Happy Halloween...almost

The family had a fun time at the school parties this afternoon...perhaps, nobody as much fun as my husband.

Landen, with his teacher, Mrs. Boehm. She was a purple Sharpie marker. The whole 2nd grade team of teachers dressed up as the rainbow of Sharpie markers. My cowboy. I think he makes a pretty handsome one, myself.

Lily the cowgirl, with her teacher, Mrs. Cash, the scarecrow.

This is the mad rush for the pinata candy, minus Lily. Keep reading for the story. Sorry for the disorderly blog...but I don't have time to correct it before work!

Don't they look mean? Love the teary eyes, Lil.

The moustache was cute on Lil’, except the snotty nose kind of prevented it from hanging on.

In Lily’s class, there was a black cat piñata. Every.single.kid whacked that thing multiple times. I asked a dad what it was made of. He said, “I don’t know, but I’d like to have a bumper made of that stuff!” Finally, a daddy busted the thing open and all the kids went nuts…except…Lily. She cried. I laughed and said, “Cowgirls don’t cry”. Mrs. Cash found her a piece of candy. Seriously. This picture is actually before she cried. I sometimes still have a hard time, wrapping my head around how to upload these pictures to put them in chronological order.

So, it was great fun...looking forward to tomorrow night, trick-or-treating and spending time with family and friends!

Pumpkin distributing

Once we got home, we had to distribute the pumpkins. I think Lily looks like the great pumpkin snatcher in this picture.
Lily's favorite.

Just look at the brotherly/sisterly love.

Lawson's fave.

More love of the sibs.

Man, the amount of love was just overwhelming.

Seriously, o-v-e-r-w-h-e-l-m-i-n-g.

Guess whose idea this was...

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Ahhhhhh, good times with friends at the pumpkin patch. We decided rather than driving 30 minutes to get to one, then fighting a crowd, we would drive out to the country, near Rantoul. We probably saw 20-30 people total, including the 9 of us. It was glorious. Little Lawson and Miss Addison were not on their A-picture-taking game, but I managed to sneak a few. They were having some pretty good times in the bounce house while we waited on the tractor to take us to the pumpkin patch.
All the kids thought this sling shot was pretty sweet. You aimed it at a Christmas tree...hehe, only in Franklin county.

Here's the crew. It was the best picture I got of all five kids. I thought it was pretty good, all five kidlets considered.

I could just eat those cheeks.

Lil, with her best fake smile, er, I mean, with her pumpkin.

Lawson, policing the pumpkins...advising us on which one belonged to whom.

Landen picked out a great carving pumpkin.

Again, could eat the cheeks.

The two wee ones were discussing the finer points of the pumpkins.

Landen and Emma always seem to gravitate to each other. Hmmmmmm. :)

And Emma always gravitates to Jimmy. Heh, who am I kiddin', she demands to be next to Jimmy, or else...and I don't think anybody wants to experience Emma's "or else"! :)

We had a great, great time.

Oh dear, my boys

This is what I found the boys doing the other night. Yes, they are popping flour-filled balloons. What, you don't keep such a thing in your garage? Well, we just happened to have two trashbags full...don't ask! Doesn't he look incredibly innocent?

Hmmmm, not so innocent. :)

And, it certainly wasn't enough to just pop them. No, we had to make sure we got large amounts of flour on the head...really ground down into the scalp. Yeah, don't ask how long it took to get the caked flour out of Lawson's hair.

Lily's response to the boys' shenanigans.

Don't even think about calling Lawson a baby, and telling him he's not capable of doing everything his older sibs are capable of doing. He'll not rest until he's proven you wrong!

Landen, of course, needed a turn of getting a plenty o' flour on his head.

It just cracks me up, seeing him from a distance...little Lawson, the friendly ghost, if you will.

And, he looks pretty fun, close up, too.

