Happy Halloween 2012

Halloween is always fun but this year we had double the fun! My sweet friend Melita, who I knew when we lived in Illinois, was passing through Oklahoma from New Mexico on her way to Illinois for a visit and she decided to make us one of her stops. It was so wonderful to have her and her three kiddos stay with us for a couple of days. The kids all hit it off so well and Melita and I took up right where we left off. I love friends like that. Our church smallgroup came over and we all ate together and then went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We had a big group and we had a lot of fun together. I am so thankful for good friends!

You may remember after last year's Halloween costumes that I decided I was no longer going to spend a lot of money or time on the kids' costumes. So this year they all picked fairly simply costumes and I didn't have to do as much work as usual.

Morgan decided to be a ghost and her costume turned out to be the simplest, easiest, cheapest and best costume of all three! We re-used her Princess Leia dress, sprayed her hair white, did some simple ghostly makeup, and ripped some strips of muslin for her hands and around her face. She looked awesome!

Mason, just like almost every other boy in America, is obsessed with the video game Minecraft. So he chose to be his character Steve. Minecraft is an old-school style game, very pixelated, and I was able to recreate the head and iron sword for Steve. Mason loved it! But I didn't make the eyeholes big enough (they seemed fine at home) and Mason couldn't see very well and I ended up having to lead him around like a blind man all night. But the tons of compliments he received as we walked along our neighborhood totally made it worth it! He was the envy of every boy we came across.

This summer Addie and I discovered a book series called Ladybug Girl. The girl in the book has brown hair and her name is Lulu (Loo Loo is Addie's nickname!) so her choice to be Ladybug Girl was perfect. I bought the tutu and red shirt, spray painted her rain boots red with black dots (which cracked and peeled, argh!), bought wings at the dollar store and added the dots, and made a headband with antennae which I completely forgot to put on her! She looked super cute anyway!

  (Here's the real Ladybug Girl for reference.)

This was our big group! So fun to share Halloween with friends!

Last week I got in on the Halloween fun by helping to host our second annual Halloween Party with my friends Elizabeth and Shannon. Both Josh and Elizabeth's husband were out of town so she and I decided to dress up as a couple.

I thought our Wilma and Betty costumes turned out fabulous! I even painted my toenails zebra striped! It was so much fun! And here is Shannon and her hubby Steve who won for Best Male Costume AND Most Creative Costume. Shannon made it all!! Can you guess who Shannon is?

Happy Halloween!! I guess now it's time to start thinking about Christmas?

First Day of School 2012

 My biggest girl is in 4th grade this year. Ugh. 4th grade!! HOW??!!??

She was so excited to have her BFF, Faith, in her class this year. They were together for 1st and 2nd grade but were separated last year. I'm sure you heard their squeals the day they found out they would have the same teacher. And new this year, the 4th grade classes rotate throughout the day to other teachers for different subjects. So Morgan has a homeroom teacher who also teaches social studies and language arts and then 3 other teachers for math, reading, and science. She feels so grown up.

My middlest boy is in 2nd grade.

His class is full of all his best buddies so it's going to be a fun year for him (and maybe a loud one for his teacher). He really didn't want to start school this year but I think he's settling in nicely. He loves math and playing football at recess.

My sweet littlest girl is with her older siblings at school this year in the pre-K class. She can go all day but we're just doing half days right now. I just can't imagine sending her all day when I don't have to. Next year, I'll have to. This year, I want her home with me.

She was so incredibly excited for this day. She was sick the week before and was so worried that she wouldn't be well enough for the first day. No worries, she was fine by Monday and all smiles for her first day. Addie got the teacher she wanted, the same teacher Mason had for pre-K. This teacher now co-teaches with another teacher and they switch days that they are at school. A couple of Addie's buddies are in her class and she is having a great time so far!

And, as is tradition, there was cake when the kids came home. Addie helped me make owl cupcakes and since I got the pre-baked cupcakes from the grocery store they took all of 10 minutes to make. Score!

I hope all three of my babies have a HOOT this school year!

9 Months

Yeah, it's been awhile. I never really intended to take a blog break, much less a nine month long blog break. But Life kind of happened. In the form of 2 really awful teaching semesters for Josh that left me taking up the slack (and not doing a very good job of it!).

It was a really hard year last year. We barely saw Josh and when we did he was sawing logs on the couch at 7:45 almost every night. That's what happens when you're at the office by 4 A.M. Morgan and Mason were also very involved with sports and I was carting them to practice and games nearly every night of the week. I barely had time to go grocery shopping much less stay on top of the laundry and house cleaning. Needless to say, by the time May rolled around we were all ready for some family time and relaxation. So we took the kids out of school for eight days and went to DisneyWorld. More about that later. (It was awesome!)

We spent all summer relaxing and having fun and sleeping late and enjoying being with each other without the stress of school hanging over all of us. But the new semester started this week and so we're all getting back into the swing of things and I thought it was about time to start updating this blog.

Keep your fingers crossed Life doesn't happen again! :)

Leftovers

I took the kids out TWICE in the last few days to take pictures for our Christmas card.

We're going with bold and colorful this year.

These are the ones I'm not using, the leftovers.

But they are too good to not share.

What handsome, beautiful, photogenic kids I have!

Look for our Christmas card soon in a mailbox near you!

Braggin'

I love parent-teacher conferences.

There's just something extra great about someone else, some non-partial party, telling you how wonderful your kids are. I mean, of course I think those things all the time. It crosses my mind almost daily how polite, fun, caring, loving, sensitive, intelligent, and cooperative my children are. It also crosses my mind how frustrating, whiny, messy, mean, annoying, and dense my children are, too but that's not what this particular post is about!

In the past couple of weeks Josh and I have attended conferences for both Morgan and Mason and we left both feeling so proud of our two oldest children. Their teachers said everything you would hope they could say--that Morgan is hard-working, kind, sweet, patient, funny, a good friend, pays attention, is always on task, very caring and SMART. The girl is reading on a 7.8 grade level, which means she reads like that of someone in her eighth month of SEVENTH GRADE. She totally takes after her mother.

Mason's teacher is wonderful and I just love her. Mason also loves her because "she said she would never yell at us and she said we could eat our dessert first at lunch." I'm always very curious about what his teachers are going to say about him because while he is caring and sensitive and polite and takes direction well, he is also loud, impulsive, and crazy at times. But Mason's teacher did not have one single negative thing to say about him. In fact, she actually called him DEAR. Yes, my son, my rambunctious, loud, impulsive, selectively-hard-of-hearing son is dear to his teacher. I don't think there is another word I would rather hear to describe one of my children. He is also smart, reading at a level G (by the end of first grade they want you reading on a level J so he is almost there only a few months into the school year). He is also very curious and asks LOTS of good questions. He totally takes after his father.

They are having an awesome school year so far and I feel so thankful. I'm thankful for great teachers who truly seem to enjoy having my kids in their class and thankful for such wonderful kids!

I can't wait til conferences in the spring!