Halloween...a little different this year

I've been saying all summer that my house better be done by Halloween. Here we are and I can honestly say that it is about as close to being done as I can expect. Being in a new place, I guess it's pretty easy to compare with the last twelve Halloweens we spent in Herriman.

Just like at Riverton Elementary, Westfield has a Halloween Parade. It starts bright and early, at 9:30 am. Portia and I went to the school to catch a glimpse of Bianca walking with her class through the school. I was able to shoot a picture of Bianca with her new best friend. I'm so glad she was able to find a good friend so quickly.

Portia and I spent the morning rocking out to our Halloween mix (blasting it through our house with the 80's style intercom system I wasn't quite sure I'd ever use). Portia had to practice her cello and it was just so cute to see her do it in her costume that I decided to video her playing Lightly Row.

Portia has been saying she is a Gargoyle Cat Fairy for a month now. We got the gargoyle fairy costume and then Portia wanted to add these cat ears and tail to the costume. She loves being "kitties" still and is better than any kid I've ever seen at imaginative play. I went to the school again in the afternoon to help with Portia's Halloween party at kindergarten.

Bianca was a Gothic Mummy this year. I've had the costume since last year and Bianca was putting up a bit of a fight about it (I've seen the face below a lot when discussing the matter). Here she is, doing her best "deadly" face.

Straight from school to Eric's work for trick-or-treating through the cubicles. We stopped on our way home from trick-or-treating at Dad's work to pick up a pumpkin-shaped pizza and Eric made pumpkin milkshakes. Ah, ice cream only on a Halloween as warm as this one!

When I was clearing up the dishes, I looked out the window and saw the silhouette of an owl on the nearly naked tree in our backyard. The owl flew off with huge flapping wings. I can't tell you how many times I've wondered if moving here was the right decision. Probably every single day since we've moved in. But on nights like tonight, it's clear why we're here. This is the kind of stuff that makes me so happy. And what are the chances that I would see the owl for the first time on Halloween night!

In our Herriman neighborhood, we would have close to 200 trick-or-treaters on Halloween. It's already 8 o'clock and I've only had the doorbell ring twice. Those were some lucky trick-or-treaters, though, as I have a whole lot of candy to pass out!

Eric took the girls out for an hour and they're back already now. Portia and Bianca are categorizing their goods now.

Here are the girls right before going out tonight, with the jack-o-lanterns we carved this year. The one to the right Bianca did with absolutely zero help from anyone. Not bad!

Here are the girls sitting on the bench we put in the front entry of our house. We added these metal grates so that the radiator heat is ventilated. Those awful baseboard radiator covers were one of the reasons we considered not buying this house. We've covered most of them with these old decorative grates and I think the difference is night and day (you can see others in the above pictures)!

So it's different here, that's for sure. But so far, so good. Happy Halloween!

"Come," said the wind...

I love autumn. It's hands-down my favorite season. The colors, the smells, the anticipation hanging from the branch of the exciting things around the corner.

This weekend, I spent a fun, autumn-filled weekend with my mom and sisters, Betsy and Susannah. I literally checked off a list of the all the fun autumn things we did:

• Picked ripe apples from the tree (you should have seen Susannah trying to do a shoulder stand to reach the good ones)--Check!
• Shelled pecans fallen from the tree in my mom's yard--Check!
• Hung around a bonfire and made s'mores--Check! Check! Check!
• Drank hot apple cider--Check!
• Ate come-said-the-wind molasses cookies in Halloween shapes (and sang "Come said the wind" with Susannah and Mom)--Check!

But the real reason we all came together was to run the Zombie 5K. This summer had been the first since I can remember that I didn't jog. I blame the stress of moving and remodeling, but I started running about a month before for this little gem (thanks to Susannah's update texts on where I should be in order to have my body ready to run). But this was all about strategy--staying in groups, swinging your arms just the right way to keep zombie hands from grabbing my flags, taking just the right course around mud and zombies. I wished I had trained with bursts of sprinting mixed with walking, which is what the race ended up being. Luckily, all three of us actually made it through with at least one flag in tact (which means we all made it out alive). That was a big deal, especially with the crazy obstacles at the end--the mud pit (which I spider crawled through so that I didn't have mud splattered all over like Susannah did), the pyramid that required hands to keep you from protecting your flags, and the big barrels you had to climb with a rope and slide down. With the craziness of everything, I really didn't think about the fact that I was supposed to be afraid of the zombies! At the end of it all, I was so glad I did it and so hope I never have to again! 

I don't think I mentioned that it was 35 degrees in the morning when our leg of the race was. So after the race, we stopped at Starbucks for hot chocolate. Here we are showing off our beloved flags. 

It's strange to be away from my kids even if it's just for a short weekend but wow, I'm glad I went! I needed this weekend, especially with the stress of this year. Now, back to my unfinished house...

Master Bath Reno

So, it's not finished completely, but it's close. I've always wanted to do a before and after blog. So here are some before pictures of our bathroom and the strange long, narrow room that ran alongside it:

So we knocked out the wall, opened everything up, and got to work. We're still waiting on the wood paneling on the angles (they stained it the wrong color) and a little electrical hiccup (a wire was cut) and a little touch-up paint, but I'm really starting to get anxious to use the new master bathroom. I'm dreaming of bathing in the copper tub. I've heard the copper keeps water warmer longer. 

This is my side of the bathroom, with a little vanity table. I love this old Victorian shaving mirror that I found on ksl. I think it fits the space perfectly. Now I need to find a chair to go here.

This is Eric's space. I tried to make his sconces and vanity a little more masculine, that way he would allow my crystal chandelier.

I call this Eric's car-wash shower. I can't imagine needing all these faucets, but this is what Eric wanted. I got my copper tub; he got all this water spraying.

