Trick or Treating with the Reeves

I LOVE Halloween. We went trick or treating to a few houses and the kids loved it. Then we got home at 7 and I hoped and hoped and hoped for trick or treaters (we never get any) and we got some wohoo!! Then Eva saw the big bowl of candy on the printer for them she said "trick or treat" well in her own way "tree o tree"

Daniel and I wore our eye things, its the most we have dressed up well most he has dressed up since we have been married. I was an old fashioned golfer 1912 times our second year of marriage when he was in ohio.

Its Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween everyone.

I have heard of the coolest things to do on Halloween day such as:

Making black and orange scrambled eggs for breakfast with grave pancakes. (Lynsey Lake)

Making Halloween cookies, watching scary movies or childrens Halloween movies like casper and harry potter.

Having a Halloween feast with eyeballs and foods that look like Halloween fun (Kathryn Reeves)

Carving Pumpkins

Going Trick or Treating of Course (or trunk of treating)

and many other things.

What traditions do you guys do on Halloween?

I want to start my own and I am really blank on what to do.

Here is a giant pumpkin just to make your day bright!

I got the image from here

Time Out

Alexander misbehaves at times (gasp and shock) so he gets time out. I usually give a warning then a time out unless its really really bad then its straight to time out. Well for the last 2 weeks the two little ones have been taking all the books out of my bookshelves (the ones they can reach) I finally had enough (I gave many many warnings) and put him in time out. He tried to argue, "um no mamma no time out", "um yes Alexander mamma is right get in time out". He hasn't been in timeout for a week so he went and sat in time out (the end of the hall) and Eva is so loyal that she goes and shares the sentence. I don't put her in timeout yet because I don't see her learning from it yet. (Although when she is being bad I ask Timeout? and she starts to fake cry)

Eva helping carry the sentence of Time out

Saying Cheese and posing

Game on Update

Yesterday was my first perfect points day. Oh and it was the ward trunk or treat (as you saw in the other post). I had planned to use it as a meal and not get a meal of points. When I got there none of the treats looked that appealing to me so I didn't do it and just went home and ate my regular meal. That's right I didn't get tempted. If they would have had a lava cake from Chili's there I totally would have caved but they didn't. I didn't even get tempted to eat one of the kids candy either. I had half a mini kitkat stick for my 100 calorie snack though. I plan on eating a lot of chocolate on my day off in fact I plan on eating only chocolate on my day off so that it makes me sick of chocolate for the week. I find that chocolate is the only thing I am missing with this and I am getting better at it and I love working out everyday and drinking all this water.

Trunk or Treat

We had our ward trunk of treat last night and it was fun and freezing. I forgot the camera so I just took some pictures when we got home. There were HUNDREDS of kids there. I knew we had a huge primary but I had never seen them all together before.

Eva and Alexander eating their treats and chicken nuggets.

Alexander the Knight
I just put him in layers and gray sweats because it was so cold.
There was frozen water on the ground!
(I know many of you already have snow but we don't so it was extra cold to us)

Eva the Lion
I taught her to roar and so she kept roaring all night.
She also kept trying to steal Alexander's sword to stab him with it.

Here is a tip for your trunk for trunk of treat get a scary movie soundtrack or just a cd with scary noises and just play it in your car. Its a great affect. I saw one car with that last night and it was the best car there (It wasn't ours but from now on I will do that).

This is what Daniel thinks of the Recent diet thing

Mini Project

I just painted the hardware on this dresser.

Before

After
Brass to silver, It seems to make the wood finish look darker which I like.

Game On

I am participating in the Game on Diet for the next 4 weeks! Crazy right? Now I am not a dieter. I believe in correct portions and I follow them now but Diets make me a little nutty. The first and only other diet I ever did was for biggest loser. I didn't like it cause it felt so restrictive but this one is a bit different and an opportunity to keep extra contact with the Reeves girls. I told Melanie I was going to blog about it to show how it was and whether it was realistic for a mother with little kids. Well you probably don't want to hear how my first day yesterday went. I will tell you anyway.

Well first off I wanted to do this because its not centered around weight loss. I am pretty happy with my weight at the moment but I want to start exercising again and getting some good habits going and drinking more water (I don't drink much and get headaches from not drinking) I figure this will give me more energy in the long run.

Day 1 was a train wreck.

You get points on getting the right amount of sleep eating 5 balanced meals a day, doing your new good habit, dropping your old bad habit, drinking 3 liters of water, exercising for 20 minutes and communicating with someone else who is doing in your group.

The sleep part made me smile because I always get 7 hours of sleep except maybe on Friday nights but I still usually get at least 7 then. Well yesterday I had made an appointment to get the recall fixed on the murano at 8 am. That made it so I would get exactly 7 hours of sleep. I did horribly with such little sleep and was cranky and tired all day. Then I couldn't figure out meals for the day (palm protein, fist carbs, thumb fat) but I attempted it.

By 5 o'clock I was on the phone with Kristen begging to quite. I know what a quiter I was. I was starving and I don't like to starve hence the no diets please mentality. So I was trying to figure out the things to eat with her and then we realized I was eating way TOO LITTLE. My portions were way too small and that is why I was starving oh and you can eat as many veggies as you want (green veggies and no potatoes and carrots are not veggies) So I could bake some asparagus and eat like 2 pounds of it in a meal if I want (I doubt I will do that). Um ding ding ding I wasn't eating the right amount yesterday hence the please kill me to put me out of my misery Exclamations to Daniel.

So today is going better. I had oatmeal and some skim cheese and honey in the oatmeal and some nuts for my fat. I am on the wagon again.

The plus side of this way of doing it is it teaches you correct portions and you get one day off a week to do whatever you want so it helps you to stay on the wagon. You don't have to cut all the bad out forever just until your next free day.

