Halloween... finally

Okay, at least I got my Halloween post in before Thanksgiving, which means I'm ahead of schedule. :-)


Can I just say how much fun Halloween was this year? Yes, it was drizzly and miserable, weather-wise. Yes, the children went insane from the (minimal) candy they ate. Yes, there was at least one melt-down and tons of whining. BUT... the kids had so much fun, and really got into the idea of costumes this year.

Here they are - dragon, Spiderman and werewolf:

and here are the "pose for me!" shots:


Webslinger Nathan:

Nathan's hair is so thick and his head is so big that he couldn't fit the Spidey mask around his head - check out how tight it is - looks like me trying to fit myself into size 8 jeans...:

Ryan posing as a dragon - think he loves copying his big brother much? :-)

I finally got him to to do his dragon stomp (which is indistinguishable from his dinosaur stomp)

And Ben, true to form,wanted to be something that I couldn't find a costume for (and by "couldn't find" you know I mean "couldn't find cheaper than $20, in his size"). So, we (and by "we" I mean "me") made a costume for him. Here's my werewolf leaping!

A close up of Ben's werewolf face and hair. This was so much fun to do with him!

For Halloween, we went to a neighborhood gathering at the Bieze's house - it was fabulously fun, and I was so excited to see the inside of their home, which was beautiful!

Here's the kids eating dinner (that's me in the witch costume):

Here I am, without hat, and chowing down...

Tons of neighborhood boys (okay, it was just 8, but it felt like we were being invaded) playing like crazy loons upstairs. That bit of pink you see in the middle is Ella - who is the girliest girl, but who keeps up with the boys wonderfully.

Finally on our way to trick-or-treat! It took a few tries to get everyone to look the same way for pictures -

Off we go!

Ben trick-or-treating - the only moment he would stand still and wasn't 4 houses ahead of the group:

Nathan, also one of the "advance party". You can see he's lost the mask by now :-)

Ryan started off pretty tentatively, wanting me to walk him up to every door, but after a few houses, he got the hang of hit and would come back from each door and say "one more house Mommy?" I was the hero because I let him keep going. Nice. :-)

More trick-or-treating

One of our neighbors dresses as a "Monkey Man" every year and scares the big kids that come to his door. Everyone in the neighborhood knows which one is "Monkey Man's" house and they love it.

Almost home - Ryan is pooped out:

As I said at the top of this post, Halloween was a lot of fun this year. The boys got a huge stash, and we sent off most of it to the troops - a project called Operation Gratitude. A fabulous night, even with the drizzle.

Chef Ryan

So Ryan decided he needed to help me make the snacks for his school Halloween party. We were making peanut-free "spiders" (there's a peanut allergy in his class).

Here are the results:
And here's Ryan helping me make them -
First I put marshmallow fluff between two 'Nilla wafers.
Then Ryan added the raisin eyes -
And eight pretzel stick legs -
Stop for some tasting to make sure it's okay -
Back to work -
I'm finished!
And here they are - spiders for the whole class!

Martha Stewart I am not - but it's peanut-free and holiday-specific, which is pretty darn awesome as far as I'm concerned! :-)

(For those who want to do these, but don't have peanut allergies and want less sugar, the original recipe calls for using Ritz crackers and peanut butter, with mini chocolate chips for eyes. I find those tastier, but these passed the taste test for my kids!)

Braces!

It's finally time for our firstborn to start one of the first rites of adolescence... braces. He's getting them on slowly, so he can acclimatize to it.
So, today, he got the brackets put on. In two weeks, they'll put on the wires, and a couple weeks after that they'll put in the springs that will actually start pushing his jaw forward. And before you ask, Papaw - no, it doesn't cost extra to do it more slowly. :-)

Underpants!

How do you convince a three year old to wear his underwear right side front, when the picture is on the back? Ryan thinks I'm out of my gourd when I tell him that the picture of Mater goes on his bottom, not on the front. There is no convincing him otherwise.

Here he is, doing his underpants dance:

UNDERPANTS! :-)

My boys

Just some pics I took the other day of my 4 boys...

Lounging on the couch - Ben and Ryan posing...

My three sons - Crazy, Wacko, and Looney. :-)

And just because, here's a video of the boys saying hi to Gramma and Poppy while we were at bagels. It's not perfect, but neither are we. :-)

Floodwatch 2009!

In case you haven't heard, we're getting rain in Atlanta. This isn't "oh, no water is falling from the sky" kind of rain, or even the "wow, it's been raining a lot" kind of rain - no, this is the (if you'll pardon my language) "holy sh*t, the skies have opened and we got over 15 inches of rain in a 24 hours period" kind of rain. Lots of water. LOTS of water. I think it's safe to say that the drought is effectively over here in Atlanta. At least until next year, when we can no longer get water from Lake Lanier because Florida and Alabama are taking it all...

Anyways, I thought you'd all like to see what happens when you make Nancy Creek go all "Hulk" on you ("you wouldn't like me when I'm angry")

This is the view from our back porch last night... you can see the muddy waters of the creek through the trees. Now, usually, this time of year you can't see the creek at all through the trees

As I'm walking down the back hill, I took another picture of the muddy creek through the treesAnd now I'm there

HOLY CRAP! The "creek" is now at least 100 feet wide and probably 8 feet deep, and rushing so fast that it could easily sweep an adult away. Needless to say, we did not let the kids go down the hill. Maybe tomorrow, when the creek goes down a bit more, we'll let them go down and see.

Just for reference, this is what the creek normally looks like:

Here's a couple of movies Stephen took of the creek: