Halloween Costumes Part 2

Tonight was successful. We had a great time at our church's Fall Fun Festival. The kids got more candy than we could eat in a year (I say that every year, but it's totally true. I throw away candy every year right before Halloween).

Here are the pictures that you have been waiting for:
My Southern Belle
My princess.
The Estrella GPS. Yes, Micah has decided that Dora should no longer be using a map, so he offers himself to be the GPS for the price of a few Estrellas per location found.


The Lady Pirate. Isn't she perfect? It's kinda hard to take her seriously in the tutu, but she'd make you walk the plank. The high-pitched "ARRR!" is just perfect.

I never got a great picture of all of them together. They wouldn't hold still long enough.

This is the fun that they had tonight:
Yes, she can bounce in that dress.
Yes, the gloves help her bowl.Look in the back, that's the only picture I have of the back of Becca's head tonight. Her hair took forever and I didn't think to take good pictures. This is after a bounce or two...it's still holding. Hair spray was my friend.

Well, there you go, that was Halloween. Good times.

Halloween Costumes

I generally make the kids' costumes for Halloween. I just can't bring myself to spend $15-40 per kid on costumes in a store when I can make stuff myself for next to nothing. I tend to use items that can be used over and over for the costumes, or at least keep the costumes for the girls to play dress up.

This year, the girls changed their minds about what they wanted to be again and again until I put my foot down. Once I bought or gathered materials, there was no going back anyway.

To be fair, Zoe kept going back and forth between whatever the costume idea of the day was and her final decision. Even to the point of trying to make every idea part of her original idea, which was a lady pirate. When I suggested to the twins that they could dress up as a pair of dice, she said "yeah, I can be a dice lady pirate!"

Ali wanted to be a princess...she just kept changing what kind of princess she wanted to be. When I suggested the dice to her, she said, "okay, I'll be a dice princess!"

I gave up on the dice thing pretty much immediately. It was just a twin idea that I thought would be cute and easy.

Becca changed her mind constantly with no running theme. She wanted to be everything from a crayon to an evil queen. When I finally said no more changing your mind, she was the one who complained that she still wasn't sure.

Micah had his idea from the moment I first asked him. He knew what he wanted an how he was going to make it. He ended up doing it pretty much by himself, too. I love it that he's 9 and able to do stuff like that.

The final result:
Ali is a princess...she looks a bit ballerina, but it's a princess.
Zoe is a lady pirate. Complete with a high pitched "ARRR!" She's got a bit of ballerina in her costume too, but she said it's what lady pirates wear. She sounded so confident in that fact that I just let it go. Besides, tutus are really easy to make.
Becca is a southern belle. She's decided that it's a horrible costume, though, because she can't run in it. She fell so many times last night that I wished I had a video camera on me all the time so I could send it into AFV for a bit of money for her bruises. Poor kid.
Micah titles his costume "Estrellas" and I really can't explain it beyond a description that really doesn't do it justice. You'll have to wait for the pictures.

Last night we had a practice Halloween. We went trick or treating at my mom's work, and then Becca and I went to a Halloween party for GS.

I thought I got pictures, but when I looked this morning, I found that the CF card wasn't loaded in my camera. That's what I get for handing the camera to my mom without checking to make sure it's totally ready first.

So I have no pictures of the results, but I will Sunday night.

To be continued...

My Friends' Homestead

Today I went to visit my friend who is moving to a new property that she calls "the homestead." It's a place that isn't on any maps, has no running water, no electricity, no gas, and the building is currently being rebuilt. It's a project that is not without challenges.

I went there today with the twins because my friends asked me to take pictures down their well. I had no idea how to do this because there's really no light down there, so I researched and figured out some stuff to try.My day already started off bad for this project because my mag light wasn't working. I went to buy new batteries. That didn't work. The light bulb needs to be replaced. That's strike one.

I tried it with other flashlights and this is the result.
I realized that my light from above wasn't going to be helpful, so I went with just the lights that were lowered by the rope.
Well, it's a well established fact that there is water down there, but no matter how well the camera was braced, something was shaking too much for the 30 second exposure, and that was the only way to get enough light for the picture to show up at all.

I found myself without the right equipment to make it work. It was a shot in the dark (literally and figuratively) anyway.

