Trunk or Treating

Last night we went out with our neighbors and their kids. They had invited us to go to the next town over to go TRUNK or treating. The kids had a BLAST! It was pretty cool to see how most of the vehicles were decorated.

Dianna doesn't look happy simply because I told her to stop and turn around for a picture pose. See? She's much happier in this picture!

This last shot of the kids was taken after they'd trunk or treated ALL of the cars. There must have been at least 75!

In the center of the Green where the Trunk or Treating was held, there was a slew of carved pumpkins. Some had real creative designs carved into them. This picture only shows about 1/4 of the total number of carved pumpkins.

Halloween Weekend

Are you ready for ghoulish fun??

She sure is!

(almost) Wordless Wednesday

Here are some pics from Grace's game this past Sunday...

Grace is the one in blue with the ponytail, #13

Look at her charge at the ball!
Scoring a goal

Gordon shot a picture of me, Soccermom Extraordinaire

Great minds think alike!

Last Friday I saw a sight that reminded me of something from a looooooooong time ago....

This is Eleanor, sitting in her Fisher Price Activity Table. She's 15months old.
I remembered taking a few different shots of Grace sitting in the same Activity Table, so I went searching through all of our old photo disks. (Thank goodness we used to have our film copied directly onto floppy disks, or I'd never get around to scanning old pictures I'd like to share with y'all!) I found just the shots within minutes of searching!

Here is Grace, back in September of 2001. She was about 14months old at the time.

All of our children, actually, have enjoyed using the Activity Table as more than just and activity table. Apparently it screams, 'SIT IN ME' or 'I'M A COMFY CHAIR-REPLACEMENT' because they all tried it out as a seating option.

I wonder what Fisher Price thinks of my kids' creative uses for their toys....they probably have a warning label somewhere that says, 'DO NOT allow children to climb into, on top of, or sit in this toy.'

We're infested, but at least we're in good company!

Tuesday afternoon we experienced a warm-up outside. It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. I was going to sit outside on the front step, while the littlest one napped and the boy was playing quietly. I wanted to soak up some of the beautiful warmth.

Much to my surprise, I found we were being infested!! There were (and still are!) at least a bajillion ladybugs all over our house.

Unfortunately I do not have a macro lens, so I couldn't zoom right up to get a closeup of the little buggers, but here are a few shots from the front of the house...

Turns out we're not the only ones with millions of extra houseguests. Geoff Fox, one of the local weathermen in the area, blogged about it yesterday! You can read his blog here: Geoff's Blog

At least they're not harmful!

Dianna's Soccer Fun Day

Because of a rainout on the originally scheduled Fun Day for Dianna's U8 soccer division, it was recheduled to this past Saturday. Below are a few pictures of the kids enjoying the day -- cold weather or not! Until this past weekend, I didn't realize how well Dianna played Soccer....looks like maybe I'll be doing this whole Soccermom thing a with both big girls now!

Bedtime Stories

Before bed tonight, Grace asked me if I could braid her hair. She wanted to keep it from getting tangled while she slept. After I finished braiding her hair, I commented how she looked like Laura Ingalls Wilder and suggested she could dress as her for Halloween.

That discussion lead to a discussion of how we have yet to finish the Little House series. We had stopped after the second book because we wanted to switch back to reading the Chronicles of Narnia.

The girls both asked if we could start reading the Little House series again. So we all climbed into Grace's bed. It was such fun to take turns reading to eachother aloud!

Gordon grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots of us all snuggled up on Grace's bed. (Sorry for the funky coloring....one of the settings got changed on my camera when Gordon switched it on)

Winter Wonderland....in OCTOBER???

Today was the second time this FALL season that we've had snow flying. The first episode was just this past Friday afternoon. Today's snowfall was so wonderous. It truly brought to mind the idea of a Winter Wonderland. The snowflakes were absolutely humongous. They were easily larger than jumbo cotton balls.

Here is a picture of our stonewall and garden. You can see the snowflakes drifting to the ground. (The beautiful yellow Mums were a gift from some very special friends of mine....don't they look PERFECT there?)
The three bigger kids were in awe over the size of the snowflakes. I don't think they realized I'd taken this shot -- I was slick and used my zoom lens from the front hallway! ;)

Almost 100%

I know I've been slacking! The best excuse I have is that we've had a busy week here in the Crazy House. The least of which was William and his bout of Croup. I'm happy to report that he's almost 100% better. He still has a lingering cough, but even that's not so bad anymore.

