Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Richard and Rolanda 

And from the scarecrow, Elsa and the angel/devil.  

And from aunt Mal.  

Happiest day of the year.  Preston said he’s too old for Halloween.   Preston is full of it.  

Halloween is ageless.  

As my kids have grown, it is sort of sad that they no longer want me to take them out to get candy.  Saige is out with friends, Harper and Quincy had a great route planned out.  

I’m hanging at aunt Mal’s watching her hand out candy and enjoying the kids costumes.  

Hope your Halloween was happy and that you scored all of the good candy!  

29 years is not that long

29 years ago, I married this extremely amazing man, who completely had my heart.  We had some goals that we set.  We wanted a big family.  We wanted to work towards a house in the country.  We wanted to ensure our kids were given the tools to be more successful than we are.  We wanted to be together, no matter what.  I feel like we have been incredibly successful in working together to accomplish these goals.  It makes me proud to look back on the things we have been able to accomplish.  Life isn’t always perfect, and we have had our share of bad days, but I can honesty said the good far outweighs the bad.  I’m glad I have my Kog to walk beside me.  

One thing I didn’t think about back in 1993,  was the date of our wedding.  I only wanted a fall wedding and I love Halloween so October 30 seemed like a perfect day!   It has occasionally been necessary to celebrate on a different day due to the kids having parties, needing costumes, making treats for school etc.  Jim never seems to mind my crazy ideas and lack of ability to have our anniversary be a special day.  

This year, there is no school on Halloween, so all the school stuff got done last week.  I, however wanted to have Sunday dinner with all these Pinterest ideas I had been holding into.  So Jim and I went out for dinner last night, had a nice meal in Ottawa and then he went fishing with Evie and Andrew.  KSU creamed OSU, and it was a nice day for us.  Evelyn out fished both her dad and her Poppy!  

Cameron had a hall party.  He could break out the David S. Pumpkin outfit again since he is in a new location.  I still think this is hilarious.  

Spencer’s birthday was Friday.  I hope she had a great day!  

This evening, I broke out all the Halloween excitement.  I made a feet loaf. 

Jalapeño popper Mummies. 

Spider pigs in a blanket, and cinnamon roll intestines.  

We carved the pumpkins, made some crafts, and decorated cookies.  

We may have run out of frosting before we were done, because Evelyn likes her frosting thick!  

The feet loaf was good, but definitely looked more foot like before I cooked it!  

I am amazed at how fast the last 29 years went by.  I am constantly sad about how fast the weekends fly by. We had a really fun weekend and I am glad we have another day where I don’t have to get up as early.  Im sure it will be a fun, crazy day though. 

Last and first parade and the candy man

There is no school on Monday, which is Halloween day, so the schools had their Halloween parades and parties today.  Saige’s class was at 9:30 in Carbondale.  This is her last Halloween parade.  My mom convinced me that we could stand at the beginning of her parade, catch her class and then be in Scranton to catch Evie in her first ever parade at 10.  She was correct.  It happened.  Saige was the purple minion, but the school didn’t want face painting, so she improvised.  She wanted to be some horror movie character, but the school said no blood or gore. She complained that the school takes the fun out of Halloween, but missing the parade (and subsequently the candy) was out of the question.  

Evie was Elsa.  When she was waiting for her bus this morning, I noticed that of the 5 girls waiting 4 were Elsa!  We attended the parade of Elsa.  And they were all so cute!  The teachers and paras were all Dalmatians and the assistant superintendent was Cruella Deville.  It was also cute!  Evie was so happy and excited. I’m glad we were able to catch her!  

After the morning parades, I went back to work but stopped off to get Evie a lunch.   I might tell this story every year, but the Overbrook school always sends out a flyer telling the merchants that they will be coming to trick or treat and how many kids to expect.  Whatever they say, you should about double because people show up with younger siblings, and a few of the town day cares usually join in the parade as well.   Every year, Jim buys candy and “should” have plenty. But the man absolutely loves handing out candy!  He loves seeing the kids and giving them the goods.  He will start off handing them each 3-4 pieces and by the end he is always running so low that I start to panic.  So today, I stopped and got him an extra couple hundred pieces. I joked when I dropped it off with the assistant city clerk to watch him, because he can’t help himself.  She said she thought they had plenty of candy, but welcomed having some extra.  When it was over, including the stuff that I brought, Mr. City Clerk had about 15 pieces left. His assistant thanked me for buying the extra!   I was still sort of hyperventilating, but once again it worked out!   

Evelyn had an amazing time helping him!  She handed out a ton of candy, and several times I heard her telling Poppy to only give one piece!  

I love the Halloween parades.  I love seeing the kids and the unique costumes and the ones who stop to give ya a hug!   They always look so cute!  

All the excitement had Evie exhausted. I think the therapy dog was also exhausted.  I caught them resting together!   

Also caught sight of Mal.  She was Shaggy from Scooby Doo. One of the other 1st grade teachers was Scooby.  

It was a fun day.  I am fully invested in going to bed now because I am absolutely exhausted!  

