Hail Halloween!

Yes, hail! This morning was great Halloween weather. Warm enough not to need a jacket, but overcast and gray, like any Halloween should be. I was truly appreciating and enjoying the perfect Halloween day until, on my way home from story time w/ the munchkins (or the pirate and fairy princess), the slight drizzle turned into a hard rain and HAIL! Then I started thinking, OK - this is too much! Mother Nature must've overheard my thoughts, because by the time we got home, it had stopped raining, and I could see that the sky to the west was clear and bright. All this on a 12 minute drive from the library to my home. Amazing Missouri weather. :)

We finally did our pumpkins Wed. night! Here are some pics. Some were more enthusiastic about cleaning out the pumpkin guts than others. :) We did some painting, some carving, and some decorations you stick into the pumpkins. Quite a variety. :)

Yesterday was the last day of BMX for 2008. Damian did well - came in 2nd. We had a trunk-or-treat for the kids, too. Damian (and most of the racers) just wore their race clothes. The munchkins dressed up in their pirate and princess outfits, and Angel came straight from cheerleading practice, so she was a cheerleader. BMX will start again next April. It will be nice to have a break from twice/week races for a while.
As for me - I'm having fun with all the scrapbooking website's Halloween activities and looking forward to tomorrow's Digital Scrapbooking Day activities. Yay! Freebies galore! Today I'm doing the Sunshine Studio Scraps/Scrap Orchard blog hop. DSO has a Halloween mini-mega,
This afternoon we had Angel's parent-teacher conference. She has the same kindergarten teacher that Damian had, and this teacher is just wonderful. She truly loves teaching, she loves the children, and she really makes it fun for the kids. Angel loves school and is doing very well. During the conference, the word "perfect" was actually used by the teacher to describe Angel as a student! So of course I was beaming with motherly pride! :)
I'll be back tomorrow to post about Halloween. Everyone be safe! and have a good night. :)

2 Awards! Wow!

I feel so special. I was reading my friend, Lei's blog, and noticed that she's given me not 1, but 2 awards! Thank you, Lei - that means a lot to me. I also noticed that Lei has some great kits and freebies on her blog, and has had a very busy and stressful month, so please swing by and say HI to her. :) Here's the first award:

This is called the "Proximidade Award" or "Friendship Around the World Award". Originally this award was written in Spanish, but it translates to highlight blogs that are pleasing or special in some way, and also to extend the hand of friendship around the world.





Now, I am supposed to pass this award onto either 6 or 8 other blogs. Since this award is about friendship, I choose to pass this along to those that are either true life friends, or those that I have come to feel a real friendship for through their blogs.


Miss Chris
Hummie
Kimberly (fishinmom)
Boo
Eden
Smith family
Julie
Dani
Christina - well, I would tag Christina, but her blogs aren't working. Christina - where are you?? Is everything ok?



Here is the second award:

This award doesn't say how many blogs I need to pass this on to, so I'm going to give myself the liberty to give it to those special blogs that really touch my heart because of their openness to share their lives (they really blog) and beliefs (share their faith for instance) to other people. They just don't give digital scrapping freebies but they share and inspire others as well through their stories. They also share their pictures/LOs for the whole world to see, that I think is something that puts a "heart" to a blog--you allow strangers to know who you are. I see it as a way of extending one's hand to find friends in cyberspace. Here are my choices for this award:

Bethany
June (Cen's Loft)
Pamela (Digitreats)
Candee
Kim B.

So, have fun checking out these great ladies blogs. I'm sure you'll have fun reading what they have to say. I always do. :)
Now I'm off to make dinner and go to BMX races.

My house

Some of you know about "the new house" - and some may not. Frank surprised me w/ a contract to purchase this house in March of 05. We closed on it in June, and started working on it. It needed quite a bit of work before we could move in. We worked pretty steadily on it for almost a year before Frank got a little burned out, and the $$ started to run out. It was really close to being move in ready, then over that winter, a pipe froze and burst and flooded the whole thing. :( It was very upsetting, as some rooms that were already done needed to be re-done now. There was a lot of clean up and work to do to dry out the house. Some drywall and flooring had to be pulled out, etc. The biggest loss was the kitchen. We had to pull out all the cabinets. Well, this started a whole new production - choosing a new kitchen. We had to start from scratch and choose the wood, the style, the color, etc. Well, this past weekend - my new cabinets were installed - Yay! The doors aren't on yet - but here they are!
Also, my MIL and her friend have been here working on the house the past couple of days, and my bro has helped, too. Frank wants to get us moved in by Christmas, so this is crunch time! I'm so excited. Here are some pics. This is the entry way. It's not pink - it's white, but I guess because of the red doors, it's reflecting pink in this pic.
This is the downstairs rec room, or play room.
This is also the downstairs play room, looking from the fireplace. The crazy wall is where we'll have the kid's toy organizers. Angel's on the left, D's on the right, and probably the TV above that.

