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Halloween Recap

Baby Girl is involved in things whether she wants to be or not. She and I both are having trouble adjusting to the cooler weather. We keep trying to wear our summer clothes.

Kissed by a clone trooper (Captain Rex).

I told my husband I did not want to be involved in any way with the whole carving the pumpkin-thing. I wasn't and this is what we got. The Big Guy sketched out one side and the Little Guy the other.
My sweet aunt, my little ladybug and....what is your brother doing!
A better view of Baby Gap.


A little Princess Leah in our neighborhood. Her mom pretty much made the costume. That is why Baby Girl couldn't be that. I just can't. I can buy stuff on sale, though.
The end of me. Guess which one I am going for first. The Reese's. It is the only one there because I already pulled the other 15 for my own personal stash. The Big Guy gave me a handful before we were even home. He knows the deal.

A bouquet of suckers. For myself, of course.

Second Halloween

Baby Girl enjoyed her 2nd Halloween. She slept through most of the first one. Here we are last year (I can't believe how tiny she is):


It seems like more of us now. All of the kids are heavier. That is for sure.

I will be heavier too if I don't stop eating the big Reeses PB cups all day long.

They are so good!

You will note the boys did not venture away from Star Wars characters again this year. The Big Guy was Commander Cody and The Little Guy was Captain Rex from the Clone Wars. There is a difference between Clone Troopers and Storm Troopers. So I am told...

Last year they were Darth Vader and Ninja Vader. A Ninja Vader is not an official Star Wars character in case you are wondering. It is what you are when your Mom has a Ninja costume for you and you want to wear a Darth Vader mask like your big brother. This works well if you are 3 years old.

Patch Problem

I never got around to taking all 3 of my kids to the pumpkin patch. I picked up our pumpkin at Trader Joes the day Baby Girl cried hard in the store and I thought she was having an allergic reaction to her one-year shots (she wanted my coffee). The days fly by and the weekends have been full of other activities (baseball and the never ending birthday parties). There is about 25 minutes in the morning that I have to kill with The Little Guy after the Big Guy is dropped off at school. On this day I brought along my camera and thought I would get some shots of him in the Pumpkin Patch. Keep in mind this was about a week before Halloween and there were less than 20 pumpkins left. It was sad. It was also sad how The Little Guy agreed to getting 2 pictures made and then suddenly changed his mind. No go. He wouldn't look at the camera and wouldn't cooperate for anything. No bribe worked and I was mad. Now, I don't approve of getting mad at your kids for not looking at the camera, however, I am human. I don't ever get mad at other kids for not looking at my camera. This kid is difficult, though! He is difficult just for the sake of being difficult. I'm going to use one of these pictures when Webster calls me to add one to "Stubborn" in the dictionary.

I just won't get into the whole thing. But, did I mention that he snuck out of "quiet time" a week and a half ago and stole my big fat black Sharpie? If you are a mother, I'm sure terror filled your heart as you read that. It is just as bad as you are imagining. It has been years in my house (6 to be exact) since scissors have been kept lower than 6 feet. Play-Do and markers are not accessible - not even the Magic Wonder invisible variety (I am not taking any chances). I didn't even have my bathrooms unlocked for children to enter on their own until my oldest was completely potty trained and I had to. My husband and I used to walk around with the little pick locks to go to the potty. I learned my lessons the hard way too many times. I'm just saying that I don't leave Sharpies hanging out around the house. I do have one, though. Who doesn't need a Sharpie? I label lunches, clothes and all kinds of school related things not to mention sippy cups, bibs, etc. It is essential to my kitchen. Unfortunately, The Little guy stealthily (is that a word?) came down a flight of stairs to get said Sharpie and took it back to his room where he "accented" a table and chairs (that I had hand painted). He had to go to the bathroom so he took his new Sharpie along for the ride. White bathroom...black Sharpie. Not good. He colored the white door, door knob, bathtub, toilet, toilet seat, floor tile, grout, shirt, be-hind, thighs, face (stray marks) and his very important private part (no jokes here). On top of it all he wet his pants. He managed to get the poop in the potty and a very small part of me was so happy about not having to clean the carpet (again) that I didn't go insane over the other stuff. I think I probably grunted and huffed and puffed a lot when I found this disaster. I don't think I could process most of it and certainly couldn't verbalize what I was thinking. As usual, I asked him "why did you do this" and he insists "I don't know"! That makes me want to pull my hair out. I also wanted to pull my hair out the next morning when I found him at the kitchen table coloring in a book with that same Sharpie and he had a big black mark going across his face. He must be the next Houdini. And all I have to say is he better be rich one day to buy me a new house.

Difficult.


Thank you to all the Moms that sent Magic Erasers my way. Just so you know, all his body parts are back to the normal color now.

When pumpkins drink too much

Happy Halloween
(not my house)

Happy Halloween, Valentine.

Yes, those are lights wrapped around the post in front of our house. Candy Corn Halloween lights. It is only because of my 6 year old that I am being forced into acting like Truvy in Steel Magnolias with the endless holiday decorations. Christmas I can get behind. Halloween is a stretch. I refuse to decorate for Valentine's day (unless you count the trail of chocolate wrappers through my house).

Speaking of V-day. I would like to share a picture of the Valentine flowers my friend got from her husband last Valentine's Day.What do you think of that? They could have been for Halloween, right? I wonder if he went to a lot of trouble to find blue roses?

Baby Gap

And I'm not talkin' about her clothes because they are Gymboree thanks to my consignment sale. It had never occurred to me what a cross between David Letterman and myself would look like. Now I know. I think she might have his sense of humor.

Fall Leaf Wordless Wednesday

AND then she cried because she got dirt on her feet.

Here I Go Again on My Own...

I had to bump those Yearbook pictures. Hideous.

A little more hideous for you before I go, though.

Kristin dared me to post my High School pictures and then Bonnie did. So, here they are. I tried to make them small because I can not stand to look at them. Get a load of the fingernails in the "blue" picture. They are real and my family used to like to talk a lot about how I had them because I never did any real work.

It was 1988 and my hair could have been much MUCH bigger, but even in the 80s I was trying to have flat hair.

The sweater was Esprit.

Yearbook Glam

Yearbookyourself.com is a fun way to waste some of your valuable time. It doesn't take too long and wouldn't you love to see yourself in a groovy new hair-do?

I don't think I was able to obtain this awesome "do" in 1988. I would have been Prom Queen if I had. Or, a Bon Jovi groupie. Either would have been better than a Cracker Barrel waitress.



When I was a little girl (in the 70s) I always envisioned myself looking like this as a grown up (minus the double chin thing and the Sarah Palin bangs that are peeking out from my original picture):
I always thought long Crystal Gayle hair was the ideal. Unfortunately my hair turned curly when I was 12 and they didn't invent those super-duper flat irons until MUCH later.

You can have S'mores inside the house too

Getting close to nature.


Minutes before...her usual freak-out when you sit her on grass. You can see the cheese that fell out of her mouth on the ground when she started screaming.

I think she will be staying home with me in the future when the rest of our household goes camping. Only time will tell if she will learn to love sleeping on the ground outside. The boys went without us two girls this past weekend. It was nice to be home alone with Baby Girl where I could sleep until 8 and not have to rush around to baseball games all weekend. We cleaned out closets and made the house even more of a wreck than it already was. I think I was productive...you just can't tell.