HALLOWEEN IN PICTURES

Happy Halloween!

















Wondering where Miss Ava is? She spent the day and went trick or treating with Emily. When I get the pictures I will be sure to add them.

HOCKEY

My boys started hockey this past weekend, and I have to admit, I am not all that thrilled about them taking up this sport. It is one of those sports that pretty much consumes all of your free time with its horrible ice times, numerous practices each week, and tournaments filling up the weekends that would have otherwise been spent as a family, doing fun family things.

Another reason for my lack of being thrilled is that the Mr. was the catalyst behind this whole hockey thing. The boys? Not so much. Don't get me wrong, once the Mr. sold them on the idea, they were excited - This will be so much fun boys! I played hockey when I was young like you! You get to skate on a big rink with all kinds of other kids your age and use a stick and shoot pucks into the goals. I will even skate with you at all the practices!" Really, what 4 and 6 year old boy wouldn't be excited after hearing this?"

How the Mr. tried to sell me on the idea? He said he wanted the boys to play hockey, that it was a good sport for them to get started in at an early age, that he played hockey when he was young and he wanted the boys to have the same experience. Yada, yada, yada. All I heard was there go our weekends to do anything like head out to the cabin for the weekend, or spend a Saturday out at the zoo, or the Mall of America, or spend a lazy Sunday laying around in our pajamas watching T.V. and reading the paper.

Call me Negative Nelly, Debby Downer, whatever you choose. 'Cause I know, this sounds all sorts of selfish on my part, but it's the truth and I am all about being honest.

Anyway, Dad spent the week running around with the boys, spending a small fortune on sticks, pads, cups, mouth guards, hockey sticks, helmets, hockey bags, etc in preparation for their very first practice. The boys were over the moon excited, and of course Dad was as well, so how could I not be excited for them? This was a good thing.

Staying true to his personality, my Anthony Thomas cried and cried before getting ready for practice Saturday. "I don't wanna skate! I don't like falling. Pleeeaassse don't make me goooooo!" That soon subsided after some encouraging words from the Mr. and I, and he was ready to get suited up for practice.

A few of my Lucas...

And what do you know, both the boys loved it and can't wait to skate again next weekend.

This hockey thing may be taking up our weekends and making it pretty well impossible for us to have time together as a whole family from now until March, but I think I can live with that. The boys are going to get some much needed quality time with their Dad, doing something that makes all of them happy. It makes me happy when they are happy, and happiness is a good thing, no?

HALLOWEEN FUN

The kids took off for school this morning all dressed up and ready for their Halloween parties.

This year we have...

Thing 2 from the ever popular Dr. Seuss books. Miss Emily is Thing 1, but since they don't go to the same school Ava is without her sidekick for the day.

Einstein, who is having a hard time remembering that he indeed discovered the theory of relativity. A little bit of knowledge he needs to be able to relay to his class today during the party. [To tell you truth, I am not sure he even remotely understands what this whole theory of relativity means, but what do you expect from a 6 year old?]

And last but not least, Anthony, my little gorilla.

Sunday I will reveal pictures of Miss Liv and my baby Nathan all dressed up in their costumes. They are going to be cute. I can't wait.

SCHOOL PICTURES

School pictures forms came home in the kids' backpacks a few weeks ago. Ahhhh... school picture day. I always put way too much thought into what "package" to purchase - do I go for it and buy the big one with 1 8x10, 2 5x7's, 4 3 1/2x5's, 8 wallets, and the class picture? [Yes, I have that memorized.] Or do I go with the simple 1 5x7, 2 3 1/2x5's, 8 wallets and class picture?

