Life as a Leach

2016 Halloween costume...check!  I love 90% off sales.  He is thrilled!  Let's hope he still likes it next year like he says he will.

...just a little late! :) Love, The Fencer and Elsa

Even Queen Elsa enjoys playing in the ball pit now and then!

We carved pumpkins with Emily and the kids!  We had a good system going:  Matt dug out the pumpkins while we sifted through to pull out the seeds.  Later, I washed and roasted them...yum! Then we started in on the actual carving and decorating.  Emily was a big help with this!  She is so good with the kids. Caleb drew his and carved some of it.  Matt helped too.  Pretty fun! Abby wanted Elsa.  (shocker!)  I printed off a template and did my best...it looked better the further away you were.  Close up, the general consensus was that she looked more like Ursula from The Little Mermaid.  :o/ Emily's mom sent some very cute decorations, so we used them for our third pumpkin.  The kids had a lot of fun decorating this one! Cuteness!

So, I ran to Walmart tonight for a few things I really needed (read:  I couldn't run my overflowing dishwasher because we were out of detergent...and I don't wash dishes!) :)  It was supposed to be a quick, relatively easy trip.  We were also shopping for toys for Operation Christmas Child , so the kids were excited to pick out toys for the two children for whom we are filling shoe boxes.  Fairly painless, right? Just as we walk in and head to the cart rack at the entrance to the store, two punk kids with scary masks over their heads start acting up.  Abby has a ridiculous phobia of slight fear of masks, which typically results in a lengthy meltdown, "That's so scary!" repeated a few hundred times, and heavy stimulation to sooth her.  Today did not disappoint. I just kind of rolled my eyes at the punks and hurried to our cart, figuring I could calm her down once we were out of their sight... ...until they started chasing Caleb. He was screaming, sh...

We went to two different Fall Festivals--one at Caleb's school and one at our church--so I combined the photos to share the dressing up fun with you! Barbara and Carter were in town for the school festival. Matt and Abby were Hello Kitty and her twin sister Mimmy.  :) Hello Kitty! Captain Rex, the head of the Clone Troopers! Caleb decorated a pumpkin at our church. Abby thought Caleb was pretty funny... ...until he put the mask down.  Then she was outta there! The church had a huge race track to drive remote control cars around.  Caleb LOVED it!! Matt did too.  :) Just a few pictures from a fun Halloween!

Abby and Caleb carved pumpkins last Sunday.  Caleb did most of his carving himself, although he did not enjoy digging out the pumpkin guts. He made a storm trooper with all sorts of battle scars.  So he says. Abby didn't do too much with the carving, but she liked to play with the seeds and cheer us on while we carved.  I carved her a Hello Kitty pumpkin.  It leaves a little to be desired, but I'm satisfied as long as she thinks it is Hello Kitty!  

5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate.  First one says, "Oh my!  It's getting late." The second one says, "There are witches in the air." The third one says, "But we don't care." The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run." The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!" Ooooooh went the wind and out went the light and five little pumpkins rolled out of sight. Happy Halloween!

I get to go to the pumpkin patch today with Caleb!  I'm excited about this because... 1.  I never got to go on his field trip last year because I was a bit preoccupied.  :( 2.  It will do us good to have a little Caleb and Momma time. 3.  This is one of many reasons why I like having a flexible schedule.  Too often (or, pretty much all of the time), my days off are used for unfun things like doctors' appointments. It's nice to do something fun with the boy once in a while! Here's to good weather and lots of fun!!  :)