It is the 10th...

Hmm...not sure I even took ten pictures worth looking at today, but in any case, here's some stuff that happened...

Boy in the orange penny, "It's not your team throwing the ball in"
Silly, "I know, I'm blocking you." The boy definitely likes defense!

Cakes and Bubba kept themselves entertained with hats, gloves and a soccer ball.

Silly getting his little trophy...

from the good coach we like and wish was in charge!

We're leaving the field and Cakes says, "Hey, anybody wanna bob for apples?" And then Silly found a cookie on the ground, in the wet grass, picked it up, and ate it. I just laughed and kept on walking. It's just good clean dirt, as my dad likes to say.



We retired our skeleton friend until next Halloween.



Finally decided to take her out of the box she's been in since I graduated from high school. I thought about letting Cakes have her, but I just couldn't. She's mine! Some of my friends know I have a sharing problem...

Went in and out of my "hobbit hole" (that's what Scott called it when he saw me stepping out) quite a few times today. I think I have all of Halloween put away, but something else is bound to pop up.

I went by my bathtub quite a few times today, and didn't notice until pretty late in the day that the tub still had water in it from the night before.



And then I went and spent pretty much the rest of the day doing something I didn't have the slightest intention to do when I woke up this morning - rearranged my living room and finally hung some pictures in here!



Halloween and such

Way back at the end of September the kids and I drove to Richmond for Mamie's Third Annual Fall Fest. It started with bobbing for apple. Cakes grabbed one rather easily. Silly had a bit of a disadvantage due to the absence of several teeth and Bubba sat quietly on the step, waited until all the big kids ran off the show Mamie their apples, then looked around really quick before casually reaching his hand into the barrel, grabbing an apple, and yelling, "I got one!" as if he'd bobbed for it like the other kids.

They also made some fun little monsters using candy and toothpicks, ate donuts, and the boys drank endless amounts of apple cider. It was chilly but not too cold, a perfect night for a fire to roast some hot dogs. All three of my kids really look forward to this event now and wonder what fun things Mamie will have planned next time!

Cakes participated in the swim team's wacky relay races which consisted of riding a pool noodle like a bicycle, changing clothes, swimming the backstroke while keeping a rubber ducky on your head and swimming while pushing a watermelon. It was quite entertaining.

 

As mentioned earlier, Bubba is the cutest little guy ever to ride a scooter:

Although, not the greatest at remaining seated while his brother pulls him around in the wagon. He decided to try standing, fell out, and hit the back of his head on the concrete. That led to an ER trip after he started acting very un-Bubba-like, and threw up repeatedly in the car on the way there. One clear CT scan later, I took home a little boy with a concussion and instructions to keep him as still and quiet as possible for the next 24-48 hours. Not a very easy task when his altered state consisted of being wild and crazy compared to his usual mellow self. And it made me afraid to take my eyes off of him for several days.

We all went to an air show and were extremely disappointed, Silly most especially, who had looked forward to climbing in and around all kinds of aircraft. There were hardly any planes to even look at and only one plane and one helicopter we could climb into. Super lame.

And now onto Halloween! Bubba was super excited this year and declared quite early that he wanted to be Spiderman. Silly wanted to be a ninja (doesn't get much easier than that!) and Cakes decided on a candy corn. Around here you just never know if it will be 80 degrees or 40 when it comes time to go trick-or-treating, this year it was cold so I had to go to the store Halloween morning for a few cold weather adjustments.

There was quite a lot of commentary on their trick-or-treat bags this year. I don't remember hearing anyone comment about them before, but this year just about every woman who answered the door to pass out candy commented on their super cute bags. Thanks. :-) I did finally make two more bags  this year, so they each have one plus an extra. I carried the extra bag around to hold whatever they didn't want to carry anymore if their bags got too heavy. Bubba was quite hilarious to watch with his heavy bag. He would not let us help him and I think pretty much everyone gave him more candy than they gave Cakes and Silly, because he's just so stinkin' cute! He was also funny because he was a little off on the sequence of what to say when. He would ring the doorbell, hold out his bag, then say trick-or-treat after he got the candy and quietly say thank you as he ran away. Maybe next year he'll get it right. Silly hardly said anything to anyone and we had to pretty much threaten him that we wouldn't let him go up to anymore doors if he didn't say trick-or-treat and thank you every time. Having cute dimples isn't enough to compensate for bad manners. At least Cakes did it right.

