Halloween 2010

Halloween isn't normally a huge deal at our house...but this year it was a little more momentous because it was Amelia's first time.  Last year, there was an older sister of Amelia's who was having trouble with some obedience issues and we had to cancel our Halloween plans as a punishment.  Yes, it punished us and Amelia as well but we've had many Halloweens before and Amelia didn't know what she was missing so we decided we'd better be consistent parents and stick to our guns.  


This year, however, Ava was obedient so no plans were thwarted!  Ava dressed up as, surprise, surprise, a PRINCESS!  And Amelia was also a little fairy/princess...has to copy her older sister is some way ;-)

Ava was excited about her dramatic butterfly eyelashes...

And Amelia was excited just to be dressing up!

Because we live out in the country with a l o n g driveway that no one would ever venture up, we've started to make it a tradition to drive into the "city" of Decatur and go trick or treating with our friends!

Amelia and her friend Reagan, who made the cutest little Red Riding Hood and,

Ava and her friend, Trinity, who was the cutest cheerleader on the block!  We set off scavenging for candy while the sun was still up!

I know this is a little blurry, but aren't these two the cutest?  They were doing this all night...they get along soooo well!

What's really great about this neighborhood is we know many of the people who live here so it's very safe for the girls and we get to catch up with some we haven't seen in awhile!

As the night wore on, and the sun was starting to set, we made our rounds then headed over to the Baptist Church nearby for the Trunk or Treat event they were having.  

The Baptist Church does a great job with their event and not only was there TONS of candy, but there were games, hay rides, food, and a large flat screen set up for the adults to watch the Rangers game while the kids ran around on sugar highs.  This is Texas, after all, major holidays are not to interfere with sports! ;-)

Jason had the night off (so rare, it seems) and so he was able to come!  Doesn't he looked thrilled? 

Actually, he was very happy to go, he just hates having his picture taken...  We ended our evening by congregating back at a friend's house for smores and some great conversation around their fire pit.  It was a balmy evening and Ava shed her gown so she could get some good play time in ;-)

It was a great way to end a perfect night!  I know we made some good memories.

Until next time...

Video of the Week (Week 42)

I can't remember how I came across the video, but I was fascinated at the findings of this little experiment in China...

Project 365 - Days 298-304

Wow!  We're into the 300's this week.  It'll be Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's before we know it!

Day 298/365 - October 24

We had a gorgeous sunrise...the picture doesn't really capture the depth of the colors or the breadth of the sky - how it felt like it wrapped around you.  Breath taking.

Day 299/365 - October 25

Ava's class led the "Rise & Shine" at her school this week.  Rise & Shine is a weekly assembly before class each Monday morning.  They sing some songs and take turns reading important announcements for the week.  They were also celebrating Red Ribbon/Drug Free week so everyone was dressed in red.  Ava is the one in the front left with the nice dust bubble from my camera around her head ;-)

Day 300/365 - October 26

Ava has watched the new movie "Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue" at least 100 times.  In this movie, a little girl has built her own fairy house in the hopes of catching a fairy, which she does (Tinkerbell).  Ava, ever industrious as she is, created her own fairy house. She has decorated the outside with that nice "Welcome Fairies" sign over the door and I wish I could get a decent picture of the inside because she has a bed, a shelf, a hook to hang things on, etc.  It's really pretty cute.  However, no fairies caught as of yet...I'll keep ya posted! ;-)

Day 301/365 - October 27

Red Ribbon Week continued with theme days and today was wear your pajamas to school. I bought Ava a new Tinkerbell set for the occasion and she wore them with pride (as you can see).

Day 302/365 - October 28

Not to be outdone, Amelia got to wear her new Dora pajamas to Mother's Day Out in celebration of their Fall Festival Party.  She was excited to wear hers as she had seen Ava wear her pj's the day before.

Day 303/365 - October 29

Caught Amelia laying down on her little couch to watch some Dora with her baby.  Wonder where she learned that?