This is the entrance to the bathroom. I'm in love with the beams and the crown molding. On the right is Eric's walk-in closet; the left is mine. The closets are left open, so I guess that means we'll both have to be a bit more vigilant keeping our closets organized.

This is my closet. I get the window and a little more space. 

Eric got more hanging space though.

I've started bringing up some of our clothes from the basement where we've been crammed in for the last several months. I simply cannot wait to move up!

Bianca's new tween suite in the attic

Teenagers like their space. I get it. When I was in high school, I needed to be as far away from my parents as I could get, which ended up being the room down in the basement my brother had vacated when he left for college. Even if it did have Star Wars wallpaper, I needed that space.

To prepare for that time when Bianca will most certainly need her space, we decided to create her ultimate teen suite (or for now, her tween suite). Instead of moving downstairs where sneak-outs are much easier, we're putting her up in the attic. I mean, she can either sneak down three stories or have to walk past our room on her way down the creaky stairs. It's fool proof (I hope). 

There were two big game rooms up in the attic. Here's the before photo:

So, we added a small attic bathroom. I love the shape of this room. We added white beams to accentuate the angles on the ceiling. And then painted the walls with Sherwin Williams "Stream" to compliment the black-and-white color scheme. And I love that when you open the french doors (frosted glass for privacy but not too much since this is the only real window in the whole attic), all you see is the claw-foot tub:

We opted not to do a shower, just a small soaking tub with this British-telephone faucet for rinsing:

One of my favorite things (and what makes the space extra girly) is this 3-inch hex tiles patterned into daisies:

Because there's not a ton of storage (or any closets for that matter), we had these open shelves constructed on both sides of the tub for holding towels, product, bubble bath, etc.

Because space was at a premium, we did a simple pedestal sink and I found this antique mirror at an antique mall while I was in St. Louis this summer.

Because one of our main concerns was the cooling, we had to add an air conditioning system. Because the house didn't have ducts, we had to use this Fujitsu system that (to be honest) is a little unsightly, but is supposedly the most efficient AC unit out there. Bianca has two zones in her attic space alone. We had this cornice built around the AC and then flanked the bed space (no bed there quite yet, but we're going to give her our old queen mattress) with these bookshelves with built-in nightstands and magnetic boards.

We brought in some of the decor from the bathroom floor by installing these hex tiles inside the inner-facing nightstand spaces and hopefully married the two spaces together. We used a subtle lavender-gray paint color called "Sensitive Tint" for this space. And now Bianca will have plenty of light for reading in bed with these LED sconces.

Right now, they're still installing the hardwood onto the stairs so we haven't been able to move up yet. Soon we'll add the bed and Bianca's super excited about her anthropologie bedding, called "Oh to Dream." Ah, finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is blocked by unfinished staircases.

Including everyone

I signed up to volunteer in Portia's kindergarten class every Wednesday. I was never able to commit myself before (having a toddler at home), so I was excited to finally have this chance to spend time in my child's classroom. It's a little exhausting (I don't know how teachers do it) and I'm only supposed to be there for a half hour, but it usually goes longer.

Today, as we were finishing up "Centers," in which my job was to help the kids staple books together in order and read to them about being healthy, the kids were heading out to recess. Portia was sitting at my table as the last group. A little girl asked Portia if she was ready to head out to play. Another girl came up and asked her to play. There was some sort of scuffle and the last thing I heard was, "We include everyone!" in a tone that wasn't quite as caring as it should have been. I was really proud of Portia for standing up to a friend and insisting on including others. I've always felt strongly about this and am glad that's rubbing off on Portia. But now, I think we'll work on the tone Portia uses when suggesting such a harmonious playing arrangement.

Fall (or late summer, actually) Pictures

I realized that since I've been married, I've never included a picture of me in the Christmas photo card I send out to friends and family. So this year, I planned ahead and since a friend of mine, Jenny Gildea (http://www.jennygildeaphotography.blogspot.com) who's a professional photographer was coming into town, I set up to have a shoot done with my family. I thought it might be fun to have the photos taken in our new yard (since that seems to be one of the only things about our new house that is "ready"). I'm not sure which photo I'll use in the card, but here are a couple I really liked:

I LOVE Bianca's green eyes in this photo. We took these in the front entrance since it began raining just as it was Bianca's turn to have pictures by herself. She also did some with her viola.

Portia wanted to run out into the rain for her photo shoot. And of course little sisters always want to be like their big sisters: she wanted to do some cello shots since Bianca did some with her viola.

I had some pictures of Bianca and Portia taken together as well, since I had some matching outfits for them. They're from that same Jottum Rembrandt collection that I'm so in love with. The clothes actually incorporate Rembrandt paintings in them. And don't get me started on the colors. Portia wore the Bellini coat and Bianca was wearing a matching Saskia dress.

But probably my favorite of the bunch is this picture where both my girls are showing off their "Watters" tongues. We've always been very proud that we can touch our tongues to our noses!

I love a good deal...

I found these awesome solid wood, heavily carved Corinthian columns on ksl.com (it's just like Craigslist). They came out of an old house, I'm pretty sure. They're old and split in some places, a couple chunks are missing, but I LOVE them! I was only going to buy two of them but the woman said she'd give me a deal if I bought all four. But let's face it, it was already a good deal. So two are already in the arch in the master bedroom and two are going in the entry to my library. I'm starting to feel like things are finally coming together with my house. I cannot wait to sleep in this room!

Sometimes pictures skew color a little. You can see the "smoky blue" paint I chose for our master bedroom. We went dark. I love sleeping in dark places and am hoping the darker paint on the walls might help. Maybe it's wishful thinking...

It feels so close, yet still so far away. Will this one day be mine?