HAPPY FALL FESTIVAL!

Our first dress up of the year.  Our school Carnival is more like a big Halloween Party.  I have to say that I thought I did not like Carnivals, but this was really fun!  As soon as the kids got off the bus we got to work getting all dressed up!  We had 1 hour to eat, get everyone dressed, and hair and faces painted.  Brent was working so it was all me.

First one!  Not so happy about the finished product!  Actually the hair and make-up looked better, but the pop star in a rage just kind of messed it all up.  If you recall from last years picture, this little rock-star cried about my hair and make-up skills on her Witch outfit.  This girl is very hard to please.  I guess she wanted to look like a pretty rock-star!  How would I know.  We will try again tonight.  Hopefully I'll do better.  Of course we had to have the 10 minute talk all the way to the party about attitudes and how she could choose to cry about her hair and ruin the festival or she could just go and have fun and say hey my hairs crazy, but I'm going to have fun anyway.  Kara lately has been getting really embarrassed about everything.  At activity days just last week they gave out these little mirrors and she was in the hall making all these funny faces in it and getting a little crazy talking to the mirror, well some of the ladies saw her and thought she was cute and funny. When she looked up and saw that she'd been discovered you would have thought the world ended.  I mean she made a bigger seen after the fact.  I tried to tell her she was embarrassing herself more by being so crazy about it (crazy is an understatement).  Later she said, "How would you feel if people were laughing at you and you were 9 years old!"  She had to throw the 9 year old part in, because she had already asked me the question how would you feel if people were laughing at you.  I kept telling her it's better just to look at what your doing and say "hey that was kind of funny, I'm pretty funny, I think I'll just laugh too!" 

 Hayden was very pleased with his costume!  He wanted me to take several pictures!  The key to good make-up is Ben Nye.  It is make-up you get at a Halloween store.  It is cheap too, but way better than that stuff from Wal-mart.  It doesn't crack.  Also the guy told me to spray some really cheap hairspray on your face after your done and then the make-up will stay on.  I guess the cheaper the hairspray the higher the alcohol content.  I actually forgot to get hairspray, but in case you need your make-up to stay on for a long time there is a good tip!

 My little Dorothy!  So cute.  She liked her costume too.  She was so happy she got to have a little mascara and lipstick!  I'm going to get a better picture of her tonight for the Trunk-or Treat!

 Keltonator also liked his costume and his make-up artist!

 There was a Rock-wall and no lines!

 Hayden made it to the top several times!

 Kelton was a little frustrated!

 In the Cafeteria!

 ZOMBIE

 YEAH!  THE ROCKER chooses to be Happy!

 Still Zombified!

 Nice Pose Skelator!

 Halle's not in this because when Brent arrived me and Halle ran home to get our jackets!  A cold front came in and cooled it right down.  

 Brent finally got off work!  YEAH!

 Rocker Girl made it to the top and rang the bell!

 Skeletor tries again, but does not quite make it!  GRrrrrrrrrr

 Mummy climbs again!

 Sliding!

 Right across from the school is the Cemetery.  They put on a little show in the Cemetery and told the history of some of the dead in the Cemetery, which in turn gave a history of Pass Christian.  It was very neat.  The Middle School Gifted kids were the actors.  We toured the cemetery and stopped at graves for a little history from the dead.

 They had little bags with candles lighting the graveyard.  It looked really cool.

 It's hard to get good pictures in the dark!

 Halle in her warm clothes!

 More Cemetery!  During the day the kids all went on the tour.

 The entire night was well, very festive.  Just how I imagine Halloween.  I wish ya'all could have gone to the graveyard tour.  The kids did so good telling the stories of their dead.  They played music, danced, dueled, cried, etc.  Kara's favorite story was of a little girl Haddie who climbed to the top of the light house that her family lived in and then fell to her death.  The rest of the family later died from Zinc poisoning.  I think that is why the little girl got dizzy when she got to the top of the light house.

 There is so much history here!

And of course Hayden wanted one more Zombie picture!  "A close-up Please!!!!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Love The Weather!

Well I thought I better take a couple seconds to update, before all the Halloween pictures!  Our weather is now is so beautiful!  Someone the other day said, "Be grateful for July and August or everyone would live here!"  I have to say I agree.  

