Skunks, Knights, Princesses, and a girl hero plus a few animals to boot

Our Halloween Festivities were full this year. First, I was in charge of snack for Aidan's class on Halloween. I decided to make these super cute spider cookies. I used licorice to be the legs and jelly beans cut in half as eyes.

I also sent these popcorn hands to school. They were more time consuming than I expected but they were cute.

Then that night we had a little get together with friends. Not sure you can tell but we have peanut butter balls as spiders and witches hats.
The kids also ate mummy dogs for dinner and parents had chili dogs.

and I made this pumpkin shaped Pumpkin cake for desert.

We played a mummy relay game that I thought was cute

and then headed out to trick or treat.

Here is super girl pulling her friends along.

My little Stinker - Andrew the skunk
Super Girl
And the Heroic Knight



Hope you had fun as well!

The joys of being a mom to a boy

My shoes have important purposes...They become boats.

This Election

Election Day is tomorrow. I am actually ready for this to all be over, but this year I have realized that there seems to be a sense of panic about who will win the election. People on both sides seem to be living in fear. I have even heard that certain cities are preparing for rioting just in case Barack Obama does not win. It really is madness.

I participated in early voting. I have a voice in this election and now I am done. The results are out of my hand and I am at peace. I know that the reason I am at peace is because my hope is in Christ, NOT America and NOT in our President. So whether Obama wins or McCain wins, my hope will remain in Christ. I ran across this article by John Piper that I thought would be good to pass along for all to read. I know that I enjoyed it and agree mightily with what he has to say.

BOO!

We got booed! This was a new thing for our family. I heard about it last year from a friend, but had never participated. Basically, booing is when someone brings a treat to your door, rings the doorbell and disappears. They leave instructions to pass along the fun to 2 other neighbors.

So we opened the door and found this:



Eventually we made these

and set out to boo someone else. What a thrill to run and sneak with the kids trying not to get caught. The first house we tried caught us even before we got out of the car when the dad came out of the garage suddenly and we were attempting to sneak up to the door. It was fun and we had many laughs. It is just fun to try to be sneaky with little ones.
Hope you all have a very happy Halloween! Enjoy yourself and your kiddos! I will post pictures soon.


****I wrote this the other day with every intention of posting it this morning (I am not a technologically savvy blogger so I don't know how to schedule posts). I obviously forgot so I am posting it now at the end of Halloween. We had a little Halloween party here, I will post pictures soon.

The Zoo and the Park

I had a great time last week going on Aidan's class field trip. We went to the zoo and then the park and the kids ate lunch in between. It was great to get to spend some time talking with his teacher and getting to know some of the kids and other moms.

Aidan's sweet class

The crazy aggressive birds. We have fed the birds before but these were literally flocking to the stick and biting each other to get prime spot. It was wild.

Just the boys

This really is a sweet bunch of kids! It was a treat to join them and is always fun to get to do something special with Aidan and watch him in "his" element. I am still adjusting to the fact that I know so little about his days and who he spends them with so it was nice to get a little more of a peak inside.

Pumpkin Patch

A recent trip to the Pumpkin Patch with our play group (in pictures):

Swinging together

Playing in the Play house

My sweet cooperative daughter

Feeding the Fish

Playing on the playground
More Swinging Fun

The Barrel Rides - three little blondes

A wagon ride for Andrew

And a Barrel reide for me and Andrew. The things we moms do for our kids, I really thought I might get stuck in this thing.

Happy 6th Birthday!

Aidan turned 6 last Friday. On Friday we sent cupcakes to school for his class, daddy and Aidan made a trip to Chucky Cheese to play games in the afternoon, we went to Texas Pizza for dinner (Aidan's choice), and then we returned home to open gifts. On Saturday we celebrated with some of Aidan's friends with a soccer party ( again, Aidan's choice).

6 years old feels so old to me. I think it is because it fully confirms the reality that he is no longer a preschooler. People tell you all the time that it all goes so fast and I cannot believe we are already at this point. Aidan isn't all that sentimental so when I commented that I can't believe how old he is he simply told me that it didn't take very long to get from 3 to 6 so it won't be long until he is 10. The sad truth is that he is right! In no time he will be grown.

This age is sweet and fun. I love learning who he is more and more. I love watching his personality and individuality develop. I love seeing who the Lord made Aidan to be. I can remember when I would hold him as a baby, cradled in my arms and just be overwhelmed with love. I don't get to hold him in my arms nearly as often so that feeling of love looks a little different these days. I feel it as he walks into school (so grown up like) with his backpack on every morning and I experience it everyday when I pick him up from school with excitement to hear every detail about his day (at least what I can get him to tell me). I experience it when I watch him play soccer and he looks over to us to see our reaction when his team scores. And I experience it when he comes home from school and wants to quiz me to make sure I know the things he is learning. I experience that love when I overhear him and Rebecca playing together and talking to each other and I experience it when I get to hear Aidan's sweet voice singing praise songs he made up to the Lord. It looks different but I love you more and more every year Aidan! I am so thankful that the Lord blessed me with you! I am proud of the boy you are becoming and the heart that you have!

Here are some pictures of the recent birthday festivities:

Opening Presents

What Else would Andrew be doing, but playing ball while we open presents

The Table - made to look like a soccer field. We kept it simple and did cake and ice cream. I provided all the toppings to make sundaes just to make it a little more fun.

Here is the cake I made

Blowing out the candles

Playing Soccer Style freeze tag.

I really did a terrible job taking pictures to show you what we did. We had several games that included:

1. Soccer Bowling - kick over the bottles filled with water with a soccer ball.

2. Balloon heads - a little chaotic, but fun. The kids got balloons were instructed to keep them in the air with their heads or feet, just no hands. We played individual and teams. After a little bit it turned into pop the balloons.

3. We played soccer with a soccer beach ball, a small rubber ball, and a real soccer ball. Some of the kids ended up arguing about who could be the goalie. I would have NEVER guessed that. I mean isn't it more fun to really play? Oh well, we took turns.

4. Lastly we played Yellow Card Freeze Tag. The referee was given a yellow sticky pad (post its) and was to put them on the other kids. When the kids got 2 yellow card they were out. When they were tagged they had to freeze and wait for a teammate to crawl through their legs. This was the favorite game.

Thanks to all of you who came and helped us celebrate Aidan's birthday! He had a great time!