Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

While my Mom was here we went to a pumpkin patch and got pumpkins, then carved them the next day.

They had some really unique pumpkins!

Gillian almost went for this one but changed her mind.

Due to the magic of Photoshop, I got all of us in one photo:



Saturday morning we carved the pumpkins. I think Grandma did the majority of the work.





We finished them up after we dropped off Grandma at the airport, so at least the kids had a little something to look forward to. They did a great job!

And the late-evening shot:


The sunset was pretty amazing that night, too:




We had an eventful evening of Trick-or-Treating at the Night Out on Crime on Main Street tonight (Halloween) and the kids came home with quite a haul of candy!

Here are the kids before we left:

Ryan didn't want to wear his mask so at the last minute we used some of Gillian's face paint and made an attempt to add Optimus Prime type markings to his face. [Look at that beautiful, freshly-mown lawn!]

Here's Gillian's haul, just after she dumped out her bucket. (It promptly got spread out all over!)

And Ryan, showing off his candy:

Halloween was very successful all the way around this year. Greg stayed home to greet any trick or treaters, and when the kids rang the bell after we got home he said that our own kids were the only trick or treaters all night!

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The lastest home improvement project has been replacing the back door, and it's made a HUGE difference.

Here's the door as it is now:

Last weekend Greg mudded it in and it is *fabulous.* We need to repaint the header (and the rest of the exterior) but that's going to take a lot of work and replacing of wood, so that's probably not going to happen until at least spring.

Here's the old door:



And here's the rotted section:

While the wood was pretty, it was warped at the top and let in a ton of air, not to mention the rotting sections of wood! I also really, really didn't like the divided light aspect of it. It visually closed off that area. I LOVE the new door and how open it makes the room feel.

I also don't notice the huge temperature difference between that room and the rest of the house any more. It's been such a wonderful improvement in so many ways!


I hope all of you are having a great weekend, too!