Trick-or-Treating

Trick-or-treating commenced around 6pm tonight. It was actually from 4-7 tonight, but Noah insisted we go when it was dark. It wasn't quite dark when we left, but it was close.



Sadly, Madie wasn't able to go. When she got home yesterday from school, she started watching tv in our bed and was just really quiet and still. When I checked to see why she was being so quiet, I realized she had a temp. Then the cough started, so she's been home sick with, what I assume is, the flu. So, she had to miss on tonight, but Noah and Livie shared their goodies with her. Honestly, I think Livie might be next. She's got a runny nose and has nearly lost her voice. She got the Swine Flu vaccine the other day, so it might be side affects from that. Who knows. A friend of ours that lives down the street, who was himself sick all week, dropped by though with candy for her. So nice!

Here are my happy trick-or-treaters! Noah had been cooped up inside the house all day with Madie and Pete, so when he got outside, he was literally running from house to house and just FULL of energy. Poor Livie couldn't keep up!! So, he tried to run in circles until she caught up with him. ;-)

This family lives around the corner from us and they had decorated their whole garage. The kids thought that was REALLY cool!!!

By the time we finished one street, the sun had set and the kids got to enjoy their halloween in the dark. Just like they wanted. The very first house we went to was our friend Jackie's house - 2 doors down. She and her family are REALLY into Halloween and when we got up to the house, the garage door suddenly opened up and her husband and brother - dressed in ghostly outfits - jumped out with a chain saw revving!!! They were trying to scare the teenagers who were in front of us, but they had already rounded the corner and instead came face-to-face with Livie, who I swear jumped a mile! As soon as Evan saw that they had scared Livie, they ripped off their masks and started apologizing to her. We were cracking up! Livie said, "You really scared me!!!", then started laughing herself. It was quite an experience! Too funny! But, we came home with a bunch of candy and Madie got to see what goodies we got. She was too tired to really get off the couch to look much at it though. But, I'm sure once she's feeling better, she'll dive right into it like the rest of the kids (and parents) did. :-) Happy Halloween Everyone!

Short Video

Thought I'd take a VERY brief video of the parade, so you could see what it was like. Usually the principal is dressed up like one of the Monsters, Inc guy and leads the parade, but he's sick (from what I hear) with the good 'ole Swine Flu, so they had some other people leading the parade. But, the band joined in as always and it was a fun time!

Halloween Parties

Today were Madie and Noah's class Halloween parties. They were thrilled to pieces! I mean, what kid doesn't like dressing up? Pete took a half day, so he could be in Noah's class. He took Livie with him and I went to Madie's class - since I'm her head room parent.




Here's Noah as Captain America and Livie wore her cowgirl costume. She wanted to wear her dinosaur costume, but it's big and bulky, so I told her she had to wait until Halloween night to wear that one. Noah's really buffed out these past couple months. I mean, look at those HUGE muscles!!!

Here's Noah with some of his classmates. :-)

The classes always line the halls, until it's their turn to join the Halloween parade. It's starts with 5th graders, then 4th, then 3rd, and so on.

Pete took our picture as we walked down the hallway. Here's Madie with her witches costume. Got that at a garage sale this summer for 50c. I had to do a little repair work, but not much and it came with the tights and hat too. Quite a deal!!

Normally the parade goes outside and around the block. But, today (like almost every day this October) was crappy and pouring down rain! Sucked!! So, we just walked down to the gym and all the kids lined up in there. You can see Noah there in the middle with his Capt American costume.

Madie's there on the left with her witch's costume.

This is Madie with her friend Katie. She's a sweet girl. :-)

Madie had a fun time in her class. We played several games of bingo and then ate TONS of cookies, candy, and cupcakes. Well, she didn't and neither did I, but the other kids did. She wasn't hungry for them, I guess. We saved them for Pete. :-)

It was a fun afternoon even with the rain. Let's just hope trick-or-treating tomorrow night isn't as awful. As Livie was singing today over and over again... Rain, rain, go away. Come back another day.

