Halloween & Home Improvements

Halloween was so much fun this year! Nathaniel picked out his own costume (dragon), celebrated with a school party and got to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with friends. The only unfortunate thing was, Chad missed all the fun. He had to be in CA for a work trip. I invited Grammy & Pops up for the Halloween fun since Chad was out of town. They had extra dogs at home so Pops came first for a few days and participated in the trick-or-treating and Grammy came for the weekend after/herding trial.

Since I knew Pops was coming I decided we should tackle some home improvements while he was here for a few days. Chad and I ordered new doors/jams for the rest of the house and Dad and I installed them. When we remodeled the bathroom and laundry room a few years ago we replaced the door and jam to both those rooms but the 3 bedrooms and closets still needed to be done. Pops arrived on Tuesday night and left Friday morning and in 2 days we installed 7 doors/jams & celebrated Halloween- yes we were very busy! Our hallway looks so much better with 6 panel white doors versus the old brown luan doors that were beat up to say the least. It would have been much easier if we could just replace the doors in the house but for some reason most of our jams were badly damaged too. Not sure what the people that owned our house before us allowed to go on in the hallway but looked like they took a serious beating and most were broken beyond repair. The hallway and bedrooms are now complete with the exception of the entrance to the stairwell leading to the basement. We haven't decided exactly what type of door we want there so that jam still needs to be replaced and we have to add a door. Owning a house is a never ending project and money pit!

I also got real ambitious the first week Chad was out of town and decided to paint the ceiling & walls in our upstairs living room. To be honest I wanted to paint the walls but it made no sense to paint them without painting the ceiling. We had an old water stain on the ceiling that needed to be covered. I tackled the ceiling first then painted the walls Ashley Gray by Benjamin Moore. I love the color and with the newly painted ceiling and trim in the room it looked fabulous. Notice I said "looked" fabulous? Yes for about 5 days it was a beautiful room, then hurricane Sandy hit and while the damage to our area was minimal and we didn't even lose power my roof leaked and I have a new water stain on my newly painted ceiling. The roofers are coming by today to estimate the fix then I will be painting the ceiling a second time. Did I mention before that owning a house equals money pit?

When Grammy arrived Friday we had finished the home improvements and I had removed most of the dust and dirt from all the construction. Chad also returned home on Friday. We had a nice weekend together even though Grammy was gone during the day on Saturday and Sunday she made it back in the afternoons so we could all enjoy dinner. Nathaniel and I were very excited to see Daddy. Nathaniel has not really left his side all weekend.

I have to share a story so if you are still reading this very loooong post - enjoy! Saturday night I cooked dinner and for desert we ate some mini powdered donuts that Grammy brought. I am pretty sure Nathaniel had 4 of them. They must have given him a sugar high because after bath he serenaded all of us with singing along to the radio, playing his guitar and dancing. This went on for a good hour and was so much fun and entertaining. I wish I had it all on video or took pictures but because we were having so much fun listening to him I did neither. Nathaniel sang along with some of the songs on the radio and when he didn't know the song he would make up his own - hilarious! He even got mommy and daddy up to dance with him and turned the entertainment into a dance party!