More pumpkin painting

Today Demi painted her pumpkin (real pumpkin not the gourds). I put pictures of her doing this last year when she was a little over 1 year old. She is a lot neater now at two then she was at one.

This is D. painting her pumpkin.

I cover the pumpkin in tape except for the places that need to be painted. This year Demi even helped me put on the tape.
I gave her a brush and some black paint and let her go at it. I looked back at last years pictures and it looks like when she was 1 year old I gave her a brush with the paint already on it and no plate of paint but I can't tell for sure that is how we did it.
LOOK!!! Baby Zee painted her own pumpkin! Her pumpkin is a ghost. LOL!


This year Demi didn't let the paint dry all the way before she insisted pealing the tape off. That is why we have spots of smeared black on the pumpkin. It is Halloween Day so I didn't care about any paint smears. She was able to take off the tape all by herself this year. It kept her busy for a long time.
This is a picture of Zehira's ghost.


This is a picture of the other side of Zehira's pumpkin. I used her foot print to make it. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry it is late and I am too tired to take another one.Our table.
I read about Shauna's ghost and wanted to copy some for my house. T. made had fun making them up.


Here is a picture of one of them hanging on our front porch. They kept scaring me! LOL! I kept seeing them move around in the wind and thinking someone was on my front porch! Next year I think I will want to hang them a little farther away from the house. LOL! The orange light below the ghost is one of our Jack O' Lanterns glowing in the yard.

My children dressed up in costumes and trick or treated at our house. LOL! I let them go outside and ring the bell then I would act surprised to see them and give them some candy. Rob bought them the movie Meet the Robinsons So they watched the movie in costumes, eating pancakes for a late dinner, then had some candy. I hope you all had a nice Halloween.

Monday Pumpkins

After school work was done T. carved his own pumpkin. This is the second year he did it all by himself. We have one of those pumpkin carving kits (we bought it 5 or so years ago). It has tiny saws that are the perfect size for him to work with. After his jack o' lantern was done D. and T. painted gourds. They think they are tiny pumpkins. I carved up our other pumpkin. Rob carves a pumpkin every year but this year he hasn't been home and when he is home he is working on the bathroom. After I finished my carving and read the poem to go with it we said a few more pumpkin poems (just ones that I remember from school) and roasted pumpkin seeds. Last year the children hated the taste of pumpkin seeds. This year they ate them up in just a few minutes and begged for more. We baked cookies and the children ate them and then watched Charlie Brown on TV.

Here are a few pictures.

T.'s pumpkin ready to carve.


T. Carving his pumpkin.



Zee just being herself.

She is always looking to see what is going on.


T. painting his little pumpkin.


This is T.'s little pumpkin finished.

Pictures of D. painting her little pumpkins.
My Jack O lantern is a little different than the ones we have made in past years. Rob has very strong views on Halloween so I thought doing a Christian Pumpkin would make him very happy. I made it to go with a poem I found online someplace. I will post the link if I can find it again. I have the words so I can share the poem.

The Christian Pumpkin

I am a Jack O' Lantern
My light will shine so bright
For I am a Christian pumpkin
My symbols tell what's right.

My nose is like the cross
on which on Savior died
To set us free from sin
We need no longer hide.

My mouth is like a fish
The whole wide world to show
That Christians live in this house
And love their Savior so!

The story starts at Christmas
My eyes are like the star
That shone on Baby Jesus
And wise men saw from far

My color it is orange
Just like the big bright sun
That rose on Easter Day
Along with God's own Son.

And so on Halloween
Let's set our pumpkins out
And tell the trick or treaters
What God's love is all about!
~Author Unknown~


This is the pumpkin I made to go with the poem.
Eating pumpkin seeds.







This is a picture of T. and D. watching Charlie Brown just before bed.

Blog subscription info.

Lelani wrote asking how I added the blog subscription. I have been asked this several times so I thought that because I didn't take any pictures today of our school I would write how I did this.

First I want you all to know I know NOTHING about computers. I don't even know what an RSS feed is! I know I didn't do this the "right way" but it is the only way I could get it to work. I tinkered for several hours and once I tried almost everything the last try worked. LOL!

Anyway this is how I did it (I hope my instructions are good enough for someone to follow).
Everything below in BOLD print is words on the feedburner web page.

I went to the feedburner site.

It says on the home page

Start FeedBurning Now. Type your feed or blog URL below.

I typed in my blogger address.
Then I hit next.

