A new career?

I think Patch is ready to go professional! He did such a great job with his first play. There was no way that at 9 years old I would have even tried out but he was so excited for the entire 2+ months to go to rehearsals and then perform in front of strangers for 5 shows. He played the role of the farmer in the play The Music Man Jr. where he had a small solo part in the song Iowa Stubborn.

It didn't even bother him that he had a wife in the show - at least I think girls are still fairly yucky in his book. ;-) His wife, Tess was awesome in her role too. She played the part perfectly when she'd grab him by the hand and drag him where ever he needed to be. He seemed to take direction rather well, even from dear old mom. I told him once to make sure he got excited during different parts of the play and I never saw him miss that afterwards. When we went to see the show on Sat. afternoon, I could barely hear him so I'm guessing that for the first 3 shows, they couldn't hear him either. I told him that I was going to peek in and watch him during the last show and that I better hear him all the way in the back of the theater. He did AWESOME! I even teared up a bit - I know, I'm such a sappy mom. Deal with it. ;-)

We were lucky to have family and friends able to make it to see his show too. He kept asking 'Who's coming?' so I know he appreciated everyone coming.

We had some great friends in the play also but I think I'm mostly impressed with Riley who did NOT want to try out and did NOT want to be in the play. I think he had the most fun out of all of them! He was great! His brother and sister were great in the play too and so were Jesse & Chloe! I hope they can all get parts in Annie Jr. if they want them and I'll let friends and family know if they should come by for another play in a few months!

And, next time, I'm hoping for better seats! I got a lot of shots with the back of these two guys in them. :( But, Patch has got to be the cutest thing up on that stage! Okay, I'm just a little prejudiced! ;-)  )

Next goal, getting the school year started!

Rental house is DONE!

Well, except for the appliances but there's no big rush right now. But, it's soooo nice to have all that painting, painting and more painting behind us!

We didn't have to do too much work outside this time. (It needs work but later, much later hopefully!)

 There was soooo much junk left on the property, included a truck (broken) muffler left under the house. We made two large trips to the dump - one shortly after we started work and the 2nd one, this weekend. The muffler ran the entire length of my van.

Both bathroom sinks needed to be reseated as they were popping out of the counter and that led to plumbing work below.

The entire inside needed to be painted, we stuck with white throughout the house. One of the renters had left thousands of pin holes in the walls. Dart board or push pins, we're not sure but they're gone now.

This tub was disgusting! But, I finally got it mostly clean.

 In addition to the sink in this bathroom, we had to replace the light fixture.

 The wood floors took a beating from the renters too. I don't know what they kept dragging across the floors and along the walls but this looks better too.

 The sub floor needed to be replaced in the laundry room. It seems like they had a freezer that leaked? Anyhow, we couldn't have a mushy floor so the guys worked hard to tear up what was there and replace a lot of wood below and then covering the entire laundry room and kitchen floor with new linoleum.

 The kitchen was just nasty, dirty. And, they not only ran off with the stove but left a broken dishwasher too. Thanks, renter people!

 They did replace the counters near the stove though. We had to finish them so they'd be easier to clean up after the next renters though.

We couldn't have done all this work without the help of some friends. Thank you Pat & Jan for putting in so many hours in helping us get this ready. It's a good thing I married such a handy guy and we have such handy friends :)

We listed the house on craigslist and had two people interested within the first two hours. When we were working on Saturday, a couple stopped by and fell in love. I think we'll have renters as of April 1st - they put a deposit down anyhow.

Cross your fingers for us!!

Weekend fun!

We've enjoyed another fun weekend around here. This school year we've been going to some Nature Classes held at the Clemson Extension, Carolina Children's Garden. If nothing else, the boys have picked up on taking care of their environment. We usually take trash bags to pick up trash when we're out doors. Yesterday, we joined one of their programs based on the Great Backyard Bird Count.  They had some expert birders who walked over the gardens with us and we counted the birds we saw. Among them were two (male & female) cardinals, a flock of goldfinches, a white throated sparrow, a few vultures and some robins. The boys played a game against some girls where they tried to guess which bird the volunteer was describing on this chart.

It was a beautiful day to be outside. I love seeing the Carolina blue skies again.

 The boys and some of their friends :)

 Our friends, Pat & Jan joined us for some birding. It's too bad the sun was shining in the wrong direction for this bench. :(

Today we decided to head back to Pooh Park for some geocaching. It wasn't quite as pretty today but we still had fun. We tried to do a three part cache but somebody ran off with clue two. Luckily, we brought along some pretty smart people and we were able to find the cache anyhow.

We only saw five birds today. Three of these guys and two Canadian Geese. The park was so quiet today compared to yesterday.

We even too Hermione with us and she was pretty good. Not that there were many people to bark at anyhow. But, it proves that we might be able to take her out in public again.

 This morning, I spied a sign of spring in my garden. My poor skinny rose bush is starting to grow again! :)

I hope we have a long spring ahead of us before it gets too hot again around here!

Forts and kids stuff

Last weekend was time for fort building...

They camped out in the living room all weekend and we sad to take the forts down on Sunday. They get along so well sometimes, they get into a fight and somebody loses a tooth...

