Halloween Fun

This year is the year of the marathon Halloween. We're talking celebrations, parties, candy, and costumes all week long! The girls are loving it.

Eryn complained that I put my make up in the wrong spots. What can I say? I had to do something to hide those wicked dark circles under my eyes!

The fact that their costumes coordinate is adorable, but was never my intention. Eryn acquired this little dress up mermaid costume and giving her the opportunity to wear it in public was like saying that she had permission to be a princess! I found Brooke's little pirate costume at Costco and fell in love with it! It's a little big, but nothing that a couple of safety pins can't fix.

Halloween and dressing up has always been a favorite time of the year for me. When we were younger it was trying to find costumes that were big enough to go over your coat so that people could see them or ones that we could create out of random stuff that Dad had accumulated in the basement.

My favorite Halloween memory will always be the year that we went trick-or-treating by Grandma Crawford's house. All 3 of us kids would go to the door, give the usual saying, get candy, and say thank you. Then, Sam who was probably 3 would say, "My name is Sam. S-A-M." The reactions were amazing! "Oh what an adorable little boy. Here have some more candy!" Little stinker probably got 3 times the candy that John or I did that year. Brilliant? Oh yes. Are we all jealous that we didn't think up something like that when we were kids? Yep.

Army Woes

My fun loving crazy little brother Sam is not quite himself lately. He's safe and physically fully in tact, but mentally he's struggling. No not PTSD, yet... It's looking like about 3+ years of memory loss and a few tramatic experiences to start that all off. He passed out on base in Iraq apparently either during or just after a lot of physical activity. While blacked out he was being loaded into a make shift ambulence (which was a van) and he thought he was being kidnapped! Hallucination? Maybe, or sheer terror from a kid who suddenly thought he was 17 again! Either way, he was so scared and probably thinking he was going a little crazy to boot. I can only imagine the pure horror that might have been going through his mind at that time...

We're still waiting on details and the waiting part has to be the worst. This limbo state of not knowing exatly what is going on, but that there is a problem is the most painstaking and dreadful experience. He should be medivaced to a safer place soon, but we've heard no word of the transfer yet. I'm desperately trying to stay informed with my parents and Sam's buddies who I have managed to get in touch with via FaceBook. (Where I was able to get a few details from a friend who helped pick him up from the ground and load him into the van.)

Before, I thought that fb was a glorious waste of time. Now, I'm starting to see that there is a massive ammount of value in communications with people that you hardly know. They know your family and love them so much. There are people out there who are able to tell us how much they love us and their prayers are united in pleading with the Lord for Sam at this time. Friends from long ago and new friends all tied together to share their love and thoughts is a very powerful thing to wittness. It is a beautiful thing that brings tears to my eyes to see how much my little brother is loved by all who know him.

(Spell check on here isn't working so please forgive my horrid spelling!)

Halloween Craft

Inspired by our scout activity of painting the very small pumpkins the other day, I decided to take a stab at it with my girls! This is what happened...

Eryn played with pipe cleaners that we made into spiders.

Getting the little pumpkins away from Brooke proved challenging. She kept screaming, "Baaaallll!" and throwing them. Curse them for being the same size and color as her favorite basketball.

The pumpkins went from this...

to this!

The white ones are Mommy and Daddy Ghosts and the black ones are Spider Girls. Brooke is the cute smiling one in the front and Eryn is the one with the little beady eyes and fangs! Although this seems fitting from time to time, it was her choice to pick the eyes and paint the mouth. I guess that she sees her evil side as much as I do!

This entire project would have taken normal people about 20 min or so including drying time from the spray paint. For US though... about an hour! Ha ha. It was a lot of fun and I only managed to burn myself once on the hot glue gun this time!

Flushing

While wasting time on the computer I heard the toilet flush. Eryn has been struggling with the idea of flushing it lately, so I was glad to hear the toilet flushed. Then, I heard it again. Ok, maybe that was a fluke. 3rd flush and I went to see what was going on.

Brooke was standing there flushing the toilet and laughing! She even took the time to pull some of the paper off of the roll and put it into the toilet. It was still connected to the roll though, so as the toilet flushed it pulled the paper with it. I'm pretty sure that Mike did the same thing as a kid! I have a feeling that potty training will be even more exciting the second time around.

Kitchen Helpers

One of the things that I never really thought that I would like was cooking, but there are days when I can honestly say that I not only like it, but I LOVE it! Sometimes it's fun to go and throw open Old Mother Hubbard's cupboards and find random things in there to throw together into a meal. Other days... not so much. Ha ha!

One of the things that remains constant in our kitchen is the fact that I'm NEVER alone in there anymore! I always have little helpers who aren't so much help. Who needs fancy stacker toys when you have bowls in 5 different sizes? Eryn has fun telling me which one is the biggest and the smallest and comparing them and lining them up in order, stacking them, and even turning them over and making drums out of them. Brooke follows her lead and enjoys ever second of it!

This horrible face is what you get out of Brooke when you say, "smile cute!" Yet another shining example of the fact that you can't force kids to smile and look pretty. It sure makes me laugh and smile though!

Where is the Time Going?

So, the end of this week is my big mid-term exam for my history class! Needless to say, I've been busy studying and equally busy avoiding studying. Ha ha! Being engrossed into John Adams by David McCullough and starting my volunteer hours for my social work class are keeping me busy there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT complaining about being busy! I'm just glad to see the days fly past. The girls have their little Halloween costumes all set and Eryn is constantly trying to talk me into letting her be about 15 other things for Halloween too. It's great to see how excited she is getting for dressing up and showing Brooke how to smile cute for candy.

Eryn loves the scary creepy Halloween decorations and to watch scary movies like Pirates of the Caribbean (the "scary skulleton movie" as she calls it.), but she likes to be scared and enjoy the holiday within a very close proximity of Mom or Dad. She's so brave and curious sometimes that it boggles my mind.

Brooke on the other hand screams and cries at the sight of anything that even make a scream or moves in the Halloween isle. She's my little girl. I HATE haunted houses and things that jump out at me. The candy seems to outweigh the creepiness of Halloween for me at least.

Today they had a flu shot clinic at Mike's work and I am miserable! I felt totally fine and then about 20 min after my shot was super tired and hardly able to focus on anything. Thankfully, I had made it home before that feeling really hit! He's of course totally fine and will never get sick this year anyhow. The shot didn't even hurt. I guess that they are cutting the needles with lasers now so they are very small and it really was painless. I had to ask if I had been given the shot or not.

Enough rambling for now...