Halloween & Welcome Home Justin

Lukas making cards.

 Tuesday evening Justin was slated to come home, but he called around 6pm to tell us that his flight had been cancelled. It was too bad because the call came right in the middle of the kids making welcome home cards for him. I expected a lot more crying when I informed them that dad wouldn't be home in the morning, but Lukas just shrugged it off and Devin didn't flinch. We were fortunate to survive the storm without any power outages and after I put the kids to bed, I was planning on spending a relaxing evening watching Revenge on Netflix, but the internet was sadly out :*(


The next day was Halloween and I honestly wasn't planning on doing anything. We went to Whole Foods to grab some sauerkraut - which Luke has been eating up. I explained to him that fermented foods like sauerkraut have good bugs in them that fight off bad bugs in our tummies that make us sick. Since I said that he's been scarfing the stuff. I plan on trying my own fermented carrots and maybe beets soon.

Anyway, I decided that just because Justin wasn't home for Halloween, we weren't going to skip it again this year (he was in drill team training last year and at work). The kids put on their firemen costumes and we ran to march in the parade that evening. We went to the youth center's Halloween immediately following the parade and that was P-A-C-K-E-D with children.

We came home to eat dinner (grab a glass of wine) and then ran out to trick-or-treat. The second house over from ours had this terrifying setup:

Not pictured was a terrifying nurse. The oldest son of the family was dressed up as a creepy nurse with messed up bloody makeup. He didn't say anything, just smiled creepily and waved the children into the tent for candy!! Devin wouldn't go in, telling me that I needed to get the nurse out first. Luke went in like a champ and grabbed that candy! We spent the rest of the night running from house to house with our friend Carrie and her daughter Kk. 

My fire-fighters.

It was so much fun watching the kids have fun :) They actually knew what to do this year and didn't need to be pushed or carried. Plus, I had some great company. The neighborhood was really well done up this year and it's one of the great things about living on base. Tons of people get into the spirit of the holidays and you feel like part of a big community.

There was one other house that Devin was terrified of and that was what he called "The Growling House." He walked almost up to the candy, but stood staring at this with his lip poked out and shook his head. Devin told me that this thing was going to swoop down and growl at him.

We got home and watched a Halloween video while I picked up, then had some surprise visitors. After a long night I finally put the kids to bed, but was a bit too tired to watch a scary movie like I'd planned. I'll have to have my Halloween celebration a little later :)

Best Halloween in a long time and the kids were totally great about setting the candy aside to eat in moderation. I managed to stay out of it until tonight! Justin arrived while we were sleeping and we spent today getting back into our routine.

Surveying the damage

Inspecting for damage.

After breakfast this morning, the boys and I wanted to survey the damage from the storm. I spent the night in the boys' room since it was too noisy in mine to fall asleep, so I was expecting something to be wrecked or overturned outside. We found nothing damaged other than a post missing from our fence. Lukas did delight in finding different nicks in the wall that he attributed to the hurricane (but were really the result of the kids playing in the house over the last 3 years).

Best and easiest way to get kids to eat veggies. Luke demolished his.

 After discovering that nothing was really wrong, the desire to get some rain boots hit me. I would take the boys out to play in the rain, but it's cold and unpleasant when my feet get soaked. So, I headed to Target. While I sadly didn't find any rain boots I did find Dr. Bronner's Baby Soap that I've been looking for for a long time!! The store has always been out, so I picked up a bottle while I had the chance.

Yippee! Expensive, but worth it.

 The other super cool awesome thing that happened was that I picked up an area rug to cover the front entryway since it's been getting awfully muddy and gross. The rug was tucked into a $12.99 shelf, but rang up at $24.99 at the register. I that I didn't want it at that price and that it must've been in the wrong section, buuut a supervisor walked by and gave me the rug for $12.99! She said I probably had the price right, and if not, that it was their fault for not having it in the right section. LOVE that attitude ;)

My new rug.. the picture doesn't do it justice :)

Anywho, Justin may be on a late flight home tonight, but it is space-a and military air, so I don't have a ton of confidence in him arriving home this evening.

The rest of the day should be spent eating shrimp and other random stuff I've been cooking up.

