Fatty, Fatty 2 by 4

Sam, my gigantic baby, is a huge eater.  He really loves his food.  If someone is eating around him, he will demand to eat the same thing no matter what it is, even salad.  But, lately, he wants ALL of it. Yesterday I popped some popcorn and poured some in a little bowl for him and some in a bowl for me.  He kept screaming for all of it so I gave him the bag, but he saw me still eating out of the bowl and threw an epic fit because he wanted what was in my bowl, too.  This morning, after he had finished his waffle, he saw Jack eating a PopTart and started screaming for it.  Jack, being the sweet brother, broke off a piece and gave it to him.  Sam became even more furious and threw it on the floor because he wanted the WHOLE PopTart. The boy is SPOILED.  But who can resist this face?

Wallflowers

Jack's preschool teacher emailed this picture of the kids in their costumes from last week's costume parade.  I couldn't help but notice how Jack stands out all front and center in his Spider-Man costume. It is kind of fitting...all three of my children have such STRONG personalities.  So strong that sometimes, like tonight, I need to escape to my back porch and take deep, cleansing breaths and imagine that I am somewhere else.

Moving on, Jack and Sam are doing AWESOME with the new babysitter.  Once again, I am reminded to trust my gut. I always had an uneasy feeling about our previous situation and now that I see how relieved and happy Jack is about going to the new place, well, I feel guilty that I didn't change sooner. Lesson learned. But I do feel so much better dropping them off in the mornings.

NaBloPoMo

November is National Blog Posting Month!  Basically, you post every day on your blog for a month.  The first time I participated was back in 2007 when I was practivally writing every day anyway.  Then, I did it again last year and it helped to get my out of my blogging slump...at least temporarily, that is.  This month I am attempting it once again, thanks to the encouragment of Miss Zoot.

Today is a stressful day for me.  My dad is having knee replacement surgery, the kids started at the new babysitter's, traffic was a nightmare so I was 10 minutes late for work (not ok when you have a roomful of students waiting on you), and Jack has a 3:00 dentist appointment that I had scheduled 6 months ago and promptly forgot about. The bell rings at 2:30 and I don't technically get out of school til 3:10 so making that appointment will be interesting.  I hope my new babysitter doesn't want to talk to me because I am grabbing the boys and flying out the door.  What a Monday. 

*Disclaimer: I said I would post every day. I didn't say it would be good.

Sunday Not-so-best

Sam was one cranky baby this morning. I love how Jack's face reflects the stress of a screaming brother next to him, but Ellie continues to smile beautifully.  The show must go on. I post these Sunday best pics on Facebook/Instagram each week and I wonder if people find them obnoxious. Oh well, I like seeing them all dressed up...even if they are in tears.

The Halloween that lasted a week

Y'all, is it just me, or does Halloween seem to last so much longer than it did when we were kids?  I feel like my kids have been dressing up and celebrating for days on end.  It started on Wednesday with Trunk-or-Treat at the church.  Wait, let me back up.  It started with my kids telling me they wanted to dress up as Wild Kratts and me attempting to make a homemade costume for the first time in their lives.  I use the word "make" loosely because I actually bought the shirts and I used the PBS website. I was still super proud of myself for doing all the printing, cutting, and gluing, though.

The kids got to take their costumes on a trial run at the church Trunk-or-Treat.  Ellie brought her BFF even though Maleficient didn't really go with our theme. Totally kidding.

Then Thursday was a costume parade at Jack's preschool.  He asked to go as Spider-Man because he had coordinated the day before with his little buddy.  Luckily, we pretty much own every superhero costume there is.

This morning, to keep our momentum going, I dressed the kids in their Halloween shirts.  Ellie didn't want to wear hers, but as it is the only one I actually paid for, I told her she would wear it or not go trick-or-treating.  So, her smile isn't as bright as the others. Or maybe it's because it is 6:30am.

And, finally, the actual celebration.  We continued our tradition of going to a Halloween dinner party that some friends throw every year. They live on a street that goes all out for Halloween.  Tom wasn't home yet, so I opted to skip trying to take the kids trick-or-treating on that street after dinner.  We stopped at my parents' house and went to a few houses on their street.  Sam was not having anything to do with this trick-or-treating business.  Tom got home just in time to take Ellie and Jack out to score some candy while I put Sam to bed.

 Halloween was fun, but I am happy to put it behind us and start making plans for Thanksgiving.  I think a road trip to Arizona is in the works!