Happy Halloween 2021

It has been a fantastic Halloween around here.  We started out early with Marshall trick or treating us!   Poppy and Saige  set her up real good with a whole bucket load of her favorites.  

For several weeks, Evie has been telling Jim he has to be poppy pirate.  So he dressed up.  She stood there staring at him like he lost his marbles.  It was hilarious.  Probably because he was speaking with a pirate accent and asking her if she wanted to share his booty.  

Evie made quite a few stops and seemed like she was having an amazing day!  

My trick or treating days are getting pretty light. I only had a vampire bride and a smurf to drag around!   

Quincy and Landrie joined us for a little while, but then crashed at Mallory’s to watch a horror movie.  I love their costumes this year.  They are always hilarious.  

Mallory ended up with a lot of us hanging out at her house tonight.  Good thing she is flexible.  Her dogs looked awesome in their costumes.  They were the wicked witch and Glenda the good witch.  

Cameron and Lauren came over for a while and finished taking the girls trick or treating.  It was awesome!   They are so sweet!  They went a lot further than I would have taken them I think.  The girls got ridiculous amounts of loot!  

Always sad when Halloween is over, as it is always the best day!  Also I am sad that the kids have school tomorrow.  I am, as usual, not ready for the weekend to end!  

28 years

Twenty-eight (28!) years of wedded bliss with this dude.  It is so weird to think it has been 28 years since we planned a wedding, a trip to Florida and started out life together.  Never could I have imagined the journey would be like this.  We have been incredibly blessed.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been hard or bad times, but you know what they say about marriage that rings true always?   Marriage is wanting to kill your spouse, but you don’t do it because you’d miss them if they were gone.  Accurate.  I’m sure for the record, he’s thought about choking me out as well.  

Some things in the last 28 years I am incredibly proud of - a list. 

1.  Our 8 children.  They are all unique and beautiful.  They are all hard working, empathetic and mostly kind.  

2. Our ability to overcome adversity.  

3. Our dream to build a life we love, and working together to make it real.  

As husbands go, I got a great one.  I am a lucky woman to do life with Jim.  

Fall fun stuff

The kids had a day off of school today.  Quincy had to work, and Preston had plans with his friends (which we allowed him to do only after helping me load/unload goats for the sale tomorrow). I told the younger crowd we would do fun fall stuff today.  I was told that South Baldwin Farm was having a wagon sale on pumpkins. Whatever you could fit in the wagon was a set price.   I had also seen online that they had their Granny Smith apples that were the odd shaped ones for 50 cents a pound.  These seemed like reasonable reasons to make a journey to me. Harper absolutely did not agree with me.  So she stayed home watching a movie  and   Saige and I went over.  Saige had to trudge through a lot of mud to fill her wagon, but we had decided she could get a few more to carve, and the rest we will attempt to make our own canned pie filing.  The man at the farm told me that these pumpkins will have the consistency of applesauce when you cook them down.  I’m trying to figure out if that is bad?   The consistency of canned pumpkin is like that right?  Experimenting will commence tomorrow and I will report back I guess.  We also got apples to make caramel apples tomorrow.  

This evening, Evelyn was spending the night with Mallory.  They came out to do fun stuff with us.  We carved pumpkins, roasted seeds,  made popcorn balls and had snacks for dinner.  It was a fun evening.  I love fall/Halloween stuff!  

Goings on

Saige wanted to dye her hair.  One thing we have never cared much about when parenting is hair choices.  Her hair is now a lovely shade of metallic blue.  This color is pretty cool.  It looks black unless the light hits it, and then it is electric blue.  I like it.  I could never pull it off, but she’s happy about it.  It is semi-permanent so I would say this blue phase will last about 6-8 weeks. 

The goats are going to the auction on Saturday.   Although Evelyn and Jim are equally sad about it, the rest of us aren’t all that torn up.  Dale Pink, while very friendly, has a bad habit of head butting everyone, and frankly, I am tired of getting knocked in the knees.  Jim had a couple days off this week, and was cutting brush.  They helped him by munching all the remaining leaves off of what he cut.   Jim had a couple fires going as well.  Evie and the goats were all pretty happy with Poppy and his work.  

While I was coloring Saige’s hair, this one stole my phone.  If you take 100 pictures, I will post them.  These kids never learn.  

I am low key excited about the upcoming weekend.  Of course, Halloween is my favorite.  I am going to be a witch.  This is my non-black but still somewhat scary cat for my costume.   :) it should be lots of fun!   

Fall junk

Last summer, Mallory attended a conference in Orlando.  She came home extremely excited about the things she had learned there.  One of the things she wanted to do was have “Rock you school day” at her school.  She came home and worked her hump off fundraising for this really fun day. The kids all got shirts, they had science experiments, guest speakers, touch a truck, STEM activities and a whole bunch of other junk.   The kids had so much fun.  The adults did a great job.  I was very proud of the work Mallory put into this.   Gg and Evie went over for a little while.  Evie was excited because she got to go to “her school- and got a strawberry milk”. 

Saige was perturbed because it was only an Overbrook school thing and she didn’t get to go to it.  

Saige’s teacher has been challenging them to read.  Her homework this week was to read with her pet.  Carlos didn’t really like this assignment.  

Friday I took Quincy to get her sports physical.   Evie went along.  I have never heard a child grill a doctor the way she did.  She must have asked 200 questions.  Things like “hey…why you squishing her tummy?”   It was pretty funny.  

Friday night, I was incredibly tired.  I thought about skipping out on the football game and going to bed. Then Preston came home, and was excited about the halftime show they were presenting.  So I stayed in my clothes, and went to watch.  I’m glad I was there, they sounded great!   

Today, the PRIDE had a fall festival.  The 4-H hosted  a petting zoo.   We took in a couple of animals and worked a couple of shifts.   The festival was a lot of fun.  I was excited to get myself a water tower cookie cutter with the town theme on it.   

We watched them set up the bounce house, and Evelyn was completely mesmerized and wanted to go.   But when we walked over for her to jump, she freaked out a little bit and didn’t like it.  She did go down the slide with aunt Bubba though.   

Cameron and Lauren went pumpkin picking.  I love them both so much.  Thanks for the pictures Lauren!  

Evelyn was very well behaved today. She loves the cow named Rosie!   I’m so glad she got to spend the day with us!