Halloween 2009

Thank you everyone for all your thoughts and prayers for our sweet nephew. It's going to be a long, uphill battle from here on out, and all of our lives are changed from this. I can hear the resolve in my sister-in-law's voice on the phone. She's turned from grieving to "momma on a mission" and she's out to beat this thing.

Meanwhile, it's crazy Halloween/pumpkin time here and it's hard not to feel guilty for having fun when your family's world is being turned upside down. We did have a wonderful Halloween night. We had a chili dinner with our good friends and then trick-or-treated in the perfect weather. Presenting Clone Trooper Marky (i.e. security) and lovely butterflies, Margaret and Mary Hannah, and Princess Julia.

Isn't Julia's dress neat? I actually got it at HomeGoods. You know they sometimes have things like this. I got our McLaren umbrella stroller there too.
The trooper unmasked....

Daddy ended up carrying Margaret and Julia in between houses. They got so used to it they wouldn't hold anyone's hand or walk. Like I've said before, real men haul kids.

Did you think I forgot little man? He was Dumbo- and loved it! It's the same costume we had for Marky's first Halloween.

He was an angel baby and rode so quietly in the stroller and played with his feet. How about those ears?

Friday we had a church Halloween party and Tuker went as Poohbear Honeypot, another Marky hand-me-down. It took me a while to figure out that this costume is supposed to be Winnie the Pooh in a Bumble Bee suit so he can steal honey. :)

This was one of Tucker's first social parties and he enjoyed making the rounds. See his dimple- that means there is a smile under that paci. :) Here he is happy to see that Dinosaur Jonathan has a bag of pretzles.

Don't turn away from me Mr. Dinosaur.

Oooooh....a LADY! Hello legs. Is that hairbow edible?

And before we go, a shout out to my Godson Luke- I love this little bee-fella.

P.S. I want to add that I have NO PROBLEM whatsoever with my kids dressing up like their favorite things or people and trick-or-treating. I remember in high school being so shocked when my hyper-ethical english professor who hated the Easter Bunny and Santa said he had no problem with Halloween. He said, "c'mon...it's just kids getting candy". I argued that it was rooted in paganism and evil and should be completely avoided. Later, I've come to see that Christians have made it our practice over these past 2,000 years to redeem things begun in evil. The Church would go to a pagan temple and convert it to a Christian church. And people argue that Christmas and Easter have practices that include remnants of pagan celebrations. I have no doubt that my children are not dabbling in evil by dressing like a princess and asking for candy. I'm sure there are those who abuse it, but that can be said of anything. And Halloween is such a perfect prequel to All Saints Day. We are reminded of what the Saints were saved from. Today (Nov. 1st) we had an All Saints party and the kids got on stage in their costumes and gave clues to their Saint. They would say, for instance, "I baptized Jesus." Julia was St. Margaret of Scotland and Marky was St. George (of course!). In fact, all night on Halloween, when people would say "oh look a pretty princess", Marky would yell, "No, she's St. Margaret of Scotland." I might as well have put a big "we are Catholic" sticker on. :)

For more thoughts on the topic of Christians and Halloween see here and here.

Please Pray

I am an only child, and Marc has only one sister and she has two children. So we have a very small, close family. Our nephew Noah had been throwing up and having headaches for a while (he even threw up while we were in Florida for the reunion) and the doctors finally did an MRI yesterday evening. They found a mass the size of an egg on the back of his brain and decided to immediately operate. They just got out of the operation and did the pathology and we have learned he has brain cancer. He is 6-years-old. They were not able to remove all of the tumor and it had spread so now he will have to begin radiation and chemotherapy. Our family is devastated, especially because we lost a 2nd cousin to brain cancer a year and a half ago and he was 10-years-old. The good news is that this is the most common form of brain cancer and the doctors have a proven protocol to go by. Marky and Noah are only 6-months apart in age and really love each other. We are starting a new journey with this cancer and we pray that God will give Noah complete healing. Please pray with us.