I don't know what rss or atom is so I left it on atom. I clicked next.

I created a user name and password.

Then it said

Congrats! Your FeedBurner feed is now live. Want to dress it up a little?

I didn't dress it up I just clicked next until I saw.

You have successfully updated the feed.

I had gray tabs at the top saying

Analyze Optimize Publicize Monetize troubleshootize.


I hit publicize

On the left I had a row of choices the 4th one down said

Email Subscriptions
Offer feed updates via email

I clicked on that.

I left it marked saying

FeedBurner (Yep. We now do reliable email delivery.)

I clicked
Activate

I changed the language to English

A big box on this page has code in it I copied the code.

I then went back to my blog and under Template tab page elements
I hit add a page element.

THIS was the key for me to get it to work I clicked on....

HTML/JavaScript

Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog.

I did NOT use the feed button! OK I did try it several times but couldn't get it to work. LOL!

Under title I wrote
want to subscribe to my blog?

Then I pasted my code from feedburner under content
I then hit save changes.

That was it. Somehow it worked.

I hope this works for you.

Saturday

T. was sleeping when D. got to make her own wall last night. He looked very sad when he asked about the drawing D. did on the wall. He knew we let her do it because it was in the bathroom and way up out of her reach on the wall with her name wrote next to it. I told him if he wanted to he could get his big box of markers and draw on a wall around the tub. I didn't think he wanted to do it but I noticed a few minutes later he wasn't around. I went looking and this is what I found.

This is his wall. He went back up and wrote I love you Daddy later in the day but it isn't in the picture. I think it will make Rob smile when he is taking his bath in the morning.


Halloween

I had to buy costumes this year. I like making costumes but this year it is out of the question. Life with a new baby and a bathroom torn apart makes time for sewing out of the question.

I took them to the store to get costumes today.
T. decided to be.....
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Leonardo
And D. decided on...
Little Red Riding Hood.
He is a 7 year old boy. I guess it is a normal choice for a 7 year old boy.

I guess this is a normal pick for a 2 year old. D. went CRAZY when she saw this costume. She has been acting out the story all day long. She is 27 months old now and she is so fun. She loves pretend play. This pose cracks me up! I am guessing it is something T. saw in the movie? We do have the movie but I have to confess I didn't watch all of it (I fell asleep). She is taking goodies to her grandmothers house.



I feel very bad about not making costumes and having a costume party (with guests) for the children. I think once our bathroom is put together and we have some extra cash I will have a become a super hero party or something like that for the children. I will invite over some children and help them make superhero/princess costumes to wear and take home. Superheros and princes dress up is fun any time of year not just Halloween. Right? I think T. is old enough that he might want to create his own superhero and not go with the traditional ones this year. If not I think a simple cape can work for superman, batman, robin, pirate, Zoro, starwars, king, and such. I can sew up some capes and let the children design a logo then I can sew it on the capes for them and make up a blindfold with eye cutouts to protect the true identity of the hero. LOL! The girls can be superheros or turn the cape into a princess cape they could be decorated with feathers, fur, sequence, and gold ribbons and have a crown. I can make up bibs, slippers, or hats for any babies. I can't exclude little Zee but I think she is too young for a cape. I think a bib or hat is much safer for her. I know I can do this I just need to wait until after Halloween. It would be easier having children show up in costumes on Halloween letting them play a couple games have pizza and go home. I know Rob will not have my bathroom done by Wed. so I guess maybe next month a superhero party will work out better for us. Anyway, I think giving a party when I can I will get rid of this Mommy guilt I have going on right now.

Friday.

I love our van! I am so happy we had a way to bring home sheets of drywall, a tub. and all the other stuff needed ASAP for this project.

YUCK! Good news is the floor is in wonderful shape! We don't have to replace the floor.
NEW TUB! It looks very odd with no walls around it.
Umm.... We had another leak dripping down on our living room floor. D. asked to clean it up. What a good girl I have!
Rob and my Dad working. I know I have told you all that I have the best parents in the world. My Dad is so nice he came up to help both Monday and Friday.

LOOK! Almost 2 walls up!! Hooray!
This is D. pretending to go potty. She wanted to see what Daddy was doing so she yelled to go potty after bedtime. Once she found the box of screws she NEEDED to help so the last wall in the shower she got to hand Daddy the screws and tools to help. Then she didn't want to go back to bed she wanted to keep helping.
This is her wall. Daddy told her many time this is the last screw I need. She kept ignoring him saying over and over again here you go Daddy then handing him yet another screw. Rob keep finding one more place to add a screw so he could make his little girl happy. She screamed when I told her Daddy was done for the night.

