The South Beach Diet

The holidays are here and Matt and I are on a diet. I wanted to start the diet on January 1st, but Matt was determined to start the day after Thanksgiving to avoid gaining the holiday pounds. Good idea, but I wasn't determined to do the same. Matt started the diet the day after Thanksgiving and I enjoyed the leftover pies. Matt went to the temple that day, so I was able to eat without tempting him. That night I felt super full, fat, and blah. I was ready to start the diet. So, Saturday was our official 1st day of the diet together. It was easy for me since I was still full from all the desserts I ate the day before. I got sick that night and was still recovering on day 2, so the second day was easy as well. Today was a bit more challenging. I was craving a tall glass of orange juice this morning, but I drank water instead with my breakfast. I would have drank milk, but all we had was whole milk, which is not allowed. The rest of the day wasn't as bad. I'm not flirting with the idea of abandoning the diet anymore as I was while eating breakfast.

Matt started feeling sick before he got home this evening, so he skipped dinner. He made it through FHE and then he went to bed. We are hoping this flu only hits us all once!

The kids are already noticing that we are all eating healthier as a family now. Kate was snacking on a celery stick this afternoon and everything on the table this evening was healthy. The kids were impressed! There are a lot more green vegetables to choose from at dinnertime and the salmon we had the other night and the london broil we had this evening were delicious! I am not a salmon fan, but I loved this salmon!

We will lose weight not gain weight this holiday season! That's the plan, anyway.

Recovering

About 24 hours ago, the sickness caught up with me. We all stayed home from church today. I had already asked someone to teach my class for me since some of the kids were still suffering from some symptoms of this illness and I was planning on staying home with all of the kids, but I didn't realize that I would be suffering as well. Matt took care of the kids today. It was a long day for everyone.

Round 6

Kate has been throwing up all morning. Somehow she managed to throw up the first time on Zoe's pillow, but not on Zoe.

One week from tomorrow

The parade of lights is next Saturday. My neighbor called me today to let me know that her family has something else going on that Saturday that she had forgotten about, so they won't be marching in the parade with us. Part of me is stressed about this, but the other part of me is just going with the attitude that everything is going to work out regardless, so whatever. The stressed part of me usually dominates, though. Right now I'm thinking that just Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and I will march in the parade and see if we can carry a radio playing Christmas music instead of having us sing. That would eliminate the stress of recruiting other people to march with us and eliminate the need to memorize songs. I would like to eliminate marching in the parade altogether, but I won't do that.

The good thing that came from talking with my neighbor is that now we are going to meet at the Creche Exhibit on Friday evening. That will be fun!

Plan C

Well, this Thanksgiving hasn't gone as planned, but it has still been a nice day.

Zach stayed over at my parents' house last night and he had a great time. He was treated to McDonald's for dinner and he enjoyed special time with his Grammie and Grampie. Our plan today was to meet my parents, Zach, my niece, Victoria, and my grandmother at Bugaboo Creek at 12:30. My mom called us late this morning to let us know that Zach threw up this morning. Plan B was set in place. Matt and I stayed home with Zach, Kate, and Noah while my parents, Victoria, my grandmother, Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor went to Bugaboo Creek. Zach was acting fine, but we decided to be safe rather than sorry. We would meet up at my parents' house later on in the afternoon. Matt and I watched an episode of "Dirty Jobs", while Noah took a nap, Zach played, and Kate slept on my lap.

We made it over to my parents' house around 3:00. My parents' ordered a couple of meals to go from Bugaboo Creek, so Matt and I ate at their house. Then we enjoyed dessert. Our choices were pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, and strawberry cheesecake. Usually I buy a strawberry topping, but the stores don't sell it anymore, so Matt made a strawberry topping this morning. It is so much better than the topping I used to buy! My mom, Victoria, and I started a game of Phase 10. Noah started to get fussy and he felt warm. Matt was watching football and holding Noah when Noah threw up. Party's over. Matt and I left with Eleanor, Zach, Kate, and Noah. Zoe and Emily are staying over at my parents' house and are planning on watching the second Harry Potter movie again. They can only watch Harry Potter when the younger kids aren't around, which isn't very often.

Our plan now is to relax and get a good night's rest. I really hope this plan sticks!

Happy Thanksgiving

Eat dessert first!

