BOO!

It's getting to be that time of year again!  Molly, Ben and I whipped up some goodies while Jack was at school.  And then while Ben napped, Molly and I decided to fashion a gift basket to sneak over onto our neighbors' doorstep.  Of course, she felt compelled to then TELL this neighbor what we'd done, even though she clearly understood the whole TOP SECRET aspect of doing the boo-ing.  Her conscience just wouldn't let her!  (Dear Lord, if you could just keep that embedded honesty intact throughout her teenage years, I'll be very grateful!).

Since our neighbors don't read our blog, we can share some pictures. 

CONTENTS: Repurposed Tray, Seasonal Baking Mix, Halloween-themed paper cups/plates/napkins, plastic googley glasses and vampire fangs, 9 boxed mix Halloween cupcakes with confectioner's glaze and colored sugar sprinkles. I probably spent less than $10 on the whole thing, but in my opinion, anything in a decorative box, wrapped in cellophane with curling ribbon ribbon looks like a million bucks!  We werent' trying to break the bank, just spread a little fun, especially since our neighbors have been so good to us these last two months.


 



These were just plain ole white cupcakes that we dipped in a super simple glaze (1 cup confectioner's sugar and 3tsp water stirred until smooth) and attacked with sprinkles (orange, green and black - spooky!)  Then we stuck seasonal toothpicks in them ($2 at Walmart, including matching muffin liners!) and voila! 

The paper products are all from Target - I knew there was a reason I had to have them!  And the silly halloween accessories are perfect for the Nelsons and their three boys.

BOO! 

The air is cool, the season Fall,

Soon Halloween will come to all.

Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...

Tricky witches at your door.

The spooks are after things to do,

In fact a spook brought this "BOO" to you!

The excitement comes when friends like you,

Copy this note and make it two.

Your neighbors will have big smiles on their faces,

No one will know who "BOO"ed whose places!

Take a day or two to work your spell,

Keep it secret, hide it well.

Please join the fun, the seasons here.

Just spread one "BOO" and some Halloween cheer!

It's going to be a good day

Our new sectional, which proved it's worth when Marc christened it by falling asleep with red wine in his hand.  Eight years ago he did the same exact thing to our days old butter-yellow twill sectional and sadly, it never recovered.  But we'd spent so much on it we couldn't get rid of it...until now!  Yee HA for getting rid of ancient, tattered, worn, really quite embarrassing furniture and bringing in something waterproof, child-proof and blessedly, even Marc-proof!

Our new fence has arrived!  The perimiter is SECURE and El Destructo is once again CONTAINED!

After two months of making seventyeleven daily trips to the garage with my recycling, I finally decided to find a way to fit it into the kitchen!  Now if I could only stop walking to the garage before I remember it's in the kitchen, I'd be getting somewhere!

These are three of my biggest headaches, SOLVED.  The weight off my shoulders feels amazing!

Fall at the Garden Center

One of the bonuses of buying our house in Kinloch was the farmstand on the corner.  We could walk to it if we were in the mood (not that we have, but we could).  We got here at the raggedy end of the summer season.  The corn was MOUTHWATERING, but the rest of the place was kind of empty.

And then FALL hit!!!  It was painful having to wait for the end of September to buy mums for my empty, languishing, front door urns, but I knew if I bought too early they'd be toast by mid-October.  But then one warm fall day, I could take it no more, so off my trusty sidekick and I went.  We came home with two lovely yellow mums that perk up the front door considerably. 

Is it totally not cool

To cry in a home accessories store? Well, then I'm the queen of the
uncool. I also MUST recreate this.

This is a big deal.

Eight YEARS it has been since I was able to use bleach on our whites.  When we moved to Pembroke and I got my very own washer and dryer, I figured that the reason our whites seemed dingy was because I wasn't using enough bleach.  So I kept using more.  And more, and MORE.  Until one day Marc went to wipe his brow after a hard workout and burned his face with all the residual bleach that was in the towel.

Oops!

But our whites were still dingy!  A year later when we had to replace our pool liner and filled the pool back up with water from both a truck and our hose, the pool guy finally solved the mystery when the new liner turned BROWN.  He said, "You must have a lot of iron in your water.  The chlorine in the pool shock causes it to rust and turn brown."

Aha!  Chlorine Bleach + Iron heavy water = rusted iron = rusty whites.

So for eight long years, we either wore dingy whites, or no whites at all.  Oxy Clean became my go-to, but it required so much soaking to get the iron out of the clothes that it was a pain to have to use it on a regular basis. 

When we were moving, this became one of my top ten things I was thrilled to leave behind.  But I must say, I'm a little shy now to use the Clorox, it's been so long.  And there are all those memories of favorite clothes bleached by accident when I was a kid (things always seemed to hide in my Mum's white loads!).  I know it's only a matter of time before I ruin something important.

But today is the day.  I can't wait to see the sunshine a little Clorox is going to bring into my life!

Poop and Pancakes

The Mallett Children spell happiness with four letters...

Being the lucky recipients of some gift certificates to this Mallett-Friendly establishment (Thanks Nana!), we enjoyed a lovely dinner this evening of pancakes and sausages, eggs and bacon, and a whole boatload of maple syrup.  It turned out they had an "unlimited pancake" deal, which was all my 46 pound 8 year old needed to hear.  Four strips of bacon, two sunny side up eggs, two sausages and four plate-sized pancakes later, he was finally satisfied. 

