At long last an update!

Halloween and birthdays, Oh my! :) Sorry for the long interval in updates. I've been spending a lot of my time doing this: ... and yes my camera lens needs cleaning. I have slipped a little with my cleaning, I'll admit it. I'll get it back on track soon, I hope.

Halloween went well and the candy has been all gone for about a week now.K is dressed up although as what is anyone's best guest really. The dress K is wearing was from an old vampire costume of hers from years ago. It must have been miles too big for her at the time! M is a princess(of course) what you can't see are her red rubber boots under the dress /lol/. I left the red eye in ... she is also wearing a plastic skull ring. A went as the Grim Reaper and still has his costume set up in a corner of his room.The mask was way big and he found it hot. Next year I'll switch back to make-up.

Birthdays

K turns 12K got $50 from us as a gift and a new fancy 8Gig iPod Nano from her father. Just this past long weekend(last Friday was a PA day) she spent the night at a hotel with her Grandma and then went out to dinner and a movie with her Grandma and her best friend big M.

As you already know I am 36 this year. I got a toilet seat and the latest Stuff Pack for the Sims2 for my birthday. I didn't make myself a cake, I baked a bunch of chocolate chip cookies instead. Then I ate too many of them and felt icky for a few days after my birthday.

M is 4 this year.She got a FurReal Friends kitten and the Barbie as the Island Princess movie, she also got Money from her Grandma&Grandpa H(J's parents)with it she bought herself a pink poodle stuffy and a Fairytopia Barbie.

Everyone is well and we can now get onto our Christmas shopping. We have some things bought for the kids but need to go out a few more weekends to get the rest. Then we have the tricky part of buying for each other. Winter is here now with snow on the ground and cold in the air. I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. I'm currently in the process of crocheting a new throw for the living room there never seems to be enough lap blankets in there! K has also decided to learn how to crochet and is trying to make a scarf for M ... it is very interesting looking.

I think that's it ... no more news. We are still menuing and the budget is still working well for us. Our weekly grocery bill is still sitting at about $150 I can't seem to get it any lower than that so I guess I'm happy. I figured it out and it only costs us about $21.50 per day to feed our family of 5. We would spend more than that on just one meal at McDonald's! I'm pretty darn proud of us.

Cass :)

What a toilet!!

I just had to share this with everyone because it is so very cool and just blows my mind!

This is the coolest toilet, EVAR!

Very Cool Toilet

The draw back? The over $3000 price tag!!

In action Video.

/gapes in awe/

/feels silly/

/drools/

Cass :)

PS : This Sink is perfect! Oh and I like This Toilet.

/grin/ AND I got my birthday present early :) I asked for a new toilet seat and since the lid(not seat just lid) of our old seat came off on the weekend J took pity on me and bought me the seat I wanted Here it is! I really like it and installed it before I did anything else.

Let's all do the time warp!

Yup last night was "fall back" an hour and I am still feeling the effects(not to mention the fallout of laundry from taking it easy for a few days). I now have small mountains of laundry in all the rooms and M wet my bed this afternoon during her nap so that is a mountain of bedding all on it's own. I am going to have to chain myself to the laundry machines tomorrow to get it all done! Thankfully the laundry machines are right next to the computer machine :) So it's not all bad!

Hopefully this is only a small step back in my cleaning routines. The kitchen has been clean every night so not all is lost ... I've just stumbled a bit on the laundry.

Still to do is post Halloween and K's birthday cake pictures(today is her 12th birthday). She had a friend over last night and all day today, which was nice but still draining having an extra child in the house.

Okay, I'm wiped ... Beam me up Scotty ... set course to the bed at impulse speed, Cass out.

Cass :)

Over a month of clean!

Just wanted to make a quick post(although I know I should be posting Halloween shots of the kids ... I'll get to it) to celebrate over a month of a clean(ish) house. Yay me! Also I think we are on something like almost 2 months of menuing and keeping the grocery budget down.

The van has been repaired and only a tiny bit over what we had budgeted for it but what a song and dance before it was done! Let me tell you the whole sorry tale!

Saturday J took the van in, he had dropped a new battery in it last week so we could start it again so that was okay. He took the van to the rad shop and later came home to tell me that the rad guys had found a problem when they had replaced the rad: The tranny lines were rotten and needed to be replaced and the tranny shop wasn't open until Monday. He called in and booked Monday off work figuring that he would be able to drive himself into work on Tuesday. Nope.

Monday he got the call from the tranny guy saying that he had one line in stock for our van but had to order the other one and the van wouldn't be ready until Tuesday. So J had to carpool again to work, he's really sick of carpooling and had hoped to have his independence back sooner but what choice do you have, right?

Tuesday he got dropped off at the tranny shop and subsequently sent over to the Rad shop where they were testing the rad to make sure everything was good(because they couldn't do that on Saturday because of the rotten tranny lines). Everything was not good - no van for J - the oil line that runs thru the rad was leaking and needed to be replaced. So J got a lift home from the rad guy with the assurance that the van would be ready Wednesday. We had to let the kids know that the pumpkins and Halloween candy was still in the van and we would carve them on Halloween day before supper ... they were understanding(thank goodness) and J was frustrated knowing he would have to carpool again the next day.

Yes J got the van back on Wednesday and drove himself to work on Thursday, then to the dentist for a routine cleaning and then to the grocery store. He is a happy camper. Tonight I will have him drive us to the nearest flu shot clinic and tomorrow we will have family day again(the pool is finally done!). A shortened version of it because I don't feel we can afford to eat lunch there every Saturday ... so just family swim and swimming lessons. M is very excited to start swimming lessons :)

I'll let you all know how that goes and get those shots of the kids in their costumes up:)

Cass :)