Trick-or-Treating

Ben and Grace went out trick-or-treating tonight. They both looked cute...Ben was Mario from Super Mario Bros. but forgot to put on his fuzzy mustache, darn it! Oh well. Grace looked cute as a witch too. It wasn't bad out, weather wise! It was probably in the upper 40's, but with sweatshirts underneath their costumes they were fine. Ben actually ducked out before Grace...he got too cold and was done after a couple blocks. Grace kept on going until her cauldron was full :). Tyler stayed home to pass out candy and Matt went to his friend Isaiah's to spend the night.

Pumpkin carving

We finally carved our pumpkins tonight. I don't know what it is, but pumpkin carving isn't my favorite holiday activity. It's messy and time consuming. I'm sure my mom is mortified because she was always a fun holiday mom...we decorated for the holidays and always carved pumpkins, even into college :) (remember your enthusiasm Joel?). Ben mentioned it tonight and I of course said sure...even though I don't like it they still do, so we carved. Tyler and Matt were in a raucous game of ping-pong, so they opted out. Ben decided he wanted a skull and crossbones pirate pumpkin, and Grace just drew a happy face on hers. After lots of loud shouting and fighting, Tyler stomped upstairs and decided he wanted to do his pumpkin too....ping-pong game gone awry. He made a cute Pikachu pumpkin (aww, reminds me of his Pokemon loving days).

Pet Smart had their cute doggie costumes 75% off today, so my poor dogs were subjected to silly halloween hats. They kept them on for about 2 seconds, but they were cute!

Oh, and we got Boo'd the other day! It's a fun Halloween thing kind of like May basket day...you leave a little halloween treat for two people, then they do it for 2 people, and on down the line. We made little bat baskets for our people...cute!

A few pics at the park

I ran the kids up to the park this afternoon to pose for me while Rich took the big boys for haircuts. It was supposedly in the mid 50's today, but I thought it was freezing, so we didn't stay too long! We didn't have hardly any color up here this year...I think that early October snow froze the leaves too fast. They went from green to brown :(....doesn't make for very good pictures!

Grandmother and Grandpa come to town!

We had a nice visit this past weekend with Phyllis and Dick! They arrived Thursday evening and stayed until Sunday morning. It was nice to see them....thanks for making that loooong (and somewhat harrowing through Minneapolis!) drive up! Thursday we ate some supper and took them for a little drive around town. Rich was working evenings, so we all stopped out to see his office. Friday we went to the Heritage Center in Bismarck to browse around the museum. In the evening Rich and I went out to eat by ourselves (yay), while Grandmother and Grandpa took the kids to eat. Saturday they took the kids to see Where the Wild Things Are, and we all settled in for pizza and an incredible Iowa Hawkeye game. WOW what a game! Those close endings are too much for my old nerves to handle! Sunday morning they left for Galesburg and ended up driving the whole way (13 hours) in one day instead of stopping overnight. Thanks again for coming, we all loved it!

Our weekend

Joel, Eli and Noah came over on Friday and we all drove over to Jim's....Heidi had homecoming weekend for her college and Rich had to work, so it was just he, I and the kids. Saturday Joel, Tyler and Matt went out arrowhead hunting, Noah and I went to Wal-Mart, and Eli, Grace and Ben stayed home with Grandpa. We also watched the Iowa game (GO HAWKS!). Sunday we went to church at Daglum...they were having their Fall Festival so there was a huge dinner after church. There were 20 cars in the parking lot...that is amazing!!! It was nice, it's always nice having enough people at church to have it in the sanctuary instead of around the table in the dining room. We had beautiful weather too, highs in the 60's Saturday and 70's Sunday!!

I also included some beautiful sunrise pictures...they remind me of my friend Velda who was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer recently. She loves sunrises & sunsets, so they will always remind me to send positive thoughts up to Canada for her!!

The blog about nothing

Seriously, this blog is so incredibly boring (Heidi, I'm right there with ya!). We are boring people who have been doing a whole lot of nothing.

We had snow last week...I know that Ankeny had snow too. Not much...it all melted within the day, but Tyler thought the world was ending (oh, does he have a fun winter driving experience coming up!) because he was sliding all over in the Jeep. The Jeep (and Tyler) were unscathed you'll all be happy to know! I thought the saying was FROST on the pumpkin, not snow!

"The" school pictures came back...the ones we had such outfit issues for. And surprise, they are cute! With the super tantrum we kind of ran out of time to do her hair, so that isn't great, but otherwise they are pretty good. Tyler's crack me up....they were taken when we were at the hotel, and he had scraped his forehead on the bottom of the pool so he has a scab on his head. Matt's tennis pics came back too. This is the "I'm too cheap to buy pictures" picture of a picture.

Ben is studying the midwest in school so he was labeling states in this pic. He's doing fairly well in school...he's really inconsistent in his grades though, I'm sure that's a product of his ADD. He's really smart but he just doesn't concentrate enough to do well on some assignments. Grace went to the pumpkin patch for a field trip in school this week, and someone set off the fire alarm with 5 minutes to go in the day on Wednesday by burning their microwave popcorn. The fire truck and police car were there....I'm not sure the principal was happy.

Here is Lucy near my slipper about 10 minutes before the poor slipper was chewed to bits. Guilty?

WHY is the formatting so wonky on this blog lately? It's driving me crazy. Please forgive the herky-jerky words and pics...I try to line them up when I post and it is being crazy!

Picture day!

The big boys had their school pics earlier, but the little kids had theirs today. Grace picked out the purple background for her pics, so I had an outfit picked out for her to wear that would coordinate w/the background. She had her own stubborn ideas, and sobbed for half an hour because she didn't want to wear the outfit I picked. This is really the one time a year I insist on having input on what she wears, most of the time I just let her wear what she wants (within reason, but she has pretty good taste!). So I won. And she was NOT happy...but wore my outfit :). Ben couldn't have cared less!

Mystery revealed

Ben's science class has been raising Anoles (small lizards). They had 5 for the class and the teacher sent a note home last week saying they were ready to be adopted. Now how many kids do you think begged their parents for a lizard last week? Lucky for me (yeah right) Ben really wanted one. After some negotiations, we gave in. The 'free' anole needed a terrarium with 2 thermometers and a hygrometer (to measure humidity), greenery, driftwood pieces to climb on, live crickets to eat, a cricket keeper for the crickets, calcium powder to dust them in, and a spray bottle to mist the cage with twice a day. The cage wasn't warm enough, so I put a heating pad on low underneath it. I have forbidden anyone from opening the cage unless they are feeding or watering it...the last thing I need is a jumpy lizard loose in my house! Oh, and it's name is Billy Bob.

New green wall

Rich painted the red wall in the living/dining room green for me. I like it better than the red, but I'm not sure I love this shade of green. It had to be darker because of the darker camel color on the living room walls, but it's a little too green-y or something. Eh, I'll just live with it....I think Rich would kill me if I made him repaint :).

This is Tyler not wanting me to take his picture :)