Thursday Tidbits

This week has been interesting. You may or may not know our house has been on the market since July 1st. We have had a LOT of people come through the past few weeks and even had one offer and one offer of a lease/purchase, but nothing is working out. I had really hoped to move before the holidays, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. We are having people come by almost every day so I have to keep the house extra, extra clean. I am still homeschooling when I can, but I haven't posted much about it. I did start thinking about Christmas and ordered this c.d. of Christmas music and narration and this c.d. of Christmas stories yesterday. I'm also starting a little project for the o antiphons. I may or may not do a Jesse tree this year. If I do it will be very simple because of all the house turmoil.

P.S. this video was taken when we realized that the sound "squeak" was hysterical to Tucker. I found out while reading a book to Juliabug that had a mouse in it. :) Even if he was in another room I would hear a chuckle from Tucker when the mouse said squeak. You guys really shouldn't have told me that you can post videos- I'm on a roll now.

Halloween Song

Look!!! I posted my first-ever video!! We were carving pumpkins today and singing our pumpkin-carving song and I thought I would share:

Lyrics:

First you take a pumpkin, orange round and fat,

Then you cut the top off- that makes a hat

Then you hollow out the mouth, nose and eyes

Showing all your many friends a Halloween surprise!

Beam Me Up Scotty

You cannot say my husband is not creative. Remember last year when he made my orange maternity sweater a jack-o-lantern? Well tonight he came in before we left for a family Halloween party and Tucker was still in his gold and navy onsie that he wears under his navy overalls. Marc scooped him up, ran to the kitchen for tin foil and a sharpie and 2 minutes later we had Captain Kirk from the Starship Enterprise.

He was a huge hit and got rave reviews from the ladies....just like the real Captain Kirk.

He's a good sport and takes it all in stride. And boy does he love his Daddy.

Lazy Sunday

We had nothing big to do this weekend, and I LOVED it! After traveling for a week in 90 degree heat and coming home to chilly temps and my cozy house, all I want to do is stay home and hibernate. We did work on our yard- the leaves have already started piling up so we had to work on those. We have a good yard crew-
They are actually helpful- especially Marky. Julia doesn't even have a rake- she just carries the red hoe around and talks a lot, but Daddy says he enjoys her company.

I stay warm inside with Mr. T. He likes to watch the action from the storm door-

Is this baby precious or what? He has my heart!

P.S. I thought I should put this out there for you sewing types. I found this shirt for Julia the other day- it's just a ribbon sewn around a long-sleeve white t-shirt- and then you tie the back in a big bow. It's so cute and easy and cheap and you can coordinate it with any pants or hair bow.

Thank you Lord for rest with family. What wondrous love is this.

Florida Fun

Florida trip part two- Orlando. We went Sunday night to Marc's sister's AMAZING house- I wish I had taken pictures- it's just beautiful and so comfortable. The backyard is like a resort with a salt-water pool with fountains inside a huge screened room with slate tile floors and several seating areas and a bar with a T.V. We hung out Sunday night and even had homemade pina coladas in the hot tub. Monday we had a professional photographer come by the house and take tons of pictures of the whole family. It was actually fun and we all tried to coordinate in black and white. That afternoon we swam in the pool and cooked out hotdogs. That night we all went (with five children under six) to a Japanese steak-house and watched them cook our dinner with pizzaz. I would have never thought to take young kids to something so nice, but they did really well and loved the flaming onion volcano. :)

The last day we were there we decided to tackle Disney. Amber had a friend that could get us all in for free and we had a park-hopper and went to THREE parks in 12 hours. It was quite a fun-filled day and the kids did amazing. We started at Animal Kingdom where we did the Rainforest Cafe for breakfast and the safari trip and other tours. Then we headed to Hollywood Studios, which I love, and Juliabug loved because we went to Playhouse Disney live and she saw in real life The Little Einsteins, Tigger and Pooh, Mickey Mouse and his crew and Handy Manny and the tools. She was in hog heaven. Sadly, Marky's cousin Noah is past all the playhouse Disney characters and he and Marky decided that it was "too little" for them. So here he is pouting by rocket and begging to go to Star Wars. Don't grow up so fast!

