Almost Halloween

Today was the first cool day of the season. A beautiful change to the sweaty mornings, afternoons, and nights that have been the norm now for the last five months. Yesterday Marcus' teacher told him that today would be like winter, I really wish she wouldn't have because he took that to heart. A low of 52 is hardly winter weather. Last night he made me track down his winter coat so he could wear it to school. Then he made me find the hood that attaches to it. I bet he was the warmest boy on the playground this morning.

I was very last minute this year with our hunt for Halloween costumes. I ended up getting the boys' costumes online this weekend and they (hopefully) will be here later on today. We were going to make James Yoda but they were all sold out so we had to find a plan B. I found our plan B Sunday on ebay.


I made him where it all afternoon today to get used to being in it. He loved it when it was off of him. And screamed when it was on. Nathan told me it was girly. I told Nathan just because it doesn't have blood dripping off of it or exposed bones, that doesn't make it girly. Plus it has a pretty mean stinger, very manly.


After 10 minutes in it he didn't mind the costume at all. It was funny though because he wouldn't turn his neck. He kept it straightforward at all times.


Okay the leggings we did find in the girls' section of Target but that does not make the costume girly.


That is one bad stinger.


I just hope he wears his costume happily on Halloween. You never know with 19 month olds. One minute they are happy, the next minute their world is ending.

In a Haze

Let me just preface this post by saying, my tooth is killing me. It's hurting so bad that now I can't even tell which tooth is the one that hurts. It feels like the side of my face might just spontaneously combust at any moment. Did I ever tell you I hate dentists? Even though I hate them, I have to go back this week. God help me.

Enough about me and my teeth. While I have been in my pain killer induced fog which includes insatiable sleepiness and mild nausea the kids have been doing their own thing and trying to ignore grumpy old me.

As I walked around the house today here is some of the things I see.


James going outside to find "ocks". He likes to throw them all over the porch.


Nathan didn't seem quite so sick after he came home from school early. Maybe we discovered a new home remedy, video games cures fevers.


I found Marcus laughing hysterically after he wrote "yay poo" on the dry erase board. At least he spelled it right.


Jason was at the park as usual playing football. This time with girls. Hmmmm.


We just reseeded the back yard again. James has been helping me chase off the buhs (birds). He shows me right where they are hiding.

James is talking so much now. He tries to copy everything we say. Marcus takes pride in teaching him new words. Marcus knows all 100 of his sight words after lots and lots of flash card practice. We celebrated by giving him a surprise. His surprise was Model Magic and he was thrilled.

I had parent teacher conferences last week. All the boys are doing excellent. Nathan almost got straight A+'s, his teacher talked to me about moving him up a grade but I don't think I want that for him.

Off to bed now!

A Date with the Devil

Today I had an appointment with my arch nemesis. The Dentist.

It has been a long time coming, I am too embarrassed to even say when the last time I went to one was.

I hate them! All of them! They are all evil and barbaric. They use a tool that looks like a sickle and an ice pick, and another tool that looks like it came out of a Dremel kit. My dentist called that one Mr. Bumpy because it makes every bone in your head vibrate like a subwoofer.

I knew this wasn't going to be a good visit. The last time I went to the dentist I had a really bad experience (it was worse than child birth I tell you) and was just too chicken to go back. That was years ago. When the receptionist asked me when the last time I saw a dentist and I told her, she asked me two more times to make sure she was hearing me right. She did.

My simple cleaning appointment quickly turned into a four hour appointment that involved lots of shots, drilling, gum cutting, crying, teeth picking, and picture taking. It was my worst nightmare. I am weird and for some reason do not do well with being numbed up. Everything else gets numb except for the one spot I would really like to be numb. I was numb all the way up to my eyelids, and let me just say numb eyelids is not as fun as is sounds, but my damn tooth was still as unnumb as could be.

Somehow I managed to get through the appointment. I need crowns, inlays, onlays, root canals, and some other stuff that I have no idea what are. Next I have to make an appointment with an oral surgeon to continue this dreadful journey. Someone might just have to pull a gun on me to make the appointment though. Because I think I might just rather be missing a few teeth than to go through that again.

I hate dentists.

And Mr. Bumpy can kiss my you know what.

He likes to hit

James loves to hit Marcus. We are trying to teach him not to but reasoning with a one year old is tough. So far we have taught him that after you hit someone you should always pet them like a cat while telling them nie, or as I would say it, nice. It drives Marcus insane.


While Marcus was sick on Monday and Tuesday, James laid off the hitting a little. He loved having someone else home while the boys were at school.


Snuggling is almost as fun as hitting.

October

It's a special month in our family. Probably half of my mom's side of the family has their birthday this month. Instead of throwing six different parties we all get together and celebrate one day during the month. This year the party was at our house and we also had Jason's actual birthday party on the same day. To make this year's party more entertaining we rented a bouncy inflatable castle.

Best decision we ever made.


Bright and early at nine in the morning they came to set up our vinyl behemoth. There were six sets of eyes glued to the back door. All of them excited for the inflating to begin, and the set up crew to be gone.


Once it was set up, the castle took up about two thirds of our teeny tiny yard. The kids heard the delivery truck leave and they practically teleported themselves into the bouncy house.


