Insane Clown Posse

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!


we had a blast today trick or treating! first we went downtown bellingham and walked up and down the streets to all the shops with candy. there were TONS of people in costume, so we had a great time people watching, too! we got a free professional pic taken which will be sent by mail soon. i thought that was pretty cool of that photographer to do for the community! i'd give him props, but i forgot his name. oops! and that wasn't the only photo that was taken of us, random people took our pics as we walked by. one of them even asked us to stop and pose for her camera phone. that was a pretty neat feeling since i planned our costumes in such detail this year (we even had a dry-run on the face painting!) after downtown, we hit up grandma's, nana's, nana's best neighbor jo's, auntie kim's and austin's houses. then went over to meet up with the cunninghams at the trunkortreat.

here are some highlights of the day...

We have a new addition to the backyard, a homemade swingset. The park in our 'hood has a swingset, but it's fairly dilapidated, and not located in our backyard, so we thought we'd just build our own. We also needed to move the sandbox because it was back in the corner that had chickens and bunnies just over the fence. Chickens and bunnies stink. And we had a corkscrew willow tree that needed to be planted before it started freezing, and we wanted to put it where the sandbox was. Those three things combined with no other plans for the weekend led us to Lowe's....and Home Depot, and OSO lumber, and Ace Hardware. We shopped around to find the best prices/quality. And Ace was the only place in Ferndale open on Sunday that had what we needed. We finished late Sunday and had to let the concrete set up, so the boys couldn't play on it right away. Crystal being the considerate wife that she is thought that I'd want to be there when the boys got set loose on it, so she kept them off of it ALL DAY! What a mean mama. Needless to say, I arrived home to some anxious boys. And pulling in the driveway almost right behind me was Scotty, Liz, and Brooklie. So they got to break it in too. It's got some tweaks to be made (what home improvement project doesn't?) but it is WAAAYYY fun, and Jax only fell off 3 times in the 30 minutes he played on it.


My hope is to eventually add on a playhouse above the sandbox with a slide coming out of it, but Crystal is trying to keep it simple. Why won't she just let me complicate things? I think we both have the same vision of a backyard fortress with fire pole and monkey bars and twisty slide, we just have different feelings about that fortress. We'll save that "discussion" for later.

i love my neighbors

so... i love all my neighbors. in our cul-de-dac of 8 houses alone we have 31 kids. my favorites, though are sisters katia and chickie (her name is actually nadia, but i didn't know that at first, so now she's chickie to me). their 6 brothers are pretty great, too. everytime we open our garage door or are outside, they flock to us to help with whatever we're working on. well... in one of those instances, chickie came and hung out with me while i did a craft project and we got onto the subject of birthdays. we found out our birthdays are only 10 days apart. flash forward to sept.20th (my birthday)...

the doorbell rings. wierd. shouldn't be. but is. we weren't expecting anyone and people don't usually just pop in. anyway... it was sweet katia and chickie wiht a homemade (from scratch) birthday cake for me! complete with "28" made of blueberries!! i totally MELTED!! wouldn't you?









so for 9 days i went back and forth about what to do for them. finally, i decided on making their family of 10 a platter of sweet treats. peanut butter balls, chocolate chip and nobake cookies and rice krispy treats. this pic is NOT the gigantic platter i sent over today for chickie's birthday, just some of the leftover goodies for my boys. i totally spaced taking a pic of the beautiful platter-full.

boomer gets a haricut...

for real this time!! all summer this poor little man has been sweaty-headed, and here we are a full week into fall, and decide it's time to give the kid a break! we went back and forth whether to cut it short and then if so, who should do it. i have always been the designated dahlstrom clipper cutter. but i don't trust myself with the scissors ever since i cut jaxon's ear during his very first haircut as a baby! boomer has the most beautiful hair, but it constantly needs to be tamed. we'll get it wet and comb it out before we leave, but as soon as it hits the carseat, FRIZZ! anyway... back to the point... finally i decided i will be brave and try to give him a cute cut with the clippers AND the scissors. so he can have it short in the back and still long enough on top for mama to run her fingers through. plus, he has been working on those sun-bleached little surfer highlights all summer long, and i couldn't bear to snip those! turns out he was a big boy under all that hair! when did that happen?!


before...















after...

I've taken over!

So, you probably noticed that our blog page is actually updated!! Well, that's because I've taken over! I finally decided that I've been a voyeur for a bit too long. Now is time to give back. I love reading random bits and pieces of other blogger's lives, even if we've never met! I am more than qualified to rant randomly so, maybe someone will be interested in reading about us. Be forewarned, though. I will not take the time to capitalize where "necessary". Patience is not really my best virtue, and I try to use it all where it really counts!

The boys' room

We've lived in our house for over a month now, and we've finally got one room completely done. Well, two if you count the laundry room, but that was just paint. Our boys' room is done and approved by both little guys. It took about 3 days of solid work to get done, which meant naps and bedtime had to be done "camping" style. Laying on mattresses on the floor in the spare room. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

We passed our inspection!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now we just have to sign the final paperwork tomorrow and move in. We're planning on loading up the Uhaul tonight and driving up to the house tomorrow morning. All of our neighbors have to be there to sign papers, so maybe that means lots of helpers. We're sharing the cost of the Uhaul with one of our neighbors, so that's a relief. I can't wait to live it that house. I can't wait to return to the real world. I can't wait to sleep in on a Saturday morning. Who am I kidding, Crystal will sleep in on the weekends, I've got 10 months of playing to catch up on and a huge backyard to do it in. Thanks to all the people who helped us out. Most of them won't read this, but I'll tell everybody in the world how grateful I am for the helpers. Especially Crystal's mom. She spent more time with the boys this past 10 months than I did, and we really couldn't have asked for a better person to hang with our boys. I know they're going to miss her, but that just means non-obligatory babysitting. Maybe. Anyway, we're planning an open house type housewarming, specifics to follow later. Here are a few pics of the process.