I am thankful for...

my family.
my friends. I went to see New Moon this evening with some of them. I enjoyed it better than Twilight, but only because I knew better this time that it wasn't going to follow the book. Why do they leave out the best lines that were in the book???
a washer and dryer that work. I am actually looking forward to doing laundry now!
internet at home.
my health and my family's health.
the big check that finally came, which paid off all but one of our debts!
our condemned trailer.
my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
the beauty of the Maine woods.
great in-laws.
our Thanksgiving reservations at Bugaboo Creek.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Good news

Our washer and dryer should be working tomorrow! The new part is being installed tomorrow and hopefully we'll be back in the laundry business here at home.

Eleanor has recovered quickly from her illness, but Zoe has not moved all day.

More sickness

I interrupt the Netflix watching to let you know that Eleanor threw up in the middle of the night, all over the floor, herself, and several blankets. Now I have a pile of laundry outside that at some point I need to bring over to my parents' house to wash. Emily is the only one who made it to school today. She had about 10 minutes to get ready this morning and she had that much time because she got up on her own. Matt and I were still sleeping! It was a rough night.

Sickness & Stress

Emily is just starting to feel 100% better from her illness that started last Thursday. She has felt fine, but she lost her appetite Friday evening and it continued through the weekend. Emily loves to eat, so when she doesn't feel like eating, she is definitely not feeling well. She was eating more today, though.

Eleanor complained of a sore throat throughout the weekend and mentioned her stomach hurting every once in awhile. Her throat hurt this morning and she didn't want to eat her cereal like she normally does, so she stayed home from school today. I had a feeling that about an hour after being home that she would be active and feel fine, and I was right. Oh well.

Now Zoe is sick. Really sick. She has thrown up 5 times this evening. Poor thing. This is no way to start Thanksgiving break! Tomorrow is the last day of school, but Zoe will be staying home.

Now on to my stress. Two years ago as I watched the parade of lights in 17 degree weather (crazy, I know!), I had a thought that a group of people should be in the parade spreading the word about the Creche Exhibit. The parade is always on the same weekend as the Creche Exhibit. We didn't make it to the parade last year because Noah was only 5 months old, so this thought didn't come to mind. Several weeks ago, I had this thought again about the Creche Exhibit being represented in the parade and I thought it would be a fun activity for our family. Matt expressed no desire to march in the parade and opted to stay home with the 3 youngest children. The older girls were excited to be in the parade, so I told them I would look into it. I gave it a few more days of thought and almost had myself talked out of it, but I have been doing a lot of reading lately on promptings and the whisperings of the Spirit and I couldn't ignore this prompting. I called Doreen, who is in charge of the Creche Exhibit this year and told her my idea. She loved it and felt it was inspired. Okay, now the fun begins. I filled out the parade application...with a vague idea of what exactly my vision was for our group. Filling out the application was actually good because it forced me to come up with a plan to carry out. I put on the application that there would be 15 of us marching, but as of that time there was only 4 of us. Hmmmm, who to ask to march with us? I asked several families I know, but nobody was committing or even a little bit excited about it. This was confirming that not only am I crazy for going to this winter parade, but now I want to march in it??? A family kept coming into my mind to ask to march with us, but it is a family that I do not know very well, so I kept going back and forth between ignoring the prompting and procrastinating. All of this time I am stressing about the number of people marching and how am I going to act on the idea to wear nativity costumes for the parade. I am not gifted with a sewing talent, so I would have to ask someone to make costumes in a short amount of time or buy costumes, which would be expensive. What to do??? On Saturday, I decided to make the phone call to the family I felt I should call. This neighbor of mine thought it was a great idea and was actually excited to participate with us! It's amazing how things come together when we act on the Lord's will. I felt so good after I made that phone call! The same day, I looked on the internet at costumes and I found nativity costumes at Oriental trading that got great reviews and are inexpensive. Perfect. I'm planning on getting a lot of use out of them, so I figure they are worth the money. I ordered them this morning and they will arrive on December 2nd. They better! More stress...will the costumes arrive on time?, will they fit?, will they be good quality? How will we determine which costume each child will wear? There are 7 children participating, so I think we should put their names in a bag and draw names to see who will wear what costume. That's fair, right? We will have Mary and Joseph, 3 wise men, and 2 shepherds. I think my neighbor and I will wear dark clothes and carry the signs that will hopefully be lit with a string of battery powered lights...another stress...will the lights work with the signs? Our Stake President's wife ordered signs about the Creche Exhibit for the parade and I hear they are very nice, but I haven't seen them yet. When I filled out the application, I said we would be singing Christmas hymns, so now we need to practice. The stress goes on and on, but at least I do feel like things are falling into place and everything will work out. I have a constant headache, though and I will be one happy person when the parade is OVER! I'm trying to enjoy the process, but it's just hard when thinking about it intensifies the headache.