 Kara is the queen of butterfly catching.  She catches and catches and catches the butterfly's!  I went to look for a little butterfly container ( I used to have one, but of course I gave it away of course), but Walmart only sells them in the spring!

 Kelton is still trying to get the kids in his class to not take the Lord's name in vain.  He said, "I told my friend it was swearing to say that, and so I don't think he is going to say it anymore!"  I'm glad he is so stalwart in his beliefs.  

 It was crazy sock day today!  The kids all wore their crazy socks!  Dirt Cheap had brand new socks for 50 cents!  They are the really good ones too!  They also had brand new princes panties for 50cents too!  I wish I had a friend to go to Dirt Cheap with!  Someone come visit me and I'll take you to Dirt Cheap.  Just kidding! It's really cheap, but it's really ugly too, so I don't think anyone would want to come all the way here just to go to Dirt Cheap!  Hayden did get a cool shirt there that is covered in mud from Katrina for his Zombie costume.

 Hayden in his First big band performance!!

 He did really good!

 This is before the game started!

 I guess he started getting a little sick to his stomach a little after his performance!

 They were to sit in the band section with the high-school kids until 3rd quarter and then we could pick them up!  Halle fell asleep during the second quarter so I had Brent run me and the other kids home.  My arm was about to fall off.  We ran home and then Brent ran back to get Hayden.  As Brent was getting there Hayden was walking down out of the bleachers.  He had barfed!  He barfed in the bleachers between his legs, but it had splattered all over.  He coincidentally puked right into his friend's tuba mouth piece!  GROSS!

 He came home and was very sick.  Brent went back to clean up the barf and took a big bucket of water to rinse the bleachers off, but instead he ended up just making a big mess.  I guess when he poured the water to rinse the barf off it just caused the barf to spread everywhere.  It pretty much cleared the band out of the stands!  A memory I'm sure Hayden will never forget!  Maybe he could call it his most embarrassing moment, even though I don't think he seemed very embarrassed.  He is refusing to ever where the sweatshirt that got barf on it, so maybe he was a little embarrassed.  He's hard to read that way.

 Kara found her friends at the game and was having a lot of fun with them until they saw a boy there that I guess likes Kara.  Her friends wanted her to go and say HI to him.  Kara was having none of that.  Unlike Hayden she is easily embarrassed.  It took her 15 minutes to even get the courage up to go say HI to one of her friends that she plays with every day!

 GIRLS!

 Halle decided it was time to take the training wheels off her bike!

 We still have a lot of work!

 Go Halle!

 Yeah!

 I will admit we are getting a little tougher down here!  The kids down really complain to much about their bug  bites and when they get a sliver or one of those thorn balls in their feet, they just pull them out with out crying about it!  I think they should just wear their shoes, but I guess if your a kids it doesn't matter where you live, no shoes is the life!  Not for me though!( :

 This is actually a pretty good road in our neighborhood.  Most are terrible.  Lots of big potholes!  To fix the potholes they just dig up the street and then rake it all back down.  It is weird.  I've never seen anything like it.  I should take pictures of all the potholes and then them fixing them occasionally.  It is on my long list of things to do( : You should see me drive the kids to school swerving in and out to miss potholes.  I'm sure I look like I've been drinking, but no I'm just trying to avoid a flat tire.  

 Kara and Kelton decided to run through the sprinklers in their clothes!

 We cleaned up the downstairs a bit and ate outside!  

Kelton and Hayden have decided they want some big muscles so have been doing some working out too!  Kara and Halle continue to sing and sing and sing and sing and sing!  Kara sang a solo in church and did a great job too.  I'll have to video her and put it up here.   All of the kids are taking piano lessons much to their disliking.  There is a lot of screaming, crying, and gnashing of teeth, but they'll be happy I made them.  We continue to eat dinner every night where at least one person absolutely abhors what I've made for dinner.  I continue to wonder how this can really happen, but continue to make gross food anyway. I on the other hand go back and forth on the subject of me getting a job.  Is it a good idea or a bad idea.  No answers have really come to me, so maybe that means well I don't know.  Oh Hayden did get a little WOW from his Reading teacher that said, "Hayden you always try so hard and show a respectful and responsible attitude!"  He brought this home and I started to cry when I read it!  No really I cried!  Hayden asked me why I was crying.   I told him and I could tell he was very pleased with himself.  You just have to know him to know why I was so happy.  He has lots of potential, but sometimes he just seems a little apathetic.  I know if he really tries hard he could really excel, so when I see just a tiny fire in him, it  makes me so happy.  Well i got to run.  Making more copies for my teachers today and it is fall festival tonight at the school, oh and Hayden's school is having a Costume Ball!!!  Fun Fun Fun!!!

