glad that I didn't. Lynne was here for the weekend (Lee's sister) and she also helped with getting ready for the party, although she didn't stay for it. We missed her. Matt and I each got to carve a pumpkin. Lee helped Adam decorate one with some pieces designed for pumpkins that make funny faces. Works kind of like Mr. Potato Head. I haven't taken any pics yet. I tried getting my camera out, but I think I got 2 pictures taken. One of my neighbors got some great pics and he said he would share with me. I'll post when I get copies.

The walls of the basement are painted and my tile is down. I'll take pics soon and post those as well. For those of you asking to see my new "do", there really isn't much to show - I just had it trimmed and colored (same colors as before). It was just nice to have some pampering. :-)

I'm going to try something new with Adam for preschool. He's been going once a week and staying for lunch, but ever since he started staying for lunch, he's been crying at drop off and then crying through lunch (although he's fine the rest of the time after he settles in the morning). I think that the extra time there is just too much for my little man. The teachers also think that it might be hard because he only comes once a week. So, I'm going to send him two days a week, but pick him up before lunch. I hope that this works better for him. I don't want him unhappy. He was so happy to go to school at the beginning. It was only after he started staying for lunch that things went downhill. It was his third week of school, he had caught a cold and wasn't feeling fantastic... A friend mentioned that her kids always cry on the third trip to school, but this doesn't seem to be improving, so I hope that a shorter day will help him. It's such a change from his first two times - he left me with a smile on his face and had no problems. This week should be lots of fun, too. It's Halloween week!

Rain, rain, rain... I know we desperately needed the rain, but I miss the sun. And, it's a pain to get Adam in and out of his carseat while getting rained on. I'm just feeling a bit on the whiney side today. I miss my dh - Lee's been working insane hours for the last two weeks. The boys haven't seen him for more than a half hour or so on any given day since last weekend (and he worked a good portion of the weekend as well). I'm off to distract myself with something - don't know what yet, but I need some mood enhancement (and it won't be food or anything alcoholic - I've got a cold and neither sounds good). :-)

Sometimes, I think one of the guys working for our contractor is a few eggs short of a dozen. I had talked to him repeatedly about using a tinted primer vs a base of white and then painting in color. They wanted to start painting today and I was going to buy the paint last night. Lee got home late, so I ran out to get the paint first thing this morning. I got tinted primer and then paint. I get home and he's doing all the walls in white. ****Sigh**** Then he tells me that he's going to need rollers for each color and colored primer. I offered to pick them up when I took Adam to the Little Gym, but he said no, I'll send the other guy out for them when he gets here. Get back from the Little Gym and they're gone. Get a call from the contractor (read main guy) and he's apologizing that I had to go out and buy roller covers. I told him that No, I didn't since so and so said that he was going to send other guy for them. I think the painter only hears about half of what I say to him...

Otherwise the basement is coming along well. I'm going to buy tile and get someone to come out and measure for carpet tomorrow. We've decided on the tile and carpet, although I changed the colors a little, but the effect is much the same. The rust color is softer than what I had originally picked. I hope we can get the carpet installed before Thanksgiving... I'm not sure if the bathroom down there will be finished by then, but I can hope. :-) Still have to pick the fixtures and cabinets for it.

Went and got my hair done tonight. Had to get a babysitter at the last minute because Lee's still at work, but I really needed some pampering today. I'm so glad that Melissa's babysitting now. The boys love her and she lives right across the street. Makes for a great setup.

Oh! almost forgot!! The patio was sealed this afternoon. I haven't had a chance to take a good look at it, but I will tomorrow and I'll post a pic as well. Now I won't have to worry about the patio when we do our pumpkin decorating party on Sunday! Woo hoo!

I forgot to inlcude this in my last post. I finished a layout that I'm really happy with. The pics are almost two years old - hard to believe!! I love how Matt's rubbing his chin, as if he doesn't remember what he wants for Christmas. He's such a character, sometimes!
The colors are a bit washed out. The green is darker and the red is a deep red, not the pink red that's showing up here...