Anyway wish me luck. Its finished right before Thanksgiving (smart planning there).

Happy Halloween

We carved pumpkins today and had a lazy Saturday. We put them by the door and took some pictures and then we noticed the last picture. Yep thats a giant black widow. They are all over the place here, usually sitting by the door when I get home from errands.

It's a beautiful day

Yesterday was rainy and kind of gloomy but today is beautiful. Its crisp outside and all is well. I woke up to this:Alexander wakes up before me and goes in the livingroom and watches his morning PBS cartoons which taught him how to say hypothesis when he wants to know something. Its his new chair apparently. Its just one of those little square foot stools with storage. They love to play with it and both get in and start screaming because the want the other to get out.

Eva had a doctors appointment yesterday because she has had a cough and runny nose since september 29th. We were worried it was some flu that wouldn't go away.
Turns out she just has allergies and a bacterial infection at the back of her nose causing a drip and a cough. He asked if she has been rubbing her eyes and nose a lot. Take a look for yourself. That is 10 minutes at the table with some spaghetti.
She is on some meds for 10 days and then we have a follow up/ vaccination appointment. She will be getting a flu shot. Not the F1N1 because they don't have any in New Mexico yet, plus when we get some it will all be gone in a day.

I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful fall.

My ugly printer stand

This is my printer stand:

Before

(yep those were my documents out of their files today,
I had to make a doctors appointment

for Eva and find a babysitter for Friday night)

I decided to paint it so I sanded it down just enough for paint to stick I used a 150 grit

I spray painted the flat parts grey then painted the edges all lighter gray. I used a bristle brush and it was two coats. I really like the fresh new look. Its funny because its exactly the same colors as my printer.


After

Yeah I laid the computer down it gets better ventilation that way and it fits on my printer stand.

I say paint everything.
Well not everything just the really ugly things that you have to live with anyway.

garage sale find

We were not planning on garage saleing this weekend but we found this chair on craigslist that I really wanted so we were driving around. Someone already got the chair so I was sad but then we followed a garage sale sign and found this:

Its a red leather couch and it was $50 (after Daniel's extreme haggling). We love it. I scrubbed it for about 5 hours (yeah I know but most garage sale finds need elbow grease). I scrubbed it with body wash and water. Isn't that funny? But I googled it and it was an at home remedy because anything stronger would hurt the leather and it really worked. I wanted a red couch and a leather couch but never thought I would get one, now I have one and we rearranged all the furniture.


We moved everything and cleaned everything so that was great. Now I have a little office area behind the couch wohoo for that!Now my book selves are in a little corner like a library thing. I want to paint them soooo badly and staple a fun pattern material on the back but Daniel likes the woodgrain wood stain look.

My dresser reveal

We were very busy yesterday. Now that I do a bit of work from home I don't have as much time to project (well its probably the farmville and yoville that bite into that time) but I did finish some projects this week. There is something about fall and the holiday months that make me want to craft and create. I finished my dresser turned buffet. It was one of my favorite furniture remakes because it was SOOO easy. All flat surfaces means sander and I just love that. I sanded between every layer and it its nice and smooth now. I feel like I am getting the hang of refinishing furniture and I love it.


Right now it just has pumpkins on it because its the holidays so it won't have a regular display until after Christmas.

These are some of my linens. I have some cloth napkins, tablecloths and place mats all blue. I guess I need to expand on my color pallet. Oh well I love blue in the kitchen.



I love how it turned out I love the subtle grey and it really made the dining area actually feel like one. I might put a lamp on it later.

He insisted on a photo shoot

After baths tonight Alexander brought me the camera set up the chairs and showed up with the hats and this is what we got.

Takes after his aunt Jenny

We were at the dinner table and this is how Alexander chose to organize his meal, nothing touching at all. Just like his aunt Jenny.

My Latest and greatest Sneak Peak

This dresser is my latest project. Our neighbor just sold his house so they were getting rid of furniture and we got this dresser for free. Yay for that. Anyway it is solid wood and I was going to put it in Eva's room but I didn't have anything to put in it there (Alexander and Eva share a massive dresser) So I was thinking about it for 4 days and finally realized I could make it a buffet for the dinning area to hold the kitchen linens. I also decided I wanted it gray. I am obsessed with the color gray right now.

I sanded it

Then I found some gray spray paint primer. This is so much easier than primer with a brush! and it looks neater with no brush marks.

I will post pictures when I get it all the way done. I just need one coat of paint and a roller (waiting on Daniel for the roller) then I will show you what it looks like.

Balloon Fiesta Festival

If you are ever planning on visiting New Mexico I highly recommend coming out for Balloon Fiesta Week. Its an international thing so people from all over the world are there. I have way too many pictures so I will just let you judge but the pictures. I forced the camera to work even though its not great quality you get the gist.

They had refs who would blow whistles at us
to get out of the way so they could take off

My Favorite ones.
These two always flew together and took off together,
they are holding hands.The first one we got close to to take off

Eva didn't have fun but she wasn't crying in this picture

Just walking around enjoying the fun

This was Daniel's Favorite
he just couldn't believe they were able
to get that huge thing in the sky

The look on Alexander's face when he felt we got too close

Looking at Balloons

Alexander's first favorite balloon

Alexander's second favorite.
He also loved the football shaped one and soccer ball shaped one

Pepe

Darth
(he was HUGE)

All those little specs in the sky are balloons. We got there for the first mass acsension and then there was another one when we were leaving. There were SOOO many balloons which made it really fun. They were all waiting in line and touching each other.

Some of the sky

Lots of balloons

Balloon Chasing, yes it landing on a random street