Happy Halloween!

I'll post pics of the boys in their costumes on Monday or maybe this weekend if I have time. For now, here's the funniest Halloween pic I've seen in a long time.

Here's hoping your Trick or Treating will supply you with enough candy to last until Christmas!

Throwback Thursday

The date: October 31, 2005

The place: Thomasville Road Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL

The mood: Wouldn't a family of Whoopee Cushions make you smile? Kevin made these costumes. Seriously. He went to the craft store, picked out pink felt fabric and that no sew tape stuff. He came home and made these costumes for us to wear to the Fall Festival at church. Everyone loved the costumes. Fletcher was almost 2 and he could say, "Whoopie cushion" and make the noise. We've had several people borrow these costumes over the years. In fact, our neighbors just borrowed them the other day for a party. On the bottom it says "Made at home" instead of "Made in China". My husband - he's a clever one!

The Pumpkin Patch

Here are the pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch. Luke wanted to try and pick up every single pumpkin he saw. We started in the section with the really large pumpkins. We didn't realize until later that there was a section of little pumpkins too.



I love the fact that 4 1/2 year olds think they can do anything. I really think he thought he could lift this pumpkin. With one hand.
This is a little more realistic.



Fletcher trying to look cool. When your kid starts saying, "Hey, dad, take a picture of me doing _______", you know you've taken waaaaaaaay too many pictures of him in his lifetime!


Trying to get the two of them in one picture proved to be rather difficult.




At one point Luke was looking at a particular group of pumpkins and a little girl walked up close to him. She was about 2 years old and this picture shows what he did. He was "hiding" from her. He would look up to see if she was still there and then "hide" again. It was the funniest thing. She finally left and he went on about his business.
Yes, Luke still only has 2 teeth and yes, he needs a haircut again!

Mission accomplished! Luke finally finds a pumpkin that he can pick up. Can you see the proud look on his face?

BOO!

We've been Boo'd.

Or maybe it's Boo'ed.

Anyway, when we got home from church on Sunday there was a package on our steps. Inside were some tasty chocolate treats, a cute poem, a sign that said BOO and some instructions. Someone in our neighborhood anonymously Boo'ed us.

I had never heard of this little game until recently. I don't know if it is a Carolina thing or just a new thing to do around Halloween. The idea is that someone in your neighborhood starts the Boo'ing. Once your home has been boo'ed then you put the BOO sign on your front door to indicate that you've received your treat. Then it is your turn to secretly give a treat to someone else in the neighborhood who doesn't have a sign on their door yet. The obvious goal is that everyone in the neighborhood gets boo'ed before Halloween. Cute, huh? Or maybe you are thoroughly confused. Sorry. It's late and this is the best explanation I could come up with.

So in case a treat bag shows up on your door, you will know what to do -- unless that bag is on fire and smells like dog poop - that is NOT the way the BOO game works!

Meet Jack

We went to a pumpkin patch this weekend and the boys picked out a rather large pumpkin. We looked online for a few templates. Of course, Fletcher wanted either the super scary skeleton/devil kind or the ones that were so intricate and detailed that we would be carving until Jesus returned.

Instead we "helped" him choose this guy. Kevin did most, well actually all of the scooping out and carving. Did I mention that Fletcher really doesn't like to get sticky or dirty? I don't know where he gets that from. We are going to roast the seeds tonight. And by "we" I mean Kevin.

I'll post more pictures of the boys at the pumpkin patch later this week.

Study Hard

Vanity license plates are pretty popular around here. We have some mighty clever people in the Carolinas.

This one made me laugh out loud and I still laugh about it when I think about it. That particular day I wished I had a camera in my cell phone so I could take a picture. Instead, you will have to picture it in your head.

The guy is probably in his late 30's. My guess is that he is wearing designer clothes and an expensive watch. He is driving a white Mercedes convertible with the top down - I don't know what "class" of Mercedes but I am sure it was the most expensive one with all leather, fancy engine, etc.

His license plate?

GPA 1.5

Eh, who needs college, right?

