More Halloween fun!

Today we went to the Halloween party at the church. There was a lot to do. Trick or treat was set up all through the church, there was food and cotton candy and popcorn. They had inflatables and a hayride and a petting zoo and games. Now the kids are way sugared up and overtired and ready for bed (ok I'm ready for bed).



Rosie's new friends.

Jamie posed with the Ckick fil A cows and got free coupons 

Betsy loved the inflatables



Sydney was super happy!

Happy Halloween!

Yea, I know Halloween is tomorrow. But here in the bible belt we would never ever dream of celebrating a pagan holiday and mocking evil on Sunday.  However it is perfectly acceptable to do it on Saturday as long as we wash off the fake blood before we get dressed up on Sunday morning.

Mahaley had a party to go to so for the first year ever she did not join us:(

The other kids dressed up as a zombie (Jamie), a Japanese girl (Emma), a country music star (Leah), Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (Betsy), a clown (Rosie). Ashley and Jace also went with us. They were a skeleton queen and a garden gnome ( who refused to wear his hat and beard). We met up with Adam, Niki, Sydney and Justin. Sydney was the cutest little pirate girl ever.

Betsy turned out to be a little con artist. At every house she ended up with more candy than the rest of the kids. She would wait until they gave her something and then look sadly into the bowl and say " I sure do like Kit-Kats" so of course they would give her more. Or sometimes she would respond to a compliment with " Thank you, I know I look cute, I'm being adorable today". Of course that was adorable so she really racked up on the candy!

Now we are looking forward to a week of tummy aches from all that candy. You know a long time ago when I cared more before I knew better I used to ration out my kids Halloween candy. I'd give them one or two pieces after they had finished their vegetables at dinner. Then I realized that with the amount they hauled in I would be giving out candy (and listening to the begging)  until Christmas, when they would get more candy, which would last until Valentines and so on and so on. Then I came up with my current brilliant strategy. I let them eat all they want, every day all day for three or four days and then I trash it all. No one throws up more than once and after a few days it's over and done with.

Up and coming country star!



Where's Toto?



Cutest pirate wench ever.

Very serious zombie.

Pretty and shy.....

Thankful Thursday

 Thursday is officially gone as I write this but I have a lot to be thankful for so:

I am thankful that when Wayne broke down on the interstate today he was only 40 miles from home, (he could have been one more exit up on a much more dangerous part of the highway with nowhere safe to pull off).

I am thankful that there was an auto parts store nearby with everything that he needed to fix his truck and doubly thankful that he knew how to fix it. (note to daughters always marry a man who can fix stuff)

I am thankful that the cost didn't quite completely empty out our bank account.

I am thankful that after spending all afternoon on the highway I got home just in time to get the kids ready to go to 4H.

I am thankful that I got home from 4H just in time to rush to the hospital as they took my sister in for emergency surgery.

I am thankful they got her appendix out before it ruptured.

I am thankful that so far none of the other kids have come down with the puking and pooping bug that her baby Jace has.

It was a really hard day and some of that certainly held a little sarcasm but I AM so truly grateful that my sweet sis Kim is going to be OK. I love you Kimmy. 
 

Halloween preview

The kids dressed up for a party at the library yesterday, Rosie is a Halloween clown, Betsy is Dorothy, Leah is a country singer, Emma is a Japanese girl and Jamie is too old to dress up for story time;). They had a lot of fun, Rosie LOVES story time, we always have to sit in the very front so she has room to get up and act along with the puppets. I must have the only kids in the world though who complain about having too much junk and not enough "real food" at a party!

Today was yucky and rainy so I tried to stay home and get busy on swapping out the kids summer clothes for winter clothes. I got all of the summer things put away but didn't really finish  getting out the winter stuff and washing it up, so now they have NO clothes in their drawers. I guess I'll either get really motivated or let them lay around in their pajamas.

Fun Sunday

After church I took the little kids to the fall arts and crafts fair. They were oh so very good! We had a great time. They painted and did sand art and played on the playground and ate junk and must have thanked me a dozen times for bringing them. Nothing like a little appreciation to make a mama happy.

Rosie was seriously in love with this funnel cake, she ate almost the entire thing.

Betsy was pretty happy with her huge bag of cotton candy.

First time Rosie ever rode a bug!

Very determined...

Yay, she made it to the top!

Pretty face painting

Jamie's not real thrilled with his, lol.

Mr. I Don't Know

There is a little person
Who lives inside our house
We don't know if it's a girl or boy
But it must be tiny as a mouse
It steals the baby's toy
And writes on the wall
It leaves the milk on the table
And shoes in the hall
No one is ever able
To say just who it was
All we can say is, that little foe
Must be Mr. I Don't Know. 


