ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

We had lots of stuff planned for Halloween and when I woke up after only getting 4 hours of sleep and I wasn't feeling great, I knew I just had to get through the day.

Not only did we get through it but we had tons of fun.

I was the first person in our house to get in costume. I dressed up as my (male) coworker who is kind of a skater dude. You can't see the skater shoes or fingerboards in this pic but they helped complete the look.


I won the costume contest for the girls. The girl in second place was very close so she and I will be going to lunch together this next week with the restaurant gift card that I won.

In the afternoon, Andy went to Blake's school for his Halloween party.







Side note: before Halloween, the kids asked Blake what he was going to be and when he said "Uncle Sam" they replied "you're dressing up as your uncle?!"

Andy brought Blake to my work for Trick or Treat Street where the kids go through a maze and collect candy and have a lot of fun. Blake went through the maze 5 times I think.

Pic of us together when Blake first started...


Going through the maze...







The outside of the tunnel part of the maze...


Snacks and drinks in our employee kitchen area plus the infamous foosball table. Uncle Nick and Uncle Mark, we might have another foosball lover in the family!


After leaving my work, it was time for me to head home and work with Payton on getting the house ready for her party.

Payton and Tabbi decorating the downstairs...


While the kids were hanging in the front yard, I took this video to show what was going on.


After waiting for people to arrive and having some snacks, we headed out on a scavenger hunt. Andy had one group and I had another. The list of items to get included taking photos with specific costumes, getting certain kinds of candy and collecting some items.

Scavenger hunt photos...
Pic with a witch they found...


Pic with "animals"...


The other team's witch...


Found a superhero...


We got back and the teams kept the cameras and took random party pics...









We had a "best costume" award and told the kids that nobody could vote for themselves or for Payton. Payton still got a couple of votes...way to not listen, kids! The girl who won was dressed in a really cute pirate costume. Sadly, I can't find one picture of her.

We setup a section of our living room like a "photo booth" where the camera was attached to a TV and put on a timer. Then the kids could see themselves while taking pics. Here's a slideshow of their photo booth pics.

We learned a lot in hindsight but thought it went ok overall. Next time we'd probably have the scavenger hunt in smaller teams (we each had 10-11 kids), we would have ended things a bit earlier and we would have had one more activity planned. Positive things were the punch (my mom's recipe...always a HUGE hit), the brownies, the photo booth area and the scavenger hunt concept (though we would tweak it a bit). Overall, we thought it went pretty well. Payton says next year will be a smaller group and it will include haunted house hopping, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and staying up late watching scary movies. Sounds fun!

Blake has resurrected the word "no" from his toddler days so we spend a lot of time going back and forth like this:



Me: You need to ______.

Blake: No!

Me: No is not an appropriate answer.



So Blake has started anticipating this and has modified our exchange to go like this:



Me: You need to ______.

Blake: No! And that IS an answer.

I wrote recently about how we had visited Parkville, Missouri, with my parents but didn't have any photos. I was able to recover some of them.



My mom and Nathan on a stroll.


My brother, Nathan and my dad.

Looking like a wild animal, Payton worked on a poster for a book report project on our dining table.

We recently found a memory stick that had some old photos on it. Can't believe how much the kids have changed in 5 years!

Blake (2 years old)


Blake, Payton (almost 9), Isaac (age 5)


All the grandkids at that time (there will be a total of 12 as of next year) - Blake, Payton, Mia (nearly 2), Joey (nearly 1), Isaac


Then Christmas morning at my parents house...

The toys that Santa left....

I do a lot of reading online about all topics but recently I've been spending more time reading about ways to save better or earn more. Here's a few interesting things I've come across and I have verified they are all legit.

YouData - You sign-up on youdata.com and fill out a survey about yourself including gender, income range, number of kids, etc. The site will then show you ads via a widget that pertain to your demographics. You get paid for each ad they show you. They deposit the money into your PayPal account. Blake and I had fun doing it, we made probably $5 in just a few minutes and I actually really liked some of the sites that I went to.

HouseParty.com - You sign-up to host a party and advertisers sign-up to give out goods for people to host parties. The parties are themed around certain things such as living green or cooking. It's totally free and win/win but you can't predict which parties you'll be chosen for. Once you are chosen, you can send invites through the site and there's an area to upload pics from your party.

SmartSourceJobs.com - This is an actual part-time job opportunity that involves going to stores and switching out the ads that appear on shopping carts or displays. The company sends you the materials and then you go on your route to various stores. What fascinates me about it is that it's totally flexible so it's great for stay-at-home parents to do when they can (while kids are in school, at night after they go to bed, etc.). Many people do it with their spouse or older kids as well. There's 1 week out of the month where the hours are close to full-time but the other 3 weeks, it's just a few hours each week.