Never a dull moment!

Halloween was on a Saturday this year, and on the day before Courtney went home from school to Carlie's house for a sleep over. (These two have been friends since the 4th grade...they act like twins separated at birth sometimes!) There was a party at Megan and Kaitlin's house (twins that Courtney has also known since 4th grade that live a few doors down form Carlie...needless to say Courtney wants to go live on that street!). Well, it should come as no surprise to most of you, but my kid was able to trip over an extension cord for one of those blow-up lawn ornaments and break her pinky on her right hand. It must not have hurt to badly (or she was having too much fun) because this happened about 6 pm Friday night and she waited until I picked her up at 1 pm on Saturday to tell me. At first I didn't think anything of it...but then I looked at it and tried to get her to move it, and then decided that we needed to go to the hospital to get x-rays. Good thing we did, cause it was broken and right on the growth plate. The Ortho that handled her broken elbow and Jeff's broken finger (maybe I should stop beating up my family-ha) said it looked fine, but if it didn't stay straight it would require surgeries. Yes, that's right...more than one. So after a quick trip to Cornwall, we went and picked up the other kids (thanks Granma and Pop-pop for keeping the other 3 kids for us!) and some dinner and to rush to get ready to meet up at Sunny's Mom's house to go Trick-or-Treating.

Parade

Jilly wanted to be Princess Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin for Halloween. Unfortunately, Jasmine is by far the hardest princess to get merchandise for. There were no (reasonably priced) costumes to be found. Then in stepped Granma to save the day...she volunteered to sew Jilly's costume for her. Granma is a super hero!







At school, the kids got to have a parade...which is to say that they walked through the office and around the courtyard. It was so much fun to see all kids dressed up.










Pop-pop even came and was able to help with the wrangling of Abu the monkey (Aladdin's sidekick in the movie). (I happen to think she looks more like a winged monkey from the Wizard of Oz, which was ironic...all 4 teachers were dressed as the 4 main characters, so Cooper fit right in!)






Both the kids in the classroom...reminds me of things I want to share once I get caught up!

Mr. Meowkins

Thankfully, Courtney has a very health respect for big knives and asked me to help her with the top of her pumpkin. (And that sucker was thick!)






Bug has always loved digging out the guts of a pumpkin. She has never been too much of a girly girl...although she is getting more into clothes and make up these days.
















EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!







Bug traced her pattern onto the pumpkin then cut out(with a very small knife!)









And the end result of her hard work was Mr. Meowkins.

Let the adventure begin!

The day I have been in fear of since I heard the words "It's a girl"...the 13th birthday! I have so much to look forward to: the world coming to an end over the tiniest little things, hair and make-up fights (I don't care if everyone else is doing it, you're not dressing in all black and having raccoon eyes to look Goth!!),and my biggest fear...BOYS! Hopefully, I can handle whatever she has to throw at me...I mean, I got the "curse" like most teenage girls, but I don't remember being that bad!

Anyway...for 13 Bug wanted a laser tag party. So after decorating our pumpkins, the little ones went to sleep, Granma came over, and Bug, Wyatt, the Daddy (sorry, we are now a teenager...Dad)and I drove off for a party. The girls had a blast, they even talked us into an extra game, had pizza and cake and present time.

A good time was had by all (Sunny, Mikey, Jeff and I have all said we want to go back and play again!) and it was a great way to usher in the adventure that we call the dreaded teenage years!

Non-stop

My momma didn't raise no dummy! I pulled out my paints, cause let's face it...knives and toddlers are an ER visit waiting to happen! Each girl had their own pumpkin to paint, and the only rule was no painting each other.

Courtney...so serious when she's crafting.

Cooper...everything in the mouth, LOVE this age!

Everyone having fun.

Jilly...ambidextrous like her Nana.

Still busy...

On our way back home from Lexi's party, Bug and I stopped at the pumpkin patch so she could find the perfect pumpkins to decorate. The girls all had a great time at Lexi's party, they watched movies, and played games until about 4 AM! What else can you say but "girls will be girls!"

What a busy weekend!

Usually, Courtney and Lexi have birthday parties on consecutive weekends since their birthdays are a week apart. Due to busy schedules we had to do both parties on the same weekend. So after Bug's b-day lunch we went home and got changed for Lexi's costume party. All the girls looked fantastic and had a fun costume party/sleepover.

Every year Sunny makes a cake. And not just any cake, she does the whole decorating thing herself (where as I just slap some icing on it and call it done,Sunny has done Transformers, Sponge Bob...) but this year she went with cupcakes. But that did not mean she did not do a great job with the decorating! She made cookies and cut them out in the shape of tombstones, and (not that you can see it in this pic) made the green icing look like grass. Girl got talent!

Here's Lexi as Marylin Monroe, and Noah as a Zombie skateboarder.

Nicole (one of the girls at our barn) won the most original for the night. Can you guess what she is?!? Yep, she's a flying pig...put in the past tense she's swine flu!! I love the creativity!

Carlee Snyder (another barn pal) was a hobo...I think she spent a long time on perfecting the face. I think this is the only time I have EVER seen her not smiling!

Courtney was a genie. Costume made by Granma. She knew she didn't want to be a princess (ie Jilly as Jasmine) so we fashioned her costume more after I Dream of Genie. She got to pick out the material and pattern herself.

Bug's 13th B-day (family party)

For Courtney's family dinner (well we did lunch this year) she opted for "make your own calzones". All the kids had a blast putting them together then eating them. Bug had cake and presents and then told us "I feel like I should feel different being 13, but I still feel the same" ...welcome to adulthood.

(I personally hate Courtney's birthday every year...it is 2 and a half weeks before mine, but I always feel old and depressed on her b-day, and now I am officially the mother of a teenager...it seems like yesterday that I WAS a teenager! Where does the time go?!?)

Mud Pie

One day in school, Jilly made "Mud Pie" which is to say a little chocolate cake, a layer of pudding, and crumbled up Oreo cookies. And the kicker is the gummie worm that's hiding in the cup. Even though it is candy, Jilly was scared to death to get too close to the worm, so she didn't eat all of it.

Meet Uncle Ralph

Before Mom-mom and Pop-pop had to leave, Aunt Dot and Uncle Ralph were able to meet us for lunch. It was the first time that Uncle Ralph held Wyatt...I love to see men melt over babies!