Frankenstorm

 Friday evening we went to the library for movie night to do something special. They have popcorn and give out capri suns, which are a very special treat for the boys. The movie was Coraline and it was kind of creepy and a little scary for a kid's movie. Both of the boys did great sitting through it and neither seemed scared.. I am getting a little weirded out by Luke's recall abilities though, so I'm going to be a lot more conscious about filtering what he hears. I had some talk radio on the other day and during a break there was a news segment during which suicide bombers were mentioned. So, he hands me a drawing that he did today (Monday) of him as a good guy shooting a bad guy who he called a bomber man..

 Saturday we visited Summer's Farm with our friend Carrie and her daughter KK. Carrie's husband is also on the drill team, so we're good company on these weekends without the guys. I enjoyed the kettle corn and doughnuts again this year and the kids had a great time.

Sunday I spent the day doing laundry since I had mountains of it and didn't want to be without clothes if the power went out. Also, I did a pretty fair amount of cooking of chicken and steak and stuff to have pre made in the fridge even though we've got a gas stove and can cook when we need to. I splurged on some k-cups for my keurig recently and have been enjoying my morning coffee that way, but my backup tea kettle and french press are good-to-go :)

Windy and cold, but not dangerous here yet.. Around 2pm.

Today we've been hanging around the house since it's a little too yucky to go out. Justin's flight was cancelled, but I'm happy. I wasn't looking forward to him flying into the awful weather here.. I need to stop writing blog posts and watching episodes of Revenge at the same time since I can't write well with divided attention ;)

Mousecapades

Two different sizes of poop = two different kinds of mice

 If you've been following my Facebook, you know that we've lately been dealing with mouse problems.

 Upon return from my trip to NY, I found poop in every room and closet in my house except for the master suite. The worst were under the boys' beds where they had left nuts/raisins and also in the linen closet. In complete disgust I went on about an 9 hour cleaning frenzy and cleaned the house from top to bottom including the garage.

 The lovely grey house mice have been coming into my house via the cut out around our gas line behind the stove in the kitchen. I have so far been greeted three times by these mice in our pantry/playroom. Each time they escaped me when I tried to trap them. Of course they surprised me and I am shaking from adrenaline while I'm trying to catch them. I first baited the traps with honey, but ran out and got peanut butter after discovering that the mice were just ignoring my traps.

Black locked poison trap. Where the foam board thing is is where the hole used to be.

Sticky pads. There's also another in the garage.

 TO MY UTTER HORROR: I heard scratching coming from my wall in the laundry room while taking the dogs out around sunset and looked to discover huge chunks of plaster knocked down around the dryer vent. I quickly stuffed steel wool in there after banging on the wall and the scratching noise ceased. Well, I was lying in bed unable to sleep and decided to just go listen one more time to make sure the mouse was gone. As I walked by the dryer I saw something scurrying out of my peripheral vision!!! I looked and the thing had just chewed around the steel wool at the bottom. I stuffed two pairs of pants in the doors to block escape routes and grabbed a box to trap the mouse. Eventually a gigantic BROWN deer mouse ran out from under the dryer and scurried all over the laundry room. The box I had grabbed had holes in it that I didn't realize were there, so I guess it's ok that I was too freaked to trap the thing.. It hid under the dryer again so I decided to just go to bed and stuff more things under the door to keep it out of the main house. In there morning there was no more poop, but there was steel wool pulled out indicating he had beat feet soon after I left.

The next morning I went to Loew's and bought some animal repellant which I sprayed liberally around the vent. AND it stunk like rotten fish and garlic, but so far no more scratching or steel wool pushed out.

Finally, on Thursday, a week after initially calling to report a problem, pest control showed up to lay down two poison traps, sticky pads, and stuff steel wool down the gas pipe. I think he almost laughed when he saw my setup around the dryer vent, because he said that wasn't going to cut it. I'm currently waiting for maintenance to come and seal this as it was too big for pest control to do. Also, I'm not suspicious that there have been mice coming and going for awhile since I've always seen a little plaster here and there knocked out and chalked it up to the dryer moving. Never huge chunks of plaster though, so I'm thinking that this is our first year being visited by a deer mouse.

Die mouse, die!

Lukas making mustard-glazed chicken thighs

I have been a little too distracted by this mouse thing, so I don't think we're going to do Halloween this year in the trick-or-treating sense. Plus, there's supposed to be a Frankenstorm or something so I guess it's good we're staying in.

Other than that, no news! Justin's off to Georgia for another TDY and he told me that drill team already has their dates picked out for the next "camp" which is the 30 days of bonding they all do at a base far away every year around March. He went last year and that was not a good time for me. I'm hoping all these little trips away have broken me in for this next one. Plus, he was gone almost all of September and I survived that..

