Happy Halloween!

Halloween started out as any other normal day. Colored my hair (okay so I don't do that every day), went to Target and even dared to step foot in Party City (Don't do it- the place was mobbed). Put 2 kids down for naps since I knew we'd be out late and dh took one as well. Got everyone dressed, put all costumes, extra clothes, drinks, pumpkin buckets, etc in the car and we were on our way to our friends home for pizza, TOT'ing and ice cream sundaes.


After dinner we got everyone in their costumes and all 14 kids (not including baby Tybee) went TOT'ing. It was a mob of kids. By the time we were done with one house the rest were already onto the next. Bella got a Tootsie Pop from someone and proceeded to try to eat it wrapper and all. It was inevitable that she was going to get to it though so I took it off and she had at it. That was a sticky mess but one she enjoyed thoroughly.


It was so flipping HOT outside. Can we not get a nice, cool Halloween for once? The kids were sweating, the parents were sweating. Yuck. Next year I'm bringing water for my three. Spiderman (aka Logan) took off his mask he was so hot. Ian wouldn't let us take off his fireman jacket though. I asked several times. It wore them down pretty fast. They got tons of candy though and lots of chocolate (yay for me! LOL). We went back to the house to cool off and get some drinks and they stayed behind while some of the others went off again. They were just fine with changing out of their costumes and staying in the A/C.


We let the kids play some more and make some ice cream sundaes before heading for home. Bella was on a sugar high. It's really no wonder- lollipop, ice cream, cookies... she surprised me when she didn't fall asleep on the car ride home. Got them to bed and dh and I went thru the candy. Had to make sure there was enough chocolate for us weren't any needles and all that in the candy. There was one surprising give away in each bucket though- a little envelope of used stamps from all over the world. Hong Kong, USA(several styles), England, etc. Interesting. Maybe they thought it would get the kids into stamp collecting?


I took a ton of photos of our night so here you go!



This was our mob.

My little fireman.



She's ready to go!


Take a good look because you don't get to see me in pics very often!


That Spiderman is Logan.


My beautiful family.


Excuse the Cheeto.



Still all sweaty from TOT'ing.


Alex, Trey and Logan

Strike!

The boys were invited to a bowling party this weekend and had a blast! This was only Logan's second time bowling and Ian's first but I think we'll be going again soon (if I can figure out how to handle Bella). It was Cosmic Bowling too which they just thought was neat. Ian actually did very well after his initial try in which he just dropped the ball on the foul line and waited. Haha. He even got a strike in his last frame! Logan did good too but he's too funny when he bowls. He lets it go and throws both arms back. He looks rather bird like. LOL I took a lot of photos but I really didn't like how any of them came out. It was just too dark. I wanted to capture the lighting in there and the *cosmic* feeling but it just didn't translate over. Oh well...I either need to learn my camera better or use the flash more!

School Daze

Ohh this getting up at 6:30am is for the birds! I liked my sleep-until-8am-or-until-Bella-woke-up gig I had going over the summer. This just bites. I've been trying really hard to be in bed with the TV off by 10:30pm so that early morning alarm doesn't bother me quite as much but you need to give me a few minutes before you ask me anything. I don't do coffee unless it's a Starbucks Frap (Grande caramel non fat, no whip, extra caramel or java chip non fat, no whip just for future reference. You know in case you feel like bringing me one, one day heehee).

So the boys have finished their first week of school. Logan seems to be adjusting fine to 1st grade. His teacher seems like she might be tough. I'm getting a totally different vibe from her vs. our Kindergarten teacher whom I loved. We'll see how the year progresses though. He has his 1st ever test this coming Wednesday. It's a spelling test and I know he'll be fine. The words are very basic right now. The part where he'll have issues is the sentence they have to write with correct punctuation and capitalization. He's forever capitalizing letters in the middle of a word or forgetting a period. He just sees it as writing the letter though and not that it's a capital letter per se.

Ian is loving his Pre-K classroom and teachers. I've had no bad reports from the teachers although he did come home one day and said 2 boys called him a name. Ugh. So far he seems to making a few friends though. He gets out of the car fine in the morning and comes home sweaty but happy. He's made me a few things already and even wrote his name. Progress already! I love it!