I got rear-ended on Friday. I was on my way to Target with Adam and we had stopped in the turn lane (right turn) to go into the shopping center and the car behind us had stopped, but the car behind them did not. The woman behind me was really upset, I was just shaken. We both had kids with us, hers was just over a year, it looked like. There's only minor damage to my car. The rear bumper panel will probably have to be replaced, but that's all the damage I could see. Adam was fine until I wouldn't let him out of his car seat while we were filling out accident reports. It probably took about half an hour total and I can understand why he wanted out, but the road is just too busy and I didn't even want him climbing around the car. The car behind me was drivable as well, I think. The car that did the hitting had to be towed away. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I've got an app't to have the car looked at by a body shop tomorrow morning.

Lee and I took the boys to look at carpeting and flooring yesterday. Here's the tile I think we're going to go with: http://www.congoleum.com/res-products.php?product_line=duraceramicc It's Mossy Slate SI-84. I'm inserting a pic of it as well. I didn't think I'd like it, but we were comparing the colors that I want to use on the walls, and this looked wonderful with those colors. We'll be putting this by the door and in my office. Lee's not so sure he wants something this dark in the bathroom. We'll probably go with something lighter in there, since there's no natural light coming in there. The carpet will be pretty light, with darker flecks throughout.

Here are the colors that I want to use. Unfortunately, the colors in the pic are turning out much much brighter than they are on the color swatches (especially the rust - it looks red in the pic). The gold color will be the main color in the basement with the rust being an accent wall. The blue will be Lee's office/guest room and the green will be for my office. The colors we're using are the ones with the paper clips on them. The ceiling and trim/doors will be white. I think tomorrow, I'll be heading to the paint store to get some samples to put on the walls to try out.

We haven't been to the pumpkin patch yet this year!! Our annual neighborhood pumpkin decorating party is this coming Sunday and we don't have pumpkins yet. Lee's been working so much that we haven't had a chance to get out there. Matt doesn't have school Friday, so I'm hoping that Lee can get some time off and we can go then.

Matt's going to be a mummy for halloween this year. I'm currently "aging" some cheesecloth with tea for his costume. Adam wants to be a pirate. He'll be so cute! I need to find a couple of things for him as well. I can't believe that Halloween's just a little over a week away!

Matt's officially a Tiger Cub! We had a pack meeting last night and he got his Tiger Cub badge. Matt had made Lee volunteer to be in skit at the bonfire. Of course, this is the week when Lee's been working late every night and he called yesterday afternoon to tell me that he won't be able to go to the pack meeting. I got to be the substitute in the skit. I wasn't going to be able to keep an eye on Adam while doing this and I knew there would be a bonfire, so I got Melissa to babysit Adam while Matt and I went together. It was nice to spend some one on one time with him. I'm going to have to find the ceremony online somewhere so that I can scrapbook it effectively.

Well, they were ready to put the knock down finish on the walls today, but they ended up with the wrong nozzle. The poor guys - they were so embarrassed! They'll be back tomorrow and they'll probably prime on Monday!! Then I'm going to go buy some paint and start on the walls. Lee's been so busy with work that he hasn't given me much input on colors, so I think I'll go with the warm fall colors and we'll redo it if he doesn't like it. Paint is easy enough, although time consuming.

Adam's waking up from his nap, so I'd better run! It's hard to type when he's here - he likes to help a lot!

I had a fun weekend! My sister-in-law, Lynne, came into town Saturday morning. She and I got to go shopping while Adam was napping - Matt wanted to play computer games with Lee. Of course, I had to shop for clothes for the boys. I swear that Matt has grown at least an inch since the beginning of school! For some reason, Adam seems short on shirts as well, although he's got all of Matt's old clothes... I must have a clothing stealing gremlin in the house. I did make it to the scrapbook store, though. I hadn't been there without the boys in ages and it's next to impossible to really look through stuff when I've got Adam - he either wants to leave or he wants to shop (and picks up stuff throughout the store!). I found some fantastic paper that I will use when I make a scrapbook of our last trip to the southwest. I can't believe that it's been almost two years and I haven't even started it. I think it's because it seems like such a large project compared to a page or two for all the other albums I've got going.

Matt had a fantastic week last week in school! He really managed not to get into any kind of trouble (he usually talks too much to those around him) for the entire week, which is a really big deal for him. I'm so proud of him!