Day 304/365 - October 30

So this is a little preview of their Halloween costumes, but Ava's school had their annual Fall Festival this evening.  So we got to try out the costumes and get some candy too!  Ava wanted to pose with this scarecrow on the way out.  The crazy thing is, this is how the girls look on any given day of the week - playing dress up as princesses and fairies ;-)

Until next time...

The Saga of the Crayon & the Dryer

Those who know me know I really dislike doing laundry.  I'm not sure why I abhor it so.  I think I would "enjoy" it more (can you really enjoy something like that?) if I had a more organized laundry room; one that was a ROOM instead of a hallway. 


But I digress.  Because my lack of love for laundry or the layout of my laundry room has nothing to do with what happened when I pulled the latest load out of the dryer last week and discovered this...

...and this...

...and this...

And there were oh so many more pieces of clothing stained with these dark blue blobs.  I was aghast.  What could have caused this!?  I stuck my head in the dryer to discover this:

Yes, not surprisingly based on the sight of our clothes, the dryer was covered in this dark blue hue.  At first, I thought a pen had exploded in the dryer.  But, Jason determined it was crayon after he found this near the lint catcher:

Yes, it appears a blue crayon made it through the washer but got lodged in the dryer, melted, and spread all over the inside of the dryer and our clothes!  The problem now?  The waxy crayon had dried.  And did not want to come off.  

I quickly jumped on google and researched "remove melted crayon in dryer".  Apparently, I'm not the first person this has happened to!  Remedies ran the gamut from WD-40 (as advised by the Crayola website) to a homemade detergent paste.  One website in particular noted the seemingly ill-advised recommendation by Crayola to put a flammable liquid into the dryer (WD-40).  So, he tried the toothpaste route - turn your dryer on for 10 minutes to soften up the crayon, spread toothpaste on all the affected areas, turn the dryer back on for another 10 minutes, then get out your elbow grease, a wet washcloth and go to town scrubbing that off!  Well, I had my doubts but this guy had pictures to prove it removed the crayon.  So, I grabbed a new tube of toothpaste and went to town!

This method seemed to work - it was as though the warmed up goo absorbed the crayon and when the toothpaste dried, the crayon scrubbed off with the paste.  But boy, was there a lot of elbow grease involved!  YIKES!  After two hours of scrubbing, and getting my sinuses cleared thanks to the warmed toothpaste scent, I realized I was going to have to find another method.  Either by finding a different way of taking it off, or finding someone to do the scrubbing for me!  

Enter Jason, who returned home from work shortly after I took my break from the scrubbing.  He decided to try some other methods.  We tried a car polish - which worked but took a lot of scrubbing like the toothpaste.  And we tried some other car product (can't remember now) that had similar results.  And yes, these products are flammable and probably shouldn't be used inside a dryer.  But at this point, I was desperate to get it off for good and quickly!  My already mountainous pile of laundry was reaching epic proportions after several days of not being able to use the dryer!  

Enter Goof Off.  We sprayed that oily substance into the dryer and the crayon wiped off like fingerprints on a window with Windex.  Oh yes, it was magical!  And a short 15 minutes later, my dryer looked like this:

Oh yes, I was doing a happy dance unlike any other!  Yes, there were a few lingering blue tinges here and there but I think those were old stains from jeans.  I ran a load of rags to make sure nothing more came off and putting through a load of whites confirmed we were crayon free!  Oh happy day!

I never thought I would be so happy to do laundry.

Until next time...

PS - I should add that before I ran my first load, I took soap and water and washed out the inside of the dryer to try and get any greasy grime or flammable remnants of the Goof Off off the dryer surface!  Also, the one lucky thing in the whole fiasco is that most of the clothes in the initial load that got the crayon, were turned inside out.  So, I just ran the load again (after all, crayon is washable if not melted and dried on in thick globs) and most of the stains came out!  The few that remained are on the inside and will never be noticed.  Yea!