Happy Halloween 2015

Another Halloween come and gone:(  We love Halloween and always manage to get a lot of use out of our costumes and fit in as many of the fun activities that go with Halloween throughout the month.  It was a rainy day here today but the kids were troopers and, as usual, made a haul.  Usually my mom hands out candy at our house while we go out trick-or-treating with the kids, so this year my sister took over for her.  She was dearly missed.  My dad has not been home for Halloween for many years so we were happy to have him home this year and to have him trick-or-treat with us.  I have so many fond memories of him taking us all around town as kids.  After trick-or-treating we went back to our house for a taco/nacho bar and the kids ate too much candy.  Thank goodness for an extra hour of sleep tonight;)  Happy Halloween!

 Cousins:)

 Excited to get candy from the firemen and the EMTs!

 Holding hands

 The kid's loot!  It all goes together so there's no fighting:)...and nobody knows whose candy mom and dad ate:)

More hand holding and Papa giving Hattie a hand

Operation Christmas Child

This year I decided I'd like the kids to participate in Operation Christmas Child after learning about it throughout the year.  If you're interested in OCC, go to their website, www.samaritanspurse.org.  Initially, I thought I would have each of them pack a box for a child their same age.  As I went through all the little trinkets I already had collected, and kept finding more, our shoebox number kept growing.  Today we packed 10 shoeboxes!  We packed them with soap, toothbrushes, washcloths, flip flops, socks, books, toys, water bottles, Kleenex, chap stick, hair ties, etc. and explained to the kids that these boxes would be going to kids who didn't have any of these things.  OCC is such a great ministry.  We're planning to donate to print the labels that will allow us to track our boxes and see where they go.  There are many collection locations around the U.S. and collection week is November 16-23 so there's still time!

 

 

Drive-In-Movie

Today the girls had a day off of school and we babysat the twins and the other little guy I watch every other day.  To say that I'm glad it's bedtime and tomorrow is a new day is a HUGE understatement.  It was a H.A.R.D. day.  The little guy was super fussy today and cried a good part of the day.  Not only were my nerves shot, it was also wearing on the kids, especially Madi.  She does her best to help out with him and did manage to get him to laugh a bit.  The twins love Gracie but she tends to get all the little ones very wound up.  When I have days like today, all I want to do is talk to my mom and have her hug me which made it all seem so much worse because I can't. 

 

I'd been saving these boxes for quite sometime because Sarah and I had talked about doing this with the kids.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and I had to use them today because we were in desperate need of something to occupy everyone for a while.  The boxes were from my mom's pleurx kits; the bottles we used to drain the fluid from her lungs daily.  She knew I was saving them and what our plan was to use them for.  Not long before she died, she asked me if I had enough boxes for all the kids yet.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but I think it was another thing she wanted to make sure was "done" before she could go.  These boxes provided me with a few minutes of sanity today.  She's still taking care of me and her precious grandbabies. 

 

The kids worked diligently to decorate their "cars" before the movie.  We used stickers and crayons.  Grace made hers into an airplane, Wyatt's was a fire truck (he later pushed it all around wearing his fireman hat, making siren noises), and Madi drew a windshield on hers with her and our dog, Bear, looking through.  Little Hannah spent lots of time on her box and then filled it with a bunch of crayons.  They all gathered their blankets after lunch and I made popcorn and got them all a drink.  They were very content watching "Spooky Buddies" for quite a while.  Thanks mom:)

 

 

What would you say?

What would you say if you knew it would be your last call, text, or words you spoke to someone?  This is one of the last texts I got from my mom.  After this one she had a really hard time with it or would fall asleep mid text.  We texted everyday and it was so hard to adjust to not being able to do that.  This one makes me smile because it was so typical of her.  She always wanted to pay us for everything we brought over because she worried about it costing us a lot of money.  We were all more than happy to bring food, or anything for that matter.  It was our very small way we could repay her for everything she's done for us.  And we always ended with love ya.  I know, without a doubt, that my mom knew how much I loved her when she died.  If you love someone, make sure they know.

 

Cousin Halloween Party Fun

Today we had lots of fun with the Reed cousins! They came down to stay with us for the day while their mom and dad enjoyed the Packer game (and win!).  We sure managed to fit in a lot of fun in a short amount of time. 

 We started out with a spooky lunch.  These jello hands were a hit! 

 The kids made their own Jack-O-Lantern or Mummy pizzas. 

 We had some "Goosebumps" punch and boy was it a hit:)  I think Jack liked it! (lemon lime soda, green food coloring, rainbow sorbet, and gummy worms)

 Waiting patiently for their pizza creations, pretending to be chefs!

 Mmmmm, pizza!

 Uncle David doing his part to keep the crown under control...

 Cutting our jello hands

 Uncle Dave walked to the park with all the kids and let me clean up from lunch and get ready for more fun at the house. 

 Cousins on the slide

I was hiding "eye balls" (literally-balls that looked like eyes) around the house for them to find. 

 They all waiting on my bed. 

 Then we really got down to business with some pumpkin painting. 

 I just love this picture of Wyatt...carefully contemplating his next stroke of the paintbrush. 

 I didn't have green paint so they made their own by mixing colors. 

 Wyatt decided the pumpkin had enough paint and took the brush to his tummy instead. 

 They needed to re-fuel after all their playing at the park so Dilly bars were the perfect solution.

 I told Jack to smile and he kept giving me this face:)

 The kids took turns making each other into mummy's! 

 Callie was very good at this game!

 Jack didn't know what to think.

 And Wyatt...what a guy

 We finished off our evening with some dancing because what party would be complete without it?