Halloween

HALLOWEEN 2008

Carving Pumpkins

Here are a few shots of us carving pumpkins with Robin, Bailey and Brooklynn. Usually this annual tradition goes a little like this, each child picks a pumpkin, we cut a hole for them to dig all of the "guts" out, they pull a few hand fulls out, Eric and I really clean it out, then they pick this really complicated carving from our design book, then Eric and I spend hours carving them! But this year was revolutionary!! Savannah, Bailey and Ali did their entire pumpkins themselves!! Maveric still required some help and picked the elaborate carving from the design book, but I only carved one pumpkin. Piper was more interested in playing on Bailey's swingset. Unfortunately, we had so much going on this year that we only had today left to do it and Eric & Josh were not with us for it:(

Last Weekend

I wish I had some pictures to post because I think it makes reading these posts much more interesting. Friday Ali had her first Pitching lesson. She did very well and she absolutely loved it. Savannah on the other hand wasn't as thrilled because the pitching instructor requires that we bring our own catcher so that she can stand by Ali and watch her form, so Savannah was the lucky girl that was chosen to do this task! Saturday, Savannah had a tournament to finish off their season. After a tough battle going into overtime they ended up second:( Savannah played some great games and I would hate to guess how many pitches she caught, let's just say that is a lot of squats! Also on Saturday we went to the Karate Studio where Maveric took two initial lessons and received his white belt and his loser Mommy never took him back! It is just so hard to fit everything in! Eric and I have been feeling really bad about it and he has had his little karate uniform hanging in his room for months asking when he could go back to karate, so we finally went back. He is going tonight for a refresher course and then he will be in lessons on Tuesday and Thursdays. I think he will be very good at it. He loves anything with lots of rules that he can follow. Sunday we went to church and to lunch then came home to do some much needed cleaning. Which got me thinking about the kids chore charts. We haven't done a very good job lately of keeping up with those and with so many kids in the family it is really impossible for me to keep up with everything. So, I looked online for a printable chore chart and found this website http://milo.handipoints.com where you can create chore charts and then check things off online. I am going to try this and will let you know how it works out. Josh was at Isabel's this weekend and his Grandparents from Germany are here to visit so I can't wait to hear all about it today when I pick him up from school. Piper as usual was just along for the wild ride! I will post more later this week to let you know how the karate lessons went. Also, for more pictures of Maveric's Tiger Scout's visit this website. http://www.scetigers.blogspot.com/ Love to you all!! Christi

Make a Smilebox slideshow

More Fall Break Fun!

Today Maveric had his friend Zane over from school and we all went to the Skate Center. It is so funny to see our kids skating where I used to skate! This thought popped into my head when the D.J. announced that it was time for the skate races!! Ohh how I used to love to win the skate races, I don't think it happened very often! But back in the day the winner received a free drink from the concession stand. Well, fast forward 20 years or so! Both Ali and Josh won their skate races, but now you get nothing but the pleasure of knowing that you won! After skating we were off to Savannah's saxophone lesson. Then we met my sister at the YMCA where I worked out for a very brief period of time due to Piper's disdain for the childcare center. Afterward we watched the kids swim and then came home to cook some dinner. Fall Break Rocks!!!

Rainy Day

Today Savannah had a dentist appointment in Green Hills. So, we planned to go to the Zoo after the dentist since it is on our way home. Well, the weather had a different idea and it started to rain, but it was off and on. We decided to go anyway and take our umbrellas. When we first arrived, there were quite a few people there. As the rain picked up it totally cleared out. We virtually had the Zoo to ourselves. We had a picnic under one of the tents by the elephants and two of them came up close to where we were eating and were playing in the mud. We walked up to see the giraffes and one of them was standing very close to the fence. We laughed at another elephant trying his best to eat some leaves off of a high limb above him. We ran around in the rain looking at different animals and then we got some relief from the rain inside the reptile house which Piper loves because she can walk around looking at all of the creatures. When we came out of the reptile house the rain was gone, so they all played on the jungle gym all by themselves! But the highlight was feeding the birds. Since there were hardly any visitors that day, they had not been fed much nectar. When the kids went in with their nectar an attack ensued! Maveric was so freaked out that he dumped his nectar out onto the ground and ran! Savannah and Josh were covered in birds and Piper looked on amazed. It was so hilarious!! Afterwards we hit the Krispy Kreme for donuts and hot chocolate. A beautiful rainy day!