1st post from home since March 15th

I am sitting in my own living room as I type this post. I love it! I will not miss going over to my parents' house several afternoons a week to get on the computer for a few hours before the girls got home from school. I would be on the computer, the kids would be demanding food and making messes, then I would get my parents' house back in order and rush home, so we would be home when the girls got off the bus. It is nice that now when I go over to my parents' house, I can enjoy their company and not be stuck in front of their computer.

Our family went to Machias today because Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and Zach participated in their Primary Sacrament Meeting Presentation. Machias has one Primary child who comes with her grandmother, so our 4 kids made up the rest of primary. One Sunday awhile back, Zoe asked the primary leader when they were doing their primary presentation and the primary leader told Zoe that Machias didn't have enough primary kids to do a presentation. Zoe suggested doing the presentation when our kids would be there and the primary leader thought that was a great idea! It was a great idea! My parents went to Machias today, too to watch the presentation. The kids were so cute and they did a great job. Our kids travel to Machias a lot on Sundays with Matt, so the people in the branch know them. I am so proud of our kids for making the presentation possible in Machias. Zoe did a great job singing "I'll Seek the Lord Early" all by herself, the kids all did a great job saying their parts, and for a group of 5, they sang out loud and clear. I'm glad we were able to enjoy 2 primary presentations this year. :-)

Matt made apple crisp this afternoon.

It's great having a husband who makes yummy food for us to enjoy!

This should be my last post from my parents' house!

I went to do a load of laundry Monday morning and discovered that our washer and dryer were not working. We have a stackable washer and dryer and none of the buttons I pushed on them would turn on. There was a time when I would have been annoyed that we would have to spend money on getting them fixed instead of spending the money on something fun, but now I am just so grateful that the washer and dryer quit working when we have money to get them fixed! A guy came to look at the washer and dryer on Wednesday and he said a new control panel needed to be ordered, so we are waiting to hear back from him. I have been putting off doing laundry this week, so here I am today at my parents' house doing laundry. I could be here until midnight! The kids, except Noah, are here with me. Matt is home waiting for the cable guy to show up to install our internet. SO EXCITING!

Zach, Kate, Noah, and I went to playgroup on Tuesday. I took this cute picture of Kate happily pretending to feed Victoria's cat.

Tuesday evening, I took Zoe and Emily to Friendly's for dinner after Activity Days. It was fun being out with them and we enjoyed our delicious food. Zoe and Emily managed to stuff dessert in after their dinner.

I teased them that they looked like lovebirds sharing a drink together.

Wednesday evening, I went Christmas shopping with my mom. We also ate dinner at The Weathervane, which was fun! We spent some time figuring out if our server was a male or a female. Our server looked like a man, but talked in a high voice, wore earrings, and we thought our server's name was Allison. We decided Allison was a man and when we looked at the receipt, we saw that his name was Ellison.

Matt bought a new pair of clippers, so Noah got a buzz cut while I was out shopping. Matt has been wanting to buzz cut the boys's hair for awhile now, so Matt was delighted to cut Noah's hair. I took a picture of Noah's buzz cut and Kate's cute pigtails Thursday morning before we left for the Children's Museum.

It has taken me awhile to get used to Noah's hair. He looks too grown up now!

Kate made friends with a bearded dragon at the museum.

Usually the reptiles are sleeping or hiding, so it was fun to see the bearded dragon interacting with the kids.




I used to be able to get rid of red eyes on my pictures here very easily and quickly, but now that my parents have a new Windows program, I don't know how to edit the pictures quickly and I never have time to figure it out.

Here is a picture of Zach steering "Don's boat".


They have a new exhibit about the inside of toys that is really neat! I thought of you, Steve when I saw this toy.

The exhibit was more hands on than I expected. It was a lot of fun for the kids to push buttons and turn cranks to make the toys work. I'd like to bring the older girls to the exhibit because I think they will enjoy the inside of the toys more than the younger kids did.


