A Dancer, A Ninja, A Platypus, Two Doctors, & A Comic... go out for Halloween

Halloween photos often make life seem much more fun. ... or maybe it is the costumes. Go back through all my Halloween blogs, though, and you'll find October is one of the most stressful times for me. I'll bet I never even identify WHY, but I know that I've started my blog stories with something along the lines of, "I didn't feel like even doing Halloween this year." ... but that's been a constant EVERY year.

This time I've been overwhelmed with a to-do list for scouts that's a mile long. Between birthdays and scout events every weekend, Allen traveling for work, church meetings, housework, and homework, I can't seem to get my feet under me and I am constantly scrambling. Life is too busy right now and I am craving some empty margins. But, on Halloween, we dress up and smile for the pictures so...

Maddie dressed as a Spanish dancer

Will was Doctor Who -- the tenth doctor

Ben was Perry the Platypus (or, rather, Agent P) from Phineas and Ferb

Jon was a ninja

Shadow was a ghost. As I was photographing the kids, the dog looked out the window and did his unique moo. With a white curtain on his head, it sounded more like a ghostly "booooo!"

Allen dressed as Dr. Doofenshmitz. He did that a couple years ago, but since Ben was Agent P this time, he needed his nemesis to go along, too.

And I had fun painting my face to be a comic book character. I had even MORE fun helping with a church activity at one of our neighbor's and seeing people who I knew but they had no idea who *I* was. Now THAT was comical!!

Another Celebration

Gramma and Granddad, Nana and Papa, Great Grammie Vail (all the way from New Mexico), Uncle Jason, and cousins Beckham and Colby all came today to celebrate our eight-year olds. It was a simply party -- we bought a cake, we catered barbeque, we ate off paper plates, but we spent all the rest of the time visiting and that was so much more fun and important than cooking all day.

I didn't get many pictures, but we did get a few with Great Grammie and all of the kids on this side of the family tree.

Eight!... times three

While they were at school, I was crafting some special birthday cakes. Ben requested a white cake, chocolate icing, and Minecraft decorations.

Jon wanted chocolate cake with plain icing and dinosaurs.

Maddie wanted a pink strawberry cake with Hello Kitty on it.

I loved decorating them, but was not sure how I'd find time in an already busy schedule to make THREE different flavors of cake and three different types of icing. The last few years when the kids have had opinions about what kinds of cake, they always at least agreed on the flavors. This time I wasn't so lucky. So... I cheated a bit. I ordered the cakes and I did the decorating. That turned out to be a perfect solution since I got to do the fun part and the cakes ended up being quite tasty, too.

Here are the cute eight-year olds! Jon has a bit of a mustache as he gave himself a hickey sucking on on a water bottle. You can go back through all eight of his years of special events and he has a big facial bruise on about a third of those pictures. 

They had a couple friends over for a sleep-over party and Will went to a friend's house. The girls slept in Maddie's room, but seemed to have talked all night long. The boys camped in the living room and fell asleep MUCH faster that the gabbing girls.

Happy birthday to my [often] sweet trio. Everywhere we go, when people notice you are triplets, they say, "Wow! You sure have your hands full." While I can't disagree with that, I have started to tell them, "It is really that my HEART is full." I am so blessed to be your Mama!

Poison Ivy

Who would've thought that our first sick-days for this school year would have been used to recover from poison ivy? And why does it seem these things happen when Allen is at a conference out of town? On Sunday, Jon climbed a tree in the neighborhood that had some poison ivy on it. Monday, he had a few spots on his shoulder and the back of his neck that were irritated, so I put some cortisone cream on it and sent him to school. Monday evening it was more irritated. Tuesday morning, Jon woke up with a completely puffed up face so I kept him home from school and called the doctor to set up an appointment. The first picture was taken early that morning, but by the time we got to the doctor his mouth was so swollen he wouldn't move his lips to talk because it hurt so much. The doc started Jon on steroids, but it still took several days for the swelling to go down.

The next day, he was still very sore and lethargic. He would wake up achy, but with normal energy. Once I gave him his steroids, he was wound up as we dropped everyone off at school, but before we made it home he was asleep enough I had to carry him inside.

The third day, he was still incredibly itchy all over and his face was still swollen and he fell asleep early in the day again. Overall, he has just been incredibly embarrassed at the way he looked. There were times I looked at him and wondered if I would've recognized him as my own child had I not watched the swelling occur. Friday, his skin was still red, dry, and cracking, but the swelling was nearly gone and he was comfortable enough to go to school. All in all, he missed three days of school and was miserable the entire time.

Back in June he ended up needing steroids for poison ivy and it seems that each time he gets into it he has a more severe reaction. I discussed that with the doctor and he already has a back-up prescription at the pharmacy so we can start the steroids right away next time. For now, our poor little guy is swearing he will never play outside again, but Mama knows he will be back out pretty soon.

Maddie's Math

"Maddie, Maddie, Maddie,..." I said as I shook my head and hid my grin behind a sheet of paper.
"What, Mom?"

"Sweetie, I think you should probably fill in the circle next to the cone or at least circle it. That's what it means when it says, 'Mark the cone.'... They don't usually mean for you to name it."
"Oh. Then why doesn't it say, 'Circle the cone'?"

She circled it in red after our conversation.

First Day of School

Nothing like jumping into a school routine right after a busy vacation! As it is every year, though, our kids were thrilled to meet a new school year, new teachers, and new friends. The three youngest were also all at new schools.

Will is our fifth-grader.  The tree is too tall now to be in the photo, but when Will began preschool, I was able to be close enough to get both the little tree and the little Will in the picture.

Jon is in third-grade this year. We struggled a bunch this summer trying to decide what was best for the triplets. In the end, we asked what they wanted to do. Jon wanted to take the test to see if he could skip second grade and go to Innovation. He passed it with flying colors and he is thrilled to be a third-grader.

I got  to have a first day at school, too. I will be doing long-term substitute teaching for third- and fourth-grade science while that teacher is out on maternity leave. The neat part is that Jon is one of my third-graders.

When we were deciding about what grades the younger kids should be in, Ben and Maddie decided that they wanted "to be plain old second-graders so it isn't so hard." (Their words). They are in second grade at the local elementary school. Today, Allen took them to school and I took the other two boys with me.

Since I was busy getting set up for school, I completely forgot to take pictures of Jon and Will with their teachers. I am thankful Allen thought to get photos of Ben and Maddie. Ben has Mrs. Craft, and Maddie has Mrs. Wilson.

Early Morning Adventures - Day 5

After a really busy, but really fun, four days at the parks, I was ready to be home. We ate breakfast at the lodge, then loaded up and headed for the airport. Our kiddos began the day exhausted. The plane ride was pretty uneventful, and the drive from Austin to Waco was really, REALLY quiet.