While we're talking about the Little Man, I wanted to share this picture with you. It's one that I took using my cellphone, so the quality isn't great. But I was *so* proud of how brave he was at the ER, I just had to take a picture of him. He was so good about wearing the mask to help him breathe better. (I told him it made him look like a firefighter going in to battle a blaze)

Melts your heart, don't it? ;)

I have more pictures from our busy week to share....I'm working on uploading them from my camera right now, as we speak. I'll be trying to get some posted tomorrow. If not then, then sometime later this week.

A new appreciation

I went to VT for the weekend. With just Nora. My sister Becky drove. Gordon stayed home with the other three kidlets.

After the excitement of my return last night had settled, Gordon pulled me into a great big bear hug. He told me that I'm never allowed to go away like that ever again. He's been reminded of all I do on a daily basis, how much I handle, all the chaos that is my life. He said he has always known how tough my job is, but this weekend just about pushed him over the edge I think.

In all fairness, Gordon had a lot going on this weekend. Both of the big girls had soccer games Saturday. (Luckily they were practically back to back at the same field!) William started sounding raspy Saturday evening and woke with croup symptoms yesterday.

Because this isn't the first bout of croup Will's ever had, Gordon was pretty well versed in what to do. Still, I'm sure it wasn't easy to have to practically sit on William to keep him calm enough that his breathing wasn't too stressed or labored.

Tastes like chicken

In an effort to eat a little healthier, while still preparing food that Dianna would eat without much fuss, I decided to make homemade baked chicken nuggets for dinner last night. I looked online for such a recipe and found one on cooks.com that I tweaked a tad. I was PSYCHED.

Fast forward to actual dinner preparation time. Dianna's in the kitchen whining that she's hungry, like she always does as I'm preparing dinner. She must have asked me a bajillion times what we were having for dinner. I kept saying, 'homemade chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, and mixed veggies.'

She made faces. She continued to whine that she was STARVING and needed something to eat. And then she started in with the excuses why should couldn't/wouldn't like what I was preparing for dinner.

The absolute BEST was 'I don't like those kind -- Mommy made them with chicken!'

ROTLMAO!

Gordon was laughing so hard that it took a minute or two before he could ask Dianna if she realized just how absurd she sounded. He then went on to ask Dianna what she thought chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, and chicken fingers were made from.

I don't think she ever gave a proper response...

Never assume quiet is a good thing

Yesterday afternoon I was BEAT. I really wanted to get a nap in, but didn't think the Little People were going to cooperate. I laid Nora down in her crib, listened to her play and fuss over the monitor, popped a movie in the VCR for Will, and set about clipping coupons until they both fell asleep. I was betting on them not sleeping at the same time, but I hoped I'd get a 15minute overlap anyway.

After a while I had to run upstairs to grab something. As is usual, I got sidetracked while upstairs. Nora quieted down because she'd finally given up the battle to sleep. Will was quiet shortly thereafter too.

I ASSUMED he'd fallen asleep too.

Of course I didn't go check -- why would I do that when my bed looked *so* inviting?

So I lay myself down for a few minutes. After just a few minutes of having my eyes closed (no sleep for me!), I heard noises from William in the livingroom again. So I went downstairs to check on him. This is what I found:

And then this:

You guessed it! Will grabbed the scissors I'd been using to clip coupons and gave the pony a new 'do. Lucky for me it was one of Nora's ponies (Grace and Dianna would have been fit to be tied if it was theirs!). She thinks it looks rather cool.

I need sleep!

It has become glaringly apparent to me that I need far more sleep than I normally get. I had gotten into the habit, for only a couple of weeks, of going to bed shortly after the kids all go to bed. It started out I was going to watch primetime while being snuggled in my bed. Somehow I never saw a minute of the primetime programming when this happened.

The bonus to falling asleep so early is that I was feeling energized in the mornings. I looked forward to starting my chores and getting my day underway. I wouldn't say I jumped out of bed, but I certainly wasn't trying to burrow further under the covers.

Since late last week, I've not been getting in bed so early. It's been more like 10-11pm before I crawl in to bed these last few days. And I'm feeling it!

Each morning has gotten increasingly more difficult for me to move. Today I would have loved nothing more than to stay in bed for at least another hour. But then that would mean that Gordon wouldn't have a lunch to take to work -- can't have him wasting away to nothing, can we?!?

So I hope tonight I can get back on track and get into bed long before David Letterman comes on. Though it makes me sound like an old fuddy-duddy, I'd much rather be well rested than to be sporting huge bags under my eyes!