So since I spent over an hour sitting on my knees in front of the tiny well trying to make something happen that really wasn't possible, we decided we needed a break. Besides, I heard the magic words "I need to go potty" out of the girls.

Did I mention that there are no bathroom facilities there?

Yup, I took the twins to pee in a bush. It's their first experience with that. Becca's first experience with that was at 2, so they were a little late in my book anyway.

Off we went to try and achieve this monumental task of peeing without a toilet. It's not easy for a girl anyway, but for a 4 year old girl, it's just horrible. "What's squat?" "Why can't we just use the potty?" "How do I make it come out if I'm not sitting?" "What do I do if I have to poop?" "I'm helping the flowers grow!"

It was a learning experience.

Then we went for a hike.
There was some climbing involved for the short ones.Overall, it was a fun time. It was a failed experiment with my camera, but we had fun seeing my friend's house.

Good Morning Sunshine!

This morning began as usual. My children came to my room to tell me that the sun is up and it's time for the day to begin. Every day it's the same thing. They come to my room, jump on me, I turn over and poke Tony, and he gets up and makes the kids breakfast while I spend some time waking up properly.

Tony gets up with the kids every morning. It's part of what makes him the most awesome husband ever. I think we both wake up about the same rate, but he gets up and gets the kids breakfast and sits at the computer to wake up the rest of the way. The kids get up at the crack of dawn, so he has time before getting everyone ready for school. I stay in bed, have my quiet time, sleep a bit more. It works for us.

As I was in bed for my quiet time this morning my phone rang. It was my friend (I won't name names to protect the innocent...but she has red hair) called me and asked if I would come out and pick her up and give her a ride to work. She was having car troubles. I wasn't busy. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal even though it's about a 25-30 minute drive to get to her house from mine. She works pretty close to me, and she was a friend in need. I got up and started to ready myself for this trip.

Micah decided that he wasn't going to get ready for school today. He wanted to wear the same pants. There was a hole in them that he really liked. He had told me about this hole over and over the day before, so I knew all about the hole. It was just in the knee. I told him that he had to change underwear, then I smelled the pants. I was so not letting him wear them again. It was not an option. Being the creative mom that I am, I asked if he wanted a hole in the new pants that he was going to wear. This worked. Micah stopped his fit and Tony put a hole in the pants inside on a seam where no one would ever know or care. This made it take a bit longer to get out the door, though.

Finally when Tony saw that he was running a bit too late to get both kids (2 schools) to school on time, he asked me to drop off Becca. Cool. I could do that. Becca doesn't like it, but she can get over it. She just likes to be with Daddy in the mornings. Mommy is chopped liver.

So I put 3 girls in the van and go. I dropped Becca off at the school, programmed my GPS and off we went.

We picked up my red haired friend with no problems. I really didn't know where the place was because I hadn't been there before, but that's what the GPS is for.

Yay! I could get my friend to work! About a mile or so into the drive I feel a bump bump bump...it's a flat tire.

No big deal, my friend has AAA. She calls and we wait. About 30 minutes later he arrives and tells me to drive the car on the rim so that we are on another street. Um, NO! I've driven that car on the rim before. It was the biggest bill I've ever had for repairs on a car. He says he'll call a tow truck to take me to somewhere to replace my tire. I tell him no thanks. I have a full size spare. He refuses to change the tire claiming that it's unsafe. I'm only pulled off to the side of the road. It's a residential area, and everyone can see. It's not like I was in the middle of the road!

I told him forget it, I'll change it myself. I got out my dinky little jack and started to change it. My friend gets on the phone and is complaining to AAA. I honestly don't care, I can change a tire with no problem.

That's what I thought anyway.

I start to work my jack. It's not anything fancy, just the dinky thing that came with the car. I get it going and then suddenly it gets stuck. Stuck? What good is a jack that won't make the car go up?

My friend starts messing with it and it's going no where, so it wasn't just me.

Along came a guy who was hanging signs. He's running for city council. I think I heard that come out of his mouth like 50 times while he tried to change my tire.

Halfway to getting my van up to change the tire, the jack breaks.

SUPER!

My friend gets on the phone to her mom to see if she has a jack. I get on the phone to try and get in touch with someone who might help.

