Kyle's decorations

These cute little guys were a big hit. Kyle didn't design the skeletons, but he did cut them out. The kids each painted one. From left to right: Johnny's is Funny Bones; Courtney's is Jack Skeleton; Ben's is Spookley. At least that's what I call them. The bones rattle and shake and are a lot of fun in the wind. But I just had to take them down today...we had a brief blizzard with super strong winds. I was afraid the skeletons would blow away!

Our costumes this year

Happy Halloween! Once again, we had a party at church with carnival games and Trunk or Treating outside. Here is what we looked like this year:

Benjamin received this costume from Bettie. She wanted to make it for his 8th birthday when he got baptized, but she ran out of time. Two days before Halloween, she finished. It was funny because Ben never really pegged down what he wanted to be, so it worked out well to be surprised with a costume. We used acrylic paint for his lightning bolt scar.


Courtney changed her mind about 20 minutes before we left for the Halloween party. She decided to be a fortune teller and came down with the dresses on. I helped her find the headbands and necklaces and belts. She had fun and looked cute, so, whatever.


Johnny chose again this year to be Superman. This year he wore a cape I made a couple years ago, so it was a little different. That and he was busting out of the costume which was tight last year. Two of his friends matched him so it was easy to lose him in the crowd.


Kyle and I went for weather costumes. He was a tornado (complete with fences, windows, cows, horses, and more).


I was cloudy with a chance of rain (and everytime someone asked they got squirted!)


This was Courtney's original costume. She came up with the idea and designed the whole thing herself. She had a book that told how to make the hat. I made the hat and she painted and decorated it herself. Courtney wore this for the cub scout party and at school, but changed her mind when it came to trick or treating. Said she was embarrassed to wear the wig.

And at the end of the night, we got two huge bowls full of candy. At least one bowlful is all chocolate!

Updates: Courtney's room and The House

Drumroll please.....Courtney has actually been keeping her room clean!  And she has been doing it on her own with no reminders, persuasions, punishments, yelling, loss of toys, or loss of privileges. Mindboggling that "a place for everything" actually works!

On Saturday we went under contract for buying The House.  Today we had the home inspector come.  Funny, it took $450 to meet our neighbor...he lives about 6 houses away from us right now.  There were a couple issues, the main one being a roof in need of repairs.  The owners will take care of that and a broken window.  The owners have kept very good care of the house and it shows.  We'll see about getting the few issues fixed and we should be good to go for moving in on December 4!  Our landlord told us he will prorate our rent for us since we wont be in this house for much of the month.  If everything keeps going well we will get a new home for Christmas!

(We did find and kill a black widow outside the garage, but we'll just hope he was an orphan...)

What happened?!

Kyle was home from work today and he helped me work on cleaning out Courtney's room and the toy room.  We didn't make it to working on the boys' room yet(but I did their room about a week ago...so you'd think you could tell.) When the kids got home from school, they went upstairs and Courtney was ecstatic.  We made the organization very simple in her room (and got rid of lots of clutter toys) so she can keep it up on her own.  The first thing she said was: "What happened to Ben's room??"  Ummm, nothing chica.  The difference is that YOUR room is now clean! Benjamin took one look at his room and said: "Did you leave my room like this to teach a lesson?"  No.  It took all day to do the other rooms!  

Any votes on how long Courtney's room will look this good?  She has a couple friends that are over all the time and the three of them together can make quite a mess super quick! (Although Courtney can definitely hold her own, too.)

House update

So this morning we are placing an offer on The House.  We feel good about it this time.  Before I guess it just wasn't the right time for us to offer, but now we feel ready.  Nervous, but ready.  We'll see how this goes!

Johnny says...

I told the kids that when they clean up their rooms we can decorate for Halloween.  We've had numerous kids visit the house and that doesn't help the cause any, so it is taking awhile.  We've been discussing this for a few days...so now when we drive around and see a house decorated for Halloween, Johnny says, "Look! They are ready for Halloween!  Their rooms are clean."  And of course, he says the opposite too about unadorned houses: "Uh oh.  They aren't ready for Halloween.  Their rooms are a mess!"  LOL!  We are decorating tomorrow.

Huh...no sooner did I post

...and our realtor emails us that the house is back on the market.  Now what do we do???