Olivia's Halloween Party

Today is Livie's halloween party at school. The 3 yr old class doesn't do the whole costume/parade thing, but we figured she could at least wear kitty ears, whiskers, and paws. :-) She actually going to be a dinosaur for Halloween, but she had this one too and thought it would be fun to wear it today. She's going to eat Bat Stew at school and make a pumpkin craft and have treats, so she's very excited! Here's what she said about it...

Livie: I want you to see my costume. For Madie and Noah to see my whiskers and my nose. And, daddy and Olive. So, when we pick up Madie and Noah, I will let them see it. That's all I want to say. I love Toucan Sam and him nephews, that's all.

Progress

Noah wore his "I hate broccoli" shirt to school today and a boy in his class named Brenton told him he hates broccoli too and wants to join his club! Awesome!!! We're reaching the masses!

News

Found out today that Pete is definitely going to China. He'll be gone for 16 days in December. I'm excited for him. I think it's going to be a really cool experience, but still a little sad to know he'll be gone for that long. We'll miss him. But, he's promised to bring back presents and lots of pictures - so China? Here we come!! :-)

Madie's New Hairstyle

Madie got her hair cut again a week or two ago and it just hasn't been holding the curl as much. Think it's mostly because she's so busy and active, that the curls just fall out of it. So, I decided to try and use my curling iron to see what we came up with and we love it! Really turned out cute, so I thought I'd share her new hairstyle with you all. She's been wearing it like this for a few days and she likes it. :-) It's kind of hard to see, but because she has layers, it curls out on the bottom side and curls under on the top layer. Really look adorable on her.

Also - an aside - both Madie and Noah now have loose teeth. Have a poll going on the side to see who you think will loose their teeth first. Madie has two teeth on the top that are loose and Noah has his two bottom teeth. Neither one of them seem to be wiggling them, though Noah did try and tie floss around his to pull them out! I told him they aren't QUITE ready to be pulled out yet. Still need some wiggling. I'm hoping by Thanksgiving one, if not both of them, will be a bit more toothless than they are now. :-)

Basement Update

As you've seen in posts from this summer, we spent several days re-doing our basement. Organized it, put down carpet, rearranged, etc... and now it's a pretty awesome space - despite the lack of drywall and a ceiling. :-) Well, it got even awesomer (is that even a word?) this weekend. To give you a bit of a back story, there is a room in our church that was known as the "Coat Room". It was actually a space that the youth group was supposed to use, but it had become a junk room. The catch-all for everything in our church that had no where else to go. Well, we wanted to give it back to the youth, so the youth leader and I spent a couple hours one day, cleaning it up, but because it was such a mess, we barely made a dent. So, Pete and I took the kids and went and spend almost 4 hrs one Sat cleaning it up, with the exception of a few large items that I had to find a new home for. One of the things we found buried under carpet rolls and high chairs and exersaucers was an air hockey table. I asked Betty (the youth leader) about it and she said it was broken and to get rid of it, because they already had one for the youth that was fine. Pete thought, "Heck, I can fix that!", so we got permission to take it home and keep it. Well, when we got it home, we found the motor just needed cleaned, so Pete cleaned it and wired up a new switch for it and now we had a working air hockey table - for free!!!!



We had to do some rearranging to get it in the space, so Pete bought 2 more area rugs and we moved shelves and things around and now we have a nice, working air hockey table in our basement. :-) We put it the girls' area of the basement. It's in the area that used to have their dress-up clothes and shelves. We just took the shelves and made them 2-blocks high, instead of just the one-block high and made a couple rows of them to keep the room blocked off.

We moved the dress-up clothes over by the ping-pong table now. :-)

Here's looking from the a/h table to the rest of the basement, by the stairs.

Several weeks/months ago, dad gave the kids these really cool Star Wars posters that he got at a rummage sale. We didn't have a place to put them until all the bins were sorted and put in place, plus we had to wait for Em and Jeff to come and pick up all the stuff we had for them. Since they did that, we were able to hang them up finally!! The kids ride their bikes by it and call it their "Star Wars Museum". :-) The basement will forever be an ongoing project, but it's such a fabulous space and every time we have visitors, their kids just love being down there and having fun. And, now with the a/h table, the fun just got even better!

Livie's Open House

Last night was Livie's Open House. :-) She was so excited to take us there!



