Halloween Our Style!

Sorry I've been gone a few days from here...just been KAH-RAY-ZEE hectic around here trying to get everything done and throw Halloween into the mix on top of it! LOL

Monday we carved pumpkins, as promised! And I have pics to prove it!! Now, for some people pumpkin carving is a busy activity, and everyone is working hard at creating their masterpiece. For some reason, pumpkin carving at our house usually ends up looking something like this:

And the night isn't complete without the display of evacuating the Halloween delicasy "punkin brains..." First Trey demonstrated his mastery of this macabre ritual:

Then Talin took a scoop at it:

And not to be outdone, Derrick gave it his best shot, but I think he missed the mark a bit ;o)

So he decided to take a stab at it instead and really make a dent in things! (Not to worry, it's a butter knife, not a carving knife!)

The final products of our scooping, scraping, sketching and stabbing turned out to be honest to goodness vegetarian nightmares...I'm sure they would all have preferred winding up pie instead!

Trey's jack-o-lantern:

Talin's jack-o-lantern:

Derrick's jack-o-lantern:

After letting them sit outside and dry out for a day, the BIG day was finally here! There was a parade at the kids' school where they all paraded through the gym in costume for parents to admire and snap pictures at. Then they rode the bus home, we slapped something on a plate and into the microwave before the true artistry began....the painting of the faces! Talin wanted his face red with white lips. I was going goth. Derrick was going as Tigger. Trey saved me from more ovious inability to be aristic by wearing a mask. YAY! So while the kids were eating I started to get into costume. Believe it or not, Bubba did my hair! It took an entire can of black hair color spray to get my hair to look even remotely black!

Talin was first done eating, so I painted his face. Trey was next, so we helped him into his costume. Derrick decided he was going to save his appetite for the road...which didn't go over as well as he'd hoped! Since he was going to be Tigger, I thought it'd be cute for him to have a pink nose, an orange face, and some black stripes. He had seen Talin getting his face done and wanted the same thing done to him, so he had no problem sitting through the orange face phase, but started getting restless with the pink nose. After about 16 swipes to paint his 2 inch nose pink, it was obvious that stripes were not in the stars this year for our little Tiggy. So, he looks like he's part oompa-loompa. Or was in a fight with a bag of Cheetos. And lost. But I was happy with the end result, and the kids were happy with their mountain of processed carbohydrates that they'll probably try to eat in world-record breaking time LOL So, to close today's blog, I'll post a pic that Bub took of us before we headed out to collect the evidence of the beginning of "food season," the first major food holiday of the trio; Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Guess dessert first has always been a great idea! Have a great one!!

Gumball As Big As My Hand!!

That pretty well sums it up! Trey and I were at Wal-Mart the other night, and on the way out there was a machine with gumballs literally as big as the palm of my hand!! I couldn't resist...I had to find out if this was a real deal or if it was just an enormous piece of candy. To my utter amazement, there is a gumball big enough to not be able to fit into my mouth! (Now THAT'S big!!) I had to suck on the candy coating (thank goodness I like the taste of apple!) and soften it up a bit, because the first time I tried to bite into it I think my dentist heard the sound of staying in business loud and clear!! There's GOT to be more sugar in that one piece of candy than in the entire bag of candy I bought for Halloween this year!! I could only chew half of it and then I had to give the other half to Trey, because my jaw was starting to ache from working so hard at sucking, chewing and biting!! Trey even had a hard time biting into just half of it!

So that was the interesting part of the weekend. I worked Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday evening my husband and I went out on a date together. We went out to a nice supper club for dinner, and then met friends at a local bowling alley, bowled a few games, had a few drinks. Tonight was just a low-key night, the regular routine of getting everything ready for school tomorrow. Of course, this was the weekend Talin lost his reading book for school, so he'll have to look for it tomorrow before he goes outside to play with all of his little friends. I'm off tomorrow, so out of habit I'll probably wind up looking for it anyway, just to save myself the $$ for having to pay for a new one. In a way, it's like a treasure hunt...look for something so you don't have to pay for it! LOL

Today I normally would have been at church, helping the kids with the food drive we have going on. But, I worked. I hope the director got things a little organized! I should call her... hmm...

Tomorrow my goal is to get the kids' pumpkins carved. You KNOW I'm gonna have pictures of that up! LOL Always fun to watch the kids dig out "pumpkin brains!" Gotta get that done before Wednesday night!!

Sorry so short tonight...but really not much going on since I worked. Tomorrow I'll be outside, if the weather is nice, raking up the leaves that fell off of the enormous tree in the back yard. I swear, if we got a penny a leaf, we'd be set for a LONG time! Have a great week!!

Day Off (Of Work)

Days off are great, aren't they?? Except when you know you're sacrificing an entire weekend to have a couple of weekdays off. Today was good though. Trey & Talin went to school, Bubba let me sleep in, which was AWESOME! We decided to go to brunch before I took Derrick to speech therapy and Bubba went to get a urine drug screen. I'm sure he failed it. I mean, you should SEE the pills he takes!! Some combination of those has GOT to cause something that will red-flag the urine screen! Just kidding ;o) He did fine. Derrick did pretty good in speech therapy. He was fine when I left the room to go put Trey's swimming stuff in his locker so he wouldn't miss practice today (second Friday in a row he's left his swimming bag at home...little monster's lucky I'm at his school or he'd be missin out!), but threw a fit when I went to leave to use the little girl's room! So I stayed, and afterwards he had to use the bathroom, so we went into the little girl's room. I realized then that even if I would have gone, I still would have had to have held it, because once I got DOWN there to pee, I never would have gotten back UP!

Then when we got home, Bubba showed up shortly after. I was feeling antsy, so I raked up some leaves outside with Derrick while we waited for Talin to get off the bus. Derrick "helped" rake leaves, which mostly consisted of him running into the pile I was creating, only to run back out as I added to it. At the very end he decided to be helpful and carry a few handfuls from the pile I was raking to the big pile. But, he had fun, and it was cute to watch :o)

Talin got off the bus and the four of us headed out to Wal-Mart to look at Halloween costumes. He decided he wanted his face painted red, with a design like a skeleton, and a hooded cape like the grim reaper, and a sword. So that's what Talin will be for Halloween this year. On round two to Wal-Mart tonight, Trey also decided on a skeleton mask that pumps blood-looking liquid through it, and also has a hooded cape. I think Derrick is going to be a puppy. It'll probably be the last year I can get him into something cute without having to start World War 3.

Tomorrow I have to work, and then Bubba and I are going out, hopefully with friends, maybe not, depending on how things work out. Hopefully we'll all be able to hang out, but if it's just me and him, I'll be happy with that too. Either way, he's getting out of the house with me, and without the kids, and that in itself is a miracle! Looking forward to that...YAY! Hope you all have a great weekend!!