I apologize for all of my terrible grammatical errors.  I am afraid that I did not learn grammar like my children are learning and I am just coming to the realization that I probably am completely destroying the English language.  There are so many rules, singular verbs, plural verbs, when to use sang or sung.  Wow I really did not know how much their is to know about English.  So I am apologizing for my ignorance, but alas I will not stop writing.  I will say thank goodness for spell check, because than I really might have to stop writing.( :

Bummer!

These pictures really are not the bummer part of this post.  I just decided to put them up because well I love pictures.  Can I really have so many stories to tell?

 This is Halle on the swing Kelton rigged up!  For some of you this may be hard to believe that he tied a jump rope from the top story hung it over the side and then tied a loop in the bottom so they could swing on it, but for anyone that knows him this is no surprise.  Every time I look at it I think should I be letting them do that, could they get hurt?   Brent came home one night while they were swinging on it and asked me is the knot tied good?  Well it's holding everyone up.  Kara and Hayden have been staying after school for a special program so I just have these two little mischievous kids for a couple hours before the others get home.  It's funny how easy they are, they just come home do there homework together and then run off and play!  They never even ask me for a snack!  I think when kids get older they just are a little more drama.

 The other day Halle and Kelton were out eating icee pops.  Halle got some on her and rushed in and changed her clothes.  I said, "Why don't you just stay in those clothes and we'll wash them at the end of the day?"  She said, "No mom I don't like to be dirty!"  Little did I know she was not even finished with her icee pop!  She went through two more shirts just finishing her Popsicle!  Little Turkey!

Kelton is so patient with Halle and so helpful!  She just loves him to death.  Who wouldn't love a brother that is so understanding, helpful, loving, and patient with you!

O.K. for the Bummer!  Brent said, "We should make Chili!"  Which translates into "You should make Chili!"  So I find a recipe.  Got a lot of Stars so I decided to make it.  Run to the store, get all the ingredients, stop and even by beer for it at the convienence store (I'm going all out as you can see), old friend calls on my way home, make 10 trips up my stairs carrying one bag of groceries at a time because I don't want to hang up with long lost friend and also I just read that you can burn an extra 300 calories a day going up 10 flights of stairs (a flight is approximately 15 stairs and we have 14 stairs up to our house), then keep talking while making my chili, cut up chilies which caused me to almost die because I guess you can't inhale them (another post),  O.K. now getting ready to put in cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp just like recipe calls for), wonder why is cayenne pepper open (I had just bought a giant container of it),  look over and see unopened chili powder, think why is chili powder not open?, I just put a 1/4 cup of chili powder into my chili, realize chili powder and cayenne pepper are in same container and are the same color, gasp!  So from that out of control run on sentence or as I would call it artistic writing you understand why I am bummed.  I've got enough of the spiciest chili on the planet to feed a football team.  I actually have not even tried it because I don't like the way it smells.  I've heard that is a bad sign.  If you don't like the way it smells it probably won't taste that good either!  So after spending 3 hrs making Chili that no one is going to want to eat even if I do try to tone it down with pineapple juice I still have about 100 pots to wash.  I kept having to get bigger pots!  I did not realize it was going to make so much.  Anyone want to come for Chili.  Really hot food speeds up your metabolism!!!

Where Does the Time Go?

I can't believe October is half way over!  I need the clock to stop for a little bit so I can breath a little!  Here is a quick little update.  I'm missing some of my pictures, but who knows where they went?  Actually they are probably on Brent's phone.

