What's the happiest day of the Year?

HALLOWEEN!

Madison was a sorcerer

Mallory was a wicked witch

Colin as Michael Jackson

Cameron was a murdering alien

Preston was a blue Power Ranger

And Quincy was a witch in training

The whole tribe including some cousins at Grandma Shirley's house

My tribe ready to terrorize the neighborhood!!

I have always loved Halloween! I don't know of a cooler holiday- when else can you put on a weird costume and go beg your neighbors for candy and not get into trouble for it? It is the greatest! We had a great night! Colin, Cameron, Preston and Quincy and I went trick-or-treating for several hours with some friends of ours. Quincy made it for exacty 4 houses and then she was done. Preston made it quite far, and is now very excited with his 'stash' of candy. I am pretty sure that Colin and Cam would still be out knocking on doors if I hadn't made them come in!

Mallory and Madison stayed home with Jim and passed out candy. They have several of their friends upstairs giggling away for a Halloween sleepover.

The weather was great, and I can't think of anything more fun!

I hope you all had a great Halloween!!!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is Jim and my 16th wedding anniversary. Funny how fast the years have gone by. It is also funny to me now, as I carry baby #7 how in the early days of our marriage I was so afraid we would never become parents! In the past 16 years we have:

• added 6 beloved children to our tribe, with at least one more to join shortly!
• moved 4 times
• bought land for a future move
• laughed and cried numerous times
• been comforted by each other during loss
• shook our heads at the things that our children say
• purchased more vehicles than I can count, and blown them up!
• between the two of us, worked more jobs than I can count!
• been blessed immeasurably!

Happy Anniversary Jim - I am one lucky woman, and I thank God every day for bringing us together! Who knew when I went bar hopping back in the day that I would get such a prize!

Quincy's day to party!

These are the crazy ghost cookies that Quincy and I made for her class...when we finished Madison thought they looked more like skulls. The kids at Jumpstart preschool loved them!
Quincy had her Halloween party today. She was so excited! She got to color on her own little pumpkin, and bring it home. Never was a child so proud of a pumpkin I don't think!

After doing some crafts and games, they trick-or-treated the church offices. Cameron was once again the event photographer, but this time he managed to get his "best buddy" in some of the photos! Quincy is a bat, but she wouldn't keep the hood part up - and if you look closely you might notice she somehow escaped wearing shoes as well!

It rained and rained all day here today. Since all our practices and events were cancelled, we had a nice evening at home carving pumpkins. Notice in this photo, that our daughter is wearing a KU shirt - it was not a proud moment in our house when we realized that she got her name drawn at school today and PICKED this out. She giggled as she told me that she picked out this shirt especially to antagonize her father!

We HAD to carve the little pumpkin that Quincy got at school. It turned out cute!

Preston's pumpkin must have had a small hole in it. When I opened it up it was absolutely rotten inside. He had been so excited a few minutes earlier! Big brother Colin agreed to scoop out the yuck for him and we quickly carved it anyhow and set it outside - it was pretty stinky!

The warty weird pumpkin that Cameron picked we could not carve. It is apparently some sort of a gourd. The thing is hard as a brick. I even tried to use my ginsu knife to no avail. He ended up carving Quincy's pumpkin, since she had an extra one from school today. Next year we will pay a little more attention at the pumpkin patch!

City Park Tree Planting

In case you are wondering, my son doesn't usually dress this way, but it was sock day for Red Ribbon Week.

Jim and the kids spent the evening planting trees at the new city park. They are going to be so nice when they get some growth on them! I think it will be neat for the kids to watch these trees grow and know that they planted them.

I didn't make it to help with this project, as I attended parent teacher conferences. Our kids are doing fine academically, and don't seem to be causing any trouble in the school. I have to admit that I was a little frustrated after driving over there, to have the teachers tell me that they really had nothing to say, but then my friend Grace pointed out that this is a true blessing and that I should be thankful for it, so I am going to look at it that way!