More than a week later...

I have plenty to catch up on. So, this past week, we've been busy. Of course there's the normal story times, dance, cheerleading, and BMX. Damian also managed to fit in some dirt bike riding.
My bro and I took his kids to a pumpkin patch, which, of course was a lot of fun. We did the hayride out to the mazes and the pumpkin patch where the kids could pick their own pumpkins.
We picked out costumes from our extensive supply of dress-up stuff. Trenton chose to be a pirate,
Nevaeh's a fairy princess,
Damian's a Ninja - check out those weapons!
And Angel's a Snow Princess. Check out her hair! This was my first attempt at a "halo braid". I was rather impressed w/ myself. So much so, that I did the same hairdo for my niece.
We went to our church's trunk-or-treat Saturday night, which was a lot of fun for everyone. We even brought a friend, so we had quite a group.
We also did more birthday celebrating. My dad and step-mom, Ang, hadn't gotten to see Damian to give him a present, so they took us all to Incredible Pizza for dinner and fun. My sis and bro-in-law came, too. Grandad got each kid a game card w/ plenty of credits to do the "big" things - like the bumper cars, go karts, and mini-golf. We must have picked a good time to go, because we also got 6 free mini-golf games for signing up for their email list. The kids got to spin a wheel for more prizes. They won a free go kart ride and another mini-golf game. Later, they announced an ice cream eating contest. Damian came in 2nd and won another $10 game card, and Angel tied for 3rd for a $5 card. Since we had so much $$ to play with, we all rode the bumper cars twice! It was so much fun, I wish I had pics - but I was actually riding for a change! This was the first time we've been there that Angel was tall enough to ride. I'm usually playing w/ her while the boys do that kind of thing, so this was a special treat. :) Damian also rode the simulator. This was the first time he's been tall enough for that. I've ridden it - and it's pretty crazy. It goes upside down and all around until I was quite dizzy. D loved it! You can see the people inside on a monitor, so we got to watch while he rode - and he was grinning from ear to ear. He's quite the little thrill-seeker. Then the 6 of us (the 4 of my fam w/ Dad and Ang) all played mini-golf. That was really nice to spend that time together having fun. After mini-golf, Angel challenged Grandad to a game of air hockey. Grandad started out winning, but Angel soon began to catch up. Her face when she scored a point was priceless:
It was a great family night out. Thanks Dad and Ang. :)

Busy Saturday

Boy was today busy! I felt like I was all over town - cuz I was! From dance to the airport to the soccer field to dinner to a game store to a pet store to a friend's house. Today was Damian's last soccer game and his first time playing goalie. He says he liked it. He was pretty good, too. :) We went to dinner after the game where he got more attention than he wanted when we told them it was a birthday dinner! They had him sit on a saddle, and he had to yell "yee-haw"! He was a good sport and had fun with it. We also got him a Beta fish for his new fish tank he got for his birthday. Angel was invited to spend the night w/ a friend and my bro and his kids came back home tonight. Busy, busy!
Frank called to let me know that the races went fine. His team didn't crash and they finished 3rd. That put them at 4th overall for the end of the season, which he's not happy with. I told him it's better than 5th or 6th, right?! He'll be home tomorrow. :)
On a sad note, my sis is in the hospital again. I'll have to get more info tomorrow, but she had a few seizures today. She'd gone with no seizures for about a month, so she was doing much better. I hope they can get this under control for her. I know she doesn't like being in the hospital. I'm glad that she has family and friends close by for support. I wish I were closer, too, to help out. Take care, Julie - I love you!

Hello

Well, today was much like the past 2 days. I worked at the school all day doing volunteer stuff. I got to make a poster sized collage of pics from my daughter's kindergarten class. They seemed to really like it. :)
I ate lunch w/ the kids today, too. Here are some pics of D w/ his crazy friends. I got to listen to them tell knock-knock jokes all during lunch. :)
After school we went grocery shopping, then home for dinner. Now is the fun part. After dinner I went out for ice cream w/ my bro. As we were pulling out, a friend drove up (to ask Frank questions about her new phone) - so we took her, too. It was fun and nice to go out w/ them tonight. :)
Tomorrow I do my first RIF (Reading is Fundamental) distribution at school. I hope all goes well. I only have 2 classes tomorrow, then 6 on Fri. We give every 1st and 2nd grader a free book, and try to encourage reading. Wish me luck! :)

