Halloween party with the kids.

Happy 6th birthday, Joshua!

What a sweet and caring little boy!  He is so smart and so kind and so charming.  We adore him so much and are so thankful for him in our lives!  Today is his birthday, but we celebrated on Saturday with a Harry Potter themed party.  He only wanted to invite a few kids, but everyone had a lot of fun. 

His Lego Quidditch cake.

Donald made really cute invitation for the party and told the kids to meet at the Leaky Cauldron, so he also made a sign for the front door.

I borrowed a hat and put on my old graduation robe.  Sarah wore her witch costume and we bought Joshua a Harry Potter costume for his birthday.  This is one of the reasons I love this kid so much -
he has been wearing his bathrobe that my mom made and calling it his Harry Potter robe.  Sarah drew him a Gryffindor symbol that he taped on it and he wore his glasses with the lens popped out that he got at Sarah's party last year, and he was more than perfectly happy with the costume.  He was just fine wearing it at the party and I think it looked every bit as real to him as this one we bought him.  I just really wanted him to have it since he wears it so often.  He will wear it for Halloween too!

We got a sorting hat and put one cell phone it the pocket inside.  Donald had the other cell phone in the other room.  He read the poem from the book, then said something cute about each kid and sorted them into houses.  They were pretty amazed (stunned silent) and don't worry, we didn't sort anyone into Slytherin!

We had the kids go on a dragon egg hunt in the back yard.

Then they had potions class.

Then Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Then cake and ice cream.  It was a wonderful day and Joshua was so appreciative of all of it!

October 5, 2011
Hail Storm

The hail storm was absolutely crazy!  It was so loud and lasted so long (about 20 minutes).  The hail was ping pong sized and destructive to our house!  The garden was pretty much done for the year, except the strawberries and tomatoes.  The strawberries lost all of their leaves and are now just stems and the tomatoes got dented and broken open. 

The pool looked like it was boiling!  The hail was making the water bounce up and the longer the storm went on, the more steam started to rise off the water.

I wasn't brave enough to go out and get closer pictures, but here are a few pieces that bounced on the patio.

Finally, the storm ended and we had this beautiful rainbow!


THEN, we are getting the kids ready for bed and as soon as I walked into their bedroom, I knew something was wrong.  I looked up and saw this.  It was so wet it was actually dripping on the floor.  Donald was sent outside, it was still raining and yes, some thunder and lightening, and he was trying to find the problem.  The rain gutter was all clogged up!  Not with leaves though, with hail.  It basically made and ice dam and water backed up onto the roof and found a way into the house.  We were pretty upset and then it got worse.  The next day, he went into the attic and found the insulation in this corner all pulled back and previous water staining.  That means that this happened with the previous owners AND they didn't disclose it.  Nice, huh?

This is in the dining room.  We had a problem with this once before and had it looked at and were told there is no leak.  The other side of this wall is the garage and it is way worse than this.  Honestly, I don't know what exactly we are going to do about either location.  We don't want mold or mildew, but if it is the gutters backing up, but not with leaves, how do we control it?  I'm not even sure who we call.  A roofer?  contractor?  do we need to replace the drywall?  The kids room has a definite stain, and it the worst, but the dining room dried up and you can't see it.  It was a really bad storm!