The elves must have visited

You know those infamous, mysterious elves that move things from one spot and place them somewhere else in the house?? Yeah, they came to visit our house again this weekend.

Normally it's my things that are mis-placed....errrrr.....RE-placed. Unlucky me, it wasn't something of mine that got replaced this time. It was Grace's newly obtained video MP3 player. The one she just bought from Scholastic with her own money. The one she begged and pleaded with Gordon and I to allow her to purchase.

So everyone old enough to take direction was tasked with looking for the MP3 player. I set about helping Grace re-trace her steps. Gordon checked and re-checked numerous possible stowaway locations. Still no MP3 player.

I even enlisted the mental help of Amy's girls, Rachel and Samantha. I prayed they'd remember seeing it somewhere we hadn't looked. Unfortunately, they couldn't shed any better light for us.

FINALLY Gordon once again reminded me why I think of him as my Knight in Shining Armor. He found it! It was downstairs in the basement, even though Grace was *sure* she'd placed it in her basket by her dresser.

I can't wait to see the look on Grace's face tomorrow morning when she realizes her MP3 player is missing no more. Let this be a good lesson in taking proper care of important things -- if it's put away where it belongs when you're done using it, you'll find it every time you need it!

No rain out today

Today is Grace's soccer division's Fun Day. While the weather still looks rather dreary, the local weather forecaster assures me that we'll have temps in the mid-70's and just a partly cloudy day. So I'm pretty sure Grace's Fun Day will go as scheduled today.

I've got the girls all getting ready for the day right now as we speak.

I was thinking while we were eating breakfast that the church members at the Baptist church in town must think I've forgotten about them. This makes the second Sunday in a row that we won't be in attendance. I hope Mrs. Y can pass along our apologies -- we'll be back as soon as we can be!

rain out

Today was going to be *fun*. Remember my post from the other day where I was trying to mathematically work out how we were going to cart everyone to all the necessary fields for the soccer events scheduled today? You can re-read it here.

Well, it turns out all of that worrying was for nothing. Except maybe to add a few more wrinkles on this aging face of mine.

All of the games scheduled for today were cancelled. We're in the middle of a monsoon right now. Bet you didn't know that Connecticut has a monsoon season. Apparently we do. It's now.

Anyway, I was more than relieved to find that there would be no soccer today. Just the thought of carting six kids to a wet soccer field and standing on the sidelines getting poured on was enough for me to break out in hives.

Normally I don't mind a drop or two of rain, because I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West and therefore won't melt. But today I was starting to fret over how the children were bound to enjoy getting drenched. I knew that it wouldn't take much whining about being cold/damp/bored for me to lose what little patience I normally have.

You see, I was worried that it wouldn't take long for me to become a raving lunatic after being pestered with questions of how much longer we had to stay. Can't have that happen. Normally I like to keep that persona locked up and only let her out at home.

So the powers that be saved me from exposing the public at large to my alternate personality. The MEAN MOMMY.

Mathematical challenges

This is the final weekend for the Big E. Amy, Sam, and their two eldest girls will be heading up there with their goats for the goat show. While they are in Massachusetts, Hannah will be staying at our neighbor's, across the street. Rachel and Samantha are going to stay here with us.

Having two extra kids this weekend is making me have to think creatively. Grace has a soccer game two towns away at 10:45am. Dianna's soccer team has Fun Day at the local elementary school at 12pm. Our van seats 7. We'll have 6 kids and 2 adults. Unless we strap someone to the roof of the car -- no, wait -- that's not an option seeing as we opted to NOT have the luggage rack installed when we bought the car. Besides, the potential overlap of time between Dianna's Fun Day starting and Grace's game ending would mean I'd need to exercise my time-warping skills if we were to all travel together.

Maybe we'll just have to leave someone home for the day. Better not leave William as it's highly likely he'll 'fix' a major appliance while we're away. Guess it'll have to be the baby. "Sorry Eleanor, you're on your own this weekend. You'll be safe and happy all duct-taped in the closet, no?? Momma can leave you some goldfishies and a cup of juice in case you need a snack."

In all seriousness, I already have a solution. Gordon hasn't had a moment to change the oil in Mom's truck yet. This translates to it still being parked in my driveway, with the keys hanging on the keyrack in my back hall. BINGO!

I hope you don't mind if we put a couple of miles on the truck this weekend, Mom. I promise we'll fill the gas tank before we're through!!