If I get package #1, and they end up having messy hair, food on their face, a goofy smile, or their eyes are closed - I am out the cash and left with a whole stack of crappy pictures. Any of the aforementioned scenarios are more than likely to occur being they will no longer be in my presence once they get on that bus. They could very well get get crap all over their face from snack time and not wash it off, or snarl up their hair after wearing their hats to school, or make some goofy face for the poor camera man [who is assigned the painstaking task of photographing hundreds of kids under the age of 10]. You get it, the opportunities for them to mess up this picture without me present are endless. But if I buy package #2, and hell freezes over when they come home with the cutest darn picture I have ever laid my eyes on, I will be kicking myself for not buying more to hand out to Grandmas, Grandpas, Uncles, Aunts, friends, and complete strangers I happen to pass on the street [kidding on that one]. Whew - that was one hell of a run on sentence.

After putting much thought into this, and asking the Mr. for his input and getting "why are you putting this much thought into the kids school pictures. If they turn out, great. If they don't, toss 'em", I decided to play it safe and go the cheaper route.

And I am glad I did.

Not sure what happened here, but Ava's picture fell a bit short in the "turning out nice" category. Here she is sporting her ever popular fake smile. And for some reason there seems to be a bright circle on the tip of her nose - it almost looks as if she had it squished up against a glass wall or something. The Mr. thinks it was a goof up on the photographers part with the lighting. Whatever the case, Ava is adamant about getting her picture retaken because of this issue with how her nose looks, and because she is not satisfied with how her hair looks. How on earth could she pass the wallet sizes out to her friends when she looked like this? [Insert dramatic gasp.]

Lucas' did not turn out all that terrible, but he has a really weird look on his face. It's almost like the photographer tried to say something to make Lucas smile that he unfortunately didn't find all that funny. Go figure. And again, the lighting thing - it looks like he has a bright light from the heavens above shining down right on top of his head.

And last but not least, my Anthony Thomas. Did the photographer not have a box of those little black combs laying around? C'mon, he is photographing preschoolers for the love of God. You can't expect a 4 year old to keep his hair looking perfect from the moment he leaves the house until the afternoon hours when he has his picture taken. Nope, no way.

I guess the moral of the story here is, you get what you get. Or as my kids would say, "You get what you get and you don't have a fit." A wise little piece of advice they were all given in preschool.

From now on, I think I am going to quit beating myself up every year over what package to buy, and just go with the cheaper of the two. It only took me 5 years to come to this conclusion, but better late than never, right?

ALL GROWN UP

Seriously, where has the time gone?

[Ava at Larkin on bring a friend to dance night with Emily, Allison, Lauren and Savannah]

Ava is growing up so fast my head is spinning. She isn't a little girl anymore. She is slowly morphing into a young lady - which is, don't get me wrong a great thing to witness, but it is also not so much fun. With this growth comes the back talk, the the "can you please buy me that Justin Beiber shirt? Pleeease? Emily has it, and I want it too!" the "I want the real Twinkle Toes shoes, not the fake kind Mom." the "so and so has that and I have to have it to - if I don't have it I will just die!" the "when do I get a cell phone? Chad at the bus stop has one." And I get these little gems too - "I hate you, you are the worst Mom in the world", the "when can I start shaving my legs? the "When did you start wearing deoderant?" the "Mom, how do babies really come out of your belly?" You know, the whole I -want- you- to- buy- me- everything- I- want-and- I- want- you- to- let- me- do- what- I- want- when- I- want- because- I- don't- get- the- whole- concept- of- money- and- I- don't- get- the- word- NO thing?

I deal with it all, give her the time outs when needed, sit her down and try to explain to her that money doesn't grow on trees and I give her the we-don't-always-get-what-we-want speech. I do all of this while taking comfort in the fact that all little girls go through a stage such as this, and that one day these things I tell her over and over again will click, and she will get it. I know she will, as I did. It may have taken me a while to get there, but I got it.

Anyway.....All of this came to mind from looking at the picture above, as it reminded me of the argument we had about her dance attire right before she left that night. She had decided that she no longer wanted to wear her leotard to dance.

Why don't you want to wear your leotard?
Because.
Because why?
Because Lauren doesn't wear hers anymore.
So what?
Only the little girls wear leotards Mom!
Well what does Lauren and the big girls wear?
They wear the booty shorts and a t-shirt. But you need to scrunch up the t-shirt in the back and tie it so that it is nice and tight.