Noah could have played with the tennis balls and this ramp the entire time! Every time I go to this museum, I think about bringing each child separately so they can stay at the activity they like for however long they want to. I hate making a child leave an activity they are really enjoying because another sibling is ready to move on. Matt took Zach by himself one time and they had a lot of fun!

This was a week for picking sick kids up at school. Zoe came home early on Wednesday with a stomach ache. I got a call on Thursday afternoon at 2:35 (when school gets out) that Emily was feeling too sick to ride home on the bus, so I went to pick her up. It's one thing to just get yourself ready quick to pick up a sick child from school, but getting yourself plus 3 kids into the car quickly is not fun! Emily was home for about an hour when she threw up (yay for throwing up in the bucket!).

I noticed this a little while later.

While I was in the kids' room relaxing and reading while Noah played, Eleanor taped all of the class pictures to the ceiling so we could see them better at dinnertime.

Zach got a buzz cut Thursday evening.


This is too cute!

Zach put his kitty in the corner for being naughty.

Matt and I went out to Bugaboo Creek last night and then we did some shopping. It is fun getting Christmas shopping done early! We got off to a late start since we were both waiting at different locations for each other, but when we finally met up, we had a fun evening.

The kids had fun watching the new Tinker Bell movie in the afternoon and then they watched a new Scooby Doo movie in the evening. My mom said the kids were extra good for her. I think having a movie that they hadn't seen before helped.

So, the next time you hear from me, it should be from home! Matt and I are looking forward to watching "The Office" on the computer this evening! Our computer is going to be complete again. :-)

Organizing Heaven

I have been dreaming of buying tons of organizers to do more organizing around the house, especially in the kids' room. My dream is coming true. :-)

We went from a basket full of our hats and mittens to these organizers. We each have our own box to keep our hats and mittens in. It is so much easier than searching through the basket!

Here are some new organizers in the kids' room. The drawers on the left are new. There are 6 drawers in all.

When I received money for my birthday, I mostly wanted to buy organizers!

Zach wanted me to take a picture of him.
I love organizing!

FHE Idea: I went through the 2009 Primary Presentation outline today and made up questions for our family to answer. The kids took turns picking a question, which I had taped on the wall, and then they answered the question they picked. The older kids helped the younger kids. It was a great way to review what they have been learning in Primary this year. Some of the questions were, "What is the name of our prophet?", "How can we remember the Savior as we partake of the Sacrament?", "What do we do with our arms, legs, head, eyes, ears during a prayer?", "Tell us 3 things we can do on the Sabbath day to keep it holy", "Say one nice thing about each family member". There were also a few fill in the blanks and true or false questions. FYI: Our kids were wild during this lesson, but there is hope that your kids will sit reverently and pay attention. :-)

Primary Presentation 2009

Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and Zach participated in the Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation today at church. Eleanor refused to say her first line, which said she loved to cuddle with me, but she willingly sang "The Family is Ordained of God" with Zoe and Emily. It was sweet to hear our girls singing together...even with the dirty looks going on between them when one of them would make a mistake. All of the children did a great job with their speaking parts and singing the songs. Even Kate and her nursery class got to join the children in singing the last song, "Families Can Be Together Forever". So sweet! We have a great group of Primary children!

Out with the old, In with the new

Matt and I are having fun spending money. :-) Even paying bills and debts is fun...at least I think so. I have had these sneakers for at least 14 years. I loved these sneakers, but they just recently started falling apart. Very sad.

They have been replaced with these...

I went with an expensive pair in hopes of them lasting just as long as my old pair. They better!

These are Matt's old overalls.

It was nice to see Matt in his new overalls when I got home Friday from Augusta. Here are 3 different poses...




There's no old or new to this next picture, but Matt wanted me to post a picture of the pumpkin pie that I made for him on Thursday.

The kids have been trying to get their teeth into some of it, but with no luck.

Face to Face

My mom and I went to Augusta on Friday to meet Grandma Dawn and her husband. They arrived from Colorado on Thursday. I never thought I would meet Dawn in person, but it happened! We met at the Ground Round and had a great lunch together.

It was fun to talk more in detail about things that we have written about on our blogs and to learn more about each other and our families. I'm glad it worked out that we could get together while Dawn is here in Maine! I had a great time, Dawn and Dwight!

My mom and I started our Christmas shopping on Friday. It is so much fun to have money to spend for Christmas!