And that is where they stayed for the next six hours.


Angel's hair was super cool.


Birthday boy was stealing people's jumps.


Even James liked to be in it. He was bounced all over the place and just laughed it off. Definitely a boy.

I jumped for about 7.5 minutes and barely had enough leg strength left to get myself out. How do kids have the energy???


While the kids were outside, all the adults were cozying up around the tv to watch Sunday morning football.


Interesting fact: My mom met her husband, Stan, while working at Office Depot. Same way I met Mike. Apparently Office Depot is a great place to meet future husbands.


Eventually they did come in to open presents. In the picture is Noah (the boys' new bff), Ryan, Jason, Marcus, and Amanda. She is a serial texter.


Amanda who is texting some more, and Brianna.


After presents we were childless again so we played some poker. I did sucky and was the second one out, good thing Mike had my back.


Sharon took us all down in the end.


More bouncing.


Cake and ice cream time! They are all sweaty, guess where they just were. Our happy birthday singing was pretty pathetic. Next time we will have to figure out an order to say all the names.


When you tell Marcus to smile, this is what you get.


The legs of steel clan. And some baby belly.


Marcus is already requesting a bounce house for his birthday. There were actually some tears shed when they came to take it down. It was a great time!

My baby will be twelve years old tomorrow. Makes me both happy and sad, he is turning into a young man right before my eyes, but I still remember my first precious little boy. The boy that showed me what it is to be a mom.

Life is sweet.

The Jerk

The Jerk is the name of a dance the boys learned. Not sure who taught them but I think it is awesome!



Today I had the honor of being serenaded by Jerk dancing. Jason tries to be modest and says he doesn't like the song/dance but I'm not fooled. He dances like a boy who is moving in the groove.

When you are six

You still believe in magic.

Time is only a concern when it comes to bedtime.

You can't go to sleep without getting a hug and a kiss goodnight.

Your favorite thing is sharks.

You are proud that you can kind of read, but hate reading.

You regret asking how babies really get out of their mom's tummy because it is gross.

You can go play outside without complete supervision.

Some of your old favorite shows are now "baby shows".

You make friends by wearing a cool Transformers shirt, and sometimes lose a friend to someone wearing a cooler Transformer belt. That really happens when you are six.

An hour is a long time.

Stuffed animals have feelings.

Your mom and dad are still the coolest people in the world.

You get taller, loose your baby fat, and start changing into a handsome little man.

All this happens when you are six.

And it makes me love you even more than ever.


Bookie and Marcus going to bed tonight. Bookie is the classroom bear here for a sleepover.

In Summary

It was a friend making, craft creating, mucus filled week.

Marcus got sick.

And when one person gets sick you know what happens, we all get it. Not too long after Marcus got the lovely sore throat/ massive mucus producing illness James got it. He passed it along to me and Jason. Then we were all having snot bubble blowing contests. As fun as that sounds it pretty much sucked. I lost my voice and couldn't work, James still had his voice and used it to cry approximately 74.3% of the day.

That wasn't exactly how I envisioned spending the boys' fall break.

The boys had a good week of though. They made friends! And lots of them. They pretty much spent the week playing at the park behind the house. I am so glad for them. It is such a complete 180 from the times when I used to have to drag them outside kicking and screaming to play. For the first time in our household, they were actually disappointed when it was time to come in.


Jason's birthday is right around the corner, and while I was out birthday shopping I picked up this Color Wonder coloring book for James. The markers are cool because they only show up on the special paper. No stains! James only wanted to color on the carpet, furniture, and himself but the other boys really liked it.


The chubs has also been obsessed with his Sesame Street socks that he got from his cousin Lindsay. He wears them all day and cries when I take them off for bed.

Hopefully we are done with the illness passing for a while. Now if I could just get my voice back I would be a happy mama.

Fishies

At this moment I am confined to the office by the boys. They are in the kitchen making Halloween decorations and they want to make it a surprise. While I am being held prisoner I thought I would share what I have been up to all day.

At our last barbecue my sister Brianna was so impressed with my cupcake owls she asked if I would be willing to make her some special cupcakes for her class on her birthday. Of course I said sure. Tomorrow is her birthday so I took today off to make them. I decided on the cute little goldfish cupcakes because they were just so darn cute.


Brianna has a huge class of 40 kids.


Here fishy fishy


No those aren't real rocks. They are praline sundae toppings.


I'd say they turned out pretty good. It took me about 7 hours to make them (not including baking the cupcakes), but I am proud of the result and I'm sure Brianna will love them.

The hardest part was not tasting them. Mike and I just started a new diet (Atkins) that does not allow us to eat anything that is delicious. Except for bacon, bacon is always delicious.

Uhhh.... hmmmm.... Sounds like something either got spilled, or broke. I hear children blaming each other for something out there. Guess I better go ruin the surprise. Maybe I will just go out there and settle the issue with my eyes closed. I probably don't want to see what happened anyway.

Backyard Camping, Told in Pictures taken by Jason

The boys had a great time camping out and I was super proud that I was actually able to set up the tent. They roasted hot dogs until it started raining and then played board games the rest of the evening. Sometimes vacation doesn't have to cost a dime.