'Twas the night before Halloween...


Our family may have crossed the line into the realm of completely nuts tonight. At least, that is what Robert believes the neighbors must think, if they happened to be looking through our kitchen window at dinnertime. After most of us had finished dinner we found ourselves all staring at Laina and watching her take each painstakingly slow bite of her meal. This is a nightly ritual although Ethan was especially agitated because he knew as soon as she finished we could start carving our pumpkins. To keep him busy we all kept giving him our plates to put in the sink. By the time he got the last one in we started clapping and cheering for him. "Ethan's the best big brother, ever!" "Ethan is super!" He lifted his arms into the air and started doing a victory lap around the table. We all got into the cheering and before we knew it we were whistling and cheering and doing high-fives as he went by. By his 4th lap he was taking dramatic bows and shouting 'Encore! Encore!' about himself. His enthusiasm just fueled our fun. When he sat down, Austin shot up and cheers for "The best little brother ever!" ensued. More high fives, more whistling, more bowing. And when Austin had exhausted the track around the table, Alaina got up and "the best sister, ever!" showed us what she had to offer. We were unstoppable. After her 5 times around the table and she sat down, the kids looked at me and started, "the best Mama, ever!" "You rock, Mom!" It doesn't take much encouragement for me to join in. So I jumped up and started my own victory laps taking in the high fives and cheers. After I sat down, Robert got up for his exuberant turn. And just when you thought it would be over and Robert had sat down, the kids looked at each other and shouted out, "We're the best family, EVER!" "Whahoo!" "Oh, Snap! We Rock!" (direct quote from Ethan - don't ask.) And up we all got, cheering, clapping and skipping, for our family victory run around the now well-worn track around the table.

We are the best family, ever. Just ask any of us. :)

After that we got right down to pumpkin carving business. The kids loved getting their hands dirty. They drew out their patterns and Rob and I carved them out for them. Little cuties.

Pumpkin time at Riverbend Farm. We love this place and since last Wed. was a gorgeous warm break from all of our cold rainy days, we decided to take the kids out of school early to enjoy the farm. Ya baby...living on the edge. Instead of blathering on about it, I'll just let you see how much fun we had with a truck load of pictures. Enjoy.

Why haven't I been blogging? Where have I been?

Cleaning!

Everyday. All day. And the house looks almost good enough to buy. Too bad 'almost' doesn't doesn't bring home the bacon. Oh well...one of these days... until then I guess I'll just have to keep working the elbow grease.

Ok. Here are just a few silly moments that I've been trying to remember.

While we were at a restaurant (during a house showing.) we found ourselves watching football on TV above our table. Super annoying, by the way. Anyways, Ethan was enthralled. If we looked down for a second, he'd shout, "You're missing the football!" Finally, Ethan decided that he wanted to be a football player. We talked about how football players get hurt (as we watched a player get hurt and be carried off the field.) He didn't care. He still wanted to be a football player. Sweet Austin said, "If I was there I would call out, 'don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt!'" And after watching the instant replay of the guy getting hurt, Austin stated, "I don't want to be a football player." Then pointing to his face he said, " I want to be a movie star." And I swear, the way he said it sound more like, "There's no way I'm going to mess this perfect face up." Sometimes I wish that boy's life WAS on film.

Laina wanted to call G-Ma Jones on the phone. When Mom answered, Laina acted like the teenager she'll become and started walking around the house having a 'private' conversation. Mom kindly filled in the details of their conversation. First she asked Alaina to sing her a song which was all the encouragement that girl needed to bust into a hearty version of 'Row, row, row your boat.' Only her special lyrics went as followed, "Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life goes down the drain." And immediately after that she added, "We WANT to move but we can't get anybody to buy our house!" Hmm, I wonder if my ultra positive attitude is rubbing off on her?

Ethan was trying to decide which of his two girl friends to marry. He finally settled on Molly because 'she's already kissed me 2 times!" Odd. I was sure he would have gone for the emotionally supportive one...

Every now and then we talk to the kids about strangers and what to do if someone tries to hurt them. But mostly we stress the importance of telling Mom and Dad if anything ever did happen. During one of the conversations with Ethan I said, "you know...someone might say that if you told us that your dad or I would be angry or upset but do you think that would be true? " Ethan answered, "No. You'd be mad at them!" Good boy, "That's right, I'd be very angry with them. " And before I could go on, Ethan added, "and they wouldn't be able to get dessert. Even if it is dessert day, they wouldn't get it." It gets to me sometimes how innocent their little minds are. It makes me happy to know that the biggest punishment someone could get would be missing out on dessert on dessert day. But it makes me worry about how to keep him safe in such a different type of world. I guess that is motherhood for you.