A Halloween Story

It was a dark night, and the moon was full and bright...(this isn't really supposed to rhyme)

Actually, it didn't really start that way at all...I just wanted a good beginning...and just to set the record straight...it's not really a story either...I was going to try to be all creative and wordy and fun...but, I've had soooo much candy tonight and I think I'm on a bit of a sugar high...so my mind is jumpin' from one thing to the next!  I'll just let the pictures tell the majority of the story...deal?

Okay...so, let me show you how it really began...
It started with these guys...

Oh, yes, the bright idea that I had..."Let's make these cute little jack o lanterns out of oranges and fill them with fruit cocktail, cuz it'll just be so cute, and it'll be so much fun and let's go buy everything right now..."

Let's fast forward to carving Orange #18...not so much fun anymore...once we finished with Orange #22, I was pretty much DONE with oranges...

However, I will be honest and tell you that it did make me a little happy with glee when everyone exclaimed over the cuteness of it all at Sweetpea's party...my cut finger searing in pain from the juice seeping into it was all worth it!

The girls had fun at their parties and I loved being in the classroom once again!

Then came Halloween night (that's where the full moon actually fits in here...got my "setting" a little mixed up, but oh well)  The girls dressed up as Susan & Lucy from Narnia and of course, our sweet little Miss Pattycake!  Little Munchkin walked nearly the entire night...

Now, that may not seem like much to everyone, but we live out here where it takes a good 10 minutes just to walk to our friend's house 2 doors down.  So, it took over an hour and a half to go about 15 houses..she was a trooper...carried her candy basket the entire time too!

All the while, Daddy was fixin' us up something pretty special...

It's called a Swedish Candle...basically, it's a tree stump that's been cut into pizza pieces almost all the way down.  You soak it with light fluid down those slices for about 1-2 hours before hand...then you drop a match down and watch it go...after about an hour, it settles down into a nice glow:

It's absolutely awesome...the heat radiates from it and the glow looks so cool, especially from far away...we cozied up around the firepit and ate some of our candies...it was a perfect ending to our evening...

And we lived happily ever after...THE END.

Yes and No

It's about that time for a little yes and no banter:)

Yes, my husband has gotten onto a bit of a "cleaning spree" with regards to the basement

No, he's not all that happy about it.

Yes, he knew when he married me that I was a pack rat of sorts

No, I do not believe he FULLY understood the depth of my "love of memories" or my "I may need that sometime in the future" mentality

Yes, I do believe he thinks I'm nuts, but,

Yes, he still loves me

No, we do not clean the basement together

Yes, I do allow him to just "pitch" whatever he wants....and

Yes, I go down and search through the stuff he has "pitched" while he's at work

No, he won't let me throw away his undershirts that have holes in them

Yes, we will be discussing this more in depth as he begins to throw out my old varsity jackets and college paraphenalia...

onto other things....

No, my voice has not returned to normal

Yes, I still accept sympathy for this fact and hot Starbucks are welcome:)

No, I'm not taking any antibiotics b/c I was told it was not bacterial, but I am taking Mucinex and,

Yes it makes me LOOPY!!!

No, I do not take it during the day while watching the children...

Yes, while in my loopy state, I happened upon what I deemed a MARVELOUS idea for the healthy snack for my daughter's harvest party at school.

No, I did not think about the time, energy and precision that was involved...

Yes, I continued forward with the idea anyway and now have 21 carved oranges filled with fruit cocktail, complete with spoons for stems sitting in my fridge.

Yes, I smell like oranges.

No, I'm not happy about it.

Yes, I will have pictures for you tomorrow

No, I haven't even cleaned up the mess in the kitchen yet...orange guts everywhere...

Yes, my kitchen smells like oranges too.

No, I'm okay with it...

Yes, I'm going to go now and clean my hands again before my computer begins to wreak of orange juice...of which I actually need to drink more...perhaps that would help my hacking cough...or at least get me some more sympathy from my husband down in the basement who is pitching all my stuff!!!

have a good night:)

Makin' My Way Back...

I'm still not over this...whatever it is...my girls ask me every morning whether my voice is back or not...I think they're getting a little tired of the whispering or the cracking...or should I say "cackling"? 