Until next time!

Balanced Bites Seminar + A whirlwind trip home

The boys in the fall leaves outside mom & dad's house

 On Friday I drove up to NY as I had a seminar in Rochester to attend. This was my first nutrition seminar and I had an A-W-E-S-O-M-E time learning.. and I think the woman who ran the seminar bored the crap out of the people who signed up and thought it was going to be a simple this-is-how-you-lose-weight or fuel athletes type of seminar. It was run by a woman named Diane Sanfillipo, author of Practical Paleo and blog writer at Balanced Bites. She's a big traditional foods (organ meats, bone broth, cod liver oil, etc etc.) advocate. Robb Wolf (the big guy at the moment in paleo) is putting together a weekend-long nutrition certification in the works that I hope to someday attend too!

Outside of CrossFit Rochester.. seminar host.

Practical Paleo! Autographed!

I also had the pleasure of watching the Obama: 2016 movie - which is now available at quickflix kiosks. It was a bit slow-moving, but VERY eyeopening. You'll learn some things about your president that will shock you.

I also was able to go to bible study at Justin's parent's house, which was great. I get to learn, the kids get to see their cousins, and I get to chat with all the Lemmons/Martins/Shofkoms/Burns :) It's great to catch up face to face.. there's something lacking in digital communication.

Justin was off of work Monday, but I saw another mouse running from the pantry to under the couch in our toy room so I spent the morning cleaning instead of going out. Justin also was feeling sick that day, so that was a further reason to stay in. 

I watched the last presidential debate last night.. not sure why since I always end up biting my nails or unable to fall asleep thinking about the direction the country is going or going over what each of the candidates said. Glad that was the last one! I've already cast my vote, so I wasn't watching as an undecided.

Anyway, sorry for all the broken thoughts! Just trying to type this up quickly before I forget to.

The drive back from Rochester. I love the fall leaves ~

Happiness in a Cup

 For Luke's "homeschool" today, we have been reading The Rag Coat. It's a story about a girl in Appalachia who loses her coal-mining dad to black lung disease. We talked about coal and then read a book called My Grandfather's House, which is a book about a boy who loses his grandfather. I think this kind of backfired because Luke thought I was telling him that his grandpa was going to die and got a little upset. We moved on quickly to the tune of Devin chirping "I'm going to die!" I guess I'm not very good at explaining this kind of stuff to kids and won't bring it up for awhile.

Cleaning up under the stove.

 After a walk the boys "helped" me clean up under the stove and Lukas made this nifty sign for any mice that dare enter our house again. It says "NO" in the bottom right corner for NO MICE! Luke's idea.

Also, Justin got home and was craving something desserty so I made what he called: Happiness in a Cup. I get the impression that people think I eat pretty strictly. Here's some proof that's not the case.

It's a nuked chocolate brownie in a cup using this recipe: Chocolate Mug Brownie , a couple scoops of ice cream, syrup and cool whip. Pretty yummy. I did decrease the amount of sugar in the brownie mostly because I knew the ice cream would be sweet and I don't enjoy my teeth aching from sweetness.

Anyway, time for Arrow and Modern Family! Much more interesting than the debates last night. I already sent in my ballot, so I'm not really sure I care much more to watch any more election politics.

The Mouse Attack

 Today I did much more than I set out to do today: I got our comforter cleaned at the laundromat.. Devin had a little accident in our bed and the comforter won't fit into our washing machine.

I tried a new Paleo ranch dressing recipe from Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook. It was kid approved and pretty tasty. Not an exact taste match for the original, but I liked it.

It was a mix of a homemade mayonnaise, coconut milk, dill, parsley, salt.. and I think that's it.

 I also made an apple crisp that I wasn't impressed with. It turned out more like a dry apple oatmeal. BUT, the exciting thing that happened was when I heard a squeaking after we put the kids to bed and settled down to watch an episode of Game of Thrones before the presidential debate.

I kept hearing it and walking into the kitchen. Justin told me to just forget it, but the idea that there could be a mouse near my food really bothered me.. so I started exploring and as soon as I pulled out the drawer under the oven I saw it!! And screamed! Justin hopped up and killed it. Going to pick up some traps tomorrow ew!

Time to watch the debate!!

Cute, but disease-ridden. Also very dead now..