Bella is adjusting well to the fact her brothers aren't around as much anymore. She plays by herself and comes to me when she wants to. She's been happily playing with a cup and spoon all weekend. She stirs it and pretends to eat. Too cute! She has caught a cold though. It probably came from one of the schools. She's not exactly a happy camper. It's just a clear runny/stuffy nose but it makes it difficult for her to suck on her fingers for comfort. She woke up at least 4x on Friday night/Saturday early, early A.M. That is so completely unlike her so I know she was having issues. Her appetite hasn't been quite as robust either. She seems to be coming around though and knock on wood, noone else is showing symptoms. Lots of hand washing and hand sanitizer!

As for me, I'm loving the peace and quiet. No fighting, no screaming. The only part I'm not a huge fan of is the in and out of the car all day. Bella isn't so keen on that either and I have a feeling she may hate her car seat by the end of the year! LOL I'm not getting the WiFi signal I was getting last year so my netbook has done me no good in car line. I do have a DS to play though (and a new game!) and will hopefully start hitting up the library for some new books. Yes my dear friends, I said library. You can pick yourselves up off the floor now and close your mouths. I'm actually going to set foot in one for the first time in oh....15 years or so. Mama needs some new books and has no moolah, money, coinage, etc to go buy some. Plus I just don't know what to get everytime I set foot in a bookstore.

That's our first week update. I hope everyone else's week turned out as great as ours and for those just starting- good luck to you!

♫ ♪ It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! ♫ ♪

School is in! My big boy went off to 1st grade this morning and my little man went off to VPK (Voluntary Pre-K). Getting up early this morning wasn't as hard as I thought but maybe that's because I was tossing and turning all night. You'd think I was the one going to school this morning and getting all anxious.

Ian was ready to go at 7:30am. He told Logan I was dropping him off first which would be impossible since his school starts an hour later so I had to disappoint him in that. We did head out around that time though to take Logan to school. I really hate back to school traffic. It backs up due to the new light they installed at the end of the last school year. Then you add in allll the parents walking their kids in for the first day that won't usually walk them and it's a madhouse. Thankfully it will calm down in the next few days. We ended up parking at the recreation center across the street and walked over. Logan walked right into his class, found a seat at a table of all boys (the other table was all girls!) and was right at home.






A little while later it was time to take Ian to school. He walked in and started playing. He was a bit shy at first with his teachers but he did what they asked. He had no issues with me leaving him there either. :( My little boy is growing up! At pick up time he got a good report and I was able to squeeze a few tidbits about his day out of him.






We picked up Logan after that (told you I'd be spending a lot of time in/out of the car!) and he had a good day as well. He attempted to tell me about some of his day but Bella wouldn't let him get a word in. She was singing in the back seat. LOL

So our first day is done. We're going to go out to eat tonight to celebrate and have some family time and we'll be back to the grind first thing in the morning.

Beach Photos

Some of these didn't come out like I wanted but being it was so bright outside I couldn't see the viewing screen and had no idea until I came home.











Practicing her surf moves




P.S. I'm still working on editing and using different preset filters.

Simplicity

We have a million and one toys and this is what the boys have been playing with all weekend. It's been a hiding spot during Hide & Seek (in which Ian had Logan completely stumped as to where he was), it's been a spot to sit and watch tv, a train and it's been a concession stand. Logan decided to sell $6.99 hotdogs. No drink, no side item, just the hotdog for $6.99. What a ripoff! LOL Ian wanted it to be a pizza shop. His pizzas- $20! Ouch!

The imagination is a wonderful thing.

Water Fun Friday

There was no school yesterday so we decided to go to some spray fountains in a nearby (Nice-Wish-I-Could-Afford-to-Live-There) neighborhood with some playgroup friends. The boys loved running thru the water. Despite getting very lost trying to find it (totally forgot I had GPS in the car LOL) it was a nice morning.

Star Wars Meet & Greet

My mom called me yesterday from Toys R Us to ask me about gifts and to tell me that there were Star Wars characters at the store. I was planning to go out that way anyway so I packed all the kids up and we stopped there first. While the store was pretty busy, the characters were not. Guess not many people shop at the toy store with their kids (SMART!!). It was almost better than going to Disney to see them bc we could actually get up close without the crowds. They even had a real R2D2 robot that *talked*, rolled around and had the LED lights that flickered and such. Very cool! Logan went right up to everyone. Ian was a bit more timid but when I said "last chance", he decided to go see them. He was leary of the guns they carried until I reassured him that they were just pretend.

