A very Merry Christmas

Morgan and Dylan - at 5am.

Dylan's new favorite toy - his Air Hogs RC helicopter.
Morgan's pride and joy (from Mom and Dad)... the 4H club jacket.

Merry Christmas!

To all my friends and family... wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Snow Days!

We all know how much I love snow days... mostly because Mike is never, ever home. Now that the kids are 7 and 9 (and pretty fun), snow days aren't so bad after all. Here's our most recent snow day:

Happy Birthday Boo

Dylan waited very impatiently from 1:30 when we got home from their early school closing, until 3:30 when Mike arrived home (half an hour early). Every 15 minutes he wanted to know when Dad was coming home so he could open his presents. I dragged them to Stop & Shop in town just before Mike came home to give Mike a few minutes to get this out on the lawn.... Dylan had seen it in the garage, but thought Dad was fixing it for a friend. Man, did his eyes near pop out of his head when my truck stopped by the front lawn and realized there were birthday balloons attached.

Here's what he saw when we pulled up.
Here's the birthday boy on his quad. He did really well shifting it (it's not an automatic), I'm totally impressed.


Blowing out his #7 candle on his cake

And... just so I don't forget that they really were once babies. Mr. Dyl bunded up and ready to shovel snow with Mom. I think he was about 6 - 8 weeks old in that picture.

The almost finished bathroom

For my family and friends (thanks to everyone who left a comment, I really do have readers. Yeah !!!) here are some pictures. Still need a few minor details like doors and window and floor moulding, but after what we've been through so far, that's nothing!

view of the bathroom from the hallway.

The shower with the fixtures installed. They are Kohler in an oil-rubbed bronze finish, but it's mostly black with some bronze at the edges.

And the vanity, with the medicine cabinet partially installed. We're getting there.

Shower Niche

I know this is really boring for the maybe 2 people who come to read my blog (okay - if there are more than 2 people reading this, throw me a bone and leave a comment!). I have yet another bathroom picture. I saw these recessed shower niches in a few magazines, and totally fell in love with the concept. I ordered the cheaper of the two pre-formed niches which, of course, was a mistake. Cheaper usually equals - well, cheaper. It wasn't completely square, a SOB to install, and an even bigger SOB to tile. I give my Dad and Mike loads of credit for working with it and doing such a great job! Here is a picture of their really hard work. It's so pretty, I'm not sure I want to load it up with shampoo bottles!!!

Tile Progress!

Sorry if this isn't very interesting... but it has literally consumed every minute of spare time around here! Here are some pix from the progress over the weekend.

The new tub/shower area. The only thing that needs to be completed is the recessed shower niche, which evidently is going to be a PITA to tile. OH - and this hasn't been grouted yet, so the look will change a bit once we get grout in there.
Here is a close-up of the chair rail. Dylan thinks they look like fish ;o) It's actually slate.

Saturday Progress

I can't say how thankful I am that my parents are here to help us tile. The bathroom has been pretty tricky, which pretty much sums up the whole project. It's been one of those projects where nothing has gone smoothly or quickly. Which is why, a month later, we are not finished! We woke up to snow, which Mike quickly grumbled something about being just &^%## perfect. Well, if nothing else, the kids loved it! They donned snow pants and boots and hats and gloves and went out and built little snowmen!

My Mom has played quite a few games of Sequence with the kids.

Mike, cutting tile in the snow. We did finally add boiling water to the tray so his hands didn't freeze.

Dad, tiling.

Dad, waking up to snow on his RV awning.

Life is Good

A few pix from today.

Hurry up and.... wait.

