Breakfast in Bed...

I've been fighting off a sore throat the past couple of days; today it finally caught up with me, and i ended up ditching on church. C has also been fighting something off - up late night coughing, and running a 103 fever to boot.

Well, D overheard me talking about C feeling sick to my counselors when i was arranging for primary stuff to be covered. So he decided she'd feel better if he gave her breakfast in bed. (Never mind that she spent most of last night in MY bed ;-) Anyway,... D made her a tray of C's favorite 'breakfast' foods - apple juice, poptarts, cashews, yogurt cereal, and little smokies. Then he topped it all off by letting her listen to his second-hand, newly-acquired portable CD player. He can be awesomely thoughtful sometimes!

Voting day fun!

6:00AM - hubby woke me up.

6:05AM - tossed kids in van.

6:15AM - stood in line out in the parking lot in order to get into the school GYM where we vote. MUCH higher turnout this year!!

6:25AM - lots of strange looks at us; two kids in bunny suits with one in stroller, and 2 older, very bleary-eyed kids trying to talk about the candidates INSIDE the voting area. *doh!*

6:30AM - Vote.

6:45AM - kids and i back home; hubby to work.

7:00AM - BREAKFAST - had D make pancakes, A make scrambled eggs, E make toast, and C help us by throwing a tantrum on the floor ;-)

7:30AM - let kids veg. watching TVshack.

Trick or Treat!

We went over to a family in our ward's neighborhood to trick or treat. They had some older boys for D to blast door to door with, and then a wagon to put the little ones in, complete with oldest teenager to pull them around through half of the neighborhood. The kids had a blast, and it was one of the best Halloweens we've had in a while. The kids only made it a little over an hour before they were done, and then we headed in, let them eat candy 'til they'd had enough, and hubby and I got to play some ping-pong in their family room. I haven't really done that since *I* was a kid! Quite enjoyable.
Most of our costumes were re-used and re-vamped from past years, or modified from existing clothing.

D used the camo he already had, and we bought him a small 'army' kit and hat from the local everything-$1 store. He was in heaven with all the little pretend 'gadgets' that came with it - walkie-talkies, compass, watch, head-com set, knife, etc.

A used the leotard from dance class, skirt from her birthday a last year, wings from halloween 3 years ago, and we added in a dollar store wand, and 'hair' piece, and faked some makeup together from a kit i'd bought for pack meeting (to get teal face paint ;-)

E just LOVED being a pirate. We let him wear Sunday clothes, a bandanna i had laying around, added in the batman cape we've used almost every year since i made it for D, added the pirate kit and hat from the dollar place (gee,... i'm not cheap am I?) and then he was good to go.

C always enjoys being a princess, but this is the first time i'd let her wear the wings to be a 'fairy princess.' I made that dress for A the Halloween that she was 3; the older kids really enjoy remembering when THEY wore those costumes.

We had a great night; Happy Halloween to ALL!

2 night pajamas...

The School district we live in changed their policy this year; so an actual 'halloween' party is not allowed in any of the classrooms. However, being creative teachers, and knowing their students are not going to be worth much on halloween day, they've found ways around this dictate. D's teacher is going to be celebrating all of the 'summer' birthdays (D's being one...), and A's teacher has decided to have a pajama party.
So, this created a dilema this year for me,... I'd been wanting to make myself a gypsy skirt out of my mom's old mumu - so that *I* could have a costume for halloween. BUT,... A didn't have a pair of winter pajamas - and has been wearing a pair of D's since he had 3 hand-me-down sets. A, being the girly-girl that she is, just did NOT want to wear D's pjs to her school party. Now,... being the procrastinator that i am, i of course waited 'til the last week on making the gypsy costume, and it wasn't until then that i found OUT about the pajama party. Sigh. I decided my daughter was more important than myself, and since we're trying to be tight on the budget (especially with Christmas coming up,) i decided i'd make her pajamas.
I already had plenty of material that i'd grabbed for $1 / yard back before walmart got rid of their materials, so everything went well, and between last night (staying up 'til midnight after the pack mtg) and tonight (staying up 'til 11:00pm after the library halloween party) i managed to finish her pajamas before she has to wear them tomorrow. Pat myself on the back; i did a GOOD job!

('course if i'd been intelligent rather than stubborn,... i would've just gone out and BOUGHT a pair of pjs for her! :-)

pic frustration... i just can't win.

As much as my loving youngest daughter is a sweet-heart, she can also be a terror. I've been trying for the last couple of days to get some decent pictures of her to hang with the rest (who were cake-walk to get done.) She just won't stay still long enough!! She's not really her smiling self unless she's MOVING! But then i can never get a true focus in on her. If i have her sit down, occasionally i can get a decent smile, but then she's never looking at ME!

The weather has been getting colder lately, so today when we went on our 'hike,' i didn't get any good pics within the first 5 minutes, and everything after that has her little red nose glaring out at me. There is no such thing as a perfect picture; I guess i should just be satisfied that the pictures truly show so much of her cute little personality.

Vogue

So,... Hmachine inspired me with her awesome pics of her family - i decided that maybe wee need to update our stairway photos. the last time we had formal pics taken was 2 years ago; perhaps it is time. However, money being what it is right now, I figured i'd be cheap and try to do my own. I managed to take some of D and A this evening out on the trail behind our house, in what little sunlight we had left. A was easy - a little stilted/stiff on occasion, but D just cracked me UP!! When he wasn't goofing off and hanging from trees, he tried doing all these vogue looks; what a character! I didn't want to tell him to 'stop' or he'd get all inhibited on me, so we just went with it - these pics are NOT the one's we'll use for the stairwell, but they're worth sharing just for the humor factor.



When i came back from taking pics with A,.... I found that D had very nicely gotten supper for the little kids (he's a really wonderful helper!) C decided she'd eat her yogurt 'doggie' style.

Jack-o-Lanterns

We got a chance to decorate and carve our pumpkins last week. M helped the older munchkins gut their pumpkins, and I helped to carve them out according to the kid's specs.



A, of course did a nice friendly-looking pumpkin.




D, as per his standard, wanted a 'vampire' pumpkin.







For the little kids, i had gotten some little plastic stick-ins. C liked the pig decorations, and E wanted the 'dog' look (although i think it's actually for a bear :-) D and A got to use the leftovers for a second pumpkin for themselves; but they definately stayed true to form!