Our Lives -- October 2009

October began with bad colds for everybody. Jaelyn kept coming home sick from school with stomachaches, so I took her to the doctor. He said she would be fine on her own. She soon was.

Our water heater sprung a slow leak in the laundry room late one evening. Glenn found a company who came and replaced it the next day. It's a little bigger and hotter than the old one. I guess that's why we save our money.

We discovered Frankenstein's new litter of kittens. I was thinking they had all died off, but they'd been living under the shed. There were six, but the runt died the day after we found it. They are all very cute and fluffy but still timid. Meanwhile Kryten and Albus are six months old and getting huge.

I have gotten most of my Christmas shopping done already since I HATE the crowds in December. Sara wants everything she sees, so shouldn't be hard to please ... except for not getting everything she sees.

The end of October was a big sugar feast for us. Glenn's birthday was the 21st. For his cake, he chose an ice cream pie. It was mint chip ice cream in a chocolate cookie shell topped with grasshopper cookies and caramel. It was gone in a night. That Saturday was our household Halloween party. I made cupcakes and sugar cookies for that. Then my birthday was the 28th. I made a traditional cake in a butterfly pan (see left). I got through half of it before Halloween came. I began eating candy instead of cake. Deven continued eating the cake, though, and finished it off a week later. For my birthday, we went to dinner at IHOP, which is pretty close. The kids' meals were all a dollar each, and all of us together cost $20. Not bad.

For our cub scout pack meeting, we had guests bring in their collection of scorpions, snakes, tarantulas, geckos, and other reptiles. The boys were quite impressed.

Caelan was very excited for Halloween. Run around and meet people giving out candy? Who cares why?