Saving photos

When we had Sunday dinner this week, Evie was in her hot mess mood.  She actually wanted me to take a picture of her.  Then she smiles like this.  Then she got her mom's phone and proceeded to take 110 close up photos of my head.  When they started to go home, she had a sack of stuff she wanted to take to her house.  Most of it was stuff that was hers that had somehow migrated to our house.  Luckily, I looked in the bag before she took off, because Harper's air pods were in there!  About an hour after they left, Saige was upset because she couldn't find her air pods.  We all looked around, but couldn't find them.  We knew they were in the house because she has a location tracker, but all our efforts were just not working out.  She went to bed upset.  I told her to ask Evelyn in the morning and see if she happened to know where they were.  When Evie got to the house yesterday, Saige asked her if she knew where the air pods were.  Evie said no.  After a little while of more searching (because you just CANNOT ride the bus without air pods) I heard Saige tell Evie if she found them, she would give her $5.  I warned Saige that if she told her that, she would have to pay her.  I then left on the bus.  When I came back 45 minutes later, Saige had her air pods, and Evie had a bag of money.  Apparently, upon the idea of getting cold hard cash, Evie suddenly remembered putting them in an old purse in Saige's room!  If you know Saige at all, this is hilarious because she is usually the one getting paid to "find" stuff that she has taken without permission.  Karma at its finest.  

Quincy's car broke down.  She decided rather than sinking more money into it, she would just start looking for a different car.  She got her bank account balance, and then told me she had a "few dollars" in her room from her tips for waitressing last summer.  She went downstairs and appeared with a thick wad of cash.  She had over a thousand dollars just laying around in her bedroom.  We had to have a talk about maybe not keeping money just laying around.  She said she just didn't know there was quite that much.  It is in the bank now, but geez.  I did let Quincy stay home yesterday.  She had a bunch of stuff she needed to take care of, that she can't do because she is always at school or work when businesses are open.  She ran about 100 errands, picked Evie up for me so she didn't have to walk in the rain, and cleaned up the bathroom before the guy I had coming to look at the floor showed up.  She had a few things planned before she had to leave for work, but the power went out, and she got distracted by Evie.  We got a kick out of her bringing us the remote and repeatedly telling us it was time for Paw Patrol.   

Andrew and Madison are working some for Andrew's Uncle who owns an ice cream shop.  They worked one day selling ice cream at a pumpkin patch.  Evie had a lot of fun while they were working!

I just wanted to save these adorable photos!

This week is filled with making it up as we go along.  Parent/teacher conferences, work projects, endless meetings for Jim, a few other odds and ends and forcing the family to eat soup, because fall weather is here, which means soup season is upon us!  

Last marching band performance.

Last night was the final home football game for this year, and as such, Preston’s last marching band performance “of his life!”   Preston hates marching band.  He says they practice at 8:00 am and it’s always wet and cold.  He says that it is a giant pain and he is happy to done with it.   I have heard similar stories from some of our older kids.  Preston said his band teacher offered to help him get a band scholarship at KSU for next year.   Preston told Mr. Q absolutely not.  

I think Preston should be thankful they March  in sweat pants and not the capes and giant goofy looking hats of the past. 

They did honor the senior band members, and it was nice to see how many seniors have stuck with band all these years!  

I had a good laugh. Cameron and Lauren sent me some pictures from Lauren’s hall carnival.  Cameron was telling me the petting zoo was too expensive.  She sent this picture of a little cute piggy and said it was an awesome petting zoo.  Then about 2 minutes later a picture where the piggy had pooped on her.   I’m guessing when Cameron’s  hall does their carnival, they won’t have a petting zoo!  

I think that Bella thinks Cameron is her boyfriend.   She seems to love him.  

Quincy is in the yearbook class.  She had to attend 7 events to photograph.  So far, this has not gone well - she went to a volleyball game. She was home about half an hour after it started.  I asked her what happened.  She said “I took 133 photos in the first few minutes and then I left!”   Uhhhhh

Then she went to a cross country meet.  She texted to say she was dying of boredom and to please fake a heart attack so she could leave.  She has done 2 football games.  The first time she came home frozen and proclaimed that she is just going to flunk yearbook class because she never wanted to go to another game when it was cold.  Last night, she attended the game as a photographer again.  She sat in front of me and took pictures.  I told her she had to go down on the field in order to take quality pictures.  She eventually did go down, and she took marching band photos as well, but she left the game right after halftime saying she had enough pictures.   I foresee her future will not be as a professional photographer.  

Something random but cool. - Harper had an orthodontist appointment near my job site. So we left a little early to go look at the progress.   Half this site is on a hunting preserve.  As we were leaving, we saw a ring neck pheasant.  I know it was planted there for people to hunt, but  it was so beautiful.  We took a picture through the window because I was afraid rolling the windows down would scare him.  I remember as a kid seeing pheasant around - but I never see them anymore. I know this one technically wasn’t “wild” but it was pretty neat anyway.  

This week was packed full of oddities.  I am happy to have reached the weekend.