happy halloween!

pictures as promised...

caden in his bat costume, wings made from a broken umbrella (armature taken out because I was too worried that someone would poke their eye out-I am just no fun!)


a close-up on his ears and the mask that I felted extra fur into the ears and on the sides of the mask.


boo! I tried to carve the word boo into one of our small pumpkins...it didn't really work out.


Paul always has to something different to his pumpkins, so he painted it black this year.


this is my pumpkin, Caden said it wasn't scary enough, so I gave it a skull and bones "tattoo"



Caden designed and cut his pumpkin all by himself. He even crafted a hole to light it with a flashlight. Apparently they are teaching him in school that it isn't safe to use a tealight to light your pumpkin (perhaps they are not safe only if you leave them unattended).

flashlight hole.

Well we are off for the first trick or treating adventure right now-downtown Auburn is hosting trick or treating iin the afternoon. We will venture out later tonight too!

Well, I have been waiting to post until I had some new pictures to share, but that isn't going to cut it. The hard drive is on order for my regular laptop which has a card reader for our camera. I cannot find out portable card reader right now so I thought I would just pop in to say "hi" and let you know that I have started Caden's Christmas list on the side of the blog.

Caden is going to be a bat for Halloween. I made his wings out of an old umbrella for his wings and made felt ears and a mask. To make it more realistic looking I needle felted "fur" in the ears and on the sides of his mask. I have pictures to share, but they will need to wait until I can upload them to the computer...sorry :(.
This picture was my jumping off point....
which is from the craft queen herself, I ended up taking all of the metal parts out of the umbrella because I just didn't trust Caden not to poke his eye or someone else's eye out. Better to be safe than sorry is my motto.

This weekend was full of jack-o-lantern creating. Our cat Suki really wanted to help us out, she kept stealing the tools and trying to take the smoochy innards out of the pumpkin and spread them throughout the house.

We are pretty much settled into our house. Paul even surprised me by setting up my crafting studio in the corner of our garage. I have been excited to get back to creating. We need to get some shelving for me to use to dry green ware and for display. We also need one more table for me to use to roll out clay. A trip to Ikea may be in order for this next weekend.

happy birthday to me

all I want for my birthday is our house to sell :) .....
I am one year older today!

update

Caden says the funniest things. This weekend we went to the Auburn Home Show and we got to pick up baby chickens. He just loved them. We went back twice. He was able to feed them and pick them up. He told me that "chicks love him".... It is funny because it is true for both baby fowl and girls. He is already quite a popular little guy at school too!
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We have settled into a rhythm here. Staying with my dad has gone a lot better than we expected. We have found a condo to lease, it will be ready this week, but we are waiting until mid-October to move, hoping that finances will smooth out. Paul is enjoying working with the American Red Cross again. We had found a new (to us) car to buy, did all of the financing etc and got in to drive it home and the "check engine" light went on. Isn't that just our luck? After waiting a week for the dealer to fix it or even call and let us know what was happening, we got our deposit back and are on the lookout for a reliable car again.

I have been working on my design ideas for "buggabu studio". Paul surprised me and updated the website a little and set up an etsy account for me. For those of you who don't know what etsy is, it is an online community for handmade goods sorta like ebay, but so so much better! There are so many talented artists who sell their work on the etsy website. I am excited to get back to the production phase, but we need to complete our move first. Once we are settled in our new place, I can get the studio set up and get to work!

The update on the moving truck (penske) situation is not good. They have not been communicating with us unless we call and call them. The truck cost was not refunded as promised, nor was our extra hotel and gas costs. That was supposed to be handled right away. The damaged furniture, etc (about 80-90% of all of our stuff was damaged or destroyed in the move) is being handled by Penke's insurance company. We have jumped through so many hoops we feel like we have joined the circus. We had to unload the storage unit for their agent to re-take pictures of all of the damage. This took them a week to decide, it has been such a waste of time and energy. Now they say it will take another two weeks for them to "research" the products damaged. It has been a very trying experience.

Other than that, Caden is doing great in school. I have been volunteering in his classroom every Thursday. Caden loves to have me in his class, it is so cute. In other news, he wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween. He is growing like a weed. None of his pants fit him. He is so tall. He towers over all of his classmates. Also, he is now a cub scout. His second meeting is next week. He is very excited!

Please continue to pray for our house to sell. We really need this additional stressors out of our life. We just want to be able to try to "start over". The economy is so bad in Michigan that we really just want out of our mortgage, we don't care if we lose our initial down payment. It is such a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. We miss it dearly. We miss our family and friends in Michigan too. But we feel blessed to be able to come "home" to where we grew up in California to raise Caden and be able to have more financial stability. It is also nice to be close to our west coast family and catch up with some old friends.