A special thanks to Matt for taking the day off from work to watch the kids. Matt and I were able to go out in the evening, which was the icing on the cake. What a great day!

IT FINALLY CAME!

The big check...the one we've been telling everyone about...it's here! For real!

Sleeping out with the coyotes

We had a family campout at Camp Bravo Tuesday night. Camp was set up by 4:30 and we were eating sandwiches for dinner around 5:00...in the dark!






Time to toast marshmallows!


Matt spent a lot of his time wrestling with Noah to keep him out of the fire.

7:00 felt really late, so the younger kids wanted to get in their sleeping bags.

Noah liked being in the tent because he was free to roam on his own.

When Noah and Kate were tired, but wouldn't settle down to sleep, Matt went to lay down with them. That is when the coyotes began to howl. The girls looked to me for comfort, but I was freaked out myself! We felt better when Matt came back to the fire, although it was noted that Matt didn't bring his gun...the ONE time he doesn't bring his gun to camp.

It was cold out, but not unbearably cold. I stayed warm by the fire, although children kept sitting on my lap and blocking out some of the heat. Zoe and Emily played "20 Questions" by the fire.

Then they went into their own tent and played on their nintendos before going to sleep. Matt and I slept in the big tent with Noah, Kate, Zach, and Eleanor.

I was going to stay up until 8:30, but Zach kept asking me when I was going to go to bed, so I went into the tent with him sometime after 8:00. Everyone seemed to stay warm throughout the night and the kids slept really well.

Good Morning!



Our campout ended when we woke up. It's nice to have camp right next to home. We went into the warm house and ate cereal for breakfast. :-)

Happy Birthday to me!

One of my gifts today was not having to teach Sunday School since we had Stake Conference. Yay! Although, during the long 2 hour meeting with the kids being put in time out every 5 minutes (we listened to conference in the Relief Society room), I wondered if teaching my class would have been less painful for everyone.

After church, we came over to my parents' home for a yummy lasagna dinner and cake. Fun!



I am thankful to have a great family and great friends!

Matt's home?

I've seen Matt for about 4 hours since he arrived home Wednesday night. We were able to sit down together that night and eat yummy turkey and talk. Eleanor told Matt that she missed him so much and she almost cried one night, but she was asleep, so she couldn't. Matt noticed that Noah is talking more now. Noah kept saying "hi" over and over again and he said "hi dad" when one of his siblings said it. So cute! Yesterday, Matt was thrown back into the grind as he went to work and then went to his high council meeting. I'm looking forward to datenight tonight!

Zach was disappointed yesterday morning when I told him we were staying home all day, but when I suggested making a tent over the table, he was excited to stay home. Being at home is much more fun when you have a tent to hang out in!

You can't see it, but they have a portable DVD player in their tent. Fun!

Matt is on his way home!

5 hours and 41 minutes until I see Matt!

I received this check in the mail yesterday...

I'm always mentioning to Judy and Jerry (Judy is my visiting teacher) our "big check" that is owed to us and will someday arrive, so Judy finally sent it. Haha! Before I opened the check, Zoe was determined it was the real check, but the real check wouldn't have been mailed to me and it wouldn't have been in a big manilla envelope. It didn't turn out to be the real check, but it was fun mail and it made my day. :-)

Judy and Jerry also came over yesterday morning to watch the younger kids, so I could go vote. Plus, they brought over a casserole for dinner. Judy and Jerry are AWESOME!

After eating the casserole with the kids last night, President Dauk showed up with a Thanksgiving feast. I should have emotional outbursts in Relief Society more often. :-) Actually, I just shared my testimony, but I mentioned being discouraged and down. It was fun to visit with President Dauk and to know that our family is cared about. We are looking forward to a yummy dinner tonight!

5 hours and 20 minutes until I see Matt!

Every day should be dress up day!

Zach wanted to be a cat today, so he is!


Kate wanted a princess face, which she already has :-), so she agreed to a star on each cheek.

I love this picture of Kate, but she looks too grown up!

It's okay to have favorites

Yesterday morning when Zoe and I were in the bathroom getting ready for church, we heard something fall in the kitchen. Zoe went to see what had happened. When I went to find out myself Zoe said, "Mom, you don't want to see this." Noah had dumped a full bag of tasteos all over the kitchen table and all over the floor. Noah takes every opportunity to get up on the table when there is a chair close to the table. I was cheered by the fact that Zoe was cleaning up the mess. Zoe was my favorite child and Noah was my least favorite child at that moment!

