Halloween

Kent was in Austin this weekend for school so we drove two and a half hours to join him for Trick-or-Treating. I forgot my camera while we were out so I took some pictures in our hotel room.

Kara and Kati Mae wore their dance recital costumes. I was glad to get another use out of them since they were so expensive and only used once.

Kati only had her eyes half opened in every picture I took. I guess it was a bad picture day.
Kyli came up with her costume idea and sewed it all by herself. She's corn on the cob. The print is hard to see, but it really is a corn print material.

This is my favorite costume for Kipp. Being a Whoopie cushion fits his personality so well.

Even though we didn't go to very many homes, the kids still made out with the candy. So many people gave them hand fulls so they wouldn't have left-overs. One couple even went back into their home to get their last two bags and divided them amongst our kids. They were thrilled. Apparently the neighborhood we picked was having a slow night of Trick-or-Treaters. It was really sad. I remember when I was a kid and the streets were so crowded with children.


I'll have to add the picture that Kent and I got from the Trunk-Or-Treat after I scan it in since I forgot to have the kids take pictures of us. Kent's favorite holiday is Halloween so we always dress up. This year we were Woody and Bo Peep from Disney's Toy Story.

Making Progress

Our home is slowly coming back together. However, I'm so tired of hanging around the house waiting for the workers to come and go. I'm feeling a bit of cabin fever coming on. I can't run errands, go grocery shopping or anything. I don't even like to talk on the phone because I feel like my conversation is on display for everyone to hear.

Our bathroom was the first to get worked on. We were already in the middle of remodeling when the hurricane hit. That's why it wasn't totally painted behind the toilet.

The kids loved helping with the demolishing.


I'm so glad to have a slate floor instead of carpeting.
The little corner seat isn't a seat. I thought having a bench in the shower was a waste of space so I didn't want one. However, I still needed a place to prop up my foot to shave my legs. So there you have it....a little foot bench.


We also had a second shower head installed on the opposite side of the shower.
I love my new shower!!



We have new ceilings and walls all over the house. It's hard to tell what you're looking at in these pictures, but that's what it is.



Everyday there was more and more plastic. It was beginning to be less fun taking pictures of it. I felt like we were living in a bubble and I hated it. This is the entry way. By the time they were done it had a circle of plastic up the wall, across the ceiling, down the next wall and taped all across the floor. It was very difficult going from room to room. I'm so glad it's over. It was much harder to live in the house with the construction then I thought it would be. I never want to go through that again.

Kipp's version of Hurricane Ike

As I was going through the papers sent home from school I came across a paper from Kipp. During the week they're suppose to write in class for a certain amount of time with little worry about punctuation or spelling (and it shows). But reading this makes me laugh, so I had to share.

Hurrikane Ike
by Kipp

During the Hurricane I was at my house in my room with my family scared out of their wits plus I saw lightning and thunder over here and over there it was very very loud because trees were falling down everywhere! After the storm I thought I was dead, and I was under the stairs with my grandma helping out while my grandpa slumping down in the couch watching television back in California! Like an hour after the storm I got electricity I was so happy even though I was just playing my DS that whole time! After that the storm wasn't over then my smoke alarms shorted out and went off it took us all day to get them to be quiet then we discovered a water fall in the attic so my mom stapled towels to the ceiling which would catch the water which would fall in a bucket and my dad would pour it in the bath tub oh yah I almost forgot that my dad got a jar of the hurricane and their were leaks down stairs but want to know what's really funny there were no leaks up stairs so the down stairs was flooded for like half a foot. So we tried to soak up as much as possible but we couldn't even soak up half so my mom ripped up the carper and that's a hurricane for you!


This is the jar Kipp refers to. Kent scooped up some water out of the attic into a mason jar for posterity. It has insulation, dirt, and who knows what floating around in the hurricane water.

Rain Gutter Ragatta

This is like the Pine Wood Derby you normally see for the Cub Scouts, but it's with a boat. This was a first for me, I had never seen it before. To win you had to put your boat together in a way that would float quickly down the water and be able stay upright when you blew on the sail.

Since we've been in a complete upheaval with all the construction we forgot about the boat until the day of the race. I was so relieved when it was finished only minutes before the race began. I spent all day while Kipp was in school, painting and letting each coat dry. It's a good thing there was a breeze today.

Once we got to the church Kipp quickly put on some stickers and he was ready to go.


It took some practice blowing on the sail to get the best propulsion down the water.
One of the boys had a top-heavy boat that wouldn't stay upright and Kipp quickly offered his boat for him to use. I was really impressed with his generosity. However, it made me nervous for him since the rutter was loose and ready to fall off. We managed to keep his boat together with some alterations.




While they were trying to figure out who the winner was they let siblings race the sailboats. Kati was so excited to be able to race. She did amazingly well.