Lord help me.

My 7 year old wants to dress like one of the 15 year old dancers. Problem is, she is not 15.
First it was the booty shorts in lieu of the sweet skirt, now it is the t-shirt tied up in the back in lieu of the leotard. What next?

My Mom summed up this whole raising a daughter thing so well years ago, when I was just a mouthy teenager without a care in the world. She told me, "You just wait until you have your own Maria. You just wait."

Years later, as I sit here with two daughters of my own, I laugh at the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about at the time. Now? I understand.

Boy, do I ever understand.

HARRY POTTER

Someone in this house is a little over the top crazy over anything and everything Harry Potter. Or as he calls it "Haley Pada." We watch the movie every single day, sometimes twice a day. What does he want to be for Halloween? Harry Potter. What does he want to read at bedtime? A Harry Potter book. What does he want for Christmas? A cape just like Harry Potter has. At dinner time, in the car, and while taking a bath, what is his preferred topic of conversation? Harry Potter.

You get the idea, the kid is head over heels for Harry Potter.

I came downstairs tonight after putting Nathan to bed and found this:

Anthony watching Harry Potter [surprise, surprise] while acting out the flying broom scene. Or whatever it is called - I am not all that well versed on the Harry Potter lingo.

I must admit that at first, it was cute to see how deep in concentration he was, trying to "fly" the broom just like Harry was. But the cute wore off after the 15th time of him clicking the previous button on the remote in order to reenact this flying scene over and over and over again.

I am thinking that the Harry Potter movie may have to suddenly get lost tonight while he is sleeping. Just for a few days. Maybe more.

ONE BIG MESS

Staying true to her personality, Miss Liv managed to get into everything today. And I mean everything. Boy do I ever love that girl, but she is going most definitely going to be the death of me if she keeps this up.

I was on the phone with my Mom, attempting to have an in depth conversation when she started in. "Mama! Mama! Hold me!" "Mama, thirsty!" "Mama, me talk, me talk!" And so on and so on. As you can imagine, her jabbering was making it next to impossible for me to chat with my Mom, so I resorted to sitting her at the kitchen table and handing her an ice cream sandwich. Treats always work.

I left her to enjoy her ice cream while I made my way to the other room and carried on my conversation with my Mom. Time must have really gotten away from me, as when I got off of the phone, I found mess, after mess, after mess.

Turns out she was done with her ice cream sandwich and decided the edge of the desk where the computer sits was a perfect place to leave it. You know, so that it slowly melted and dripped all over the carpet below.

Nice, right?

I cleaned up that mess and then picked up the chairs she decided to tip over only to find she had smeared her sticky, ice cream filled hands all over the backs of them. So I went to work cleaning the chairs.

After that mess was cleaned up, I made my way into the kitchen only to find this

Apparently she felt like coloring and went to get the color crayons by herself only to have them spill all over the kitchen floor. She must have decided to ditch the coloring idea so as not to have to clean up her mess, and moved on to something else.

As I ranted under my breath as to how it was possible for one little 2 year old to create so much damage in a matter of 20 minutes, I realized I had no idea where the little stinker was who had done all this was. As I finished cleaning up, I yelled out "Liv, where are you?" more than a few times and received no response.

From past experience, I knew this was not good.

So I made my way around the house looking for her. It was not long before I found her in the study room. The reason she was so very quiet? Take a look at the legs. Apparently back when she decided to ditch the whole coloring with the crayons in her coloring book idea, she had grabbed a pen, found a nice quiet place to hide, and colored on her legs instead.

Nice work, no? I just love the swirly patterns and circles she created.

And it was not just the legs she adorned with these designs, she managed to color her hands as well. Lovely.

At this point I said to hell with it, and let her spend the rest of the day wearing her art work. I was tired, and in no mood to scrub her legs 100 times to get the pen off. Ever tried to get pen off of skin? I have. Lots and lots of times, and it is not easy.

And I wonder why I am so darn tired by the end of the day. Sheesh.