Throwback Thursday

The place: Jacksonville, FL

The date: Halloween, 1999

The mood: We were all trainers (and our General Manager) at ExecuTrain, a computer software training company. We decided to dress up for Halloween that year just to make things interesting. The group of people I taught that day were all 50+ and none of them knew who Mary Catherine Gallagher was from Saturday Night Live so my costume didn't make sense to them. I am sure most of them were wondering, "Why is our instructor dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl." From left to right the costumes were biker chick, Mary Catherine Gallagher, Star Trek guy, Jaguar fan, Uncle Sam, Suns baseball player, marathon runner.

Girlfriends

Fletcher asked Kevin what Spiderman's girlfriend looked like. He has a little friend at preschool who knows everything about Spiderman. I showed him a picture of Kirsten Dunst online and he said indignantly, "That's not Spiderman's girlfriend." I guess he thought she would also be wearing some kind of costume??

Then we had this conversation --
Mom: Do you have a girlfriend?
Fletcher: Yeah, two, actually
Mom: TWO? You can't have two girlfriends! That is against the rules.

Kevin from the other room: We'll talk about that later, buddy. Daddy will explain how it works.

Mom: What are their names?
F: Olivia and um, uh, I can't remember the other one.
Mom: What? You can't even remember her name? That is not good.
F: Wait, Elizabeth. That's her name.

Mom: How does she know she is your girlfriend?
F: I told her she was pretty.

(Oh if it were only that easy.)

Kevin had walked in the room at this point.

Dad: But which one is the prettiest of all?
F: Mom is
Mom: Good answer, buddy.

Do they have all boy preschools?

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is my mom's birthday. She might shoot me if I tell you how old she is. The picture above is of my parents and siblings from 4th of July several years ago. (Why yes, that is a napkin taped to my brother's shirt).

She probably won't see this today because she and my dad are on a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with his singing group the Agin' Cajuns. How cute is that name? But I digress.

Now that I have kids of my own, I am amazed on a daily basis how my mom raised 4 kids without killing all of us. I know we were more than a handful. And she didn't have the benefit of 24 hour cartoon stations, portable DVD players, microwave meals, and pizza delivery.

Here's my top ten favorite things about my mom:
10. She is very good at baking. I remember growing up how everyone especially at church would rave about her cakes, cookies and other goodies. I am surprised we are not all huge from eating all that yummy food.

9. She loves finding a bargain. Thursdays were shopping days. She would get the sale papers and figure out what was on sale then we would go to my dad's work, pick up his check, go to the bank and then hit 2 or 3 stores for our grocery shopping.

8. She loves my dad and they make a good team. They have been married 51 years.

7. She made my lunch every single day of my school career from 1st grade until I graduated from high school. Ok, I admit that sounds like I might have been a teeny bit spoiled. But I was a really skinny kid and I think secretly that she thought I might die of starvation if I didn't eat lunch. I had food issues when I was a kid, but that is another post for another day.

6. She taught me the importance of the Sunday afternoon nap. I don't get them as often as I used to. There is nothing better than reading the Sunday paper then dozing off for a few hours.

5. She was a great stay at home mom. I don't remember hearing her complain about doing laundry, making dinner, etc. I do, however, remember getting in serious trouble one night by my dad for saying that I thought our dinner looked like dog food. Like I said, I am surprised we all made it to adulthood. We didn't grow up with a ton of money, but she (and my dad) made sure that there was lots of love and laughter in our home. Even with four kids, things like birthdays and Christmas were always special and fun. Even though she had to play referee, she still made encouraged my siblings and me to play board games together and just play together in general. It sometimes ended in accusations of cheating or fighting, but she would spank us, send us to our rooms and try again the next day. I think this helped us learned conflict resolution skills and loving each other even though we were really mad at each other.

4. She managed to get 4 kids and herself ready for church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Dad was there helping too, but she had to help with the hair and the tights or hose. She also helped us learn things like the books of the Bible and memory verses. We had to "study" our Sunday School lesson on Saturday nights before we could play or watch TV.

3. She has always been supportive of me. I know she wasn't thrilled when I went away to college, but she still wrote me letters and came to visit and came to see our singing group perform. It was probably even harder to watch her baby move to the big city of Houston after college graduation, but she remained supportive and still continued to supply me with food. I was such a pathetic cook that one time I was supposed to provide a birthday cake at the school where I was teaching. She baked her famous Coconut Cake and met me halfway so I could take it to school. She had to listen to YEARS of dating and break up stories before Kevin came along. She has prayed for us during our years of infertility and has rejoiced with us in our adoptions.