We let her draw on her wall and told her she needed to get to sleep so she could help Daddy more in the morning. Below is D's picture on our wall.
She went back to bed and I got to take a bath in the new tub. We should get the shower done on Rob's next day off. Rob is going to have a hard time getting ready for work in the morning. He will have to get up a lot earlier to take a bath every day. We have a small leak so he has to find that before finishing up this project. I am so happy to have a working tub! I was so afraid when he smashed out the old tub that the floor would be rotten under the tub and we would need a new floor. I was very excited to see nice looking dry wood on our floor with no water damage under the tub. I was also afraid that something would go wrong with putting in the new tub and we might be without a tub for weeks. I think whenever a person does a do it yourself remodel you know you might run into a problem, but a do it yourself remodel in a farmhouse built in the 1800's can add a lot of unexpected problems along the way. When my house was built it didn't have a bathroom only an outhouse and no electricity. Many people have lived in and done work on my house so it is hard to tell what one will find when tearing things out. I am very happy that it was only a day without a tub for us. Now I don't have to worry about my children being filthy dirty and smelly. LOL! I have to say that drywall around the tub looks so much better than that torn out gross look of when it was all gutted out!

Drip, Drip, Drip.

I did have plans to share homeschool/preschool things this week. I thought I would have time to read friends blogs and reply to the comments on my blog. I see now that isn't going to happen in the next few days. We are in the middle of remodeling our bathroom. This is an unplanned remodel! It all started when we got home from NJ (1:00 am on Monday). We walked in the house and saw water dripping on our living room floor. Monday Rob fixed the leak and we got all new fixtures in our tub/shower. This project left us with part of our tub surround missing, but we could still use the shower and tub. We could have put the old one back on but this is something we wanted to replace anyway so Rob decided now was the time to do it. He took out the plastic shower walls so we could put up new pieces. He then noticed that the boards behind are cedar boards and not drywall. The boards needed to be replaced so we decided to take them out. When he started that he noticed that the drop ceiling had been put up after the wall boards so we needed to take that down to get the boards out. After doing that and gutting out all of the shower Rob decided that it would be silly to leave in our ugly old tan tub. We quickly found that our tub was cast iron. How does one get a 300 pound tub out of a tiny upstairs bathroom? He covered up part of the tub with a wet towel and then smashed it with a huge hammer. Rob asked me what towel did I want him to use (destroy) for this project. I responded any towel you want at this point I had already decided if we needed new fixtures, tub walls, tub, ceiling, and such I am getting all new towels to go with it!! BTW Rob is going to replace our sink, toilet, and floor but I asked that he wait until the tub is in and working before taking out the next thing. He has smashed up our old tub so we can't change our minds now! OH! Did I tell you all that this is the ONLY bathroom in our house? Rob is on his way home with drywall, shower walls, a tub, and other supplies right now. I pray to have a tub in and working by the end of the day. I figure the shower part I could live without for a few days as long as we get the tub in and working we will be able to bathe. T. and D. are dirt magnets! They NEED baths/showers daily. The baby likes to spit up mouthfuls of sour milk on me several times a day (making me feel very gross by the end of a day). We NEED this tub working by tonight! If it isn't working we might have to cram ourselves in the baby tub. This project will keep going until we have a new bathroom so if you don't hear from me you will know why. I am adding in some UGLY pictures of the bathroom below. WARNING it looks disgusting!


This is the large hole we now have in the corner of our living room ceiling. We already have supplies to fix this. It looks bad but it is not my big worry right now.
This is the shower wall removed.


This is the source of the leak. This was fixed Monday night and we covered it with plastic so we could still use the tub and shower.


Rob was off work yesterday (Thursday) and we thought we only wanted to replace the shower wall early in the day. Picture below shows shower walls out, ceiling blocks out, and boards removed on the one side of the shower.Below is a picture of what use to be our shower.

Couldn't stop at that, this is what was once our tub.
Picture of Rob tub smashing (fun thing to do late at night).

Smashed tub.

This is the place we once had a tub.He got a lot of demolition done last night. I hope putting it all back together goes as quick as taking it apart! I hope today he gets the tub back in and working! I don't like the thought of not having a tub. Driving down the road for a shower does not sound like fun.

I guess life in an old farmhouse built in the 1800's is not always nice. It is very gross right now.