New Carpet

We've been thinking about getting new carpet for 3 years now, and this week we finally took the plunge. We got a patterned brown carpet which will hopefully wear well. At least, that's what the sales guy said, we'll see. We had thought about doing wood upstairs, but decided it would be too noisy and besides I tend to fall down the stairs on a regular basis so I wanted something softer to land on. 

Here's the before. The stairs and hall had berber which wore really well since it is almost 12 years old. It doesn't look too bad in the pictures but it was pretty bad in person. Especially the places where I fell down the stairs holding a can of paint last year.

The bedrooms had a cut pile carpet that looked awful now. 

 

Getting new carpet is almost as bad as moving. The back bedroom and dining room are still full of stuff for me to put away. The installers moved furniture, but we had to move everything on the furniture. 

 

Halloween: Costumes

On Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with some friends whose mom actually took some pictures. They had so much fun we stayed out for 3 hours. They got plenty of loot - probably enough to last til next year. 

This year, Katie was a sailor, and Lizzy was a cat for trick-or-treating and supergirl for our Mops party.

Halloween: Decorations

Halloween: Carving the pumpkin

On Saturday, Theo helped the girls carve the pumpkin. He didn't have to do much this year. He cut open the top and the rest they did themselves.

 (Hey -- he has more teeth than Katie!)

While they worked on that, I baked some pumpkin cookies for them to decorate for their teachers.

Overheard

Lizzy: "I had a really hard day at school today"
Me: "what happened sweetie?"
Lizzy: "People were coughing outside of their sleeves and it was making me sick"
Katie: "There was an announcement this morning that you should cover your cough with your sleeves so we don't spread germs"

Lizzy "Momma, katie hit me"
Katie "no I didn't. She just hit herself and then told on me."
Me: "Lizzy, did you do that?"
Lizzy dejected : "yes."

Katie: My class was really quiet today because my teacher had amnesia and could barely talk so we had to listen carefully."
Me: Amnesia???? Do you mean laryngitis?"
Katie: "something like that"

Mini-Vacation

Plano schools had a long weekend so we went to San Antonio to get a second trip out of our Sea World tickets. 

They were having their Halloween celebration. It was lots of fun. Starting at dusk, they had people in costumes trying to scare people. They had a scary forest trail, which we decided was too scary for the kids but Theo went through. We waited for him at the end where we enjoyed watching them jump out at people with chainsaws. 

We all got to pet the giant snake. 

 I don't know why this guy was considered part of the freak show. After all, doesn't everyone tuck their legs behind their head to play guitar?

 

 The next day, our first stop was to feed the dolphins. 

That evening we went to dinner on the riverwalk at Casa Rio. It was fun and yummy. Too bad dinner was followed by an hour of wandering lost around San Antonio searching for our exit. 

Sunday we went to see our friends in Austin. The kids enjoyed rocking out to Justin Bieber in the car on the way to school.

Then we headed downtown to see the capital and check out the weirdness that is Austin.

New Dresses

Fire Safety Posters

The girls made fire safety posters for a school poster competition. I think they turned out really cute!

Bible Presentation

The third graders were presented with new Bibles from the Pastor on Sunday. Katie was so excited and had a great morning.