I haven't felt badly and still no fever...aren't you just loving the play by play of my sickness?  I won't get into details...like mucus and sputum and stuff like that, because, seriously, who wants to wake up to that as a friendly blog read?  I've already got you gagging don't I?  So sorry ...I will continue onto other things...

As a lover of all things photography...you already know I take about a gazillion pictures of my kids...the problem lies when I want to get in the picture with them...for example, a FAMILY picture...we've tried the ole "set the timer and run...wait is it blinking yet?...everybody smile...is everybody smiling??...go back and check...FLASH...shoot...we missed it"...but, that doesn't seem to work so well with us...

So, my dear friend AM volunteered to take a few shots of us right after I was done with my 2 photo shoots for the day on Sunday...I thought I'd post one up here for fun...can't decide between them all for our christmas card...but it sure is nice to have us all together!!!

Sick is coming......

I'm so sorry friends that I've been lax in my blog posting this week...I'm catching something...or rather, I've caught it and now it's just workin' it's way through my system...

I was in denial for the first couple of days...It was like I thought I could WILL myself to NOT be sick...well, around 3am I realized that THAT just wasn't happening and I had to hop out of bed, get myself some ibuprofen and cough drop and hope I could fall back asleep...

I know you are all just beside yourself with curiousity about my symptoms and I am not one to let you down:

no fever
no runny nose
incredibly sore throat
no voice left...nada
chest is tight
chest is REALLY tight
chest HURTS
BIG ole cough in themorning with some interesting rattling
no more coughs all day
tired
sleepy
want Orange Juice and hot tea

I'm pretty much a big baby when it comes to being sick...I can do labor without epidurals, I can grit my teeth through muscle spasms...but, give me a cold and I'm out of commission...

Italian Stallion gave me a medal this morning:  "Here honey, this is your trophy for being the worst sick person"  He gave it to me with a wink and smile, but I get the point...I"m pathetic...I'd rather someone come and check my forehead and sit with me while I lay in bed and moan...He's completely opposite...when he's sick, he shuts the door and won't let anyone in until he's well...he just yells if he needs something, but mostly it's quiet...

Anyhoo...sorry about the absence...I'll be back next week with inspiring words and motivational stories that will thrill your soul a blog post. Have a good weekend and stay warm!

It's Beginning to feel a lot like...FALL...FINALLY!

I feel like we got sorta "jipped" or "gipped"...I don't know how to spell that one...anyway, I feel like we didn't get much of a spring, had a beautiful summer and then we just skipped over fall and headed right into winter...I gotta tell you...it made me VERY sad!

Fall is my MOST favorite time of the year...and not just because my birthday kicks the whole season off in September either...I love the campfires and the jeans & comfy sweatshirts, I love the colors, the smell in the air, the crisp days...and the LEAVES!

I mean seriously, how can you NOT resist the cuteness of your little ones in the leaves?

It just doesn't get better than this!!! 

I can't even begin to tell you the amount of fun we have outside in this fall type weather...which, has finally come I might add...Thank you Lord for sending back the sun for just a little while...I"m not ready to say goodbye for the long winter just yet...

And so, that's about it...Peanut and I made a HUGE pile yesterday.  It looked like this:

We even used a blanket to transport leaves from one end of the yard to the PILE LOCATION at the other end...we worked HARD and LONG...and it was sooo worth it...We jumped and dove and rolled and threw leaves...we had them in our hair, in our mouths, in our clothes...it was GREAT! 

And now, with leaves crushed to smitherenes and still stuck to our clothing that "mom" still hasn't laundered...we await the net day when more leaves will fall and we'll rake some more...because this may be the last hurrah...and we're not gonna miss it!

THE END:

A warm up in the future?

Last week was a whirlwind that continued into the weekend. The "wind" didn't stop blowing until about 9 o'clock Sunday night!!! 

Italian Stallion made it home from California on Thursday...got off the plane at 4:30, grabbed his luggage and headed to the soccer field to make Sweetpea's game (he's coach by the way)...I had to call a friend from the game because I wasn't going to make it back to the house by 7:00pm WHICH is the time at which about 10 couples show up at my house on Thursday evenings for lifegroup.  She got in the house and was able to welcome everyone in...We arrived at around 7:30 and had a good time visiting with everyone, albeit, Italian Stallion was bushed!