Here he is in all his pancake-eating glory.

JACK THE PANCAKE MASTER

There was also loads of entertainment.  For example, the small mountain of salt poured stealthily under the table while Mom wasn't looking (Ben), the syrup down the sleeve trick (also Ben), the scream bloody murder chorus (Ben again), the "I think I have to poop!" surprise (Molly) and the contagious pooping cascade (Jack).

I can't decide which was the more hilarious moment - Molly, completely topless on the toilet (due to her relentless phobia of her dress 'falling in') pooping her first non-Miralax-induced poop in the last five years while Ben (who insisted on tagging along) rolled around on the disgusting, filthy, nasty-beyond-measure floor.  When he got bored of coating himself in the stuff of a germophobe's nightmares, he would grab the door handle and yank on it mercilessly, slamming  the door, and it's attached wall partition as if there were an earthquake.  Oh, and the screaming - because when you find a good echo, you've gotta roll with it, ya know?

Or maybe the more hilarous moment was when we got back to the table only to have Jack look up and decide he needed to go too.  Only he was terrified to be in the bathroom alone, so I had to leave Molly and El Destructo at the table, leaning my head out the ladies room door, while keeping my feet inside where Jack could see them.  He was done pretty fast, but then the wiping began.  The wiping, and wiping and WIPING... I think the child went through a whole roll - I was imagining certain flooding of the toilet and couldn't stifle my own laughter, so ridiculous was the scene.

At this point, Ben began screaming because his eggs weren't cut to his liking, and the sweet, saintly, angelic teenager waitress looked at me and said "I'll hang out with them so you can concentrate on what you're doing".  There is a special place in heaven for that girl.

...and wiping, and wiping, and MORE wiping...

Finally, I went into my purse back at the table, got out my travel wipes case, and slapshotted it under the stall to the sound of a very relieved 8 year old.

"Thanks Mom, you're the BEST!"

The night was clearly destined to be a poopstorm, because the couple+toddler who had just sat down at the booth next to us turned out to be uber-chatty with a side of TMI.  "Are all of them yours?" They asked.  Why, yes, my dozens of babes?  All THREE of them?  Yes, they're all mine.

"Can I ask you a question?" said the dad, apparently sensing that I might be experienced at my job.

"At what point do you start to worry when your kid hasn't pooped?  Like, one day?  Three days?  Four?  And what do you do?  Do you just wait?"

Seriously.  SERIOUSLY?

Thus began a twenty minute conversation about constipation-relieving techniques, during which I kept repeating "You know, you might want to call your pediatrician."

Finally we were able to escape with a "Good Luck!  Hope everything turns out okay!" and a sprint out the door, leaving our new best friends behind.

Poop and Pancakes.  Who knew?

It's 1:12AM...

...and I have totally lost it.  I can't seem to stop this vicious cycle of poring through Google images and blogs and home decor web sites trying to find the answer to all my burning questions.  My eyes are bulging out of my head and yet still here I am trying to solve these mysteries.

What color armchairs should I buy for the living room?
What type of entertainment center will work on the TV wall?
What colors should I pick? 
Why do I want to take an ice pick to the almond painted trim all over this house ?
(What was so wrong with WHITE that you had to go and paint it DIRTY white?")
How many Pottery Barn Logan bookshelves is too many?
Where can I find cheerful rugs that are not made of scratchy wool and don't cost a fortune?
Where can I find a 33" demilune occasional table or bombe chest for my entryway?
What color should I paint my entryway?
What color should I paint...well, everything?

And tonight's most pressing need: What size pictures should I order for my "picture wall"?  Should I even have a picture wall?  Should I put them on ledges?  On the fireplace mantel?  Should I get canvas or not?  Black and white or color?  Big, bigger or so big it makes people gasp?

Oy.

I did at least find some pretty inspirations to work from, Google is always good for that.

 Tara Whitney.  Swoon!

 I have no idea where this one came from.  Bad copyright infringer, BAD!

 Pottery Barn.  I love this because it's so soothing, even while it's quite busy.   And this one would be totally do-able for me because I have many similar components lying around looking for homes right now.


My Sweet Savannah.  I have stalked, er, idolized Melaine since long ago on HGTV's Rate My Space.  She painted each and every letter on that wall by hand.  It goes without saying that if I choose this route, my Cricut will be doing the work for me!

Exposures.  The day I found one of their catalogs thrown in the recycling bin under the mail cubbies in our Beacon Hill apartment was a lucky day indeed.  I adore them! 

And lastly, MARTHA.  Need I say more?

Now I am going to go drag my sorry self to bed, where I will appropriately spend the last thirty seconds of consciousness chastising myself for not going to bed sooner, and for wasting YET MORE TIME on my current home decor obsession.  Really, it has to stop.  Just as soon as I have these pictures on the wall.  And the entertainment center installed.  And the rugs down.

And does anyone know a good Chicagoland electrician?

UPDATE!  I just checked out my friend Emily's blog, you know, to see if she had any good picture wall ideas?  And lo and behold OUR LITTLE FAMILY is on her little BLOG!  Hot diggity dog!  If she wasn't such a darn good photographer, I wouldn't be agonizing over which pictures to order and how enormous to get them!