They came home and immediately dumped their bags out; there is a whole lot of candy in this house!

And that's the end of that!

10 taken on 10, but posted on the 11th

Getting ready for school

Now I know why people think I have highlights. Sorry folks, just grows that way. And yet my daughter always draws me with brown hair, which I find rather insulting.

Shelves!!! That lighthouse is saving a spot for a series of books on loan to a certain brother-in-law

Backside of our Halloween window display

Where I sit...too much



"Is dis da cweam?" Bagel w/cream cheese for lunch



After school homework and snack



Taking a break after playing outside



Dinner aftermath



Heading out for swim team practice - she's been asking for a bathrobe for ages, but I kept telling her no because she's begged for one before then never wore it, now she has a real reason to need one and she loves it



Shelves and School

Before the kids went back to school, Scott tackled another major project - putting shelves in the closets for Cakes and Bubba. Since we moved into our new house back at the end of May, all of their stuff has just been heaped onto the closet floor and spilling out onto their bedroom floors too.  As with most home improvement projects, it turned out to be more complicated than expected when Scott discovered there were no studs where he expected/needed them in the wall. Which is odd, because in hanging things up on the walls so far we've found it hard to miss a stud. Scott, of course, engineered his way around that and spent pretty much all day long working on the project I  gave him. As usual, I forgot to take a real "before" picture, but this is all the stuff we took out of their closets while the shelves were being made:

Bubba's stuff



Cakes's stuff - YIKES!

 My job was taking everything out, keeping Scott fed and watered, and putting everything neatly back in the closet. He was outside doing a lot of this:

Earlier, I looked out the window and saw Silly helping out, just about gave me a heart attack seeing him standing right next to the saw, the perfect size to be exactly eye-level with the saw should anything go flying. Nice.

And so, after many hours, Bubba's closet had shelves!

And then, finally, after three months, a clean room!

His room seems gigantic now.

And then, on to Cakes. Bubba's stuff wasn't too hard to sort and organize, but Cakes had one heck of a mess in there and I spent hours sorting and organizing all of her stuff. I'm happy to say, that even though she grumbled about helping me out a very little bit at the very end to sort and put away her own stuff, she has done a great job since of keeping everything neatly put away and playing with just one thing at at time, which shows me she appreciates it in spite of her bad attitude.

Look! A clean dresser! Hadn't seen the top of that thing in ages. She is loving her new desk. She made a goal poster for piano on Saturday and wanted it up in her room and we discovered that the back of her desk is in fact magnetic! I shouldn't have doubted IKEA. So now she's got that up there, and it is pretty darn cool, hopefully cool enough to keep her motivated all year long.

That was our last big thrill before school started. Cakes set off for 4th grade, Silly for 1st and Bubba for Joy School. Cakes was all worked up, upset and nervous Monday night. Scott gave her a priesthood blessing which helped her calm down and sleep well, but she was still too nervous to eat much breakfast Tuesday morning. I was pretty worried waiting for her to come home, even though I know she has no trouble making friends, but I shouldn't have worried - she got off the bus all smiles telling me she made 18 new friends, 17 of them girls. Of course my first question was "Well who's the boy?" No answer on that yet.

Cakes home from a great first day

Silly trying not to smile, because that wouldn't be cool



And Bubba being silly while I try to get a picture of his for Joy School

 Joy School was, of course, crazy the first day, and that was with only two little boys! Day two was much better though. It is amazing how much he talks about it after just 2 weeks. That's why I love it!

The other thing I love is this weeping willow at the end of our street. The kids have created all kinds of uses for it; mostly they call it their car wash when they're riding bikes and ride under it. Other times they are lasers that they have to walk through without touching any leaves. Fun times at the bus stop!