It seems that every spare moment in the last 3 weeks has been devoted to the bathroom project. Nights, weekends, etc. Our neighbor came and sheet-rocked the bathroom on Tuesday night. He does that for a living, and Mike, in turn, has done lots of work on his truck. It's nice to have good neighbors that can help each other out. Anyway, we are at a standstill now. We have to wait for him to finish mudding the walls (spackle) and then the sanding before we can paint and tile. Evidently the walls get 2 layers of mud. Then 2 days to dry completely. Then a rough sand, any touch up mud, and a final sand. It hasn't been too messy, but I remember from the kitchen that the sanding part is... not fun. The white dust gets EVERYWHERE. (Mental note to close bedroom doors!) We had thought about tiling the floor this afternoon, but we weren't quite ready to jump into it after lunch time, and we wanted to be sure it had the proper curing time (I believe 24 hours before you can walk on it). I think we'll be ready to tile the floor on Tuesday or Weds night, then we can install the toilet, vanity and sink. Then it's time to tile around the tub, which I'm glad to have my Dad around for. We are switching patterns half way up the wall (and adding in a really cool chair rail tile to break it up)... add in a recessed shower niche and I think Mike and I would have really had a time of it. Mike's totally awesome in the handy man area, but patience is not a virtue of his. And good tiling with patterns takes... patience. Here's the sheetrock. For those of you who are wondering why it's green, the new bathroom sheet rock that is moisture and mold resistant is a different color from regular sheet rock. And the stuff over the tub area is cement board, since we are tiling. It's been a complicated project, indeed. Oh, and my house still looks like someone threw up in it. It's a total disaster area. And the area which is recessed for the vanity, current holds.... tunes. Most definately necessary for long project nights.

Halloween 2007

We decided to do something different this year and went out with friends of ours in their neighborhood. We had such a great time! We brought pizza over to eat before we went out. We both dragged wagons in case the kids got tired. Our wagon was loaded up with a cooler of beer and drinks, another cooler of water and juice boxes for the kids. It took us about 2 hours to go to everone's house - the kids were exhausted and had GIANT bags of candy when they were done!

From left - Lauren the elephant, Lucas the Vader, Morgan the cowgirl, and Dylan the scary caped skeleton thing. ;o)

And One Photo for Dad

Somewhere under the blanket and cardboard, there is a bathtub. Which means... PROGRESS! Okay, not huge giant almost done progress, but we'll take it!

The kids pumpkins

To go along with my Tuesday Ten. Can you guess who carved which one???

Tuesday Ten

My friend Cat suggested we do a Tuesday Ten about Halloween. Well, it's Monday (I'm cheating, but tomorrow is sheet rock day for the bathroom)... but late on Monday so here goes. Top Ten Rambling Things about Halloween

1. I have never seen ANY scary Halloween movies. Sorry, I know they are just movies and all staged and stuff, but good heavens, I like to sleep at night. So I have never seen Friday the 13th or ... I can't even name them. I think there was a Halloween one, never saw it.

2. Morgan is going to be a cowgirl. Surprise, surprise. Our biggest battle was that she couldn't wear her spurs to school (Mom, how could SPURS be considered a weapon??), and that cowgirls don't wear fake press on nails. Come on Moey, how are you going to rope a steer and not break a fake nail? ha ha ha

3. Mom is going to be a cowgirl too. What is a grown woman? A cowwoman? Ummm.. I'll stick with cowgirl, thanks. It's for Morgan's Halloween parade - class Mom's HAVE to dress up don't ya know.

4. Dylan is going to be a scary black caped thing with skeleton wings. He originally wanted to be a cowboy, and I though hey... there's a theme here! Maybe Mike could be a horse... but the grown up first grader in him decided that older boys have to be scary. And WalMart had one scary costume left on Saturday morning. Check.

5. We are going out in a new neighborhhood with our friends. I'm so excited! I'm so sick of the crap going on here in our hood, so we called up our friends and said if we bring pizza can we pleeeaaaasse go with you? Throw in some beer cleverly disguised as a treat and the deal was sealed. Actually, they are a ton of fun to be with, it's going to be a great night.

6. My house is minimally decorated for Halloween. I have 4 storage totes of Halloween STUFF sitting in my family room. Bathroom remodel prevailed, and I have one traditional ghost hanging up in the tree. No witch stirring a lighted pot of brew. No black wooden casket coming up from the mulch around our maple tree. At least we have pumpkins!

7. I actually am not a huge fan of Halloween. Not sure why. Must have been the old lady around my lake that made us sing for our treats. It's scarred me for life. Kidding Mom. I think it goes back to the scary stuff... just not a fan of all things that make me scream. I have kids for that, thank you very much.

8. The kids carved their own pumpkins this year. Call me a bad Mom, but I handed them small utility knives and spoons and set them up in kitchen on a plastic tablecloth that had seen better days and let them have at it. They did great!