And we did go to Star Wars and rode the ride and went to Jedi-training. That was really cool and the kids got to fight Darth Vader. Marky and Noah didn't want to get on stage so they just watched and cheered. Both Julia and Marky got new light "savers". I tried to talk Julia into something else, but she insisted. : )

Tucker somehow managed to be chunky and charming while taking only one 45-minute nap early in the morning. He was just awake and smiling the WHOLE day- we kept waiting for him to doze off, but he wanted to see what was up.

We ended the day at the Magic Kingdom which was all done-up for a "not-s0-scary" Halloween with lots of pumpkins and costumes. Julia was enchanted by Cinderella's castle, and even today talked about seeing the "pretty castle". Here she is with her favorite prince. This picture touches my heart. We call Julia the "invisible" child because a lot of times people don't seem to notice her or talk to her, when they do take time to talk to the boys. Even in Florida, she just seem to get lost in the shuffle and not get any attention from others. She is definitely not invisible to us and we adore our princess and her sweet spirit blesses us all.

P.S. One highlight for Tucker on this trip was getting to turn around in his car seat. After hours of fussing backwards we turned him around to get some peace. He LOVED it and could finally see the DVD player. Marky was sad because he couldn't see his little brother any more. They truly are best buddies.

Fine as Wine....'89

Guess who's having their 20th high school reunion in central Florida?! Shout out to my hubby! I do have to say, he was a year younger than the rest of his classmates because of early promotion in kindergarten..so he was supposed to graduate in the 90s like the rest of us. :) The festivities were very well-planned and started with a tailgating party before the homecoming football game.

After the homecoming football game, everybody went out to a barn party on someone's family ranch. It was actually a lot of fun and I bonded with some of the other wives and we got home after 1:00!

They had a picnic on campus this afternoon for the families with a jump castle and snow cones for kids. We even had a scavenger hunt through the school.

And tonight.....the dinner and dancing party. Picture lots of blonde hair and 80s music.

Some of the guys at the end of the night....I know, I agree- my man has held up well.

And even though I don't like this picture- I knew you'd want to see the happy couple. :)

As for the kids, they've been spending a lot of time with Zaza and Grandpa, and Grandpa has shared his love of weaponry with Marky. Marky's been playing with this bow and arrow and target for two days. He even has a little quiver he wears on his back filled with arrows- yes, real metal-tipped arrows. (This picture taken AFTER he shot the arrow)

And Grandpa purchased a semi and fully automatic (yes, men, I said fully automatic) BB gun.

Tuckerman went to the doc down here for more ear infection silliness, but he's on the mend and now we're all off to rest! Tomorrow we go to Orlando to stay at Marc's sister's house and swing by Disney World! And let me just say this flash back to the 80s is fun- the music alone was worth the trip.

The battle rages at Ft. Ayers...

It started as a random note slid under our bedroom door......

"Ireland is attacking we need more men". Then it got personal.....

"Marc is attacking with his men. You and your men better watch out." Daddy Marc responded in kind...

"We have many strong knights here. We will defend ourselves against Marc's attack!"

"My men are stronger than your men." And so it begins.........

I know little man's spelling leaves something to be desired, but he is FIVE years old after all! And already has an army of men...

Sleeping under the stars

Guess who camped out in the backyard last night? The three amigos. I was wondering if Sissy was too little- but she got zipped up in her little pink sleeping bag and slept all night. They watched Sword in the Stone on the DVD player while eating pretzels (per our tradition). You know where mommy was- inside reading blogs and then sleeping in my comfy bed. : )

In other news- we got a new camera today. After the soccer game the other night, Julia was holding the camera and kept saying "dis bwoken". Then when I went to get the camera card out it was soaking wet. Needless to say- the camera never worked again. My new camera is a cannon and it's tiny and red and I think I will love it. I took this picture with it.