Halloween Weekend #3 (The Real Thing) -- October 31

We feasted on Diet of Worms cake to celebrate Reformation Day, carved pumpkins, and went trick-or-treating for the third and final time in the actual dark, with Andrew, who was home for the occasion.  We just went around the block, and the girls were very brave going up to houses by themselves while we waited at the sidewalk.  They were also very polite.

From left: Hazel's, Vivian's, Andrew's, and Grete's.  Hazel actually did a decent amount of her own carving this year.

Our friend down the street for the third October in a row now: The Pumpkin Playing Peek-a-Boo.  Always a favorite.

Halloween Weekend #2 (Scaramie) -- October 29

Round Two of trick-or-treating was outside, in downtown Laramie.  Businesses hand out candy to the kids, and it's held in the morning.  We didn't do a thorough job of downtown, but Hazel and Vivian had fun getting dressed up again.  And it was warm enough (just barely) for them to go without their coats!

Halloween Weekend #1 (Campus Safe-Treat) -- October 28

Andrew was hunting over Halloween weekend, so we kept ourselves busy by trick-or-treating, and then trick-or-treating some more!  We started on the Friday before Halloween, with the Campus Safe Treat.  It was held in the Fine Arts building on campus, and was a little overwhelming,but fun.

Bathroom #4 (The Flashlight Night) -- October 25

Hazel had been nervous about this whole project from the beginning, since she generally has a hard time getting used to new things and usually assumes that the newer version will somehow be worse.  To help her understand that the new toilet would be so much nicer than the old one, we took it out of the box to show her.  Hazel calmed down, and all was good.  And then we were ready to install the new toilet in the evening, and I checked to make sure that the baby had not put anything inside...but she had.  A flashlight.  We spent three hours that night trying every possible means of retrieving that flashlight, starting with tiny hands and gradually moving through screwdrivers and other tools to using the drill in an attempt to break the flashlight enough to get it out.

No luck.  We ended up being able to order just this bowl part again from Amazon, but we still had to wait two more days before we could even try to install it again!

Bathroom # 3 (The Grout) -- October 24

Everything had gone roughly according to plan up to this point.  We were hoping to get this bathroom back in order as quickly as possible, and we were aiming for under a week.  

Bathroom # 2 (the New Tile) -- October 23

We had to put new cement board down, and then we could tile on top of that.

Blurry baby in a hard hat!

Bathroom #1 (The Before Pictures) -- October 22

We spent about a month working on our upstairs bathroom this fall, and it started off very well.  Destruction can be fun, and it was pretty straightforward at first.  We started to find layers and layers of bathroom floor, though, and that started to get a little less straightforward! There was the icky tile we didn't like on top, and then a few layers of vinyl from different decades.  It all had to go!

The vanity needed to go away, the mirror was icky and at a strange height, and the toilet had an irreparable crack that seeped a little bit.  A good project to tackle.

After this, it just kept getting better looking in there!