 These are Clams.  Brent's boss invited us to a Clam Dig at their home.  They live in our neighborhood.  It was a nice little party.  All the alcohol you can drink, lots of sea food, and music.  We just drank water so the clams did not taste very good to us.  Just kidding I did not even try one.  I've tried them before and I'm afraid salty buggers are only good if your drunk.  Purely my opinion.  

 Natalie sent this picture of the boys at the race track before we left.  I thought it was cute and since we learned how to do some google chatting with the boys this month I thought I'd add it.  Of course we are still missing our little friends a whole lot!!!  The kids are already planning their talents for the reunion next year.

 Halle at the park with a couple new friends.  I really did try to get a shot of the 3 of them, but Claudia would not look at the camera for anything!  Halle of course is sport'n some plaid shorts and a striped shirt.  No one can pull off an outfit quite like my girl Halle!  She changes her clothes at least 3 times a day!

 Halle's class went to the pumpkin patch!  This was my little group of kids to watch over!  They all chose a pumpkin to bring back to school to decorate!  Lots of fun except for the red ants.  They are like little bombs planted through out the yard!  We went as a family and picked pumpkins out too.  I took pictures, but they are some of the missing.

 Halle got really sick at the beginning of the month too.  She was in soooo much pain as we waited for the doctor.  She had double ear infections and terrible chest congestion that lasted a couple of weeks.  She is all better now!  Thank goodness as Kelton would say.  Kelton is continuing his mission to save the world from breaking the 3rd commandment.  Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.  When ever a child in his class takes the Lord's name in vain he asks them to please say Oh my goodness or Oh my Gosh.  I asked him how this was going?  He said some of the kids are saying Oh my goodness or Oh my gosh, but some are not.  One little boy told him Oh my goodness is a bad word.  Kelton asked me if you stick your middle finger up in the air does that mean your saying all the bad words in the world?  Then he said, "It's O.K. mom I don't need to know because I am never going to stick my middle finger up in the air!"

 This is Halle's whole class at the pumpkin patch!

 One more of my little Pipi feeling very horrible in the Dr.'s office!  I was feeling horrible for her.  It was a very sad day for us!!

 Hayden always on the look out for lizards.  Catching lizards is a favorite pass time for the kids.  Kara and Halle and Kelton also like to try and catch the butterfly's too.  We have tons of butterfly's in our yard.  They always let them go after they catch them.  Sometimes they will put them in a jar for a few minutes, but they don't like to see anything die!  Kara has caught about 3 butterfly's which is pretty impressive as they move quickly.

 Yes Kelton is eating wearing his sunglasses!  We don't know why?  Just something fun to do.  We are all set for Halloween!  We found our new favorite store Hudson's/ Dirt Cheap!  When a store goes out of business they go in and pick up all their stuff.  Then they sell it for.... you guessed it DIRT CHEAP!  The costumes were brand new and only 3 dollars a piece!!!!!  Kelton got a battle ax to go with his costume for 25cents!!!  I was thinking of all my thrifty friends in Idaho and I seriously think this store would be out of business if it were in Idaho!  There would be nothing left on the shelves.  All those couponer's would have cleared the shelves every Monday( :

 The pool is still open and these kids never get bored of swimming!  Every day they want to go to the pool!

Here they all are ready to do Swan Dives into the pool!  Kara's little friend comes over on Friday's to play.  She is an only child so she loves the chaos that lots of kids brings.  I have a soft spot for only children.  It just seems like it would be so lonely with out another sibling, but then again how would I know?  There was 7 of us and never a dull moment!  Come to think of it there's still never a dull moment to keep life exciting!  I don't even have to go to the movies to feel happy, sad, depressed, excited.... I'm just so glad I had so many siblings to grow up with and old with.  Like Kelton always says, "FAMILIES ARE THE BEST!"

Well I guess I better get to everything that I don't want to do.  Our neighbor came by the other day with an opening for a nurse in their pre op department and so now I have to get serious.  Fill out my license change for Mississippi, stress about going to work, beef up my lame resume, etc., and then wonder why did I volunteer to be room mom for 3 different teachers?  I just told someone the other day that I was not Superwoman, even though I wish I was because then I would be able to do all the things I want to and never stress!