Some House pics

Today was an interesting day. Happy Birthday to Joseph and Renae, by the way.

Russell has outgrown his church shoes. They have been difficult to get on his feet and he complained that they hurt the last few weeks. I intended to get him some new ones last week, but forgot to do it. So, I set out this morning determined to get him some new shoes for church. We decided that we'd also get him a Halloween costume while we were out. We headed off to Target. Well, they only had one style of shoe that would work and Russell said they hurt his feet. So, we got his costume and some other stuff. He picked a Spider Man costume. He's never seen any Spider Man shows or read any related books, but he likes Spider Man. He even chose this over Buzz Lightyear, Woody, The Incredible Hulk (which he seriously considered), AND Thomas the Tank Engine. I thought for sure he'd want Thomas, but he wanted Spider Man. It's one of those ones with the padding to make fake muscles. Despite not finding the shoes we wanted, we managed to spend a full two hours at Target. Russell was looking at everything and having a great time.

Well, we headed over to WalMart next. I had great hopes that they would have some good shoes for him. I have gotten some there before. They had two styles of dress shoes. Russell said they hurt his feet. So, off we went to another store.

Part of the problem we have with getting shoes for Russell, particularly dress shoes--they tend to run narrow, is that he has very wide feet. We reach the point of not being able to get his feet into them before they are too short. This makes sizing a little difficult. Well, I went over to Kohl's. I lucked out. They had about 4 or 5 styles of dress shoes. Not a fabulous selection, but better than I'd seen. And they carried them in wide sizes. And the shoes are not lassoed together, so Russell could actually walk in them when he was trying them on. At first he said they hurt his feet, but I suspected at this point that he was just saying that because he was having fun trying on shoes. I had him run up and down the aisle a few times to try them out and he thought that was great and then said his feet felt fine. I lucked out because they were having a semi-annual shoe sale, too. Then I wandered around the store for a bit just to look around since it's been about 5 years since I've been in a Kohl's. I found this really awesome collage picture frame that is just perfect for the wall by my front door. All the frames were half price so it was only $20. I couldn't resist.

Well, by the time we got home from Kohl's, it was time to go get Ruby. Russell wanted to show Ruby his costume, so he insisted on changing into it to pick her up. I figured there was no harm in it and you can get away with running errands dressed as Spider Man when you are three. When you get into your 30's it's a little problematic. So he wore his costume and loved it. As we were walking past the play ground, some of the older kids were out there doing PE and they were yelling, "Spider Man! Spider Man!" as we walked by. Russell loved it. I asked him if he thought Ruby would think he was Spider Man. He said, "No. She will think I'm Russell in a Spider Man costume." He took his mask off and thought he had ripped it because there were holes in it. He was just too cute for words. I explained that the holes were for his eyes and nose so that he could see and breathe. He thought that was a good idea. He just came in from playing outside, so I snapped a picture of him in his costume to include. Those are blue rain boots he's wearing with it.



I finally finished the project of re-carpeting my front porch. The carpet was totally worn out and had worn through to the wood on the bottom two steps. I did it on Friday and Saturday. I did the steps Friday and then did the porch itself on Saturday. Ruby managed to draw on the carpet with a red sharpie even before I finished laying it. Argh! Oh, well. I'll have to get creative in what goes on that spot. So, now that the porch is done, I put up a couple of fall decorations and took a picture. And, when I was uploading those pictures from the camera, I noticed that Ruby has taken some pictures of her room, so I'll go ahead and include those.

The Front Porch

Just for Fun

Ruby's Room--Bear in mind that Ruby took these pictures.


Russell likes to hang out in there, too.