Halloween 2007

Halloween just may be the most stressful holiday yet. I'm just saying. Seriously, though. Anyone who tells you that getting their kids and husband dressed up in their costumes, fed dinner, their meeting time with the neighbor established, pictures taken and then finally out the door isn't the least bit stressful - is lying. However, when you see how excited they are and how cute they look (especially when wearing an authentic jersey), it all becomes worth it. That and the silence they leave behind in the house once they're on their merry way.

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Bret and Ryan waiting for the girls to finish getting ready.

Ashley, Danielle and Ryan posing for an obligatory photo (or 15).

Have to have a photo they can put in their lockers. (I told you their costumes were pretty good.)

All set and ready to go.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Today is probably the day the kids look forward to at school the most (aside from the last day of the year, of course). All of them at Ryan's school got to put their costumes on and parade around the gym for all of their parents to see.

We had quite the drama here at home this morning before the bus even came, though. I had found a complete Chicago Bear's uniform that came with the football pants, helmet and jersey. The jersey wasn't very impressive, but I figured we already had a real one that he could wear instead. Well, guess who decided to be bullheaded before school this morning! Ryan insisted that he had to wear the one that came with the helmet and pants. I was horrified. I immediately started getting stressed out about how our pictures would end up looking and went back and forth with him, trying to get him to change his mind. He wouldn't budge. I guess I'm not the only stubborn one in this family. So I did what any normal sane person would do. I told him that he could wear the one he wanted to school, but that he WAS GOING TO WEAR THE REAL ONE FOR PICTURES AND TRICK OR TREATING, dam*#t! He wasn't thrilled, but agreed - probably because he had gotten tired of arguing with me.

So here he is in the gym at school, sitting next to his friend Mitchell - who is dressed as a Packer's player. I'm sensing this friendship could be doomed in the future.

And then there's Chloe who was thrilled to be there. She couldn't take it all in fast enough. She wanted the camera pretty badly, but I wasn't going there after I gave her my car keys to play with this morning at CVS and she set my car alarm off. I'm still not sure how I got it turned off. Ironically, she's dressing up as a devil this evening. Fitting, is it not? LoL.

After the parade, it was on to his classroom party for snacks, games and crafts.


You'll never guess in a million years what Ashley and her friend, Danielle are dressing up as. It's a pretty funny sight. (Can you believe I've kept it a secret this long?) (Yes, I know that some of you already know, but don't ruin it for everyone else in the comments section.) More later...

Pumpkin Patch

We headed out to Apple Blossom Farm today in a last minute frenzy to find some pumpkins since Halloween is in 3 days. Luckily, we found some nice ones and the kids are busy carving away right now.

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The annual picture of the kids in front of the big apple.

Bret and the kids on a hayrack ride.

Me and the kids heading out to find the great big pumpkin. We ended up with 3 average ones.

Me and my little man.

Fall Family Pictures 2007

Earlier this week we got our family together with Bret's brother's family for fall pictures up on Grand View Drive. Bret's brother is amazing when it comes to taking pictures and he did an outstanding job! I am so pleased with the way they turned out...

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Ashley, Bret, Me & Ryan

Cousins: Ryan, Ashley, Brooke & Mitchell

Ashley & Ryan

Ashley & Ryan (Going to need to break out the stain stick after this.)

To see more, go to Flickr.

But I'm Only 30!

You're in a mid life crisis

Your ears aren't what they once were and you have resorted to doing online hearing tests. The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 12kHz

Find out which ringtones you can hear!

So according to the above results (an idea from Crazy Busy and Lovin It), my suspicions have been confirmed. My son is not the only one who can't hear.

How is your hearing?

Poof

I was all set to sit down and post some really cute pictures from Ryan Cub Scout field trip this morning when, Poof!, they just disapeared. I downloaded them from my camera and when I went to look at them, the folder was empty. Then I went back to my camera and found that Picasa had deleted them from there, too. What's even worse is that I had taken a picture for another mom of her son holding the American flag during their opening ceremony and now I have no picture to email to her. So now what you get is some serious ranting of the problem with some parents these days...

Last night I spent three hours shooting out emails to everyone that had signed up to help out with the carnival for Ryan's school that Teri and I are chairing. I must have sent out emails to a couple of hundred parents and can you believe that I've only gotten responses from 3 parents so far? Sad. I hope they don't think we're giving up easily, because they will get a phone call - or maybe a few hundred phone calls. Hopefully the responses will start flooding in once the weekend is over.

