October 2010 Progress

Completed in October: 4/101
Current Total: 30/101

5. Read 101 books (72/101).
I read 5 books this month, bringing my total to 72.

65. Vote in something other than a presidential election.

So, I voted today. I spent a lot of time this week doing research on the internet about the candidates, but still didn't feel that great about any of the choices. Anyway, I'm glad I went and voted. Hopefully, I'll like my choices better next time!

44. Take a bubble bath.

This weekend, Liam spent the night at Bill's parents' house. While he was away, I took the opportunity to relax in a nice bubble bath with a glass of wine and a good book. Heavenly, even if it was Toy Story bubble bath! :)

54. Carve a pumpkin.

After visiting the pumpkin patch today, we came home to carve pumpkins. I'd never actually carved one before (Bill usually does the honors). Liam of course enjoyed helping.




I went for a traditional jack-o-lantern face, and it was easier than I thought. Bill then decided to show me up by creating a Thomas the Train pumpkin for Liam...




Liam thinks this pumpkin is the coolest thing EVER!


The finished product

19. Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam (3/30).

This morning, Liam and I hosted playgroup at our house, and I had some mini-pumpkins for the kids to paint. Liam was very excited about this and couldn't wait for his friends to get here so that he could paint.


Ella and Liam


Wyatt, Ella and Liam painting


Liam's Hitler mustache

Painting the pumpkins was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, after the paint dried, it all flaked right off the pumpkin! In fact, most of it had actually blown off in the breeze in the backyard while it dried. Maybe that's because it was washable paint, but that's not really optional when you are dealing with 2 year olds! :) Oh well, they had fun, so it was still a success!

19. Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam (2/30).

I added this to the list because I've been a total slacker on arts projects for Liam, and he really enjoys them. So, we've enjoyed a few craft activities together in the past week.

First, I tried out a variation of this Halloween craft. Liam has a ton of broken crayons, so we decided to melt them down and make new ones. This was a fun afternoon craft but peeling all the paper off the crayons took a looong time!



After they were peeled, we put the broken pieces in a muffin tin and melted them in the oven.


Trying out his new crayon "disks".

Our second craft was inspired by some silk fall leaves I found in the Target dollar bin. Liam had a blast glueing leaves to construction paper, and then we decorated with some glitter. He really impressed me with his attention span on this one. I expected to do 1 or 2 pages, and he just wanted to keep going and going!

14. Try 5 new foods (4/5).

So, this was a few weeks ago, but I forgot to add it to the blog. We made a traditional southern jambalaya that included okra. Now, growing up in the south, I probably had okra as a child, not knowing what it was. But as an adult, I had always avoided it because it just didn't look appetizing. I mean, hello:



Anyway, it wasn't bad at all, and I'll definitely eat it again!

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (10/10)

I went to a Mom's Night Out tonight at Lucky 32 in Cary - yummy southern comfort food. Best of all, I was thinking this was a different restaurant I'd already eaten at, but I hadn't eaten here before, so this completes my 10 new local restaurant challenge - yay!

September 2010 Progress

Completed in September: 0/101
Current Total: 26/101

5. Read 101 books (67/101).
I read 4 books this month, bringing my total to 67.

Hopefully this is not cheating, but since we didn't take a trip for our 5th anniversary, I'm changing #19 to be "Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam". I am almost halfway through my challenge, and only 1/4th through my challenges - I'm hoping to step that up in the next few months!