We've been enjoying working at the rental house and having kids in the neighborhood that they can play with. I wish we had some nice kids that lived nearby that they could play with. We probably just need to schedule more play dates with our homeschool friends. :)

Now he has matching holes in his mouth. The tooth was very loose anyhow but he was not happy about the way it came out :(

Rental house

We keep working, we keep wondering why we keep having more work to do!

I finally figured out to stain the floors. Some of them were a little worn looking but a little bit of stain makes them look so much better.

It took a bit to match the stain to the existing stain but I think we did pretty good. The door and wall stain are the old stuff, the base board is the new stain:

We're really making a lot of progress on the house and expect to get it back on the market soon but we keep finding new things. Like today, we finally figured out why they left the dishwasher behind (they took so many other things including the stove and every single light bulb in the house!) - Yep, the dishwasher is broken. It has a crack near the door and would leak all over the floor. So, we're not sure if it can be fixed or if we just need to replace it.

It was such a beautiful day, I thought I should take advantage of the weather and get some yard work done. So, I raked the back yard. It was pretty thick with leaves and pine straw but it looks like this now:

On top of all that, we had a flat tire on the way to the house this morning. Some days I feel like I'm not sure what I did to deserve my karma that day.

Signs of Christmas are in the air

There's still a lot to do but we're on our way to being prepared for Christmas. We finally found a tree! Yay, Todd!!

We enjoyed Todd's company Christmas Party on Saturday. They had the party at the local Marriott and lots of food, a great band, an open bar and an offer of a free taxi ride home if you needed it. The owner stopped by the table and bragged about Todd to me. I know he's wonderful but it's always nice to hear someone else agree with me. :)

Cool Nutcrackers at the entrance to the ball room where the party was held.

Martini ice sculpture. The bar tender poured the drinks through it. I guess it made the drinks colder or frozen? You had to hold your glass in the bottom of the sculpture to get your drink. I thought it was pretty cool.

All of the ice sculptures were pretty cool but I thought the Martini one was the best. It was a huge party and even Todd didn't know very many people but the people I did meet all seemed really nice.

Now, to work on shopping, decorating, cookie baking, getting cards ready to send and everything else Christmas done in the next few weeks! Time could slow down a smidge for me!

Halloween 2010

2010 has been a really good year so far and Halloween has been no exception. I'd say it started with heading to our friend's (and my former co-worker's) annual oyster roast/shrimp feast. Where I took my cake pops which turned out pretty yummy - as was all the food brought by everyone and the shrimp - we just ignore the oyster part. ;-) The boys always have a great time running around over there and playing ping pong.

I had fun creating their costumes this year. Franklin wanted to be a ranger from one of his favorite books, Ranger Apprentice and Patch wanted to be the Grim Reaper:

We went to the Trick or Treating at the Village at Sandhills last night and were a little late - it was suppose to be from 6-8 and we got there before 7 - too many of the stores were already out of candy and that's pretty sad. But, we did get to stop at the Marble Slab for some yummy ice cream!!

The crowds were huge and if you haven't figured it out yet, I don't like crowds much. And, we didn't get to see Marsha and the girls or April and her kids! :( I think the boys got 8? 10? pieces of candy. I guess we got out and got some exercise though.

What do you think of this mama taking her kids out T or T'ing? See the babies eyes glowing?

The boys made out like bandits going around the neighborhood tonight. I think they about wore Todd out doing a lot of the neighborhood. I stayed home and passed out candy. I only bought 3 bags of candy because we never know how many kids we are going to get here. Most of our immediate neighbors don't turn their lights on in this stretch but Todd said a lot of the neighbors were passing out candy this year. We had to turn the lights out about 8:30.

The Avon lady was pretty smart to send candy home for mom - if I didn't already have a rep, I would have to use her :D

Every year we put our spider out front and he scares a lot of the kids by dropping down his line when he hears a noise and then scurrying up the line again while flashing his red eyes. The boys were so tickled by some teenagers getting scared a couple years ago. I did find a couple of kids on the far side of the porch this year though - Good old Wendy, trying to give the little kids a heart attack!

I can't get a still shot of him with his eyes glowing - they don't glow when he's still!!

Happy Halloween all! I hope you had fun too :)

October what??

Goodness! Times flies something fierce these days! Well, I got most of my list done from the last post. I don't have a lot of decorating done but we're in the Halloween spirit around here anyhow.

We just got home from our science class and a Halloween party. Our friend April is such a talented organizer! She had drinks and food and games for the kids to play - and of course, had the rest of us bring stuff and our kids. She lets us off easy.

Todd made an awesome bow and arrows for our Ranger:

And then... there's the Grim Reaper:

Aren't they cute?

I thought they turned out okay for my first homemade costumes - in many years anyhow. I made some before we had kids and that was a LONG time ago. :D

Today they played Eyeball Relay and Mummy Relay:

Last weekend Todd took the boys to Lowe's to make their Halloween project - Flapping Bats:

And then we went to an Oyster Roast at our friend, Amy's. Lots of yummy food. We took some Pumpkin Cake Pops:

I'm not sure what more we'll do for Halloween but I'm sure I'll keep you posted :) Hope you all are enjoying the season!!