The contractors should be here tomorrow to put the finish on the drywall in the basement tomorrow. Lee and I still need to get to look at doors again and to decide on the carpet and tile as well as colors. All this work in the basement has kept me from getting to the gym. Ok, so it's not all that, but I have to be here when they get here and I've had to look for flooring. I didn't go last week mostly because I couldn't seem to find the time in the day and Adam still wasn't feeling all that great. I'm going to try to go tomorrow after I get done watching one of the neighbor's boys.

All the drywall is up!! They'll be in Monday to finish it and then we can prime and paint!! I need to drag Lee around to look at carpet and flooring this weekend, in between swim lessons and gymnastics...

Sad news on the little boy. Although he seems to be recovering well, the pathology reports came back on the tumor they removed last week. It's a type 4 tumor, which is extremely aggressive and is the most difficult to treat. The doctors think that the inoperable tumor is the same type as the one removed. I'm not sure what the prognosis is in the long term, but it doesn't look encouraging. Between Lee and two of the other managers, they've managed to donate 2 weeks of vacation time to the father, so he can deal with this as best he can. I'm sure more leave will be coming as the rest of dh's employees are told that the boy's father is a leave recipient. My heart is just breaking for this family.

So, I seem to have scrapper's block. I've got a project that I wanted to have finished by now that I haven't even started on. I've got all the supplies, but just can't get going. :-( I think I'm distracted with everything else that's going on...

The basement is looking good. The drywall is almost all up. There's a large soffit that goes around the ducting that needs to be finished and it's giving them fits. I think it's because Lee started it, but didn't finish it and they have to pick up where he left off. It's hard stepping into someone else's shoes. We're going to have the ceiling and walls textured - something called knock-down. It does a great job of hiding any uneven lines, so I'm all for it.

I spent yesterday morning shopping for floor coverings - carpet, tile, etc. It's amazing what a price variance you can get from one store to another! I was going to go with a tile-look laminate in my scraproom, but I came across this stuff called duraceramic. It installs like tile does (but you can put the tiles up against each other and not have grout showing), but it stays warmer than regular tile. I'm tempted by this, but haven't heard of anyone using it. We'll see what my contractor's tile guy thinks. Here's a link to the manufacturer's site: http://www.congoleum.com/res-products.php?product_line=duraceramic

Colors... I was originally thinking some sort of chartreuse for my scrap room - lots of energy in that. Not quite lime, a little more tame... However, I'm now considering doing warm, deep colors in the main room of the basement - golds, deep reds/oranges, rust (typical fall colors). Lee wants his office/guest room to be a pretty bright blue. I'm hoping I can tone that down a bit somehow. My quandary is that if I do the main room in these deep colors, my scrap room will clash. I've got a large opening (3' x 5') from my room to the main room so that I can keep an eye on the boys from where I plan to spend a lot of time. I'm thinking that I would really like a shade of green, so maybe I should go with something a bit more earthy? I'm terrible at picking out colors and having them look good together - hard to believe that I scrapbook, huh?

Anyway, that's my life these days. Thank goodness tomorrow's Friday! I'm looking forward to the Fall Festival at Matt's school - I'll get to take pics of people who want their pics taken!! Every time I get the camera out and want to take a pic of Matt, he hides, but if I want to take a pic of Adam, he gets into the pic. Go figure...

The work on the basement has started. They think they'll have the rest of the drywall up by the end of the day tomorrow. :-> I need to pick out paint colors and go shopping for floor coverings, not to mention trying to price out doors again. Adam's going to preschool tomorrow, so I should be able to get some of it done tomorrow. I need to look at laminate (for my scraproom, I'm thinking about a tile look laminate), carpeting (for the majority of the basement) and tile (for the entry way and the bathroom). I'm not even sure what color I want yet!! Aaaahhhh!!!

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and prayers. The little boy made it through surgery ok. When he came out of the anesthesia, he couldn't open his eyes and was communicating by squeezing a hand. Yesterday, when Lee got home, he reported that he was able to say "Dad" and "OK". I'm assuming that he can now open his eyes as well. They did a post-op MRI and it looks like they got the entire tumor that was operable (there had been some doubt after the surgery). The neurologist thought that he'd be able to go home in a couple of weeks. It sure puts my petty problems into perspective.