Pics from the weekend

Here are some of the pics from this past weekend. For Damian's birthday, I got a little creative and made him these pancakes:
We were almost late for school. I think they had 10 min. to eat them! After school, we held his birthday party at 1984, a local arcade that is VERY cool! :) The kids (and grown ups) had fun. :)
Here's the damage the deer did to the car. :(
We went to a pumpkin patch in Sedalia that was pretty fun. My ornery kids made faces in each of these photos - this is the best one.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pics of my family over the weekend, but we had a great time spending time w/ everyone. My bro and sis were in a district choir thing, and we went to their performance. It was great. They are very talented. I also got to see my new niece. She's actually my nephew's baby, so I don't know what that makes her, but she's gorgeous! She's about a month old. I wanted to get a pic, but she was a little cranky, and I didn't want to flash her in the eyes and upset her more. I'll get some pics next time, though. Can you believe that makes my sis a grandma at 31!!??? I love to tease her about it. :) Of course it's her step-son - but still...so funny. And it's karma. She made our step-mom a grandma at age 33. Ha ha ha. :) I don't know what kind of karma is going to come back to bite me for enjoying this so much - but I'm already 33 - so I know I won't be a young grandma like them. :) Anyway....
To get caught up - yesterday and today have been pretty busy for me. I've worked at the school both days, all day. Today I helped sort books for the RIF program at another location, then helped out w/ the health fair at the kid's school. Tonight was Open House, also, so there was plenty for me to do yesterday to help get ready for that. Since I don't have the munchkins this week, I plan to spend a lot of time at the school. I'll be back to normal child care duties next week. :)

Nice, relaxing day today. It started early w/ pancakes for breakfast - I love being at the in-laws and having breakfast made for me. So nice to have a break in that department. We took off to a swap meet where we got some random items. I got 2 scrapbooks, Frank and Angel got some winter knit caps, and Damian got a few Nintendo games. After lunch we stopped at a salvage place on the way home where we got more random finds - an easel, paint brushes, dry erase board, and some biodegradeable paint trays - oh, and organic toaster pastries. :) Back home, I took a nap, and woke to find that my MIL had started dinner and Angel had painted a pumpkin. How nice is that? After dinner, we'll get into our crashed-up car and head home.

We made it!

We're now safely arrived at my in-laws. Everything went fairly well today - although very rushed. Damian had several friends at his birthday party and got a lot of things that he's pretty excited about. I think all the kids had fun playing the arcade games. Some of them hadn't been there before. We were a little late to the soccer practice, but since we shared the cake and cookies from the party, I don't think they minded. :) We left straight from practice to go find a deer to hit. Well, obviously that wasn't REALLY our intention, but that's what happened anyway. Lucky for the deer, it didn't live to suffer, and lucky for us, the car still runs, and we were able to continue on our way. It was quite a surprise, though, to arrive at my in-laws and not be able to get out of my door! We thought the damage was mainly in the front, but apparently, something was jammed back enough to keep the passenger door from opening. We'll be able to drive around and get back home, but we will have to have it repaired soon.
Our family party is tomorrow evening. We're celebrating all Sept. and Oct. birthdays. There are 6 of them - 7 if we include my brother whose b-day is in Nov. We'll be attending a show choir performance that I have a brother and sis both performing in. I'm very excited to see them perform. They usually do very well, but I have not gotten to see a performance yet. I've watched them practice at home a few times, and that can be pretty entertaining! We're also going to try to fit in a visit to a pumpkin patch either tomorrow or Sunday. Should be a fun weekend. :) I'll post picks when I get home.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Damian! Today (barely - it's midnight) is my son's 8th birthday. It's kind of a milestone. In our church, you can get baptized at age 8, and he can also join the church's cub scouts troup. He would like to get baptized soon, and is very excited to start cub scouts - but may wait until next month after BMX season ends, because they would both be on the same night. Boy is tomorrow going to be busy. Here's the plan - I'll have to write again to see how it all went. I have to get the goodie bags ready for the party, pick up treats and drinks for his classroom, go straight from school to his party at a local 80's style arcade, straight from there to soccer practice, where we'll serve more treats, and straight from soccer to the grandparents for more weekend festivities. I better fit packing in there somewhere, huh? I have saved myself some stress, though by decorating the cake tonight. When I asked D what he wanted, his answer was "Mario Brothers...and Scooby Doo". WHAT?????? I was just going to try to convince him he wanted something else, then decided, No - this is what he wants, can I make it work? I was skeptical, but then hubby said he thought I could do ANYTHING!!!! - so I decided to try. With my bro's suggestion of using candies instead of drawing things out, I set to work. I spent about 30 min. in a candy store this morning w/ a 2 and 3 yr old (AAAAHHHHHH) - no, they really weren't too bad. Then to a grocery store to get everything I'd need. Here's what I came up with tonight:
This is the "front" - the Scooby Doo side.
(that mess around Shaggy is supposed to be food that they dropped cuz they're so scared. It's a gummi pizza and gummi sub sandwich)
Here's the back - or Mario Brothers side.
I hope he likes it! Wish me luck on my hectic day tomorrow! :)