Salvaged Saturday

Plan for the day:

9:45 Soccer game

11:00 Birthday party

12:00 Peter work at Gypsy Picnic

1:00 pick up from birthday party

Go down to the Gypsy picnic to eat, listen and have fun.

Reality of the day:

9:20 Peter & Alex leave for soccer game

9:40 Take Conleigh to friends so we can carpool to birthday party

As we pull into the driveway of friend, Campbell barfs all over the backseat

Come home. Miss soccer. Campbell feels better.

Alex comes home from soccer. They lost today.

Alex decides to go with Peter to Gypsy picnic. We'll get him when we go later.

Campbell & I leave to go get Conleigh and friend at birthday party.

While I go in to get the girls at 1:00, Campbell barfs in the car again.

Take Conleigh's friend to drop her off at a fall market where her mom is. 

Conleigh stays with her and they run around.

Call Peter and tell him we are not coming to picnic.

How will Alex get home? (Peter is staying until 10pm).

Father and son have a good time.

Campbell watches Spooky Buddies movie.

Conleigh arrives home about 4:00.

She watches Spooky Buddies.

I take a nap and start some laundry.

Peter calls. He ran into some neighbors. They will bring Alex home.

Girls watching ICarly. Mom watching World Series.

7:30 Alex gets home after a great time in the outdoors. 

He is filthy as all get out and not wanting to take a shower.

He goes for the five minute version.

I love having all my kids here.

I'd say for having one sick, the other two managed pretty good days.

Hardins Haunted Hollow

 Somehow we have accumulated quite the collection of Halloween decorations, and the kids LOVE it.

Mom's a junker. I admit it.  One day as we came home from school on the golf cart, we passed these white spindles lying in a bundle at someones curb.  Big garbage pick-up had been the week before and these were obviouly out for garbage. I passed the pile and then thought, "I can do something with those." So, I spun around and picked up the pile and put it on the laps of Alex & his friend who was riding home with us.  A couple of weeks later we discovered they would be perfect to use as the fence of our homegrown Halloween graveyard.

 Alex even put a hook from one of his costumes sticking out.



Front door wreath with the wacky purple cat.



This grave was designed by Conleigh. It is a little hard to see the hairless rat there by the skull.  Carefully placed, she got the reaction she was looking for. When our 6th grade girl neighbors came over, one of them was caught off guard and completely thought is was a real rat.



View from the street. We've gotten lots of compliments on our Hardin graveyard.

200 Tables

 Conleigh has declared that soon we will have 200 Tables that I want to take to Goodwill.  No, I say.  My affair with craigslist furniture continues and my interest in painting furniture is still there. Peter said he kind of likes the name of a store called, Two Hundred Tables.
For some reason, I have been frozen to just go for it. 
The Bible study I've been doing at church talks about how God wants to take us on a wild ride, but we have to go for it and live life. So, with that in mind, I got in gear yesterday and painted this chest of drawers that has been in our garage since August. 
I used Annie Sloan chalk paint in Paris Grey.  The great thing about this paint is that it doesn't require prepping or stripping.  Since the top of the dresser was laminate, I did use some 60 grit sandpaper and roughed it up a bit.
The weather was absolutely beautiful yesterday and painting in the quiet garage with no radio and just quiet was a wonderful way to spend an hour yesterday.

I took the hardware off and wiped down the piece. Then I painted. I do love the AS Chalk Paint. I thought I would love the Paris grey color.  Hmm.  It may be too dull. I need some advice and some suggestions from folks on where to go from here....the paris grey is too mellow for me.  Help!

Suggestions welcome!

Me & My Girl

It was a good Columbus Day.

The kids were off school, but we had teacher conferences.

After those, we went costume shopping.  Alex wants to be a hippy. Interesting.

Conleigh has chosen to be a vampire again, and she wants the rest of us to be some sort of

vampire as well. 

After that, we had friends over to play.

Visitor

Mark came to visit last week.  The kids loved seeing him even for the very short visit.  He was in town for work and spent the night with us. Come back anytime!

Viva Las Vegas

 We enjoyed a terrific weekend just the two of us and four friends in Vegas, baby.  The point is there were no children to tend to. We could sleep in, stay out late,  gamble and eat and drink when we wanted. It was an overdue trip for the two of us. It was just a blast.

The Robots. Manton, Traci, Kate, Peter, Karri and Kevin.

 After the hilarious comedy show at Brad Garrett's Comedy club we went dancing and then we went to New York, New York and spent some time at the Irish pub and then, we rode the full-on roller coaster.  Hmm. Interesting experience with some brews in the tummy.  We all made it out on the other side.

Oh brother. Check out the girl in the background.

Fall Fest Fun

 After soccer on Saturday, we headed out to the Harvest Fest at a local church. We attended this festival several years ago but hadn't been since Campbell was old enough to really participate.
The children had so much fun.  Campbell looks like a little cowgirl in the petting booth. I love it.

 What would a festival be without cotton candy?  Alex and Conleigh gave the cake walk a whirl, but after two tries and only one prize left, we threw in the towel. 
Oh. My. Goodness. The velcro wall. Conleigh and  Alex both took a turn on the velcro wall. It was so funny. They were hanging up there and desperately trying to pull themselves off.  I wish I could explain how funny it was. They both loved it.
 And, the Gravity Golf was a huge hit.  Campbell said that was her favorite thing at the festival, and it was free! Basically, the kids put tons of golf balls in a PVC pipe at the top of a slight incline. The balls roll down and out and kids go wild to collect them again.

Velco man.

We may try to build one of these contraptions in our backyard. 

It was a beautiful Saturday and super fun family time.