Happy Halloween!

Have A Spooktacular Halloween!!

Ok, so I'm not as creative or crafty as my sister-in-law at Ni Hao Y'all, I just bought the cheap masks and my boys are set to go. Although I don't think there will be a whole lot of trick-or-treating - it's Friday night, so that means Football.

Can you identify the two in the picture below.

Kade is the short masked one, and the wild woman is my sister.

note to Net: told you there was still time to post this picture :)

celebrating the years

Yesterday Brian & I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but I know we're looking forward to many, many more years.

Today was my daddy's (aka PawPaw) birthday, he's 67 years young.

Gone Bananas

Earlier in the year we noticed that the banana trees (or whatever you would call them) actually had bananas on them. This was hard to believe because for the past couple of years at the beginning of spring we cut them way back, I mean way back, so much so that Brian thought we killed them. Then last month we were playing outside and saw how many were actually on there, I thought they looked cool so I took pictures of them, all green and all, not expecting them to ever turn yellow. Then this weekend Brian & Noah were outside and Noah came in eating one. He was nice enough to share it with all of us, they are really good. I still can't believe that we have edible bananas in our back yard.

Carving Pumpkins

This afternoon before our niece, Brooke headed back to college we carved pumpkins (or punkins as Kade calls them). It was a lot of fun. In the past when we did them we had store bought patterns and they always seemed complicated, pretty, but complicated. So this year we didn't do that, the boys drew their own, transferred it and carved them, with a little assistance from mom & dad.

And, for the first time ever I roasted the pumpkin seeds. Kade said they had some in school the other day, so when I was checking them, he looked too and say, nope, not ready yet. They turned out pretty good considering I had no idea what I was doing.

As for the Jack-O-Lanterns, they turned out great! They looked so cool when we lit them this evening, Kade wanted to know why we couldn't leave them lit all evening.

Last Soccer Game

Both boys had their final soccer game on Saturday. I had a lot of fun coaching Kade's team. I had a great group of kids! It's good the season is over, the kids were getting tired and loosing interest. In this last game, in the fourth quarter one of the little girls kept telling me that she was hungry, so I told her to score a goal and I'd give her a snack. Well, she got right in there and score the very next goal, and then scored two more after that, good thing I brought cookies for everyone. :)

Once again I didn't get to see much of Noah's game, but the little I did see, he played goalie and did a good job of keeping the ball out of the goal.

After the games they all received trophies. Kade was so proud of his he has it displayed in the living room. I told him to put it in his room, but he said no, it needs to be there were everyone can see it.

Oops!

Oh, the day of having a toddler in the house. . . what ages are really consider a toddler anyway?

Kade is 4 and in Pre-School, so I don't consider him one anymore, but I would consider 3 years old a toddler, anyway. . .

Since my sister is away for the weekend, our nephew, Conner is here. When I got to Granny's after work today he met me at the vehicle and said that he's spending the night at my house, that his momma said that he could. Anytime he's in (if he's parents aren't staying too) he spends the night with us. OK, to the point, even though it's only 1 year and 4 months difference between Kade and Conner, I'm just not used to toddler hazards anymore.

All he wanted to eat was marshmallows. . . . every toy is out of Kade's closet (it's all good, we already cleaned them up). . .

stickies are all pulled apart and stuck on things. . . .

and to top it all off

yep, he found a bottle of nail polish that none of us knew was out, he hid behind the couch and he had three toes done before Kade saw him (about 30 seconds later). Too Funny!!! although I don't know if his dad will think so :)

We Love him, love having him here, and are having a lot of fun.

Retreat

My sisters, Danette and Debbie are on team for the ACTS retreat this weekend. Say a prayer for them and all who are attending the retreat.

Camo Day

Tomorrow is the last home game for our Jr. High football team, so the kids all get to dress in camouflage instead of their spirit shirts. I thought we had a lot of camouflage clothes, but when ones boys grow by leaps and bounds one has the make a quick trip to Wallie-World on her lunch break. Brian didn't have a problem with it because they were talking about having the new clothes to go hunting in too.

I had them try it all on this evening to make sure we would be set in the morning and of course to take pictures to post and show how cute they are.

(yes, Noah's clothes are a little big on him, they didn't have his size so I went with the next one up, and he's wearing Brian's boot)

Look at Kade trying to look all serious, and Noah, well he has been trained, if there's a camera, he smiles.

Pumpkin Pictures Continued

Pumpkin Pictures

As promised, here are some of the pictures we took today.
There will be more to come.
I have to share the Internet with my husband. I mean, what's more important, me posting pictures and blogging, or him working on his online classes for his Masters??

Report Cards

Today was report card day. The kids got out of school at 2 for parent / teacher conferences, so we took advantage of the early day and the boys and I went to Victoria to the pumpkin patch for our annual pictures. I'll be posting those soon, but wanted to brag on our boys first. Here's Noah’s grades for the first nine weeks, you can see why I didn't feel a need to visit with his teacher:

Religion – 98, Reading – 95, English – 89, Spelling – 95, Math – 94, Science – 95, Social Studies – 87, Computer – 97,
PE – 100

At the Catholic schools the grading system is different from the public schools, it's as follows:
100 – 94 - Excellent Achievement (A)
93 – 85 - High Achievement (B)
84 -75 - Average Achievement (C)
74-70 - Low Achievement (D)
69/Below – Unsatisfactory (F)

So, with the exception of his two high achievement grades, he has Excellent Achievement, and will be on the honor roll for this nine weeks.

