Halloween INSANITY!

Halloween is not one of my personal favorite holidays. I love the candy and all but the dressing up part and the spooky parts are not my favorite. I think I am too easily freaked out. ANYWAY. This year we spent Halloween by going to a wonderful party in the afternoon and then had some friends over to walk around our large neighborhood and trick or treat. I think in all we had a group of 14 kids trick or treating. The boys were both race car drivers and the girls both had adorable spiderweb skirts. Gwen also wore a super cute bee top with her skirt. Lucy was supposed to wear wings but she adamantly refused and it wasn't worth arguing with her. It was a very successful night of trick or treating!

Zane's First Trophy

There are a few things that motivated Zane to play soccer this year. The first was the after game snacks. The second was the trophy he would get at the end of the year. (You will notice that neither motivation had anything to do with ACTUALLY playing soccer) Zane has longingly admired Andrew's team trophies for the past two seasons and has anxiously awaited the day that he would have a trophy to claim as his own. Well, today Zane's chance came. He played his last game of this years Rockets season and we had the team party directly afterward.

Of course this mom forgot to take the camera to the field and to the party. It was ok though, the coach happened to come home with us and we got our pictures here. The team gave Eric a trophy as well and I honestly don't know who was more excited about getting a trophy! Good job Zane! I can hardly wait for next year's soccer season to begin!!!

Baby #5!

We had the big ultrasound this afternoon and little blessing #5 is a BOY!!! We are super excited and can't hardly wait to meet him! Andrew is very excited. We let him come to the ultrasound appointment with us to see the baby and to be the very first one to know whether it was a brother or a sister. Andrew proudly carried the photos out to the car and called them his brother the whole time. Andrew told Zane that we were having a boy and Zane said "SWEET!" He sounded about 14 years old with the slang but it was very cute because he is very excited. I think Zane envisions a lot of Thomas the train play in the future. I just hope he is still interested in Thomas by the time his little brother is big enough to be interested as well! Lucy is just excited about all this talk about babies. We shall she her reaction when this one is a reality and not just a hypothetical!

Sweet baby face

The one and only time any child of our will have a chicken leg!

Looks like 5 fingers to me!

So excited to meet this little man! March (or April realistically) cannot come quick enough in my book!

Pumpkin Extravaganza 2010!

This was Gwen's first year carving a pumpkin. Last year I think I carved one for her but she was tiny and slept through the entire thing. This year she was right in the thick of it and thrilled to be there!

I don't know exactly what Gwen thought we were doing but she certainly thought the pumpkin was tasty!

I kept waiting and waiting for her to make a face and spit it out but she kept going back for more and more bites!

Lucy is surprisingly not squeamish about pumpkin guts. The boys both spent YEARS fussing about their hands being messy. Not Lucy. She is normally kinda picky about her hands being messy too. I guess this had adventure written all over it though.

She scooped away like a trooper the entire time. I think I could have let her scoop the entire night and she would have been totally and completely occupied. Hmmmmmm.... there is an idea for an afternoon project I think!

Apparently Andrew finds it impossible to scoop and smile at the same time.

I finally had to ask Andrew to stop scooping and just smile for me.

Zane was very excited to carve pumpkins. He has been asking all week long to do it.

Scooping pumpkin guts is hard work even if you are 5!

Everyone with their pumpkin masterpiece. Zane wanted a happy face, Lucy wanted a sad face. Gwen got a toothy smile and Andrew wanted a vampire pumpkin.

All alight on our front porch! Now if they will only NOT rot before the big day. Not that it will change things though. In the realm of pumpkin carving there are no do-overs!

Math Master

This week Andrew got honored at school for being a Math Master. I am not exactly sure what this means for other grades but for 2nd grade it meant that he has already passed his addition and subtraction test (standardized test they have to successfully complete at the end of the year) and now he has moved on to multiplication. Every day the students in his class do a time test that drills on math facts. Once you have passed the addition you move on to subtraction. And after you have passed the subtraction test you move on to multiplication. The test that he took yesterday included all multiplication facts up to the 9's. He didn't know those ones so he skipped a lot. But I am pretty impressed that he has a good handle on the 2's and 3's. I mean, he is only 7. So now we will begin the drilling of multiplication tables. His teacher sent home two different methods of learning multiplication facts yesterday. One was learning the facts to the tune of a song and the other was a chart to look at. Any guesses which one appealed to my Andrew more? If you guessed the chart you would be correct. He is so incredibly literal sometimes. It will be interesting to see how the test pans out as the year goes on.

Kitty Cat Lucy

As I was doing Lucy's hair today I asked her if she wanted a pretty bow. She said yes (she is not always so agreeable) and selected one of her light pink ones. I put the bow in her hair and she immediately looked at herself and said "I'm a kitty!"

Upon closer inspection I suppose it was not too far of a stretch. That bow did have the general appearance of pink kitten ears. So cute to see her engaging her imagination.

Tea Party Time

I let the kiddos play tea party this afternoon. Of course, tea party to Gwen really meant just dumping the water all over the table and making a general mess but she was thrilled to be playing with the big kids.

Zane has happily filled up the teapot 3 times since they started. Just playing with water but apparently imagination makes up for a lot. According to Zane they are having biscuits with their tea.

Correction: Dumping water all over the table AND herself. But seriously, have you seen a bigger grin?

Stir, stir, stir your tea. You wouldn't want there to be anything lumpy in it!

And Lucy was even all blinged up for the occasion. No dressing up was required!


I think I am going to like this game. They have been occupied for 20 minutes now with no fighting or fussing. Sounds like a winner to me!