Pics: I'm not sure who all the characters are. I'm just going by what I think Logan told me. LOL


Princess Leia, Obi Wan Kenobi(?) Or is it Hans Solo? and R2D2


Sand Trooper (?) in background


Clone/Storm Trooper (?)


Snow Trooper and Pilot


Oh and Batman. Not Star Wars but they were thrilled!

Friday Disney Fun

After school today we packed everyone up and headed to Disney. Yea!!! We decided on DHS for a few reasons, the main one being the Osbourne Family Lights. It's awesome year after year. This year they were selling *3D* glasses for $0.99. Thankfully passholders got them free because I would have been disappointed otherwise. Logan liked his though. It's not easy to describe how they made things look. Dh put 2 pairs together at one point and it got trippy. Colors everywhere, rainbows and the people became translucent like. It was like watching some sci fi movie. If you've never seen the light show, they do dancing lights every 10-15min. I'll try to upload a video for you. Logan was a dancing fool himself. ;)

We also saw a few characters we hadn't met yet like Frozone from the Incredibles and Sorcerer Mickey. We also saw Mr & Mrs Incredible again. We just missed the characters from Bolt. Oh well. Wall-E is still not there. A castmember was saying something about his battery wouldn't stay charged and they are having issues with him so I guess he won't be around for a while longer. Bummer. I was hoping the kids would get to meet him before our passes expire. Bella enjoyed the characters I think. She slobbered all over Mickey's nose so I think that's a good sign.

I was smart today and packed pj's for all the kids so when they inevitably fell asleep on the way home, we were all set. Bella was the only one who actually woke up once we got home. Now they are all tucked in and hopefully having sweet dreams of Disney.

I'll try to get pics posted tonight or tomorrow!

Our Elf is here!

Since the kids all went to see the Big Guy himself last night, I guess the BG thought it was the perfect time to send one of his elves to watch over us. He's just here to observe and report back to the BG on all naughty and nice goings on and maybe get into some mischief himself. You know how they are.

Apparently while they boys were asleep last night, our elf helped himself to their Legos and made some kind of red Lego vehicle. He then parked himself way up on top of the kitchen cabinets on top of their Star Wars Lego vehicle for the night. Logan spotted him this morning and was going on and on about it. When Ian woke up, Logan grabbed his hand and showed him our Elf and then led him all over the house to see if the Elf had done anything else. It was funny.

We'll see what other adventures he gets himself into....

Two Milestones in One Evening

Here's the first...

Bella got to meet Santa for the 1st time. She had no issues at all and I didn't think she would. She mainly wanted to squirm around to see who was holding her or to grab Mrs. Claus' earrings. Ian was a bit shy at first but once he saw I wasn't leaving him, he was okay. Both he and Logan told Santa what they wanted and gave him a big hug.
(Btw, there was NO wait time! This was around 4pm-ish tonight)


And can you see the other one? Look closely.


She got her ears pierced! We went to the Piercing Pagoda and had them done. She was super squirmy while they were marking her ears but I held her tight when they pierced her. She barely made a peep. Daddy was more freaked out then she was. LOL The other sales lady and the customer she was working with were both surprised that Bella didn't scream or cry. They had no idea we were even done yet. She said she should have videotaped the whole thing to show other kids how easy it is. LOL I think it's harder and maybe more painful (even if it's just in your head) when you do it as they get older. I had mine done at 13. Hated the wait and thought it hurt like hell.

She did however cause mischief elsewhere. We were in Hallmark and I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing. I just didn't think about it. I was wearing her in my O&A on my front and she grabbed one of their metal tree displays holding the stuffed reindeer and pulled it over. Ugh. Dh had to pick it all up. I guess she really liked the look of those reindeer!

