Halloween 2010 - costumes

This year we had some fun with the twins costumes - Garden gnomes! The funniest part was the way the kids loved their hats, and Charlie's walk was hilarious (yes, I know I should have gotten a video of that)

Dorothy's princess costume was really neat - until Henry hit her on the way to the church and her makeup started to run down her cheeks....

Halloween 2010 - pumpkins

The kids had a blast this year with the pumpkins. We're not too artsy so we got a kit with some templates and the kids were able to choose - and customize each template.

Of course Dotty had the creepy cat type pumpkin

Peter was very proud that he was able to do 90% of his pumpkin by himself

Henry did this one 100% by himself - nuff said

Why I love fall

Today during lunch I had the chance to go out to the backyard and play with the kids - luckily I remembered the camera and took some fun pictures!

Charlie loves playing with balls and being outside. He typically has a huge smile on his face while were outside, and screams when we drag him inside!

Waiting for the bus to come pick Dotty up for school - I love the color contrast with the stairs!

Dotty can be really cute when she try's

The Chicago Sunday Tribune - November 22, 1914

Some pictures of the newspaper we found in the attic (see previous post for details)

Our next big project

We've been working on it for a few weeks now, and we've still only just scratched the surface.

Our next big project is to completely renovate the attic. From what we've found so far it appears that the attic was previously finished off in stages over the past 70 years or so. Under the flooring was a newspaper from November 22, 1914 (will post an image in the next post), in the walls were newspapers and a magazine 1942, in the insulation in the ceiling was a newspaper from 1958. There was also a gallon size wine bottle from the mid 80's but we doubt that had anything to do with the renovation.

Below are some pictures taken from when we bought the house - a good idea of where we are starting from.

The ceiling was about six feet, six inches (or less) and the fan would have easily given me a nice bump on the head if I ever walked close enough.

Nail gun and a bad aim

Last Saturday (July 17th) Henry and I ran over to Grandpa's to help out 'really quick'. He was framing in a window and was nailing together a header. Henry asked to nail a couple nails and grandpa said 'sure'. Henry went over and picked up the gun and when to nail... instead of going strait down with the nailer it was more of an arc and hit his foot (insert painful grown here)

What was supposed to be a quick trip to help Grandpa out ended up being 8+ hours getting the nail taken out. Suzi ran Henry over to the prompt care and after a few hours there they said that they did not have the tools to get the nail out and sent Suzi over to the ER. Five hours later they were able to come home.

Luckily, after many hours, x-rays etc they determined that the nail just barely missed the bone and thus surgery was not necessary (phew). Just a lovely tetanus shot, a strong antibiotic for a few weeks, and lots of care to keep it clean.

This picture shows the nail a bit closer... the three inch nail went through his foot and hit the pavement and bent - luckily we weren't on wood, I can't imagine what would have happened if his foot stuck on the wood and we weren't able to carry him to the van. We probably would have had to cut the wood out and take it with us to the hospital!

OUCH!!!

Pictures of the twins and Dorothy

Here are some pictures that Suzi recently had taken at a photo studio - mostly because we haven't had the kids pictures taken in a long time.

You can see the rest of the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.clines/jcp2010

Scarlett and Charlie

Scarlett

Charlie

Dorothy

The "Girls"

Note, I like this photo but it really bugs me that there is so much white space at the top. I'm not sure what the photographer was thinking, and this isn't the only photo that is this way.