... and Arial and a couple of bats.

Really, this was the first year they both finally got the hang of the whole trick-or-treat process. Last year we spent so much time and effort helping them figure out what was going on and what they were supposed to do. This year, they were old pros.

Here's our guy showing the full eight-leg costume feature. He greeted just about every house he went to with "I'm a spaeder!"

Oh, and speaking of excellent yard sale purchases - how about these bat costumes for Moses and Augustine? Four dollars. Awesome. (What you can't see is is that they had wings that strapped onto their arms so they could flap with delight. They were great!)

To our great delight, there were several houses in the neighborhood that served more than candy for the kids. Once house served chili and beef stew, another one was serving big bowls of jambalaya, and there were several hot cider and hot chocolate stops along the way.

Also, my favorite costumes of the evening (yes, I stopped them to ask for a photo) belonged to a couple wearing hula hoops under their clothes, Hawaiian shirts and t-shirts that read: "Which Way To The Buffet?".

Also, there was a Westie dressed up as Alice in Wonderland. Of all the Alice's we saw (and there were many!), she was my pick.

And before the sun sets on my pictures from this evening, I have to show you my little Moses-bat who is learning to wink.

And that's all for tonight. Time to be present with my family.

Since it's officially been two months since we installed the new floors in the kids' room, I figured it was finally time to make good on my promise to show y'all exactly what we did and how we did it.

So, this is where we started:

She fell asleep. I love her.

Ew. See the yucky carpet? (Post crime-scene clean up, though there's still eveidence.) Understand why I didn't want my little treasure to be crawling around on carpet if we could help it?

Okay, so I forgot to photograph the room after I had it totally swept and prepped, so just imagine that picture here. We swept then vacuumed, just fyi.

Next came the fun part: actually laying the wood and seeing things come together.

We used 6" wide southern yellow pine purchased at Lowe's or Home Depot, I can't remember which. Ryan spent the better part of an hour in the lumber aisle hand picking each plank for straightness and uniformity. (My job was to cart the kids around the store, gathering our other supplies and finding a quiet part of the gardening section to nurse a very insistent baby. Yes, that happened. Not my favorite moment, but we pulled it off.)

I wish I could tell you lots of useful details about the laying of the wood, but that really was Ryan's job. He used a pretty hardcore nail gun per the suggestion of the Lowe's employee who was concerned that the boards might creak if you didn't tell them who's boss. He started at the back of the room and made his way to the front, using a chop saw to cut the boards to size.

We decided that we definitely wanted the wood to continue into the closet and that was a little tricky but we figured it out. There's actually a tool you can purchase for about $12 that helps you cut your door frame trim higher to fit flooring under it. Nifty.

Also, at the end a few boards needed to be ripped. We didn't have a table saw at the time (bought one at a yard sale the following weekend for $15. Blerg.), so the cuts were a little choppy - nothing a little quarter round couldn't hide.

Ryan was tempted to leave it unfinished. It really was pretty, but I was focused.

Besides, I've always wanted to get to roll paint onto a floor. Kinda hard to mess up.

I used porch and floor paint and a really low-pile roller cover. It took about 3 coats and it was honestly so much fun. At one point I lost all ability to restrain myself and just sloshed a big glop on the floor to push around. I've always wanted to do that.

(Note: if you want more cracks and pits to show in the end, don't slosh your paint on the floor. It fills the pits, which is just fine and maybe even desired if you want things to look nice and solid. But if you want things to have a more rustic look, no sloshing.)

(I think the above picture was taken after the first coat.)

Next, protect your hard work with polyurethane.

This is the part where you get to learn from our mistakes though. We naively purchased CLEAR satin polyurethane thinking it would dry, well, clear. But, when the final coat dried, there was a bit of a yellow cast in some areas. It wasn't bad - in fact, we thought maybe our eyes were playing tricks on us - but a quick Google search told us that oil based polyurethanes will have an amber cast that will get darker with time. Dang it.

So, let it be writ: buy WATER-BASED polyurethane to finish your floors. You're welcome.

So in conclusion, here are some of the supplies we used and what we learned about using them:

• Latex satin porch and floor paint - rolled on with a low-pile roller
• Satin polyurethane - use water-based!
• We rolled the first coat of the varnish on with a foam roller and quickly learned that it wasn't the right tool. It left bubbles.
• We sanded the first coat of varnish really thoroughly per the can's instructions and cleaned the floor well before applying a second coat - this time with a natural bristle brush.

After we got the wood laid, the rest of the steps were pretty simple. The curing time in between coats and the odor from the varnish were the hardest parts. Fortunately, we managed to keep everyone out of the house most of the time.

So, 1 weekend, 40 planks of southern yellow pine and a couple of good sloshes of paint on the floor later, we upgraded the kids' room from this:

to this:

I'm sure I didn't cover everything, so if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments. I'll be answering questions right here in the post. Hopefully that will be helpful.

And, there you have it. I can't tell you how happy we are with our new floors. It's unbelievable to me how much more I want to be in that room. We play in there so much more now! Upgrade.

Answering questions from the comments:

Cost: Each 1x6x8 board ran between $9-$10 for us. You do the math with your own square footage. Other than that, you will need a gallon of paint, a gallon of varnish (both of which can be used to do SEVERAL rooms), brushes, quarter round (if you choose to use it) and a new register cover in our case. All said, for the kids' room (I think it's about 11'x12' or so) we spent $400 give or take. (It will be more if you need to buy or rent a nail gun and air compressor.) We plan to tackle the bonus room next which is well more than double the size so we're saving up. Definitely worth it if you can swing it!

How smooth is it to walk on? It really is just like any other wood floor. I would say that there are probably places where it's a little higher or lower than others, but we never notice it.

Does it scratch easily? So far, so good! That was part of why we put down two good coats of polyurethane. That way, if something scratches, it's the finish and not the paint. We did have one yellow wooden toy that Oliver stepped then slid on that left a little yellow mark. It didn't scratch the finish, just left a scuff mark of it's own.

How about showing dirt? How are you cleaning it? I just broom sweep it regularly and I've been using diluted lysol liquid floor cleaner less regularly than I should be. :) I'm hoping to find room in the budget soon for one of those Shark steam mops. I hear they actually sanitize your floors!