Happy Belated Halloween

Here's a picture of our annual trek to the Pumpkin farm... notice much difference from last year?




Hayden's last football game



The kids carving pumpkins. Howie said that it was easier with a jig saw. Drill baby, Drill.



Mason dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween. After Trick-or-Treating, we walked down to a friends house for a party. While we were walking, Mason insisted on swinging his light saber in figure "8"'s in the air. After several warnings for him to stop before he hit me with it, he hit me with it. So I took it away, with a promise to give it back when we got to the party. To which he replied " Mom,( insert way too mature tone here ) I'm not saying that you have BAD parenting skills , but I don't think you should have done that". Hmmmm.

Elise decided that she wanted to be Cinderella back in July, so she happily put her Cinderella dress on on Thursday, the day of her school parade. By Friday morning, she decided that the Cinderella dress was itchy, and she wanted to be a Witch. I never would have consented, but a friend of ours had a Witch costume, and, well, it was easier than fighting with her. But by Friday night she had figured out the Witch costume was itchy, and she found an old Elephant costume of Hayden's which she liked. This suprised me, as it wasn't pink, didn't have any beads, lace, glitter, or other "girly" stuff. But who was I to argue? Dressing her every day is a battle, so I let this one go too.

What's Up?

Too much around here, which explains why it's been forever since I've posted. Between football practice, football games and ballet lessons, there's not a whole lot of spare time. I have pics I'll post later.

I got a call a few weeks ago from Mason's teacher. She was concerned because Mason was having stomach aches during school and she didn't know what to do with him. She explained that she had sent him to the nurse's office, let him use the restroom
(TMI), let him walk around the room, and nothing helped. She thought perhaps that he should change what he ate for breakfast. After asking a few questions, I figured out that these " stomachaches" start right before math class, around 10:30, and right before recess they magically go away. So I kindly let the teacher know that Mason's stomach hurt because MATH doesn't agree with him, not his breakfast. Howie and I had a little talk with Mason about how his behavior disrupted the rest of the class, and amazingly he hasn't had a stomachache since.

Mason asked me the other morning "Mom, if you get a scholarship to a college do you HAVE to go there? " I was a little puzzled at why he would think to ask this, but responded that No, you didn't have to go to that school, but that college cost a lot of money, and it would be a shame to waste a scholarship. He looked a little troubled by that answer, but went on to catch the bus.
When he got off the bus that day, he asked the same question, and I gave the same answer. He then clarified his question . He asked " But Mom, if I got a scholarship to Michigan, would I HAVE to go there?". The look of relief on his face when I told him we would make an exception to a scholarship at Michigan was priceless!

New Glasses

I took E for her four year check up in July. They do a vision screening then, and she flunked miserably. So when the boys had their eyes checked in August, I made an appointment for her, as well. However in true E fashion, she was completely unco-operative, and we had to forgo the exam. I re-scheduled it for last week in the hopes that if I made the appointment with the female optometrist in the office, rather than the male doctor we always use, I might have better luck getting her to sit still. Well, I was partly right. She sat through about half of the exam, enough to know that she has a moderate astigmatism in both eyes. She didn't get through the part of the exam to measure near-sightedness, which she has. We just don't know how bad. So we have to go back again in a couple of months to determine what else she needs to correct her vision. Baby steps...Baby steps....

But doesn't she look SOOO cute?

First Day of School

The Bus Stop

More Vacation

The visit to this park was the perfect topper to an already very wet vacation. We were parka experts by this Saturday. However, the rain held off until the parade started at 4pm. Below, pics of the 3 kids while it was dry; E during the torrential downpour, it was too bad to even walk back to the tram, so we just kind of huddled under the canopy of a gift shop. Finally, a picture of the quickest parade in Disney history. Mickey is soaked, and a security guard near us said the record for the parade is 7 minutes in inclement weather. I think they did ours in 6 !

Dinner with Cinderella....

Disney Character breakfasts are a big deal. Not only are they expensive, they are very difficult to get a reservation for. I found out about 2 months before the trip that to have Breakfast or Lunch with Cinderella in her castle requires that you call the reservation hotline 180 DAYS before you desired day. I was able to find 1 reservation at the Grand Floridian resort with Cinderella. The reservation was for 3 people at 8:30 at night, but by golly, I was determined we were going. I was sooooo wrong to insist on this.......


You can see how much she loved Prince Charming....he was nice enough to come to our talbe 3 time to get a picture, and this was the best we could get.. doesn't she look happy to see him?

And this is my favorite picture of her with Cinderella... again, the joy on her face is priceless, and don't I look like the most patient mother in the world?


Here we finally figured out that if the characters snuck up behind her, she would get her picture taken and not know that they were there. So in both of these, the step sisters ( who were hysterical, by the way. ) were kind enough to very quietly pose behind her, and she was clueless. But the picture turned out great!







And just because I think this is funny!

Belated Vacation Pics

So we've been back for almost 2 weeks and I've neglected to post. It's taken that long to recoup from vacation, get the kids back into a schedule for school. I'm going to try and post some pics in chronological order from our trip, but no promises!



We met my old college roomate, Shae, her husband Matt, and 3 girls on the way down. We stayed in Chattanooga and they were kind enough to drive down from Murfreesboro to meet us for dinner. I hadn't seen her in about 7 years, and had lost touch for a while, so this was one of the highlights of the trip for me!

Here we are at a TGIF Friday's in Kissimmee...due to Tropical Storm Fay, we spent a lot of time indoors killing time. It's us 5, plus Howie's dad, Dan, and Step-mom Judy.





All 3 kids getting ice cream at Hollywood studios.... we were very hot, wet and tired by this time, it was the last thing we did at this park..