Other happenings of the day, Cameron has been a little bit on the miserable side being home schooled. He has been doing great academically, and we are very proud of the work that he puts in. He hasn't fought us on any projects, assignments, or other things of that nature. However, he was feeling a little bit left out socially. Despite trying to get him signed up for activities, it was a struggle for him to wonder what his friends are doing and how everyone is getting along. After a few days of discussing this with him, he asked if he could go back to school. So today, we enrolled him back with his friends. He will be attending school in Scranton, as that is where they have the 3rd and 4th graders. He will start on Monday. Today we got to tour the school, meet his teacher and see who will be in his class. He was happy that there are several of his old friends from Overbrook in the class. I have mixed emotions about this, mostly I will miss having him around! I really enjoyed home school, and I know that Preston and Quincy are going to miss his "recess" time. I hope he will be happy at Scranton, and our one true hope for him is that he gets a good education.

Preston's Preschool Halloween

Preston is the one on the right
Preston's preschool had their Halloween party today. Cameron went along as our event photographer. He took a ton of photos, and they are really great, but very few were of his brother! Preston had a fun time doing crafts, playing games and trick-or-treating the church offices. Tomorrow we are going back for Quincy's party, where I am the snack mom. I have made some ghost cookies that Madison informed me look more like skulls. I will post photos tomorrow.

Nothing new

In saying that I have lost track of yet another week! It was a busy one, but I can't really say doing what! Mallory had a headache and laid on the couch for 3 days, she never ran a fever or had any other symptoms, but she truly didn't feel good. She seems much better now, and nobody else seems to have a mysterious headache, hopefully nobody else will! We have had a full weekend as well. Colin played in his last official game, although we are waiting to hear if his team goes to a tournament in November or not. I guess even though they are technically done playing, they will continue to practice for a few more days just in case!
We played a little bingo at the nursing home up the street. The residents truly enjoy playing this game, and they are pretty serious about it...especially if there are prizes! We joined with another family from our church to do this, their kids are trying to get community service hours in as well! I was absolutely amazed by Preston, though. He sat in a chair and very seriously played bingo - and needed very little help - the stinker has somehow has picked up his numbers. I thought he would need help with the bigger ones, but he was pretty self-sufficient. He even got a bingo!

Lawrence Virtual School is having a pumpking decorating contest - this is Cam's entry. He had a great time designing this witch and did most of the work himself. I only helped a little bit with the hair. He is very proud of his creation!

I hosted the first craft meeting for the new 4-H year this weekend. The crafters made bath salts which we will be selling at the Overbrook Craft Sale in a couple of weeks. We made some funky colors for fun after we got our jars filled. This is a great and EASY craft, and the kids really love it! The nice part is that if they accidentally spill, it sweeps right up! And it leaves the house smelling nice for a few days too. The only problem I have with it is that right now, certain smells really don't set well, so I had to really limit the scents that we used this time! The kids didn't seem to mind. We made apple, pear and plumeria scented salts. I found the little cork jars at Michael's and they were very cheap. I like how they turned out!

Colin, Cameron and Jim attended the KSU Homecoming game against Colorado yesterday with Uncle Jay. They had such a great time! Cameron got Frank Martin's autograph on the hat with Bill Snyder's autograph. He now thinks that rather than $1000, the hat is now either worth a million dollars, or is totally priceless! I hope he still feels that way at the end of both football and basketball seasons! (I still didn't allow him to wear the hat to church this morning!)

Preston is 5!

Happy Birthday big guy - we all love ya!

Yes, I did make them!

Colin and Cam - and this was willingly!

This on the other hand, I had to force!

Madison was a good sport and indulged her mother!

Colin picked out a pumpkin with a few warts...

I ended up talking Quincy into an orange pumpkin - she likes green though!

Cameron picked out this monster warty pumpkin!

Preston officially turned 5 years old today. As I mentioned, he requested lunch at McDonalds and a shopping spree with which to pick out his own birthday gifts. Since the other kids had a day off of school, it made it pretty easy to slip in a trip to the pumpkin patch today as well! We had a great day, with perfect weather and lots of fun!

