Halloween 2008

This is us as Sandy & Danny from the movie "Grease"
This year it was my turn to take the kids trick or treating and Brian stayed home to scare the kids that came to our door. apparently some kids remembered last year and came up very carefully expecting a spider to jump out at them. We spared them this year. We had a huge skull hooked up to the roof of our house and had smoke coming out of it's mouth. A lot of the neighborhood kids enjoy our house because it is spooky. if they only knew that it is not just for Halloween. apparently when I took the kids trick or treating I dressed as the good Sandy and didn't get any free beer everyone was handing out. Darn! Normally our neighborhood is packed with people on golf carts toting their kids around. Most have coolers on the back filled with liquor.Some neighbors stand outside and grill bratwursts and hot dogs to hand out to the adults and candy for the kids. This year I actually wore out Danielle and Riley. After walking two blocks they asked me if they could go home. Go figure! Coco was ready. she was embarrassed by her costume and didn't appreciate me and my sewing skills. Ungrateful dog! she got all the attention anyway!

Ice Cream Social

Our neighborhood had an ice cream social with the local business Ekert's Farm catering it. Needless so say the kids made two, three, four maybe five trips back for more. It was alot of fun. too bad the water was to cold to go swimming in. We have had a rather mild summer this year to my dismay.

Raft Trip

This is us having fun at a rafting outing( picture coming soon) . there is a place in Missouri you can camp out and then take a leisurely float down the river on a big tube. You bring your lunch and whatever beverages you choose to drink. Our choose was beer and a vodka cocktail mix. the kids had soda of course. Brian had a hard time steering the raft and drinking his beer at the same time. At one point he had spilled his whole beer on the bottom of the raft. Unbeknownst to us Coco discovered that mistake. During the trip I kept feeling sorry for her and giving her sips of my beer. We stopped along the way to eat our lunch( there are lots of shoreline to pull over) Coco was started by a guy in a RTV and tried to woof. that was the most pathetic bark I have ever heard from a chihuahua. she couldn't even lift her head to give the guy a glare. One time we stopped to do a pee break and saw a copper head heading towards us in the water. This guys that happened to stop along the way to do a pee break as well , one of them picked up the snake and flew it into the trees. we were shocked. We quickly got back into the raft but not before witnessing the guys falling over their canoe and ruining their jukebox in the water. they were a little inebriated as well. the raft rip was great! A few ladies that were sitting by the shore got a kick out of watching poor coco try to walk a straight line up the hill when we returned our raft. Poor coco was a little slow moving the next day and very docile. The most I have ever seen her.

Some think I am crazy I think I am lucky . I only have to prepare for one birthday a year. O.k. so I have a lot of kids at one time and it does get crazy but then I can relax for another year. This year we did the carnival theme. We rented a tent and put it out in the front yard set up a lot of carnival games. One game we had the hardship of drinking a lot of beer to get all the bottles. It took two weeks for the garbage to collect all bottles. I had set up a face painting table. the kids had to win tickets to pay for the food and face painting. the problem was all the kids rushed to the face painting table at once so it took me awhile to paint all the faces. We had hot dogs, nachos, chips, cotton candy, pretzels but alas no popcorn even if it was out in the open air I couldn't abide the smell. At the end the kids would gather together to watch Danielle and Riley unwrap their presents and then they could pick out their bag of prizes at the prize table. We had about 15 kids spend the night. I gave the biggest sigh of relief in the morning when we said goodbye to the kids. Now the challenge is to think about a theme for the next party. thank goodness I have a year!

Tooth Fairy

We lost a tooth today!

I was sitting by the computer and heard my kids yelling which made me panic thinking there was something wrong. Danielle comes up all shaky and yelling" I lost my tooth" We of course had to call Daddy at work to announce the most exciting news. Riley then proceeds to the refrigerator to bite into an apple trying to loose at least one of his teeth. When I asked him if he had any loose teeth, he looks down and shrugs his shoulders. I think it is hilarious that for months Riley has been pressing on his gums trying to force his teeth out and Danielle is the first one to loose a tooth. Alas the tooth fairy will be coming tonight and hopefully will not be busy at this house. One tooth missing per picture please!

I caught a fish this big..........

Brian took permissive leave thsi week to be with Riley at his boy scout camp. While all of the rest of the kids were fishing in a dead spot Brian took riley where he thought the fish would be hiding . Riley had a blst at this camp. He learned to use a BB gun and archery. Actually Riley is very good with Archery. He almost hit the bull-eye at the farthest target.

Catching up

Alright so it has been a long time since we posted something new! We really have been busy. We have had a very long winter. Now we are having a terrible spring with floods and tornados. So far we are getting to know our wine cellar very well and will have to furnish it with kid friendly drinks as well if we spend anymore time there. This year we had to sand and re stain our deck but ran into problems with the rain. We have to let the wood dry for three days before we can paint so every time I had a nice sunny day I was out there staining. I t is now finally done except the railings need to be put back on. Brian was excited to get a new tool to do that. Just an excuse I say, he has been eying a framing gun for a while. Real estate has not been very profitable for me so I have been doing side jobs that are getting me a lot of business. I have been doing cookie bouquets and custom cakes.Something I actually enjoy doing. The kids have been great. They are loving summer because they can sleep in and go swimming in our community pool every day. The kids are counting down till their birthday. they keep asking me if it is coming soon. "Too soon" says mommy. I keep teasing them and tell them since they look too small to be second graders they are going to repeat first grade. they give me that look " You are kidding, right?"

Riley is doing very well in cub scouts. Here he is posing in front of a cake he made with Daddy to recieve a patch. Brian is going to be a cub scout leader next year.