Halloween recap

Our day started with all 3 kids wearing Halloween shirts. Mostly because Mommy told them, "this is your last day to wear a Halloween shirt. So if you want to wear one, it needs to be today."

Evan and Daddy went on "a guy date" (aka swimming lessons) this morning while the girls all stayed home.

After a nutrient-packed lunch of McDonald's that the guys had brought home, Laura headed for a nap and Mommy headed to town for groceries. (Which, coincidentally, was Mommy's first time out of our flu-infested house in a week.)

While Mommy was gone getting groceries, Daddy made a cup of coffee*.

After putting away groceries and having a living room supper (that means we ate on the couch and watched part of a movie), we got ready to go trick or treating.

I now present: the cup of coffee, the fireman, and the farmer!

We all stayed together for exactly one house of trick-or-treating. Then the cup of coffee and the farmer took off with Daddy, and the fireman was left to fend off Mommy's kisses all by herself.

Daddy, the cup of coffee, and the farmer came back home pretty quickly and had hot chocolate to warm up. (I do believe I just said that the cup of coffee had a cup of hot chocolate so he could warm up...)

Meanwhile, the fireman and Mommy continued on to a few more houses and stopped back by the firetruck one more time. Because not only did Mommy find the fireman irresistable ...

... but the fireman also found the firetruck irresistable.

Mommy and the fireman got home right before Grandpa and Grandma with the Skidloader (that's Mommy's parents) got to our house to see everyone's costumes. We talked to them for a bit and got the kids ready for bed. Then Grandpa and Grandma left, Mommy put Evan and Kendra to bed, and Mommy and Laura played one (or four) quick rounds of "Hand!"** before heading Laura to bed.

*Right before I left to get groceries, I told Kendra she needed to talk to Daddy about what she wanted to be for trick-or-treating. She could be a princess or a kitty or a ladybug or a fireman. Evan promptly ran to Daddy saying, "for trick or treat, I want to be a cup of coffee!" Unable to deny such a cute (and coffee-related) request, Chad spent his afternoon creating a coffee cup costume for his little guy. Which turned out better than I could have imagined was possible in such a short amount of time ... or at all. Great job, Daddy!

**"Hand!" is where Laura asks for my hand while I'm holding her. I hold my hand out flat, she puts her hand on mine, I say "ready", she says "yeah", I say "ok" and take off running down the hallway with her, and she laughs and laughs and laughs. It's a wonderful, wonderful game!

Hope everyone else had as happy of a Halloween as we did!

Crabby at YouTube

This afternoon, I visited YouTube so Evan and Kendra could watch the Veggie Tales homophone silly song. You know, Veggie Tales. Cute. Innocent. Christian. Wholesome. Safe.

Unfortunately, the video that YouTube had placed in front of the Veggie Tales video was a preview for the horror movie Saw VI.

I was at the computer and had the preview stopped in a matter of 2 or 3 seconds, maybe less. But, man, there were a lot of scary images in those couple of seconds.

Being quite upset with the inappropriateness of this commercial for the video they had it placed with, I called the YouTube phone number and found out I had to post my complaint online. They walked me through where to find that form, and here is a link to my complaint:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=18c03054fe72ac53&hl=en

I don't know how things like this work, but if having more people comment on it and confirm my stance bumps it up on their priority list, then by all means please go comment! Let's let them know that good Christian videos like Veggie Tales should not be linked with terrifying commercials like Saw VI.

Old quotes

While looking to see what I put on my personal info on Facebook way back when, I found my "favorite quotations". Before I deleted them from there, I thought I should post them here. These would have been from at least a year and a half ago. The first one from much longer ago than that.

Evan: "My questions are ... jeega jeega jeega!"

Evan: Dear heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for God and Jesus, the Lord. Thank you for Laura my baby. And help there not be any bad storms tonight. Amen.

Kendra: Thank you for riding Grandma's red pickup. And for Jesus helping God. Amen.

Evan: (Looks out the window at the sky, checking to see if Mommy's right that it's early) The sky's a little blue. But not nearly as blue as my eyes.

Other plans

Honestly, I'd love to blog.
But there's been a lot of this

going on in our house the last 4 days.

So I'm skipping blogging.

I'm going to bed to pray for my little guy and to try and get over the little bit of crud I have too.

Feel better, Evan. I love your snuggles, but I miss your giggles.

Playing in the leaves

Saturday after swimming lessons, Evan found his Spider-Man whiteboard and sat down to make himself a To Do list.

I told Evan that he should probably do the third thing on his list first so it didn't get too cool or dark outside while they were doing the first two things. He happily agreed, and Chad, Evan, and Kendra headed outside to rake leaves.

Strange, I don't remember seeing "try to start leaf blower, which is aimed at the leafpile, while Daddy's not watching" on his list.

However, I did know that "rak levs with dady" meant there would be lots of jumping and smiling involved.

Happy fall, everyone!

Swimming lessons

On Saturday morning, Evan and Kendra started swimming lessons for the very first time. Chad and I were a little nervous about it since Evan and Kendra are bit hydrophobic about getting their ears, eyes, and faces wet in the bathtub. Silly mommy and daddy.

Silly, silly mommy and daddy.

 Silly, silly, silly mommy and daddy.

What were we worried about again?

Anger management

Chad is talking about the book When I Feel Angry that he just read with the kids.

Daddy: When I was Evan's age, I used to get angry a lot. Your Grandma told Daddy to woof when he got mad. So I'd go Rrrrrrrr-WOOF!, and it was so funny that I'd laugh and feel better.
Kendra: Or I could tackle you and kiss you.
Daddy: Yeah, that would definitely work too!

Asking nicely

Daddy, I love you.

Now will you haul us all around for a while?

Thanks, Daddy! You're the best!

Happy birthday, Grandpa

On Wednesday, there was someone named

who showed up at our house for his birthday. His only request (demand?) was that there be chocolate cake. Grandpa likes chocolate cake. And football. So this is the cake we made for him:

When Grandpa got to our house, we were playing with our "new" toy that Mommy got at a garage sale for us last weekend (for $2). This was the first time we'd been able to play on it.

After we came back inside, Grandpa read us a Halloween book from the library. It had something to do with Shaking Dem Bones. Mostly we liked Grandpa dancing with us after reading the book.

All that climbing and dancing can wear a kid out though, so one of us decided to snuggle in Grandpa's armpit for a while.

And another one of us decided to buckle herself in a carseat on the living room floor repeatedly. Which has nothing to do with Grandpa's birthday. She just likes doing buckles.

Thanks for sharing your birthday with us, Grandpa! We had a lot of fun!

But after you left, we got dressed to take over the world.

And we showed Mommy our "wreck the world" faces.

Which came across looking like "we love you, Grandpa, and we hope you had a fun birthday" faces.

P.S. Grandpa, Mommy says her doing a blog post about your birthday trumps the slew of e-mails you sent to Mommy on her birthday. Mommy's not normally competitive, but we think she might like the new birthday game you two have going on.

Not Me! Monday

When Evan declared that he and Kendra were going to have a "write your name contest" to see who could write their name faster and better, I did not intervene so that Kendra could stand a chance against this:

I did not talk her through writing "BABE" since that was much easier than "Kendra".

But, if I had done that, I certainly would have just told her the letters to write. I would not have told her to make a P and add another bubble, to make a triangle (which she used the triangle stamper for) and add legs, to make a P and add another bubble, and make an E.

I do not have that competitive of a son, nor do I feel the need to assist Kendra so she doesn't always lose Evan's games. Not me!