This is one of the pictures she made that was hanging up in the classroom. She's the only student that actually gave her person a smiley face. :-) The "D" on his chest is for "Daddy". Everytime she draws a picture now, it's of Pete and she always puts a "D" somewhere on the page. "M" is for Madie, "N" is for Noah, "D" is for daddy, "O" is for Olivia, and "L" is for me. Not "M" for Mommy. No. "L" for Lori. There might be something wrong with that....

This is Livie's mouse and the painting the mouse made. She LOVES crafts and I know that this is probably the favorite part of her day at preschool. She loves going there so much!

Here we all were, looking at her folder of pictures. That's another picture of her daddy that she drew.

Livie is pointing to her moon and stars painting. She said she would go to the moon in a rocket with all of us.

This is a patchwork thing they made of both the morning and afternoon classes. Hers is the one right above her with the yellow paint.

And, this is the handprint picture Pete and I made with her on her first day of school. The picture was taken right before we did the handprints. It was a rainy, yucky day outside last night, but the Open House was so fun. We really enjoyed seeing everything she had done so far this year!

Thanks!

The kids got a Halloween card in the mail from their Nana and Papa D. And, it had 3 dollars in it!! They were soooo excited! Thanks Nana and Papa! :-)

The Apple Orchard

My friend Patty told me about an apple orchard just south of town, so we decided to go today with her and her boys, and our friend Lisa and her boys. :-)



The house is just a little house, situated down a gravel road, with a long driveway. Loved it! So isolated and quiet. A nice lady and gentleman lived there and had baskets of apples to pick from. She gave us a bag for each family and let our kids start filling them up. Noah and Madie liked to pick the giant, cooking apples.

Livie just wanted one she could eat right then and there!

Here we are filling our bag. That's Dominic, Lisa's oldest boy, with the striped shirt.

I told the kids on the way to the orchard that I wanted one picture of the 3 of them and one picture of all the kids. I said "If you could just do that, I'll be happy." I swear, I took 20 pics with only this one turning out. Why, you ask? Because my children are incapable of looking AT the camera at the same time! I nearly went crazy and we were only there 10 min at this point. Glad to say that once I got this shot, the rest of our visit went really well. :-)

We took the kids into the orchard. The gentleman of the house walked with us some and let the kids see the trees.

Livie and Dino got a little side-tracked by the berries. That's Lisa's youngest. Her 3 boys all are 1 yr younger than my kids. :-)

Then they found a pinwheel, which they loved! All the kids enjoyed watching it. That's Andrew, Patty's youngest, who is Noah's age, and Dino again.

Here he is shaking the apples out of the tree and onto the ground for the kids to get. I'm glad I only had a half-filled bag at this point, because they filled up the rest of it and ate several too.

Here's Michael (Patty's oldest - Madie's best friend), Noah, and Livie with their apples. :-)

Then he took them to look at their bee hives. They were empty of bees, but the kids got to see the honeycombs. They wanted to see a REAL bee hive though.

So, he took them back to the garage and showed them a wasps' nest he found in one of their trees. The kids thought that was super-cool!

Here are all the kids, with the exception of Dino who was hiding behind the tractor. It's David (Lisa's middle boy), Andrew, Michael, Madie, Noah, Dominic, and Livie.

After we finished up at the apple orchard, he told us of a couple who lived down the street that had pumpkins for sale. Well, we already have pumpkins from when we went to Dollingers, but they had indian corn and so we bought several of them. The kids loved looking all all the pumpkins and gourds and stuff while we were there. Livie found a little pumpkin that was half orange and have black, so we got that too.

Noah thought it was funny to hang gourds from the little tree in their yard. :-)

Here's Madie and her best friend Michael. Can you tell he's an outgoing kid?! ;-)

Here they are, talking with Miss Ramona, and getting their stuff picked out. It was finally a beautiful October day and just perfect for a fun fall outing. :-) We had a great time!!

School Pictures

We finally got the kids' school pictures back today! Hooray! And, I'm pleased to report that there will be no retakes this year. Both kids were smiling and super-cute, if you ask me. :-)



With Madie's short hair, she looks so grown-up compared to last year's picture. Still can't believe she's going to be 9 this year. Wow!