9. OOOOHHHH... Pumpkins. This year we had one giant (albeit rotten inside) pumpkin that grew inside the compost fence. Daily, the kids would report on its condition. The rotten part is from a small hole in the back of it that we couldn't see. Man, did that pumpkin STINK when Dylan cut it open. Phew. Hurry Dyl, scoop faster! ;o) We also had about 6 other mid-sized pumpkins, and a basket full of the cute little baby ones.

10. For Chanie. Directions to my house and the unguarded bowl of candy... I live at... ha ha ha... ;o)

From Morgan's show last week

My girlfriend e-mailed this over, I love it! I saved it as a bigger file, if you double click it will come up bigger and you can really see Morgan's smile and her chaps! Gosh, that girl is proud of them!!!

Mr. Dylan's first lesson

He's watched his sister intently for a year and a half. He's begged, pleaded and tantrumed. We finally relented, and Mr. Dylan had his first formal riding lesson tonight. He got "Patty" who had a pretty ribbon in her mane for a birthday party that ended just before his lesson. Oh well, he still liked Patty, despite the pretty ribbon.

Watching his sister already in the indoor ring, warming up.

My Princess Pine

For those of you who don't know the story of how she came to be called Princess Pine... you can read it on my old blog post here

And here is one of my favorite pictures taken on vacation in New Hampshire of Morgan..

Bathroom project

First, I cannot believe how much *stuff* I had in one 6 x 10' bathroom. I have towels over my wash machine, baskets of stuff on the kids homework shelf, there's a stacking drawer thing of more... stuff. The stuff in the linen closet alone was amazing, which really scares me to think about ever leaving this house and packing up all of our... stuff. But I digress. In the midst of job stress and Dylan stress and life, we decided to rip apart our bathroom. Because, we really (really, really) would like to have a small farm, and that ain't happening any time soon on 3/4 of an acre. And if we want to sell quickly in this market, our bathroom really needed an upgrade. Well, it's getting an upgrade. From the studs up!

Here's the lovely before picture... Oh, and for those observant types, it was taken after some of the tile was already ripped off the walls. We don't live like pigs for heavens sake. And during. Check out Mike, isn't he just awesome in his shorts and tool belt? Yup... my kind of guy. Which is why I married him.
And... after seeing the bathroom in it's current state, I am VERY happy to have a 35' RV parked in my driveway so I can shower in here.

Tell me ... Me, oh Me, oh My... wasn't that a Weekend

Friday night: Morgan's riding lesson. Stay at barn to help groom horses for the Saturday Rutgers inter-collegiate horse show. Home by... too late :o)

Saturday: At the barn by 7:30. Mom got to set up the food trailer, Morgan got to longue horses and bring them out to the ring. We left the barn by 10:30, off to Dylan's football game. Dyl's team lost 12-0. At 3:00 Morgan and I picked up her friend and went down to Libby Lu to celebrate her birthday (this is her friend that can't ride horses). Home by 5, back out to Frank's pizza for a birthday dinner (almost all of the girls from the gym were there!), back home to eat cake and collapse in bed.

Sunday: At the barn by 7:30 for Morgan's schooling show. She placed 4th in her first event (walk, trot canter - equation). She regrouped and placed 2nd in her second event (walk, trot canter - pleasure). She placed 1st in walk trot - egg and spoon. As you might guess, who ever can hold onto the egg the longest while walking then trotting won - and it was Morgan! A very tired but proud cowgirl came home with 3 ribbons and 1 first place plaque. It was a great weekend, even if someone didn't take a grapefruit and wore it like a hat... (wasn't that a party)... gosh, I love that song.

Morgan sporting her new show outfit (including very nifty chaps)
Check out Morgan's new saddle! And... back home after a very busy weekend relaxing with Mr. D in the pine needle pile. Life *is* good.

