Nubble Dots, Silly Bread & Pumpkins at Walmart...

I haven't been here for a bit. Things, surprisingly, haven't slowed down much since the end of football and cheerleading. Fall is always busy anyway. Not only did we only have 2 days in between the last football game and the first soccer game, but we also have costumes, pumpkin patches, football parties and trick-or-treating, as well as birthdays for Kyle, Sammi, Bill, Brenda, my dad, Kristin, Dana, and Patrick. WHEW. This year we haven't been able to get together for each birthday on Keith's side because of other busy schedules and the commute. They don't live forever away, but Kris lives next door and I pass my mom's on my way to and from work every day. Convenience. I do believe we are getting together with the Strattons very soon. Can't wait to see you guys. Oh, and how can I forget, we celebrated 5 fall-friend birthdays a week or so ago. One was Kris so I am double dipping for effect.

I am, like always, almost ready for Halloween. That translates to...I picked up 3 pumpkins last night at Walmart and the last two costumes will be finished before 11pm tonight. I admit, the first costume was ordered online so I didn't have to do anything with it. Maybe I annoy some people with my last minute antics, but it truly works for me. I have been a Last Minute Lou Lou forever, so it is certainly nothing new. I think I work best under pressure. I have no problem doing costumes tonight. FYI...Walmart has tons of pumpkins still left. They are much nicer than the picked over ones from Meijer. Those all looked half rotten.

I also have to put together red, white and blue suckers for Andrew's class tomorrow. 4th grade has been studying the government and tomorrow is class election day. Andrew is running for senator. I am actually surprised that he only brought it up to me this week. He gets into this kind of stuff. He wanted goodie bags or some silly thing for his class. I thought that would be overkill. We don't want to bribe kids into voting...that is best left to the real life candidates. I prefer to think a bunch of patriotic treats are just a nice, festive way to celebrate the election process. Maybe I have a future in politics.

Kyle cracks me up daily, when he is not making me absolutely crazy. I am sooo glad I made a scrapbook of his silly vocabulary as a toddler. His language skills amaze me every day. I forget what it was like with the boys. They didn't go to daycare and they didn't have cousins so they learned from adults. I am loving the process with Kyle. He learns so much from other little kids. He'll say things that is totally a "kid" phrase and I know that he doesn't get that from our house. One of my current favorite "toddler" phrases is nubble dots. As in, "Can you tie my shoe in a nubble dot?" It is the only thing he says that is dyslexic in nature and it cracks me up all the time. He was talking about the Towks the other day while looking at old Christmas cards. I thought he meant the Clarks but that wasn't it. He was talking about the wed Towks and I know wed is red, so I was pounding my brain for the answer and then it hit me. Todd and Anne Stark are our neighbors, Kyle is always talking about them and they all wore red in their Christmas photo. I said, "Oh, you mean these Towks," and pointed to their picture. He said to me, "Mom, you tawk funny."

My dad turned 59 on Tuesday. We went to my parent's house for sloppy Joe's and cake. Kristin bought 59 candles and her kids were afraid the house would burn down. It's good to teach cause and effect even at an early age. :)

Keith and I were sitting in our living room Saturday night when we got a super loud knock on our door. Keith asked if I was going to answer it. Uh, no way. That was too much for me. After the second huge knock, Keith got up. He opened the door and nobody was there. Just a little Halloween basket with goodies and a note inside. We had been booed! As the note said, 'tis better to give than to receive, so it was our duty to pass it on. We made a big deal out of it. Maybe for ourselves more than for the recipients, but it was a good family experience nonetheless. I tried taking pictures of the boys in action. Keith just laughed his "you are a nerd" laugh and said there was nothing obvious about a flash going off in the middle of the night. Point taken. I had to settle for pictures of them all dressed in their garb. No chance of getting caught...unless someone noticed the red W and Lil' Vikes plastered all over their sweatshirts and the getaway van. Oh well. It isn't like we were out toilet papering or anything like that.