Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year! I think I enjoyed Halloween this year as much as I did when I was a kid. Isabelle was so excited about her costume, going trick-or-treating and what all of the other kids were dressed up as. This year she was Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" and she looked super cute!

Last weekend we kicked off the Halloween week by going to the zoo for their trick-or-treating festivities. None of the animals were out but they had treat stations set up, a spooky train ride and carnival games. It was a bit chilly but Isabelle loved getting treats to put in her pumpkin bucket.

The bottom of the panda is a HUGE pumpkin that was grown at a farm in Ft Wayne! It was pretty impressive!

Isabelle with "Handy Mandy"

On Wednesday, we had a Halloween party with our moms group. We haven't been to very many events since the summer is such a busy time so Isabelle was very excited to see some kids she hasn't seen in a couple of months! She had a lot of fun playing and loved seeing everyone in their costumes!

Isabelle's friend, Daisy

"Alice" and "Diego"

Then on Halloween we went to spooky storytime at the library in the morning. We haven't been to storytime since spring so it was fun to be back! After storytime Isabelle played with her friends in the Early Learning Center.

After naps we got ready for the big event! Daddy even left work early so we could hit the streets at 6PM on the dot!





We live in a neighborhood with only 9 houses so we went down the street to another neighborhood to go trick-or-treating. We took the wagon so Isabelle wouldn't have to walk the whole time. Little legs get tired sometimes! I was impressed though because she ended up walking for the majority of the trick-or-treating!




The neighborhood we went through is really a big! We didn't even make it through half of the neighborhood before we headed home. Isabelle really had a lot of fun! She would go up to every door and say "trick-or-treat" and made sure to say "thank you" after she was given her treat. I was very proud of her! She would get very excited when she saw a Disney Princess! She went to the same house at the same time as Belle and was just beside herself with excitement! She told us that she was going to go trick-or-treating with her friend, Belle! LOL! Oh and heaven forbid someone think that she was Cinderella! She made sure to tell them, "I not Cinderella, I Alice"!

Playing in the leaves

Two weekends ago we made a big pile of leaves for Isabelle. She had a great time jumping in them and making it rain leaves! At first she wasn't really jumping in them...it was more like walking.. so Daddy had to come and show her how it was done! Kashmir was hilarious with the leaves! When we would throw them up she would try and catch them in her mouth...that silly dog will eat ANYTHING! Then she went crazy running through the big pile! Isabelle was hysterical with laughter! Oh, and a small disclaimer in case anyone notices Jason's gloves.. I don't want you all to think he has some weird hand disease or dirt phobia or something and always wears gloves! LOL! He was chopping wood before leaping into the pile of leaves! Yeah, yeah..I know none of you believe me anyway.. ;o)

Cutie Patootie

Word on the street is we could be getting snow this week (EEEKK!! BOO!! BLECH!!!)! Our garage was still filled from when we moved the rest of our stuff over from the old house 2 weekends ago so we were parking in the driveway. We spent the day cleaning it out so we can once again park in the garage..which we are both very excited for. I never understood those people who have their garages packed full of junk and then park outside, and I am very happy to not be one of those people now! It was fun though going through boxes and trying to condense stuff for the attic. We found lots of nostalgic items and relived lots of stories. We also learned a lesson or 2.. like for instance its probably not a bright idea to put candles in the attic! HAHA! We also got to rid ourselves of some useless junk which I always enjoy! It feels good to have that mission completed and my car is happy to be back in the nice warm garage but now that just means there are boxes in our entryway now that I get to unpack.

I don't know if I posted this or not but we started some renovations in the house. Jason scraped off some popcorn ceiling (YAY!). Some of you might not know but popcorn ceilings make our skin crawl..it actually ranks right along with fluorescent lighting! Anyway, the room we are doing first is my craft room..an odd room to start with, I know, but it is in the basement and a good place to learn some trial and error lessons. I am excited to just have the whole house done!

Last night we took Isabelle trick or treating at the zoo. She is Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" this year. She looked so cute in her costume and everyone kept telling her how cute she looked. She liked it when people would call her "Alice" like that was her name. LOL! She also really liked getting treats although of course our OCD daughter wanted them to be handed to her and then she would place them in her bucket just right! After we went to Friday's for dinner and she was excited for more opportunities to show off her dress! She is such a performer!

Speaking of, this morning Isabelle was downstairs playing with her toys. Jason and I just sat at the top of the stairs and listened to her for probably a good half hour. It was so cute.. she was making up a song and singing as she went. It was a very dramatic song..lots of dynamic and good use of her range! haha! She is such a ham!

Wow, I really didn't think I had the energy to do a post! Sometimes I surprise even myself! I really just got on to post some photos of Isabelle. One of them Jason says should be an ad for CK!

Oh, gosh, one more thing I almost forgot before the photos of the cutie patootie.. our closing was Friday! We are officially a single home owning family again! YAY! Poor Jason was at the old house every night last week painting Isabelle's room. Isabelle and I really missed him! :o( Closing went really smooth and didn't take long at all. Isabelle came along and she was an angel during the meeting! I was so relieved! It is such a relief to not have to worry about the house selling or the upkeep! We were getting nervous with winter coming and having to get there in the snow to shovel and stuff.

Enough of my jabbering..here are some photos! Enjoy!