My mil seems to be recovering from her surgery and various infections pretty well. Lee says that she was still hoping to be able to fly out here for a visit. Last year, she came out for Halloween. My sil is flying out there for Thanksgiving, so she won't be here for that holiday and I really doubt she would brave the cold for Christmas - she gets cold and wants a jacket when it's in the lower 80's. It was a good thing she was here for Halloween last year. Lee ended up having to work late that night and she answered the door while I took the boys trick or treating.

We're off to another wild week! We've got several meetings for Matt this week (cub scouts and the school's fall festival) and we've got to get house stuff bought and/or ordered. At least I think we're all starting to feel better - we all had some form of that nasty cold/virus that was bugging Adam for so long. The fall festival should be lots of fun. I get to run a picture "booth", lol!

My heart is heavy today. Lee got a call from one of his employees last night. His son had been having some problems with blurry vision and yesterday they did an MRI. They found two tumors on his brain. One is inoperable and they did surgery last night on the other one, at the base of his brain. This little boy is just a bit older than Matt is. I can't imagine having to accept that kind of news about my own child. The parents were told that just recovery from this surgery might take as long as a year. Please keep this family in your prayers. We haven't gotten any news about the surgery, but should be hearing sometime soon.

***TAGGED*** by Shannon

Things you may not have known about me.....
A)Four jobs I have had in my life
1. counter waitress
2. office clerk
3. electrical engineer
4. CPA, tax specialty

B)Four movies I would watch over and over
1. Gone with the Wind
2. Demolition Man
3. Any of the Lord of the Rings movies
4. Any of the Harry Potter movies

C)Four places I have lived
1. Berwyn, IL
2. Champaign, IL
3. Des Peres, MO
4. Fenton, MO

D)Four TV shows I love to watch
1. House
2. Clean Sweep
3. Ghost Hunters
4. Can't think of anything else - I read a lot...

E)Four places I have been on vacation
1. Toronto, Ont. Canada
2. New Orleans
3. Southwestern US (El Paso, TX, Tucson, AZ)
4. Hot Springs, AR

F)Four Websites I visit daily
1. My Blog & friends
2. About.com
3. Weather
4. Yahoo.com

G)Four of my favorite foods
1. Pizza
2. Fresh baked, crusty bread
3. Chocolate
4. a nice, thick, chunky homemade soup

H)Four places I would like to be right now
1. Illinois at a scrapbook retreat
2. away for the weekend with dh (without the kids - we need some us time)
3. hiking in the woods
4. Disney

I)Four friends I am tagging
1. Tammy B
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???

Why does everything to do with home improvement have to cost so much? Sorry, all, but I'm still reeling from sticker shock. From the basement to today's adventure of pricing out the replacement of a patio door. Where can one get doors other than home depot or lowe's? I went to two different home depot's today and got two wildly different estimates. The second was double the first, but they guy was really pushing high-end doors (Andersen, etc). The first guy didn't really work in the department anymore, but had before. Do these guys work on commission? The second guy sure acted like he did - I felt like I was talking to the stereotypical used car salesman, lol (sort of). I guess I'll try Lowe's tomorrow...

I've been reading the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series of books, thanks to Melissa... These books are really long, but I get so absorbed in them. I'm usually not one for your typical romance novel, but I really have enjoyed reading these books. I'm on the third one now.

M, your oh snap comment had me lol!! Almost woke the boys up. :-)

Adam's in the dog house...

He's been out of sorts all week and really annoyed me when we went to Wally world today. He would not walk or sit in the shopping cart. I ended up carrying the boy through the entire store because I had to pick up a few things. But that's not why he's in trouble...

He found one of Matt's dry erase markers (Matt didn't put his school stuff away after being asked to do so repeatedly yesterday so he's in trouble too) and "colored" all over my ottoman! Dry erase markers are just as bad as sharpies are when it comes to upholstered furniture. He did this when I went up to take a shower and he was watching tv. I guess tomorrow, he has to come upstairs with me. Good thing that we've been talking about having all the furniture reupholstered (I'll never buy twill again). I wonder if there are still companies out there who do that - I don't know anyone who's done it. The furniture is in great shape except for the fact that the twill is faded and worn through in spots. The furniture isn't that old - we bought it 7 years ago...