Why I Oughta...

At the request of my wife, we're moving the train table out of the main room in our basement to the spare bedroom.  Part of it is here (temporarily) across the bed as a test fit.   Here's how it looked last year.  On saw horses .  This is going to be an upgrade.   Between the sturdy legs and the one-piece top, we'll also have a bit more room.  From nine foot wide to almost eleven. Hoping I can find time this weekend to finish it up with the Babe's help!

This weekend, we stopped at an antique shop out in Naperville after lunch and Nat came across this little reindeer ornament.  How 'bout those eyelashes?!?  She's going to look great next to these two , right?  

On Saturday, we stopped by the Holiday Craft and Bake Sale at a church in our neighborhood.  While the craft section wasn't really of much interest to me, they did, tucked away in a hallway, have two tables of what I'll generously call "Garage Sale Christmas-related things". Included there was this set of "Giftrims".  They're from the 60's?  70's?  Printed in Pennsylvania per the copy at the bottom of the box. This originally sold for $0.59, but they were asking just $0.25.  Some of the tags are gone, I think?  At least, the package was opened every so slightly, so I'm assuming some are gone. Figured for just a quarter, these are going to look great on top of our gifts we give our family this year.

Despite the rain, we had A LOT of trick-or-treaters show up yesterday.  Just like in year's past, I tried to keep count.   Last year, we had 327 total .  This year?  326. Last year we had 8 adults, this year just 6.  But...there were a few people that had multiple bags where they said that their son/brother/sister was 'Sleeping in the car'. In 2012, we had 327 total. In 2011, we had 269 total . In 2010, we had 236 total . In 2009, we had 184 total .

Our trip this year really cramped our Jack-O-Lantern style this year.  We made it out to Sonny Acres just this week and had some slim pickings of the pumpkins. In year's past, I've gone crazy.   See the Owl Pumpkins here .  This year, it was all about the Babe.  She wanted to carve her pumpkin with a very specific pattern.  That's what you see here.  She had her heart set on the star eyes, so Nat was able to help make those happen. The Babe couldn't be more proud!

Last year, we put up our first Lionel layout in the basement.   You can see it here in this photo .  It was nice sized and fit into the corner of our basement.  Nat hated it.  She thought it was way, way, way too big.  The Babe, and I, however loved it. With Halloween just a day away, my attention is turning to Christmas. Putting up the train isn't so much about the actual train as it is about having a memory of my childhood with my Dad.  In looking around the web for inspiration, I came across this massive layout that was (apparently) on the back cover of the 1957 Lionel catalog.  From the looks of it, this appears to be a 2X size of our current layout, which means we're going to have to find a new home for the train.  With all the little kids at our house all the time, moving it into a different room isn't the worst idea ever.  I'm thinking that it can fit neatly into either the spare bedroom down there or perhaps even into the crawlspace underneath our family r

One of the benefits of walking straight down Randolph Street from Olgivie to Aon most mornings is that I get to see all sorts of transformations.  The planter boxes outside of City Hall are especially nice.  But, as this is my first winter doing this walk, this is the first time I've been able to see the famous windows at Marshall Field's Macy's undergo their transformation.     With Halloween going down this week, I have a feeling we'll see them come out from hiding as early as next week.