Science Olympics

Today was the Science Olympics at our local Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). Logan and his friend Justin were chosen out of all the kindergarteners in our school to participate. Unfortunately, Justin was a no show so Logan had to do it by himself. They had a 10 min time limit to build the tallest structure they could from cups and folders. Logan built his and then just sat there waiting. LOL I have a feeling that some of the parents really practiced at home with their kids. So he didn't win but he was proud of himself and did very well! There was one kid I just wanted to yell at. He was sitting closest to Logan and kept reaching over to Logan's tower and acting like he was going to knock it down. This was before it was even measured. All parents were in the room yet noone said a word to this kid. Ugh.

After it was all over we were free to enjoy the museum for the rest of the day for free! And that's just what we did. The boys had a blast. Bella was on my back in my O&A and took at least 2 naps back there. Never heard a peep from her. We went from floor to floor and enjoyed everything.

I only had one issue and it's a sensitive one (re: fetuses) so feel free to skip to the next paragraph. There was a whole section called The Amazing You. For the most part it was a cool area- all about the body, hearing, sight, pregnancy ultrasounds, lungs, height/weight and a neat Hollywood Squares type gameshow with puppets. There was one area though that was behind a wall that had different fetuses in various stages of development. Had they not been real babies, I probably wouldn't have had such issues. On one hand I was fascinated by it. I could see what I've only read about so many times online when I was pregnant. Tiny fingers at 12 weeks, lips, ears, etc. BUT I was also saddened that these were real babies. They were on loan from another institute. I could only look at the smaller of them. The most term baby- approx 27 weeks- was just too close to home as I can't even imagine losing a baby let alone a baby that far along. I wanted to cry for them.

Along those lines, I did see a preemie doll in an incubator (okay, not sure if that's the correct technical term) that was sooo teeny. It was a *live* doll too in that you could see it move and breathe. I was okay with that.

We eventually moved on to the Kids In Charge area where the boys could do puzzles, tug of war, go grocery shopping, milk a cow, see how gears work, etc. It's a really neat area. I decided it was far past time for Bella to eat so I found a bench to sit on. Here's the irony- I picked the one bench near the cow milking area! Hahaha! It didn't even occur to me until I was already sitting there nursing her.

So on to some pictures!

Logan's tower


Posing after the contest was over.


Hurricane wind tunnel- this was probably around 70+ mph


Coming in for a landing


Star gazing


Rope maze. We pretended they were laser beams they had to crawl under. Logan and Ian had fun rolling and crawling under them.


Hey! Where's my body?


My boys morphed into one.


Yes, the guy moving back and forth in front of me without paying attention to anyone behind him was quite annoying. The 2 kids in the very front won.

Halloween!

Our night started with the boys bugging us. Is it dark yet? Can we got ToTing yet? Is it dark enough yet? We let them get their costumes on for pictures but being they couldn't sit down in them, they had to take them off again until it was time to go. We did hit more houses this year than usual. The boys even braved the house with the graveyard, scary music, fog machine, and strobe light only to find they had gone out ToT'ing and weren't home!

Halfway thru, Logan once again started in on the "can we go home now?" spiel. His candy was "too heavy". My response, if you can't carry it, you can't eat it. Sorry bud. I've got Bella in my arms and a flashlight too. There were a LOT of homes with no lights on, a few I wasn't sure about (had decorations up but no porch light) and a few with lights and noone answering. Seriously, how long have kids been ToT'ing and you don't know to turn OFF your light if you aren't participating? The boys got plenty though. I already raided their candy for the chocolate. Sshhh.

It was a beautiful night too. Not hot or humid. It was perfect. Bella fell asleep (way past her bedtime) part of the way. I had to try and keep her head from flopping. I couldn't wear her with her tutu on. She also decided to try eating her tulle and ended up spitting up a few times. Lovely. I had to rinse her tutu out when we got home. It was rather gross. She is such a good baby. She never fussed at all despite being out so late. In fact, when we came back inside she was smiling and giggling at me.

So without further ado, here are our Halloween 2008 pictures!

Julie, it's hard to see, but you may recognize this shirt. She was wearing the pumpkin socks too! I already had a black headband and found the bows at Target's $1 spot.


I picked up the cape and hat at Kmart while getting diapers. I had the spiderweb stockings leftover from a clearance sale from who knows when.


The boys got a lot of compliments on their Lego costumes. One lady thought Ian was a stoplight though. Hmmm good idea for next year!


Bella got her fair share of Ooh's and aah's too.