We are eating our dinners downstairs, conveniently in front of the TV, and we found this show on Netflix.

Penguins: Spy in the Huddle

Penguins – Spy in the Huddle spends nearly a year in the close company of penguins, deploying 50 spycams to capture as never before the true character of these birds.

Those spycams?  They’re robot penguins!! I can’t use enough exclamation points to express the sheer delight we all had watching this show.

And it led to this at bedtime:

(She tried my feet first, but I pointed out it was Daddy Penguin’s job to hold the baby chick on his toes.)

Halloween hasn’t historically made my top 5 holidays, but it’s grown on me.

It’s our 3rd or 4th year dragging our fire pit out to the street and having a neighborhood “bon fire”. 

The  last few years, the kids have been old enough to trick-or-treat in the area without us, and we gladly shoo them off and open the bottles, and start roasting our own dinner.

And we don’t steal any of their candy when the kids do come back (that’s done the next day!).

The counters were supposed to be installed today—the contractor worked really late and early to have everything ready for granite installation.  They got here without the island granite, and the countertops were not the right width to fit into the window.  So the installation was a complete no-go.

Oddly, I had no issues with this—disappointment, of course, since I couldn’t even remember what we ordered. But the number of stupid and innocent mistakes* I’ve made in the last few days  has made me very forgiving.  I even coined a phrase for it-  I was in the Zen Zone.   It hasn’t been a  wasted day, as the contractor got the crown moulding installed and about 1000 details that had to be done. 

And it’s Halloween—we’re roasting hotdogs in the street tonight with anyone else who comes to join us.  Tomorrow, ho!

We celebrated Dad/Grandpa/Gary’s birthday at their house with 5 grandkids and not-so-bad kid (me).  Grandma made lasagna and chocolate cake. 

Perfect!

“We” made silly faces with our food for extra fun.

Janet got to celebrate with us, too!

Not that you can tell by the gorgeous weather, but it’s the very end of October, so it’s time to get our jack-o-lanterns-to-be.

I was brunching with girlfriends, so I met up with Dwayne and the kids at Carleton Farm—great place to go.

The obligatory hay ride….

The kids spent so much time in the corn pit (bushels cubed of kernels to roll in) that they almost forgot to get pumpkins.

Almost, but not quite!

You know this is Piper, right?  Just a little something she found and played with on the way home from school today.

The post was put in today!  I sanded it late this evening with the intention of getting up early to put primer on the beam and now-textured walls. 

It’s a 6×6 just like our other posts, so we’ve got at least a theme going…and a roof that won’t cave in, so win-win.

It doesn’t look like a big difference from yesterday, other than the beam, but the number of invisible things that need to happen—lots and lots of taping, adding outlets, bringing a few pipes up to code, removing the pantry header and repairing the drywall there, and the contractor is making an extra effort to foam up all the possible rodent entrances!

The goal tomorrow—all painting and possibly start the cabinets installation!

 

This is my current kitchen:

The cooking area ((microwave)

And sink

Here’s my hero,

ready for

1) Winter in his new long underwear,

2) Bedtime wearing his new long underwear, and

3) Halloween, wearing his new long underwear and generic Green Lantern accessories.

(Excuse me!  I took a picture right after Kyla shoved toast in her mouth.)

I had combed out  Kyla’s golden locks this morning, and

1) Piper asked if Kyla would like her to braid her hair, and

2) Kyla agreed.

Both are improbable events, but here is Kyla’s hair, 3 braids plaited into a metabraid!