Kade is doing very well also, in Pre-K they do not do the conferences or the report cards, but I checked with his teacher and she said that he is doing great and that she really enjoys having him in her class.

My Creative and Sweet Boys

Noah loves playing with Leg0s and is very creative building things with them. We used to give him a lot of the box sets that build specific things, but he ended up taking them apart and putting all the pieces together and now he has a big crate of them at home. He must have learned this from his cousin Beau because there's another big crate at Granny & PawPaw's house. Today when we were there he built this big house, he even had guys on the inside - one is watching TV, one is cooking, and one is sleeping (the red things are the shelves that should be standing up, we didn't notice until after the picture was taken).

Then this evening when we were at MoMo & PoPo's house, Kade & Rina were riding the 4-wheeler, and we noticed they kept stopping and getting off and we were wondering what they were doing, well when they got back, Kade handed me a hand full of flowers. Aww, isn't he such a sweetie. When we got home I put then in a vase with water, and he kept asking how I liked the flowers he picked for me. I love them baby.

A Conversation with Kade

Today we left my parents and going to Brian's parents and after a brief question/answer session about parents and grandparents, Kade started the following conversation with us. . .

Kade: Mom I hope that I'm going to be in the cemetery next to you and dad.

Me: what?

Kade: I want to be by y'all in the cemetery.

Me: Where, right between me and dad, like you like to sleep sometimes?

Kade: No, on the side of y'all. It will be mom, dad, Kade & Noah

Me: ok, what about y'alls wives and kids?

Kade: well, we'll figure that out. . . . they can be be y'all too.

I'm not sure what prompted this, but with this child you never know. It was pretty funny, and as soon as we finished he went on to a totally different subject.

look alikes?

This evening we were having fun and getting a good laugh with everyone trying on a Halloween wig (yeah, it doesn't take much to amuse us). Katarina and Noah each put it on, it was funny how much they looked alike. I never thought that they did, but take a look - yep, they are cousins.

The Squirrel Killer

The poor little squirrels don't have a chance at our house. Over the last couple of weeks there are three that have passed on to squirrel heaven, all thanks to this vicious killer. . . .

Yep, that right, the cows water trough. It's been so dry here, and the poor little squirrels try to get a drink and fall in and drown. I found one the other day, and Kade found another this morning. I feel so bad for the cute little animals.

Check It Out

I've been wanting to try a new look, but never took the time (or patience) to do it. Well it wasn't that hard and I think it looks pretty cool and may change it more often.

Both boys had soccer games this evening. Kade's team won again, and he scored 3 points. He's really improved over the weeks. Noah's team also won, but once again I didn't get to see much of it because of Kade's game.

Down, But Not Out

I knew I was very exhausted yesterday, but little did I know the Lord was going to make me get the rest I needed. I woke up around 3 AM and I couldn't even pick my head up off the pillow without feeling off balance, sort of like a motion sickness. I remembered last time I had an inner ear infection (about 10 year ago) the doctor said to take Benedryl, so my wonderful husband got up and brought it to me. I woke back up when my alarm went off around 6, and attempted to walk to the bathroom, I made it, but it was like a good drunk, without the drinking, so I went back to bed. I got back out of bed about 1, and went to the doctor at 3 - I have fluid on my ears, but no infection. They gave me a steroid shot and said to keep taking the allergy medicine.
Both boys had a game this evening, so Brian took over my coaching duties, while I sat there and watched. Noah's team won 6-2, he played goalie. Kate's team won too, but I don't remember the score. Kade made his first goal - he actually made 2, but one was for the other team

Another Full Weekend. . .

Friday night was St. Paul's homecoming, so Brooke, the boys & I went to the game. Brooke's friend was crowned the queen, and our team won. We got home late, and no one was ready for bed yet, so we stay up for a while visiting with Brooke, and by that time Brian came home from their double over-time game, which by the way they lost.

We started Saturday morning early at Nicolette's volleyball game at 8. They won that game, and went on to win first place in the tournament - way to go Lady Cards! Nicolette played really well, and had some really good spikes.

From there we moved on to Juliette & Katelynn's cross country meet. Thank goodness this was all here in town. For the Jr. High girls, it is a 2 mile course. Juliette finished 19th and Katelynn 25th and this was out of over 85 girls. Way to go girls! (I was tired just watching them).

That afternoon we went to Victoria for my cousin's wedding reception. We had a great time there, it was a small gathering with just family. Well, small and family doesn't quite go together in our case, but we love it. We really enjoyed visiting with everyone.

After getting back home, I once again had a late night, baking for our school festival on Sunday.

Sunday, was a full day at the school festival, I was the parent leader for Noah's class, so we got there early and helped set it set up, then all day I went back and forth making sure everyone was there for their shift, all the while my hubby was at the auction buying things we really don't have use for, but oh well, it's all for a good cause, our Catholic School. So, I'm exhausted - physically, mentally, financially, etc. .