2. She loves being a grandmother and now a great-grandmother. I know she prays for her grandchildren and great-grandchild regularly.

1. Speaking of praying, I watched her and my dad close out every day reading their Bible together and then kneeling beside their beds to pray.

Happy Birthday, Mom. We love you and we hope to see you soon.

Lesson Learned?

Five weeks. Five whole weeks with no TV.

I won't mention names to protect the innocent, but one of our boys has been having some trouble recently with telling the truth. The first time it happened, the consequence was no TV for a week. He really doesn't watch that much TV - usually one or two shows while I am getting ready in the morning before he goes to school. But he really enjoys those one or two shows. I thought a week would really be a good wake up call.

But then he didn't tell us the truth again. And again. And again. And yet again. Each time was a situation where we knew the truth already but we wanted him to make the choice to tell us what the truth was. We said over and over that the consequences for lying are far worse than the consequences for whatever it is that you did/didn't do.

Let's hope this lesson works. Next time I'll have to take the keys to his car.

Weekly Reader

This could be a loooooooong few years.

I love that he stops to show you (yes, you - because he asked me to put his video on our blog) the pictures like his preschool teacher does when she reads them a story.

Throwback Thursday

The date: October 31, 2004

The place: Tallahassee, FL

The mood: We were a huge hit at our church's Fall Festival. I had a really cute costume for Fletcher to wear, but it was so hot that night that I knew he would sweat and be miserable since we would be outside the whole time. Thank you Florida weather. So I had to come up with Plan B on short notice. We went as Target employees. If I recall, our nametags had our positions and Fletcher was Store Manager. The next year our costumes were even better - stay tuned to a future Throwback Thursday to see those masterpieces.

Might As Well Jump

I really think he thinks his feet are leaving the ground. I also think he thinks if he throws his head back that he will jump higher.

Isn't he the cutest?!

The book on the floor is called Counting Kisses. It is about a baby whose whole family kisses her goodnight on her toes, knees, ears, chin, etc. Luke loves to read it at night and likes to give the baby kisses.

Sunday visit

Grandma and Papa Charlie came for a visit on Sunday. We went to lunch and then visited a new toy store in town. I'm not sure who enjoyed the toy store more - Kevin or the boys. We had a great visit and are looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with them in Florida.

Those clever preschool teachers

Who knew you could take a dance craze from the mid-90's and use it to teach the months of the year.

For anyone who was living under a rock in the 90's, this is supposed to be the Macarena. What cracks me up is Fletcher trying to do the motions.

Sorry if the "new version" of this song gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day. It really is a catchy way to learn the months of the year.

Another thing I thought I would never do on this blog

Many of the readers of this blog (oh who am I kidding - all three of you) have followed my adventure of trying to save money on our grocery bill. In my search for good deals, coupon tips, and other money saving ideas, I've run across several blogs in which people post pictures of the things they buy and the deals they made. The first time I saw this I thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. Who wants to see a picture of what you bought at the grocery store? I just didn't really understand.

Until today.

Triple coupons at Lowe's Food. I had never heard of Lowe's except for the home improvement store until we moved to NC. This Lowe's is a grocery store. I think they are only in the Carolinas. This is the first time in over a year that they have done triples.

I had heard the triples rumor late last week so in preparation I cut and organized my coupons. I researched prices. I planned my attack. They only allow 20 coupons to be tripled per day so I had to be smart. I had several goals. First, I would only buy coupon items since I had already done our weekly shopping on Sunday night. Second, I would only buy the things that would be free or close to free after coupons. Third, I would spend less than $20.

A moment of silence please.

Now cue the drumroll.

I bought all of this for $16.87. Between triple coupons and store specials I saved $35.43! I am amazed. I think my parents would be proud. Several of the items were completely free after coupons: the toothbrushes, the toothpaste, the tea bags, and the Tabasco sauce. Some of the other items were just a few cents - the Hefty zip freezer bags were .34 each. The Softsoap was .45. A few of the items were ones that I might not normally buy or even try (pizza rolls, CPK frozen pizzas, new Pillsbury Savorings, Pepperidge Farm Fruit and Grain Bread) but they were very inexpensive after the coupons and sales. Even if we end up not liking them, I don't have to feel bad about spending alot of money on them.