Here's Jason's CK Ad mock-up! HAHA! Our little model! Quite the drama queen!

How much wood could a woodchuck chop if a woodchuck could chop wood?

Meet my wood-chopper husband, Jason...He's working on the beard and now just needs a big flannel


Look at that form.. he's a natural!


So maybe not a perfect split, but not bad for a first time!


Let's try this again..


Woops..I got a little distracted.. she's just too cute




I love when she makes this face..I just love it!


Oh yeah...I forgot about our wood-chopper...

let's see how he's making out..


Woo hoo! Look at that split!


Now, back to the cute one...





Oh jeez, we turn our backs for a minute and he turns into Paul Bunyan...chopping down a tree with an axe..

Update on us

I have been so bad about posting on here lately! I am so sorry!! There was all the stuff going on with everything falling apart and I have been super exhausted lately so my many, many apologies!

Just a little update on everything that was wreaking havoc on our usually simple lives. My car: still not fixed! The dealer fixed some sensor thing that they were pretty convinced would fix my car.. they drove it 15 miles w/ no problems and no lights coming on. I turn out of the parking light and the stupid light comes on!!! AHHHHHH! It is driving fine, except for one incident today, so for now we are just going to ignore it.
The furnace: the blower door was off.. woops! That is a 76.00 mistake that I don't plan on making again!
The old house: Had the plumbing stack boot repaired today for the awesome price of $30.00. I am really excited about that price because the first place I called told me they would charge us $150.00. How about no thanks! And the a/c was fixed..we just had to top off the refrigerant because it was a little low. So, Jason is painting Isabelle's room again tonight. Mel-he says, "who the heck paints a ceiling!?!" hee hee! ;o) So, we are just finishing up cleaning up the old house and we close Friday! Yay for one mortgage payment again!

Other than that, not too much else has really been going on since I didn't have a car for 2 weeks! We've been playing in the backyard a lot trying to soak up all of the fall weather. This season really reminds us why we bought this house! The backyard is so gorgeous with all of the leaves changing and falling and it is so fun "hiking" and exploring our little woods area.

I have lots of pictures to share so I am going to go work on uploading them and hopefully get some posted tonight.

Mechanic just called..

and my car is still broken! Anyone know of a good cliff in good ol' flat Fort Wayne!??!

Just me whining!

Sorry I have been MIA and not updated for a couple of days. Pretty much everything has been breaking and being a pain in the butt. I am super stressed and I wish I was one of those people that reacts well under stress, but instead I kind of curl up into a ball and go hide in a corner praying everything will just go away. Unfortunately, nothing is just going away so I have to pick myself up, dust myself off and deal with this mess! Just a short list of everything that has gone wrong... our furnace won't turn on at the new house (check..furnace guy coming today..hoping to have heat tonight and not spend a fortune on a repair), water softener broke (costs as much to repair as a new one so for now we are suffering through the hard water..my hair, clothes and dishes spend all day cursing me but this has been temporarily been moved to the bottom of the list), my car... yep, still broke! It has been to our mechanic twice, the dealership and now back to the original mechanic. If its not fixed this time I am contemplating just driving it off a cliff and cutting my losses! And then there is the selling of the house.. I won't even get into that now!

Anyway, ending on a good note.. we are going to be going to PA for Christmas this year!

Cars! UGH!

On Friday night I was headed to Jason's work to sign the offer we received on the house when...my car stopped working ON 69 DURING RUSH HOUR!!!! Yep, I thought I was going to die! Luckily I reacted right away (which is usually not the case.. I usually just freeze in these types of situations and pray it is a dream and I will wake up) and pulled over when my gas pedal stopped working. Jason had to leave work to come get us as semis zoomed passed the car at 80 mph..kinda freaky! This was at like 5:00pm so Isabelle and I just hung out there until he was done working. Thank goodness the car broke only a mile from our mechanic so towing it was only $40. We really had no clue what was wrong with it, but were praying it wasn't anything big.

Monday the mechanic calls and says it needs a new fuel pump. They order it Monday, they fix it Tuesday and I pick it up. Tuesday we basically only drive to the Y, the gas station and then home. Wednesday we meet Isabelle's friends at It's Playtime. When we are on our way home my malfunction indicator light goes on. SUPER! I call the mechanic and they say to just stop in after Isabelle gets up from her nap.. its probably just a sensor that didn't get put back on. On our way to the mechanic when my car starts SHAKING! I really didn't think we were going to make it there! It kept getting worse and worse the whole way there! I was freaking out..you can verify that with Julie who I had talk to me the whole way there in case something bad happened and she could call Jason..yes, I know I am paranoid! Haha! So fast forward through all the fun service stuff and basically the fuel pump they received must be defective and not working properly. It was too late in the day to order a new one for tomorrow so I will again be carless for 2 days! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Daddy's helper

Isabelle and Daddy worked on a project in the yard on Saturday. They put stones around the fire pit in hopes that our grass wouldn't catch fire! LOL! Jason doesn't have a cart thing to attach to his tractor yet so they loaded them up in her wagon and pulled them down the hill. Isabelle played the role of the inspector and made sure all of the bricks were laid correctly!





Then, of course she had to make sure that Daddy really secured them to the ground



And then, only naturally, the bricks turned into a balance beam!






After the firepit border was finished, they went back up to the house to get the tool for the next project...that will be another post and I assure you it is entertaining!