New Hampshire Trip

Once in a while, everything goes really well on a trip. This was one of them. The weather was beautiful (well, a tad warm for early October, but better than freezing the bejezus out of yourself), the things we did and saw were really, really fun. We stayed in Conway, New Hampshire. To some, it's known for loads of outlets. If that's all you think of Conway, it's a shame you haven't wandered around. We found covered bridges, beautiful scenery. We spent a day at the Fryeburg (Maine) fair. It's once of the last serious livestock fairs (there are more livestock than rides). They had 3 barns of just jaw dropping gorgeous draft horses (Clydesdales and Percherons, for example). The kids loved to feel a wooly sheep, and we were all amazed at how THICK their coat of wool is! We saw cows, pigs, sheep, donkeys, etc. Morgan fell in love with harness racing. Not that she bet, but she did have fun picking out the "speedy" horse pre-race. We happened upon an amazing spot to view the race - not in the grandstand, but right on the fence in the first turn behind the machinery aisle.

We spent the next day quite by chance on top of Mount Washington, which is the East Coast's highest mountain top at 6,288 feet. We couldn't take our dually up the road, since it was too wide, so we all piled into Grandpa's truck (dogs and all!) and went up. It turned out to be just fun to make the drive all together. The view from the top is in clouds or fogged in 60% of the time, we hit the 40% that was clear. YEAH! The kids have decided they want to hike it next year, I said that's fine, but we need to do some practice before committing to a 4 hour (one way) hike!

Our final full day, Sunday, was spent on a fall foliage steam train ride. We said to heck with it and spent an extra $5 per ticket and booked the first class car. WOW! It was the best $$ ever spent, we had these gorgeous wicker chairs to sit in and face the window... There were maybe 25 people in our train car, vs. 100 packed into the regular coach car. Again, the over night rain had cleared and the sun came out in time for our ride, and a fabulous time was had by all. We stopped in town and had some amazing fire-cooked pizza and walked through a few shops in town.

Here are a few pix - most of them are on my 35mm which will get developed and posted later this week.

Our camp site... we all LOVED being tucked under the white pines.
Dylan catching minnows in the river behind our campsite. If you look closely, you can see how still he sat - the minnows schooled right around him! Morgan and Dylan swimming in the river. Did I mention the river was REALLY COLD???

One of Morgan's "speedy" horses at the track. Note the mountains behind the fairgrounds... I felt like I was in Colorado!

One if by Day, Two if by Night...

I believe that was some sort of signal to hang lights to attack. I am wondering if someone has hung 3 or 4 lanterns by my house! I have been talking to God lately. I keep telling him that I know he only sends you what you can handle. I hope I'm handling things the way I am supposed to! We are going through a lot with Dylan right now. He's having a hard time in school, and while we can handle him quite well at home, school doesn't seem to be his thing. Unfortunately, he needs school for a while. I spoke to his teacher today who will start the process to have him evaluated by the child study team to ensure he's not battling learning disabilities. I know he's a VERY smart child (as evidenced by the fact that he decided that if he put his papers under his desk, he wouldn't have to deal with them)... Sigh.

Then, (here comes the lantern part)... Diesel gets sprayed by a skunk at 5am this morning. I'm in the shower (bathroom door and windows closed)... I think I was on shampoo or conditioner when... sniff... sniff... sniff sniff sniff... Oh... my.... GOD! I bang on the wall that's adjacent to the kitchen and Mike walks in. I said who got sprayed by a skunk? And he says.... oh, is that what that smell is??? *&^%^$##&*^ ARGH. Yes, Mike, where is the damn dog? (he was in the kitchen eating his breakfast, and Mike thought there must have been some kind of vinegar in the pan, or one of the eggs went bad). Seriously. So, at 5:30 this morning Diesel got doused in skunk spray and washed in the driveway. Every window in the house flew open. He got shoved in the garage to dry and off we went to work and school.

The house still faintly smells of skunk. So does Diesel, he's in the basement for the night.

Mr. Dylan? He had a great field trip to an apple orchard. I think the child simply belongs outside...

A Saturday Top Ten

My sister e-mailed me yesterday, she simply said "you haven't posted to your blog since September 8?". Yes, that's correct. I've been... busy. Well, busier than usual. Since I've missed a bunch of Tuesday Ten's, I thought I would post my own Saturday Ten, Ten Reasons Why I Haven't Posted to my Blog".

1. School started. And so did football practice and home work and making lunches....

2. We are remodeling our bathroom. Most of my spare computer time has been to do research. Designing tile patterns. Researching shower niches.. picking out facuets and tubs and toilets, oh my.