We said goodbye to everyone, got the girls in bed, collapsed in bed ourselves only to start all over the next morning...our builders came to walk through the house that we've been living in for 3 years because they didn't do a quality job in certain areas the first time around and basically Italian Stallion and I have had just about enough of the clownin' around (not to mention water coming through our front door and our roof falling apart)...after that meeting, I headed to my in laws house to visit with my 2 sisters in law and all the cousins (IS's sister was in town from Tenn.)  That evening my parents came into town to stay the weekend as well...

Onto Saturday:  Peanut had a soccer game at 9:30am..I'm not even going to go into the catastrophe that was, with regards to a 5 year old refusing to play soccer "EVER AGAIN"...My sis in law came over for the afternoon, along with my parents to hang out until Sweetpea's game at 5:30...Italian Stallion and I had to leave immediately from the game to make it to the work function we were supposed to be at by 6pm (we didn't make it until 7:30) We arrived home at midnight...

Are you tired yet just reading this? 

I won't bore you with the rest of the details from the remainder of the weekend...basically we fit in church, more visiting, a photo shoot (which I'll get to in a sec) and another visit from Italian Stallion's parents who had just come in from their vacation in Texas...It wasn't until about 8pm that the house was actually quiet and we had nothing to do...

Well...that is of course cleaning up from the after effects of the whirlwind...I was going to take a picture of the "fort" in my living room, or the mounds of laundry upstairs, or the unmade beds and rice krispies crushed into my carpet...but, to be honest, I didn't have the gumption to document it...I'm beat!

I'm going to switch gears here and just mention that I did have a great time at the photo shoot.  I got to take pictures of a great couple, Amy and Mike.  Amy is the same age as what my sister, Sarah, would be like if she had lived.  Sometimes it's hard to picture Sarah anything other than 13 years old, but when I see people like Amy, I get to wondering.  Sarah was tall and thin and I can picture her being a little bit like Amy...and so, you can imagine my excitement when I got to spend the afternoon with them. 

I have lots more pictures on my CT Photo Memories site, but I thought I'd share a fav or two here as well!

Anybody got some Mommy Patience I can borrow?

My sweet Italian Stallion was gone this week...traveling out west...without me...it makes my heart sad to even say it...

We went 'out west' for our anniversary...okay, well, it was about 6 months BEFORE our ACTUAL anniversary, but that's what we called it...We spent time at the beach, went out to fun restaurants in the evening...walked the streets of Coronado...ohhhhhh sweet bliss...

Yes, well...he was there...without me...granted, he had to be in the office all day and work with employees and deal with disgruntled customers, etc...but, still...

And I was HERE...Here with my lovies!

I cherish my time with them...Sweetpea and I got to stay up later doing homework together...talking about her school concert that is coming up in December...Peanut and I cuddled on the couch in the mornings and we read books on her days off like they were going out of style...Little Munchkin and I made up new games like "Marble Golf" and "Sing Songs so I can say FOP IT"

And all these things were fun and we all love the GIRL TIME when Daddy is away...we like it for about a day...and then it becomes this downward slide into Missing Daddydom and the DRAMA that ensues would put Shakespeare to shame...

After multiple rounds of crying over socks that don't fit, of "she won't get out of the bathroom and I'm trying to goooo", of can I eat a granolabarapplesaucecheezitsleftoverpizzasalamisandwichapplejuicemilkchocolatechips...and more drama surrounding polly pockets, hula hoops and more toilet paper...

I believe the "marker" that broke my back was the one Little Munchkin used on my Cherry Wood Amish Made dining room table...a bright red sharpie marker that is...

I mentally had to check out for a sec...I literally had to talk myself down as I held Sweetpea and reassured her that even though she knows not to leave out sharpier markers, nor even use them remotely close to anything other than her playroom area that SHE was more important to me than a table...YES, I still loved her and Peanut and Little Munchkin more than anything else in the world (besides Daddy) and the table woudl still "function"...and on and on and on..

Folks...I'm spent...this single mom mode isn't workin' for me...It was only for 4 days, but I feel like I've run a marathon...whew...glad he's not heading out there again for a longgggg time...Regular life kicks in today and it's just about as hectic...but, I'm thankful for my hubby to share some of the load...

Although...he hasn't seen the table just yet...hmmmmmm