The Halloween of many costumes

Friday, October 30th: When I asked Eleanor about her Halloween party at school, she told me that they didn't have a party...they had a Halloween fiesta! Eleanor is our Fancy Nancy.

Here are some cute pictures of Kate and Noah playing on our pumpkin. Noah was determined to carry it off somewhere, but he never got it off the ground.




Zoe went over to Lauren's house after school for a Halloween party. They spent most of the time playing outside on the hay bales. The hit of the party was when Lauren's mom snuck outside while the girls were in the woods and she scared them with a loud growl. They went inside and frosted cookies and played sisters where each one of them had a special talent. Zoe could play the flute. Zoe wore her chinese ninja costume to this party and to the party at church.

We had our annual Halloween party at church in the evening. We ate pizza, the kids played games and won many prizes, and the favorite event of the evening was going around to collect candy! The kids had to cooperate for a group picture while the parents who were passing out candy got ready.

Eleanor and Kate decided that they wanted to be princesses like Emily instead of a witch and Minnie Mouse. So, Kate put a church dress on and with some ribbon in her hair, she was a princess. Eleanor wore her witch dress with ribbons in her hair. Zach went as a firefighter, and Noah was a teddy bear. I'm sad that this is the last year that one of our kids will wear this teddy bear costume!

Matching teddy bears...

Kai and Koa were firefighters, too!

Here's Eleanor playing Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin...

The kids had so much fun at the party!

Saturday, October 31st: Halloween started out with pumpkin carving!

Noah watched...

Where's Kate?

Here's another pose since I didn't capture her necklace (that is really Zoe's necklace from Lauren's party) in the previous picture.

Kate decided to come help with the pumpkin.

Which caused these outbursts...
"People, you in my way!" (Kate)
"Mom, Kate's hogging the pumpkin! Why did you bring her in here?!" (Zoe)

Each of the kids picked a shape or design to put on their spot of the pumpkin. Kate wanted a star, so I carved a star for her.

I carved a heart for Zach.

Eleanor and I carved BOO! in her spot.


Eleanor told me that she is going to have a Halloween party when she is a mom and they're going to carve pumpkins!

I drew a ghost shape for Emily and then she carved it out.


Zoe carved out an H for Halloween and then I added shapes around it.


We went to Daisy and Anna's Halloween party in the afternoon. Kate wrestled with Noah to get his hat on.

Zoe decided to wear the Indian costume to the party. Zach wore the knight costume.

Eleanor cried because I insisted that the kids wear a long sleeve shirt under their costumes for the outside party. She refused to put her costume on, so I carried her out to the car and brought her costume to put on later. We went through the whole tantrum for nothing because the party ended up being inside.

The kids painted when we first got there.


It stressed me out to have Kate painting in a costume that isn't ours, but we managed to keep her costume clean.

The kids got their faces painted and some of them ate donuts hanging from a string. They looked for fake spiders outside and they played some other games. We ended the party with a parade around the block. Noah waved to the cars passing by, which was so cute! Here is Kate walking in her cute dragon costume.

The kids got some fun things in their goodie bags.


Eleanor let me know that trick or treating is kind of boring. You just walk around and get candy. It's not much fun. Then she said that it will be really boring when she is a mom and she just walks around and waits. Then she won't get any candy!

We went to the mall for trick or treating! Are we ready?!

We have always arrived at the mall at 5pm, which is right when the trick or treating begins. We did the same this year. The trick or treating started at 4pm this year. There was very little candy to be found around the mall, which was a huge disappointment! The kids did get a sampling of ice cream at one of the stores.

Eleanor decided to be a cat for trick or treating, so we had some last minute gluing of her ears onto a headband...that she didn't wear very much.

Zoe decided to be a witch trick or treating.

Emily and Noah were the only 2 that wore the same costume for all parties and trick or treating.

My parents came trick or treating with us.


Since the mall was such a disappointment, my mom and I took the kids to a party at our local fire station. We got there around 6:45 and left at 8:00. The kids had a great time playing games and eating. The older girls met up with friends there. It was a good ending to our Halloween weekend!





We hope you had a fun Halloween!


P.S. This is so Eleanor...

...writing until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.