Gnome

We had to fake a lot of enthusiam just to get Walter to leave the hat/beard on for two seconds.  This is after wrestling with him for an hour about leaving the outfit on.  Thank goodness for safety pins.  AJ made his whole costume and did a fantastic job!  He sewed a lot and learned a bunch.  I was really impressed.

He finally decided he would leave the hat on once we took the hair off.  It really helped that there were a million kids running around to distract him.  He was really cute "trunk-or-treating" at the ward party.  We didn't prep him about the whole thing so he didn't get it.  He would be offered a handful of candy and only take one piece.  Then they would offer the rest of the handful, so he would take another piece, and give back the original candy. 

AJ's wig gave me the creeps.  You can't read my pin, but it says "Perfect Wife."  And no, I was not wearing Walter's hat the whole night.  Somehow the only pictures of me ended up with the hat, though.

Hallelujah

So this seemingly endless project has finally been completed!  Warning: there is a lot of explanation in this post!  Here are some before/after pics:

These are all in my bedroom.  While I obviously care about food storage, I have been so tired of staring at buckets.  I really think it's a cop-out to say that if you live in an apartment then you don't have room for food storage.   It just might be really ugly.  Anyway, at the beginning of this pregnancy when I was laying in bed feeling horrible all the time, I finally figured out how I wanted to cover them up.  There were slight modifications from my earlier idea, but it was all stuff that made it either cheaper or easier.  I am really pleased with the result.

The bucket columns are fabric tubes with upside-down dollar-store dinner plates on the top, keeping the fabric from falling.  My original idea was to have wooden rounds up there, but when my mom suggested this, it was brilliant.  This way I didn't have to worry about getting rounds cut the right size, painting them, etc, as well as not having to worry if water overflowed from the plants.  Now it is just plate, fabric, plastic bucket, so I don't need to worry about mold if there is a water problem.  Also, totally cheap.  The bucket shelf was originally intended to be really nice wood that was sanded and stained a really pretty navy blue.  At least it was really pretty in my mind.  We ended up going to the local building supply place and getting a closet-shelf board cut the length we needed and then spray painting it.  Not as pretty but only cost about $10, including the spray paint.

AJ took the "before" picture after he cleaned off the giant mess that used to reside on it.  Basically, I had a sheet thrown over it, and tons of stuff would just accumulate on top, making to look totally trashy, and not forcing us to put away all the misc stuff.  Just wanted to add this information so you can know how happy I am not to look at that big mess, which was the view from the bed.

These are the buckets in our office.  We forgot to take "before" pictures but I am sure you can imagine what it looked like.  I really like the gray fabric better, but AJ won't let me decorate our bedroom in gray.  Sad.

Next: my giant frame project that has been cluttering our apartment since (I think!) January.  We had a big blank wall over the bucket shelf clutter that I couldn't figure out how to deal with cheaply, without looking cheap.

I decided I would go to the DI and get weird/different size frames, take the glass out, spray paint them one color, and hang them just to add color to my room.  I did really well at the part where I went to the DI and bought a bunch of frames, but had a little trouble stopping at that point.  I kept going back and getting more, and they just started stacking up.  It was too cold to spray paint until June, but by then I was pregnant and couldn't deal with it, so AJ had to.  He was a really good sport.

Then I decided I couldn't have all these frames and not have pictures in them, so that started me on a major photoshop project that lasted for months, what with picking all the pictures and editing them, etc.  I didn't want to have to redo the whole thing when we have a new kid in the family, so I decided to only do pictures of AJ and myself.  Also, it's expensive to print a bunch of large, weird size photos.  Whoops.  I also had to buy new glass and hardware for quite a few of the frames.  And they covered my table and kitchen counters for WAY too long.  AJ was still being a good sport.  Maybe I should say he was being patient.  Really patient.  But getting kind of annoyed.

So, finally when my mom came a couple of weeks ago, she made me finish it.  She sewed the fabric for the buckets, and made me finish putting together the last frames, etc.  I had just mentally exhausted myself from the whole thing.  It was good to have her help/pressure.  After she and Maria left, AJ and I figured out the arrangement on the wall and he was so nice doing all the measuring and labor to get them up there. 

Finally, I decided to get new prints of us with Walter for some of the smaller frames that have been sitting in a box without a decent place to put them.  Those will be a lot easier/cheaper to replace/add to when the baby is born.  I picked up the smaller pictures today.  Blah blah - TA DA--

Holy cow, this post is probably 10x longer than my longest previous post.  I think I needed some closure, plus I know that many of you like the crafty stuff.

Jack-O-Lanterns

Walter loves pulling the "hats" on and off - over and over.

Pumpkin Patch

Child-size straw maze for Walter.  All the kids were simply climbing over the bales.

Maria loves all the booty shots we get of her when we take pictures of Walter!

ARTSY!

Do not look at my head, or my giant bosom.  Hey!  I just told you not to!  In retrospect, I feel I should not have zipped up my now way-too-small jacket, even if I was cold.