No one can come.

The guy who was running for city council called someone. They came and we had a jack. He got the tire changed (though I'm sure I've changed more tires than he has, he didn't know that a hubcap doesn't go on a spare), and we thanked him. We got his card, though I don't think he got it in his head that I wouldn't be able to vote for him as I don't live in that city.

We finally got my friend to work. I sat and chatted with some friends there. I really should have been grocery shopping, but I was irritated, so I decided I'd go after lunch. The twins played while my friend worked and then we went to lunch.

We went to a restaurant where we often went, and we always have great service. They are really nice and great to the twins. The food is good, too. The problem was that when we were about to leave, a huge group came in and took all their attention. We ended up going up to the cashier because our bill never came to the table.

I dropped my friend off back at work then went to the grocery store. I was not alone. It's a Thursday afternoon, the day before the 15th when a lot of people get paid, but the store was packed. On top of that, there was a bunch of kids running around the store pushing things off the shelves. I tried to get out of there fast, but with the twins, that's not always possible.

I got into line and of course there was a lady who had every coupon on the planet, WIC (one of the most annoying government programs for the person who needs it because it takes so long at the check out), and happened to be the parent of the kids who were at that point getting kicked out of the store because the knocked over another person's cart. I'm so glad it wasn't mine because I probably would have hurt some kids after the day I was having.

I've had a beautiful day so far. Can you tell?

Can I start my day over?

A Girl Scout Message

Here's a video that was recently released by Girl Scouts.



I agree with most of this message, and yet it disturbs me. Question everything? I get the point about not following celebrities and the stuff you see on TV. I just don't know that I want my kids to hear "question everything".

The most annoying thing in parenting in my opinion is when I tell my child to do something and they ask "why?" I find myself saying "because I said so" too much. Why is that annoying? I have authority over my children. When I tell them to do something, they need to do it. After they have obeyed, I don't really mind explaining to them the reasons why I told them to do it, but I still expect obedience. Do I really want my children told to question me?

How does that translate to adult life? Authority is there for a reason. There's a speed limit, we are expected to obey it. When you are stopped by a policeman for speeding, you don't question him as to why there is a speed limit. You take your ticket and argue it after if you feel it's wrong. If you disagree with the speed limit, there are valid ways to get it changed, but the limit is still there and there are consequences if you ignore it.

While I would like my children to form opinions and think about the whys and hows of things, I still expect respect for authority. Should you question everything? Is it possible that there are things that you just won't ever understand and you just have to accept in faith? Of course, you won't know what those things are unless you question them first. How else do you know what to accept in faith and what is actually explainable.

Then there's the idea that no one should tell you what you should wear...hmmm...I have a problem with that. I tell my kids what they are allowed to wear. I should tell them how they should look. That's my job as a parent. I listen to God and my husband about what I should wear. It makes more sense to emphasize who you should listen to about how you should look.

If a doctor told you that your weight was so much of a problem that if you didn't diet, you would die, should you question him/her? Sure, get a second opinion, third opinion, whatever, but the reality is that the way you look affects your health. You can tell everyone that you like how you look and you are going to stay unhealthy, but it's going to make a difference in your lifespan.

On a smaller level, if your friend told you that you have something in your teeth, you would fix it, right? You might even get irritated if you had something in your teeth and no one told you, right? Sometimes what people tell you about how you look is a good thing. You just have to know who to listen to.

So, while I agree that it's a bad thing to listen to someone just because they are on TV, I'm still questioning this message. Of course, that's what they told me to do....

What's going on?

It's been a while since I really blogged about what is actually going on in my life. There has been a lot of stuff going on, so that's probably why. I'm just too busy to talk about my busy life. That and there are things that I really couldn't share on the internet until they were done, so I was really stuck.

Anyway, here goes.

Tony and I have left the church where we have been for the last 10 years. God has called us away, and since we have been gone (our last week was the last week of August) He has confirmed for us that this was from Him.

That was a really rough decision. It's hard to leave the normal and go to the unknown. God really didn't give us any direction besides "go" so we have been going. A church search is really not anything that I have ever done, so I sat down at my computer and researched. Honestly, if the church didn't have a website, I didn't know that they existed beyond those that we had already ruled out, so that's where our search began.