3. Researching spurs. The kind that little cowgirls strap onto their boots to coax lazy horses into a canter. Trying to figure out if I can order spurs as a party favor for Morgan's birthday party (a trail ride) and not spend more than the trail ride itself. We may end up giving grooming tools such as brushes instead.

4. Researching saddles. It's time for Morgan to get her own saddle. It's one of those must have's once you start to show more often. Our first hurdle was English or Western (she reverted back to Western). The second hurdle was to become familiar with the brands and what to look for when surfing EBay, because even some used saddles cost over $1,000. Yikes.

5. Researching fall train rides in New Hampshire. Because we are spending Columbus Day weekend in Conway, New Hampshire to attend the Fryeburg Fair in Maine with my brother and my parents. While we are there, we will take advantage of the fall scenery by taking a fall foliage train ride. Coach, 1st class or dining car?

6. Catching up on e-mail. I have neglected a few friends of late. Actually, I have neglected quite a few things of late, including bills (I was 4 days late getting around to them, argh) and such.

7. I've been cooking. Not the gourmet meal type cooking, but the plan your weeks worth of meals because Mike now has afternoon duty which includes getting the kids off the bus, doing homework, feeding them dinner and back out to foootball practice by 6pm. It's slightly more manageable if dinner is cooked and in the fridge and ready to re-heat.

8. Laundry mountain. I have 2 loads of laundry in baskets on the couch right now staring at me, waiting to be folded. I hate laundry mountain.

9. Running errands. I now have 2 days of "free" time to run errands (and go to the gym). The last 2 weeks have been sucked up by Lowe's and the tile store. Next week will be the granite place. Yesterday I snuck in an hour at the gym AND a 5k run with my girlfriend. Note to self - do NOT do the gym prior to running EVER AGAIN. We are training for a 5k run on Thanksgiving morning, cleverly called the Turkey Trot. Somehow I have to figure out how to do that AND get dinner on the table.

10. Well, for once I'm stuck on #10. I think reasons # 1-9 are enough to explain why my blog hasn't been update for a while. And from the way it sounds, it may be more miss than hit. Okay, I promise to get some pictures on, if nothing else. Because darn it, Mike and I made some very cute kids.

For Alice ;o) Tomato Sauce

This year was a good year for Jersey tomatoes. I have a bumper crop of giant heirlooms and paste tomatoes! (Thanks Mom, for the heirloom seeds!) Here's how you make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes.

1. Wash them up!
2. If you are lucky enough to have a KitchenAid with a meat grinder and a vegetable strainer (and a Dylan) you core them and roughly chop them and plop them into the hopper. Tomato sauce comes out into the bowl, and "tomato turds" (as they are affectionately known in our family) come out the end. If you don't have all of that, a simple old-fashioned food mill will do the trick nicely.
Now it's time to cook them!

I add (not in quantities, because it varies according to how much you have in your pot):
Fresh garlic, crushed through a garlic press
Fresh basil, finely chopped
Oregano
Italian seasoning
Finely chopped onion (or if I'm lazy, the dried onion flakes)
salt & pepper

I'm a purist kind of sauce person, I don't care for adding sugar to my sauce. You can adjust the quantities of seasoning above to make it on the mild side, or spicy. Mine is in between. After making sauce this way for years, I really don't care for jarred sauce from the food store. It's a bit sweet for me ;o)

Dylan's first football game

Dylan's first football game was today! Blue did very well - they tied the #1 Red team. Yeah! Go Blue Flag !!!!

The fruits of my labor

Literally. :o)

I have GIANT paste tomatoes this year, and some nice Brandywine heirloom tomatoes. They are turning into sauce on Friday. Yummmm....

1st Day of School

The kids were up and dressed and ready to go pretty early. 1st day of school excitement. Our bus ticket listed an 8:50 pickup time. We got to the bus stop at 8:30 - just in time to see the bus pulling up. Yikes! I missed the 1st day of school morning photo op, but did manage to grab a picture of the kids in the afternoon.I volunteered to help out in the cafeteria with the 1st grade today. Dylan clung and wanted to go home with me! Most of the kids wanted to know which bus they were going home on, and where the "real" Principal was. The assistant Principal was in the cafeteria to give a speech about rules and such. It was great to see the little kids in action!