Halloween party

Every year, we get to go to a Halloween party hosted by another fellow police officer. Everyone is encouraged to dress up and it's something we have really started to get into. Last year, Russ and I dressed up for the first time as D.og the Bount.y Hunter and B.eth. It was pretty funny and it was hard to top that for this year. After much debate, we finally decided to go as Hom.er and Marg.e Simps*n. Russ had a lot of fun creating my hair for Marge. Then, we spent one Saturday afternoon scouring the consignment shops and Go*dwill shops trying to find clothing and accessories for our outfits. I scored big with a red necklace for 99 cents, hideous red shoes for $6 and a greenish-color dress for $9! Marg.e wears a strapless green dress, red necklace and red shoes. Of all things to find, I knew it was going to be the most difficult to find an appropriate dress, in my size, in October. I was lucky to find an end-of-season sale for the dress! I couldn't go strapless, but I think this dress was close enough to pull off the effect.

Russ was easy. One white polo for him, jeans, bald head and a few strands of dark hair to comb over. Thankfully, Allison didn't notice that I "borrowed" some hair off one of her dolls to tape to Russ' head. If she knew I played beauty shop without her, she'd be mad.

I didn't get any good pictures of us on our camera, I will have to check with some friends for a copy from theirs. But, here's an idea of what we looked like.

Allison wanted to be a butterfly and I purchased the wings. I made the rest of her costume and had a pretty good time doing it. Cole decided to be a scary ghost and was happy that his bloody chainsaw from last year still worked.

We had a great time at the Halloween party. They have a hay ride and do a spooky haunted trail through their woods. We really enjoy going every year!

Finally--some progress on the house!

Allison got a ride on the lift with Daddy. I must say that we recently tore out the hideous bushes that were on the side of the house ( you can still see the narly stubs if you look close) and I am thinking that our next big project should be a wrap-around porch!
Russ is tackling the limbs

The moment I was waiting for--some color in the front!

It seems like this house painting project has been taking forever. But, when you've got a big house, kids in activities, job schedules, weather and everything else to factor in, it's going to take some time. Russ has been working hard on powerwashing the house and getting it prepared to paint. He finally got started painting a few days ago. He started in the back so that he could get used to the power spray painter. That thing is awesome. He quickly realized that painting the house would be the easy part. All the prep work was the hard stuff. Because of the height of our house and the difficulty in holding a paint sprayer while on a ladder, we opted to rent a lift. Also, a very smart move. It is also making the job a lot more bearable. Russ took full advantage of the lift and managed to cut down a few more tree limbs. We have huge old maple trees in our yard. They offer great shade, but a little too much shade and lots of leaves. I love fall, but when it comes to raking leaves, not so much. Our yard is completely fenced in, so we don't have the benefit of Mother Nature blowing our leaves into the neighbor's yard. Fortunately, our town will pick up our leaves if we rake them to the curb. That is always a huge project in and of itself.

Russ worked really hard on Sunday and accomplished a lot. We were both pretty psyched because we just KNEW he would be able to get it completely finished today (Monday). Unfortunately, he picked up the nasty stomach virus that is going around and was up sick in the wee hours of Monday morning and all day Monday. I was off work and Cole was out of school for Fall break, so we just sort of hung out all day. I will just have to show you more pics of a work in progress.

We are going with a tan color that will hopefully camouflage the dirt so the house won't look so dirty in the future. We are going to keep the white trim around the windows, soffit and gutter and eventually add burgundy shutters.

I was cracking up at the number of gawkers we had as people drove by. While we are doing our house, our neighbor is busy re-siding his house. People are just fascinated by the progress I guess. It's a wonder no one rear-ended anyone as they slowed to watch Russ on top of the house painting.