Happy Halloween!!

Another Halloween has come and gone. I enjoyed this Halloween more than I've enjoyed any Halloween in recent memory. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm glad. The kids enjoyed it, too. Brendan was Jack Sparrow, Kaelin was a princess from "The Princess and the Pauper," and Collin was Mr. Incredible. They were, of course, outrageously adorable, and you, of course, are about to see a whole slew of pictures! But I'm sure you knew that. ; )

Before we left to go trick or treating around the neighborhood, we took some pictures.

Here's Jack Sparrow (with icky teeth):

And the princess:

And Mr. Incredible, sporting a rather superhero-ish pose.

And here's the whole family.

After I took pictures of the kids in their costumes, we went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Here's a picture of the kids at somebody's house waiting to get candy.

After trick or treating, we went to the festival at the church. The kids did those inflatable jumping things, the Funbus, a rock climbing wall, and all kinds of fun stuff. And they got even more candy! I'll spare you those pictures...there aren't that many and it was dark. I'll leave you with this picture of Collin. I took it on the way home after he had been eating candy for about 30 minutes. Take a good look at it...this is what a kid looks like when he's had way too much sugar!! : )

Comfy.

Last night Kaelin fell asleep on the couch while watching a movie. Can you say, "totally relaxed??"

And totally

beautiful??

And of course the boys had to get on on the

picture-taking action. They were lying on the floor and I stood over them and took their picture. : )

Happy 40th Birthday, Great Pumpkin!!

Can you believe it? "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" turns 40 this year. And I've been watching it every single year for many of those years. So many, in fact, that I scored a 100 on the Great Pumpkin trivia! Perhaps I shouldn't brag about that, though! ; )

Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays, but I just love the Great Pumpkin. I don't know what it is about this particular special, but I love it. Maybe it's Snoopy coming out of the pumpkin patch, or Linus' refusal to give up on something he believes in, or just because it's a Peanuts movie, but I watch it every year.

The Great Pumpkin is coming on in like 5 minutes, and I'm going to watch it with my kids. Maybe that's why I like it so much these days...I can watch it with them. : )

Best Third Day Concert - EVER!!

I spent last weekend driving all over the state of Texas with some friends of mine going to 3 Third Day/David Crowder*Band concerts. We hit concerts in San Antonio, Tyler, and Houston. The one I'm referring to as the best ever was the Tyler concert. Wow! It was amazing! I can't even describe it...you just had to be there. I didn't think they could outdo the Austin concert from last March, but they did. : )

The friends that I traveled with are from Oklahoma and Tennessee. I don't get to see them very often so it was a special weekend and we laughed pretty much the whole time.

Jamie, Terra, Traci, and Jason - I miss you already! Hope we get to do it again soon!!

This picture is from San Antonio. Sunnie (from California) and my cousin, Kelly, joined us for this one. In this picture you see Sunnie, Traci, Jamie, me, Kelly.

This picture is from Tyler. It's me, Traci, Jason (Traci's husband), Jamie, and Terra.

This picture was taken after the Houston show. We refer to it as the "Pick Picture."

I Pledge Allegiance...and Amen!

At preschool this morning we were doing our circle time and we got to the Pledge of Allegiance. Ms. Carrie led the kids in saying the Pledge and one of the girls added a little something to the end that made me laugh. Here's what I heard:

Imagine 12 little 4 year old voices...

"I pledge allegiance
To the flag
Of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands
One nation, under God
Indivisible
With liberty and justice for all."

And then I heard one sweet little girl voice say, "Amen!" : )

Mommy, I'm a Sandwich

That's Collin doing his impression of a sandwich over to the right. He came up with that all on his own. I got a new coffee maker, and the box was sitting by my desk in my scrapbook room, and he got the 2 pieces of foam that were over and under the coffee maker and he stepped on one, and then he put the other one on top of his head. He said, "Mommy, I'm a sandwich!" I thought it was pretty clever that a 3 year old could think of that - I'm fairly certain now that he's a genius! ; )

And in case you're wondering what the mess on his shirt is it's chocolate frosting. I noticed it before I took the picture and I thought about changing his shirt, but then I would have lost my Kodak moment, so I opted to leave his shirt on him. Just don't look at it. He's 3 years old...he usually has *something* on his shirt...I just usually don't post pictures of him for all the world to see when he has something on his shirt. I couldn't help it this time.

One more picture....

Little Rock, Friends, and a Concert!!

Last Thursday I made a quick trip to Little Rock to see some friends and go to the Third Day/David Crowder*Band concert. Yep, the concert was awesome, but the time spent with sweet friends was even better. To the left (well, above...when I typed this out, the picture was to the left) is a picture of the girls that went. That's Jamie, me, Ali, and Bari. We all live in different states and we don't see each other very often, so it was a great time. But it was over too soon and I miss them already. Can't wait to see you all again! : )

It's All About the Cheese

Earlier today I took all 3 kids to Wal-Mart to go grocery shopping. The trip had not been exactly easy, but we had survived it, and we were almost finished. So we went to the checkout. Collin was holding a block of cheese and he decided he wanted to eat the cheese RIGHT THEN. So I (and everyone around me) had to hear about it the whole time we were standing in line - which, at Wal-Mart can be an eternity. Try to imagine this sound - a 3 year old speaking in his whiniest voice, repeating over and over:

I want to eat my cheese now.
I want to eat my cheese now.
I want to eat my cheese now.
I want to eat my cheese now.

Get the picture? I wanted to pull my hair out, too. We were in line for at least 10 minutes, and he pretty much went on the whole time- whiny voice and all. I'm sure the people around us were *so* relieved when we left! ; )

Showing Love

This morning in Sunday School our focus was "Super Heroes Show Love." The story was the Good Samaritan, and after the big group thing that we do, we were in our class with our 3rd grade boys and we were doing the part of the lesson where we apply it to our own lives. So after a quick review of the story and how love was shown, I asked the boys how we can show love in our own lives. I got some good answers like sharing and hugging and other typical 3rd grade boy answers. But the best (okay, most original and unexpected) answer I got was, "Give a girl a big smooch!" Yeah - I never saw that one coming. : )