I don't remember if the clean up was Landen's idea, or Daddy's. They tend to think alike. Either way, it was quick and easy. If only the cleanup of the bodies would have been so easy. :)

Boston Segway Tour

Yeah, I know...nice helmets. We may have looked a tad silly, but man, it was fun!!! We toured several downtown Boston sites, via segway! We saw Paul Revere's birth place, the North Church where they lit the laterns with the "one by land, two by sea" code. We saw the harbor, Charlestown, the Italian section of town - a bunch of old Italian guys were playing cards on the street corner - it was so cute! It was just such a neat experience, which I highly recommend, no matter what city you may visit. We are now segway certified (yeah, I feel your envy) and can rent segways to go on our own excursions. I encouraged Jimmy to purchase one as his main mode of transport to and from work.

Jimmy by the harbor.

Christi by the harbor - Boston Logan Airport is in the background, and we tried really hard to get an airplane during takeoff in the dinstance. I can't tell if we got it or not. But we did capture the beautiful, fall, Boston day.

We're back in Kansas

Ahhhh, the friendly skies. It was a long trip home, and about 30 minutes delayed, but in all, we had a good flight home. Jimmy took this picture. I was generally surprised by how far his photography has come...it was in focus and everything!


Ahhhh, the beautiful Nubble Lighthouse, just south of where we stayed, in York Beach, Maine. Isn't it pretty? Isn't it picturesque? Yeah, not so much from a boat, when you're green with the sea. It was the most horrible, awful, terrible 90 minutes of my life. The lady in front of Jimmy offered me tic-tacs. I waved them off. About 20 minutes later, she must have had compassion for me, because she, too, was leaning over the side of the boat. Again, so glad Jimmy Hay was able to take some wonderful pics. I was in no condition to do anything.

We both had our taste of fresh lobster, for the first time. I unfortunately, was still not feeling 100%. We were sitting by the window, watching the waves...even worse. So, I had Jimmy crack one leg for me, and it was good. Jimmy was generally unimpressed. He was more excited about the photo opp. We may have smuggled lobster claws into our luggage to show the kids. They have been most impressed. I don't know...do you think the other people in the restaurant knew we were tourists?

Our last day in Ogunquit, Maine. It was so pretty...made it difficult to leave. I focused the camera on Jimmy, demanded he not move a muscle, drew a line in the sand where I was standing, stalked a couple pedestrians, and asked them to press the silver button. I think it turned out very well. The pedestrians laughed at me...I think they probably thought I was a smidge OCD about my little picture.

Sand art...Landen has one on his wall from the Bahamas. We'll blow them up for Lily and Lawson for their bedroom walls. Getting this done is harder than it looks. You have to get close enough to the water that the water will get in the picture, but not too close or it gets washed away. Believe me, it took several attempts.

Jimmy loves feeding the birds. We have a picture like this from every vacation where we've visited a beach.

Breathtaking Maine

I know my pictures probably won't do it justice, but wow...it is so picturesque, here. Even though there hasn't been a Sonic in sight, and barely even a fountain drink period, it's pretty awesome. It truly is like taking a step back in time. It feels like we're in a movie.

We walked from our apartment to Perkins Cove...it only took us about five minutes and was a very pretty walk. I did a little self-portrait in front of the ocean.
To get into Perkins Cove, we had to cross a foot bridge. And the foot bridge just happens to go up if a tall boat needs to come through. We have pondered what would happen if you were in the middle of the bridge and somebody hit the button to raise it. And, as it turns out, in fact any adult can push the button! Just a little scary...


I took these pictures along the Marginal Way, which is a foot path high along the water's edge. The area in the background is Perkins Cove.

I will never grow tired of watching the waves.

We had crab patty sandwiches at the Lobster Shack. Very yummy.

When we went to the Bahamas when Landen was 7 months old, we drew "We *heart* U Landen" in the sand, took a picture, and blew it up for his wall. We attempted to do the same thing for Lil' and Lawson, but the sand in this particular spot was too wet. We'll have another chance.