And, here's my handsome boy! First picture with his glasses. Just glad they stayed on his face for the picture. When I bought them, I didn't realize how big they were on his face and they are constantly sliding down, but they were up and in place and he did a great job smiling for his picture this year. :-)

Sharpies Can Be Used For EVERYTHING!

Now, I've posted things from time to time about what it's like living in this small town in Illinois. I feel that I can make fun of these things, because I come from hillbilly stock. Yes, my parents grew up out east, but IN got to them enough that they had a broken orange recliner on their front porch for 6 months, so I think I can make fun of my fellow man.



Every day, on the way to school, we turn by this restaurant. It's got a nice sign out front. Building is painted nicely. Probably a fairly nice establishment - though I admit to never having gone to it. One morning as we were driving by it, I noticed something new had been added to the sides of it. I think this is how the conversation went between the owner and one of the locals...

"Dude, um, think we need to let people know when we're open. We've been having people show up at like 4...on a Monday. So, can you take this sharpie and make a sign for the side of the building? Make sure you make it big enough for everyone to see as they drive by. Oh, and don't forget to put "OPEN" REALLY big at the top! What? Naw. You don't need a ruler or nothin'. Just freehand it."

"AWESOME, man! Only thing is, I think the people who live south of us, only like to come on the weekends, so could you put the weekend schedule on that side? Sweet!"

You Know You Have a Good Dentist If...

I got this in the mail today from our dentist's receptionist, Mary. :-) She took this of the girls when we were there in August. It was Livie's first visit and she was watching Madie get her teeth cleaned. Now, I can't rave enough about our dentist. The whole office is full of fantastic people! When I was there back in the wintertime, I had to get my teeth cleaned and so did Madie, but Pete happened to be in Toronto, so that meant I had to take all 3 kids with me and I was convinced it was going to be a nightmare of epic proportions, but instead, Mary, and a couple of the other gals, watched my kids for me. Gave them little toys, talked to them, made them stay busy, so I didn't have to worry about them getting into trouble. I could have hugged them!! Every time we're in there, they are welcoming and wonderful and sweet enough to take pictures and send them to me. :-) I mean, who does that?! She even put a post-it on the back of the picture that said "I just got this off my camera. I thought that it was so cute. We have on on our bulletin board at the office." So, yeah, we are so lucky to have found a great dentist that cares about our kids and are helpful and sweet. So, there are my girls, at the dentist, just full of smiles.

Flashback Friday

This week's Flashback Friday is of Noah when he was just 1. Boy, was he a cutie back then! Not that he's not now, it's just that he's a big boy now and he was still a sweet, cuddly little guy when he was that age. I loved and STILL love to see my kids asleep and curled up with a stuffed animal. This was given to Madie, if I'm not mistaken, but Noah claimed it as he own from the very beginning. Just a reminder of how quickly they grow up.

October, Where Art Thou?

I've mentioned before how much I love October. It is my favorite month of the year. The bugs die, the leaves change color, and the weather is just about perfect. All of that can be said for this year's October except that last one. This October has been unseasonably cold! Friday I finally broke down and turned the heat on. Saturday we got out the winter coats. And, today, we actually got out hats and gloves!!


You can see here, the kids dressed up in all their winter garb. Because "winter" came on us so quickly, I have been spending the past couple of weeks getting their summer clothes packed away and their winter clothes washed up. And, since Madie had NOTHING in size 7 (yes, she actually grew!), I've been frantically running to stores to find her clothes. And, if you've ever been to this area, it's not an easy task. If you don't like Walmart, you're pretty much screwed. Thank goodness for online shopping is all I have to say. But, if it's in the low 40s just the second week into October, what does that mean for December, January, and February? I shutter to think!

By the way, had to post this one as well, because I could only get them to do smiley faces for pictures, if I promised to let them do silly/scary faces. ;-) One of these days I'm going to take a video of what it's like getting all three kids to take a decent picture. As all you moms know, it takes at least 8 pictures to get one that's fairly decent and doesn't have a child turning away, looking away, or crying. And it also typically involves threatening, bargaining, and yelling by mom. Not necessarily in that order.