(I have to add a disclaimer here - There are some SERIOUS coupon women in my town! Normally, I would do this kind of shopping without the kids so I could concentrate. However, because there were several good deals, I knew I had to try to go as early as possible or the stuff would be gone. I had to take Luke with me. He got fussy at the end so I had to rush.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. . .

And a special Happy Birthday to my niece Brittany and my niece-in-law Katie (is there such a thing?). I hope you are both having a great day. And one more to my nephew Bradley whose birthday is Saturday. We love you!

Throwback Thursday

All of the Throwback Thursdays for the month of October will have a fall/Halloween theme. Enjoy!

The date: Octoberish, 1999

The place: Jacksonville, FL

The mood: Just take a look at our faces. I don't know if we have ever concentrated so hard in our lives. We were at a Sunday School class party and the activity of the evening was pumpkin carving. We had been married a little over a year.

A helper I will be, a helper I will be

There's work to do, there's work to do.

In our family.

More wisdom and questions from the first born

The scene: Kevin brought home a delicious piece of chocolate cheesecake from work today. Fletcher and I were each eating some of it for dinner. Luke is in his high chair screaming for a bite so I give him one.

Fletcher in a "freaking out" voice: Mom! Don't give Luke chocolate.
Mom: It's ok buddy. He's not a dog.
Fletcher: Oh, well ok then.

--------
The scene: Monday night reading his Bible before bed. He has The Message Bible for Kids that has pictures in it along with the story.

Fletcher: Mom, the story of Noah is a little bit confusing to me.
Mom: Why is that?
Fletcher: Well, the Bible says that God sent male and female animals, two by two, clean and unclean.
Mom feeling proud because he's been paying attention to the details of the story: That's right, that's what the Bible says
Fletcher looking at the picture: Well, it doesn't make sense because none of these animals look dirty to me.

If anything, my boy is observant!

Did I mention we had bacon for dinner?

This dog cracks me up

Formal Dinner Party

I'm glad our formal dining room is so useful.

Throwback Thursday

The date: December 1995

The place: Israel. More specifically the mountainous desert right outside of Jerusalem possibly near where Jesus was tempted.

The mood: That was probably one of the most amazing trips I've ever taken. Definitely in my top 3. When I was teaching at Second Baptist in Houston, Dr. Young took groups of people to Israel every year. They were hoping to take some high schoolers this year and the school asked if any teachers wanted to go as chaperones at a discounted rate. Of course, being on a poor teacher's salary and this being a trip of a lifetime, I jumped on that offer. The people in the photo are the other single people that went on the trip. From bottom left, Geoff (another SBS teacher), Teresa (from Hickory, NC), me, Phil (my NASA friend), Clint (standing, from ??). We had such a great time together.

I still remember so much of it like it was yesterday. It was amazing to see places that I had only read about in the Bible. Crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat and realizing Jesus walked on this very water was really cool. I hope I can go back someday with Kevin and the boys.

One very funny story from that trip - we were in an olive factory in Bethlehem buying Christmas ornaments made out of olive wood (the best souvenirs ever). A man came up to me and asked if I would marry his son. He said he would give my father 1000 camels and 50 goats. I considered it for a moment since I hadn't had a date in quite a while, but I declined. Later I found out that a good camel goes for about $1000 so I turned down a million dollar proposal! I gave my dad a camel made of olive wood to remind him of the one that got away!

Bible Study

Throw up on the floor (twice). Blood on the couch. Spilled milk on the kitchen rug.

That was my Tuesday in a nutshell. The "offenders" were Sadie, Fletcher and Luke in that order.

I'm attending a Women's Bible Study at our church on Wednesday mornings. We are going through a book called The Power of a Positive Mom by Karol Ladd. The book is a good reminder to me about how easy it is to fall into a bad habit of focusing on the not-so-fun things of motherhood like those I mentioned plus laundry, sibling issues and disobedience. Some days I feel like all I've said is "No", "Don't", "Stop", "Listen", "Obey". Instead I really need to work on encouraging the good behavior I see in my children and being thankful that God chose me to be the mom of these wonderful little boys.

I think this study will be good for me. The infant to preschool years can be very difficult physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It is good to be in a room full of moms who know exactly how I'm feeling.

Maybe one of them can tell me how to get blood off the couch. . .