When I was pregnant with Preston, I remember telling the kids and having Madison burst into tears - "we don't need any more kids in our family" - she was 8 years old at the time and just couldn't imagine having another little one around! It progressed from there to "if it is a girl we can keep her" - but that wasn't meant to be either! Funny part of the story - one look at that little baby and Madison was in love. She only put him down when she was at school or when I was feeding him! She nicknamed him "Precious" and he was hers - and still is to this day! She would move heaven and earth for her little brother, and no doubt about it, she is very blessed by his presence in her life! We all are! He is such a fun kid - because of all the older siblings his vocabulary is astounding - and some of the stuff that comes from his mouth even though it isn't always appropriate, is truly hilarious! Today for example - I came home from work early and took the kids to lunch, the pumpkin patch, and Wal-mart to let Preston pick out his own gift. When we got in the van to come home Preston told me "thanks mom -when I got up and you weren't home, I thought that my birthday was going to suck bigtime....but it turned out to be a really rockin' day"

I really am not fond of the 5 year old saying stuff sucks - but in this case I just had to giggle at him! Jim and I are very lucky to have been entrusted by God to raise such a fun little guy!

The Pumpkin Patch is a place that I truly love taking the kids to each fall. We always go to the Shaake's Pumpkin farm, as it is a family that I went to 4-H with growing up, and I enjoy seeing them and their growing brood of kids! Not to mention that it is all free - the hayrack rides, the hay maze, the playground, seeing their animals. The only thing that costs any money is if you decide to purchase a pumpkin (or in our case a trunk load of pumpkins). Most anyone who knows me knows that Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday! We had a great time today picking out pumpkins and playing around the Shaake's farm. There is only one rule, and it is my rule - you can get any pumpkin that you want, but you have to carry it back by yourself! I also have to point out - and I think you can tell from the photos, Cam picked out the absolute grossest looking pumpkin I have ever seen - the thing looks like it is covered in warts - and he is extremely proud of it. I can't help but wonder what it will look like when we carve it next week!

Parties, Football, Wrestling, & more Parties

I am not sure that even if we wanted to, we could have shoved one more thing into this weekend! We had a birthday party for Preston's 5th. I have had a running theme of late on not knowing what happened to the week, well that goes double for not knowing where the past 5 years has gone. Preston had his heart set on taking everyone fishing yesterday, followed by a picnic at the park. Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate with his plans. He still got to go fishing, and some of his friends did join him, however we had to move his picnic indoors because the weather was about 45 degrees with a pretty good north wind. Jim took the kids fishing, and Preston was very excited because he caught 10 fish, one of which I understand was a big large mouth bass, which he reeled in all by himself. Preston, Quincy, and their friend really had a great time playing with the night crawlers as well!

Preston had a great party! He seemed to really enjoy himself, and wasn't too upset that his picnic idea got squashed! Mostly, if you serve hot dogs and cake he will be a happy boy!

Colin attended a wrestling clinic at Baker University yesterday as well. Luckily, his coach was kind enough to bring him home, so Jim only had to brave the Maple Leaf Festival one time! Colin came home super excited because of some moves that he learned - one that he had been using before but the way he was doing it is illegal, so now he knows how to legally do the move - I believe he called it a ball and chain, but I am not real clear on that. I have learned a ton about wrestling in the past year, but I have a long, long way to go to be a good "wrestling mom" mostly I bite off all my nails worrying he will break his neck or something. I am learning though! The most exciting part for him yesterday was that he wrestled the kid who beat him out to go to state last year, and he beat the kid! He was tickled with himself! He said if that kid is in his bracket this year it will NOT keep him out of the state tournament!

We had a brunch at church today to welcome our new priest. I am not sure why it has taken us so long to welcome this man, as he has been here for 2 months already, but today was the day! Mallory and Madison were a ton of help with the cleanup and were excited to get a few more of those community service hours knocked off.

After the brunch, it was home to try to do a little bit of laundry and then Jim took off to take Cameron to his flag football game while I made stuff to take to the 4-H fall party. Its my understanding that I missed a great football game, with Cam getting both an interception and a touchdown for his team.

The fall party was a lot of fun, the kids went trick-or-treating for canned goods to donate to the local food pantry (another community service hour knocked off!!) and then they played games and ate some dinner. Because of all the activity today, we did not cook any meals at home - we had brunch at church and dinner at 4-H! I guess there are some benefits to being crazy busy after all!

I asked Preston what he wanted to do for his birthday tomorrow and his great plan is to go to McDonalds! He also wants me to take him to pick out his own gifts like I did for the girls - I guess his days of trusting me to pick out cool stuff are over! I thought it was funny that he remembered that the girls got a shopping trip for their birthday last year! I guess those hours in the women's dressing room scarred him for life!! I don't foresee him picking out lots of clothes tomorrow!!