This was really frustrating. When we began the search, I felt my hands tied. I couldn't blog about it. I couldn't even talk to my friends about it. It was just Tony and me and God. I felt like if I couldn't talk about it soon, I was going to explode. Tony and I weren't able to get out and talk about it much, and we couldn't discuss it in front of the kids (they were confused enough already).

Now, we have a church where we have been attending for a while, and it looks like we are likely to join. I've been feeling unsettled, though, and it didn't help that I was hanging out with people from our old church on Saturday and people kept hinting that we should come back. It's really hard to just smile and not comment. Yesterday something happened, though. I'd had a conversation via text with one of my friends (who was actually one of the people who had made a comment, but she got the hint and let it drop), and she said some things that made me think. I told her that my family was all exited about this church, but I really wasn't. I just wanted a friend, and I don't make friends really easily, so I wanted my old friends. She basically told me to get over myself. Not like that, this person is unfailingly polite so she wouldn't put it that way, but that was the gist of what she said. I stopped and prayed. I prayed quite a bit that night and through to Sunday morning. I really wanted to be sure that my issues weren't just me being selfish and not wanting to change.

Sunday School hour Tony, my mom, and I have been meeting with the pastor. It's just something that this church does to let people know what they are getting into coming to the church. The question that came up had to do with our past churches. That conversation, that could have taken a few seconds had the pastor phrased his question any differently, took the whole hour. We let him know what we have been through with churches and our emotional roller coaster over the years. It was a good conversation. Afterward, I felt a lot better about staying. It's hard to be where you have a whole lot of history, but I think it was harder to try and stay where they knew nothing about us.

Then the evening came, and it was time for AWANA. Tony and I have never had our kids in AWANA and not been involved before, so has been really odd for us to just drop off our kids and not know what to do. It turned out to be a really good time. Tony and I have gotten to know a some awesome people. Some that I could easily see being really good friends with. I'd never had that before this Sunday there. For the first time, I'm actually at ease with being there. Tony has been happy with it there, and excited to join for a couple of weeks now. The kids are getting along really well, too. I really just needed to get over myself.

What else is going on?

I've started another project. Becca's Girl Scout troop needed a leader and I volunteered. It's been stressful, but it's really starting to work out. I have a lot of really great help, and while paperwork isn't usually my thing, and that's most of my job, I'm thinking I can handle it. The troop is getting smaller. I don't know if it's because of anything that I have done, but it actually needed to be smaller anyway. Last year it went from 9 girls at the beginning of the year to something like 55 at the end. It was huge and disorganized. Now we are getting the structure that we needed, and the girls aren't sticking around. We still have around 30 girls in our multi-level troop, but it's working out well.

What else?

My grandmother has been in and out of the hospital lately. She's currently in a rehab facility. She just got over pneumonia after a major surgery (colostomy) and still isn't walking. This has been stressful for my mom more than anyone else. My mom is going out to be with my grandmother every day. It's taking a lot out of her.

This affects me because my mom hasn't been around for Tony and I to go out at night after the kids go to bed as often. She usually made dinner, too. That's not happening anymore. It's been hard to learn how to cook without overheating myself. The kids miss their grandma, too. Still, my grandmother needs my mom more than I need her right now. We're all doing okay without her. It's not as easy, but that's okay.

Today my mom is off work, but relaxing during the day then going out to see my grandmother at her regular time. I'm trying my best to just let her rest and keeping the twins from disturbing her too much. My mom really needs it.

Even MORE?

Micah has begun a new behavior therapy. He has a behavior tutor that is coming out 5 hours a week to help him. He has begun to run away a lot, and they are going to be working with him on that as well as a bunch of other smaller goals.

I'm really happy about the therapy, but until the tutor is settled with him, that's 5 hours out of my week focusing on Micah as well. That's harder. I was hoping that it means that I'm going to have that time to focus more on my girls, but I guess it will be a while before they get to that point.

I think that's about it. I would talk about my craft projects that I am starting, but they are for family for Christmas. Since some of the family reads my blog, that isn't going to work. Other than that, there's the financial struggles that we are having (like everyone else on the planet), but no one wants to read about that and this blog is long enough already. Besides, God has it all under control anyway.