 The very hardest thing about having a lot of kids is that you can never nail down the culprit. " Who ate five pieces of cheese and left the wrappers in the fridge?" I Don't Know. " Who squeezed all of the toothpaste into the sink?" I Don't Know.  "Who put these game pieces into the washer?" I Don't Know. "Who wrote on the desk with red marker?" I Don't Know. I think they say that so if they get caught ( red handed) they can say " well I didn't know, I forgot I did it." These are all things that someone has done this week. My kids are smart enough to know that as long as no one snitches I have almost no chance of figuring out who did it. I have held full court inquisitions to get to the bottom of things but that rarely works. So for now we are really working on learning the value of honesty. I understand why no one ever confesses. After all we are really strict around here. The punishment would be terrible, they might even get...gasp  A STERN TALKING TO.

Flashback (warning: really gross)

I'm still dealing with consequences of feeding my kids cake, ice cream, brownies, chips, meatballs, potato salad, baked beans, BBQ and candy all day on Sunday. I just don't know WHAT I was thinking. Leah and Betsy's tummies are feeling better but Rosie has gone through about a diaper an hour all day. To be honest I'm a little relieved, at least no one is throwing up. I have an unreasonable fear of vomit. Crazy for someone in my line of work, right? Honestly I think I have post traumatic stress disorder. It may stem from the unfortunate peanut butter cup puke and poop episode of 2004.  I shudder just to think of it. What? Not familiar? Well, it happened shortly after my eye-foot uncoordinated self walked off the side of the basement stairs and broke my ankle. Emma and Leah woke up in the middle of the night vomiting ....and with severe diarrhea. We changed bedclothes, bathed kids, threw in a little Pepto, all good. An hour later repeat, an hour after that repeat again, and again. By 4 am, we had not one clean sheet or towel in the house but the kids were asleep. The next day they seemed fine. Which was good because hobbling over pukey cover with one crutch all night left me feeling worse than them. That night a complete repeat of the night before. I was thanking God I had washed up everything and vowing to take them in to the doctor at daylight. The next morning they were the picture of health, no fever, eating eggs and toast for breakfast. Which by the way I could not stomach because of the lingering odor of vomit (and worse) in the house. I really thought all was well. Two hours after bedtime I heard vomit splatter in the hall floor. I nearly wailed in despair. Nooo more, please make it stop. No sleep for days, pukey blankets, towels, sheets, clothes, carpets. If I had been more mobile I would have run away from home. As soon as the sun rose I called for a pediatricians appointment. I got my puke and poop covered kids in the bath and went to get some clean clothes out of the back of their closet (at this point all they had clean were fairy costumes and church clothes).Then I found it. A FOUR POUND bag of peanut butter cups. Almost completely empty. I confronted my evil, sadistic  sweet, clueless little girls. Had they been eating this every night. Why yes, they had been. Hiding in their closet, gorging themselves every night after lights out. And it never occurred to them that it might be making them feel just the teeniest bit sick.  So I've tried to get over it, really I have. But the smell of vomit does me in every time. Recently Rosie threw up for the first time. I let her eat a lot of corn for dinner. I mean a lot. Kids her age don't digest corn very well. Of course I didn't know this seeing as how I only have one or two kids . (See how I'm keeping myself completely innocent here). So in the middle of the night she pukes. It's in her hair , her clothes, her blankets, running down the side of her crib. I'm having serious peanut butter cup flashbacks. I strip her and carry her (dripping) to the tub. Put the clean kid in my bed and then clean up roughly 10 pounds of corn puke from the crib, the floor, the hallway, the tub. Throw the sheets and blankets and clothes into the washer, start it up, put the clean baby back to bed, put myself back to bed while congratulating said self on how well I handled it. Then morning comes. Clean up all of the green giant niblets that I missed and then open the washer. That's when I lost it . Not only does corn come out of the tummy in the same shape it went in, it also survives the wash, rinse and spin cycles. So yea, the bottom of  my washer was full of corn puke. I gotta tell you, CLEANING CORN PUKE OUT OF THE WASHER IS NOT IN MY CONTRACT OMIGOD ENOUGH ALREADY!  Off topic here but seriously wouldn't it be great if we got a contract. Then every so often you could have your agent renegotiate to get a better deal. Like including a no cleaning corn puke out of the washer clause. After considering how many cycles it might take to disintegrate corn I finally sucked it up and scooped it out, barehanded. I deserve a medal ....or maybe I just need PTSD therapy.