On a totally different subject, the kids have their Halloween costumes all picked out and ready to go. They are really excited. Ryan is going to be a Chicago Bears football player and Ashley and her friend, Danielle are going as ketchup and mustard. It was quite hilarious watching them try them on in the store bathroom last week. The costumes are bigger than they are. Now if we could just find the time to head over to Apple Blossom Farm to get our pumpkins.

Well, I'm off to finish cleaning my house. Break's over.

Whirlwind

Sometimes, you just need to have a day that flies by. Today has been like that. This morning I had three little ones here to keep me busy - Chloe, Katelyn (22 mo, who my friend Jennie usually watches) and Luke (who is now almost 3 months old and growing like a weed).

Luke has now been picked up and it's just me and the girls. Days like today remind me of why I miss Cecelia so much. Her and Chloe use to have so much fun together and it kept me on somewhat of a schedule during the day. How is it possible to get more accomplished on a day where you have 3 kids versus a day with just one? Granted I pretty much fall into bed and am instantly asleep at the end of the day - sometimes just barely staying awake until my own kids are in bed.

So, now it's my mission to find one more full time little girl like Katelyn so Chloe can have a playmate during the day. (Would also mean extra money in my pocket, too.)

Taking It To Another Level

Ryan's baseball craze is now being taken to the next level. This morning, Bret and his dad headed out for some guy time - fixing snowblowers, shopping, lunch, etc. They came back with a box of this year's baseball cards for Ryan, who is thrilled and has been going through and organizing them by team ever since. Bret finally has someone to pass down years of baseball card collecting to. (They can stay in his parents' basement for now though!)

Mathematically Challenged

Ryan never ceases to make me laugh. Tonight when I was putting him to bed, he went on a tangent about what he wants Santa to bring him for Christmas this year. He said that he's "been wanting a Chicago Bear's football helmet just like the one (his friend) Aizik has for a long, long, long, long, super long time now. Ever since I was six years old!" He's seven right now. I'm still laughing.

Um, Uh Oh?

I washed the kitchen floor today. Got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed it by hand. Looks pretty good, if I say so myself. But then I made a huge mistake. When I went to dump the bucket of dirty water down the toilet, the wash rag that I used to clean the floor went down the toilet, too. Um, is that really bad?

Tooting My Own Horn

I've never been one to toot my own horn (those of you that know me can stop laughing now), but I'm quite the genius. This toy has been sitting in a shopping bag in the storage closet downstairs for a couple of years ever since we lost the instructions on how to put it together. Ryan decided he wanted to play with it and so with dread, I found an (unfortunately small) picture of it assembled on the internet and managed to put it together. And it only took me an hour and a half. I still have yet to figure out how to get it out of the living room in one piece before the toddlers I'm watching get here in the morning. Pure genius, right?

Leggings

"Living in a material world....And I am a material girl...You know that we are living in a material world...And I am a material girl."



I knew the 80's would come back to haunt me someday.

Jury's Still Out

Ryan woke up this morning with a horrible headache and stomach ache that I'm pretty sure is due to sinuses and the sudden drop in temperature. I gave in and let him stay home from school, figuring that if I did send him, he'd for sure be home by lunchtime with a fever. Well, by 9:30am he was fine and I was kicking myself and my mommy intuition. He sure looks pretty sick, doesn't he?

A Crying Shame

Ryan is seriously bummed, as is Bret I'm sure.

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I feel your pain, man.

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Up Next...

One crazy night in Iowa with Emily and friends tonight. Be back in the morning.

Star-Spangled Banner

I was upstairs cooking dinner just now when I heard this coming from Ryan in the bedroom downstairs. I'm still cracking up. He is so going to kill me someday when he learns how to read and navigate the internet!

Score Card

Number of cute babies who were insanely well behaved at the car dealership this morning: 1

Hours spent waiting for an oil change, tire rotation and DVD player problem at said car dealership: 2 and a half

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Number of tractors stuck behind on the way home just today alone (in a no passing zone too, of course): 3

Number of corn stalks surrounding our neighborhood: too many to count

Idiots using the camera on their cell phone while driving: 1

I guess that's what you get when you move out to a neighborhood in the middle of farm country.

A Little Quick On The Noodle Trigger

This is why I serve frozen, canned and take out for meals. I tried to make Cat's chicken noodle soup since Ashley isn't feeling well today and when I poured in the amount of noodles that she told me to, I thought they looked awfully small and that it couldn't possibly be enough. So I poured in the other half of the box and then because that wasn't bad enough, I poured in half a box of elbow macaroni from my pantry and ended up with this. Way too much pasta in my chicken soup. Maybe next time I'll get it right. Now if only I had three more packages of chicken thighs to even out the pasta.