trick or treating

Thursdays are AWANA nights, so we had an early and short trick or treating excursion. But it was good. Hannah was actually saying thank you audibly. The boys love ringing door bells, so it was the perfect activity for them. Green Machine would run up to a house, ring the door bell and was super excited when someone came to the door and wold give them a big "Hi!" and then say trick or treat and both boys loved getting the candy. We did six houses in about half an hour, have I mentioned our houses are really spread out here? But the kids all got loads of candy because everyone gives out a lot because not a lot of people come. After trick or treating the girls and I headed to AWANA where they got five full size candy bars, a small bag of candy and cake! They had a super good time and were very hyper when we got home, to say the least :-)

stressed

Yesterday was a rough day. Our pellet stove stopped working early on, which totally frustrated and stressed me out. The kids were going a little crazy and I just wanted to give up on things. So what did I do? I went shopping for groceries, which was on the plan and then I deviated from the plan. The girls had been asking for caramel apples, so I decided to try and make caramel from scratch...I didn't have quite enough cream....but I figured I'd wing it. We had also talked about making pretzels for awhile, so I figured why not do those as well? While I was making the caramel I was also prepping chicken for the freezer. The caramel didn't turn out quite right...it tastes good and is thick enough, but it's grainy, there are many different things that could have caused that. Oh well. I also made chocolate chip cookies for youth group since my caramel didn't turn out right, dinner and a chocolate pie. The pretzels turned out really well. I hope they pie was good, that was for our pastor. The chili for dinner turned out well, and the cookies were good too. Anyway, I apparently really do cook when I'm stressed. :-)

airplanes?

Tonight when leaving community group it was dark, it was almost dark on the way there, that happens here in the north east. It didn't really happen going anywhere in Texas, because it got dark later there. Anyway, I put Green Machine in the car and he looks up at the sky and says "Airplanes!" I said "no, stars" he got VERY excited about the fact that there were so many stars. I obviously don't take my kids out at night enough!

keeping the doctors busy

Last week Nathan had an eye doctor appointment because he broke his glasses, and he needed knew ones anyway, so he got an exam so he could get new glasses. Little Boy Blue as you know cut his head and had stitches. Hannah had an eye doctor appointment because she was pulling the book up closer to her face to read it which I could read at the original point she was holding it without a problem and told me the letters were fuzzy. Hannah had no eye issues, the doctor said her eyes were in great shape. This week I was at youth group on Wednesday playing pillo polo (like floor hockey, but with padded sticks and a super soft ball, or as was the case Wednesday, a not quiet as soft, but still really soft dodge ball), as you may know I get slightly competitive when playing sports, I ended up getting hit in the finger with a pillo polo stick, and then less than a minute later nailed in the eye with the ball. It was the actual eye that was hit, I was hit hard enough I was having very blurry vision at first and lost the very lowest part of the vision on that eye. So I went to the doctor Thursday morning. She said I had a swollen retina and referred me to a retina specialist, who I saw on Friday. Little Boy Blue got his stitches out Friday morning, his head is healing quiet nicely, and I went to the eye doctor Friday afternoon. I had my eyes dilated twice in two days, I remembered again why I don't like the eye doctors. This coming Friday the boys have a follow up ENT appointment, next Monday I have a routine physical and the next day Evie has her physical. Yep, we are definitely keeping the doctors busy. People ask what I have been doing and how school with the girls is going. My answer is school is going good, between school and doctors appointments we're keeping busy. Such is the season of our life. And no, I haven't gone to the doctor for my finger.....I figure if it's still swollen and hurting at my physical I'll have the doctor check it out then, but I think it's only a really bad bruise. :-)

a conversation

Today we brought a meal to friends from church who were getting a baby today. We left right after we ate because they don't normally eat until 6 pm, and we eat around 5. I took the boys to the bathroom before we left, but they had had some water with dinner. On the way there there was some discussion regarding Little Boy Blue needing to go potty. On the way back the following conversation took place.
Little Boy Blue: go potty
Green Machine: no go potty
Little Boy Blue: go potty
Green Machine: no potty Little Boy Blue, no go potty. No pee in underwear. no potty.
Little Boy Blue: no go potty
Green Machine: no potty

I think they're getting the potty training don't you? We made it home successfully without an accident. There was more chatter than relaid, but I can't remember it all, I did chime in as well about not going pee in your underwear :-)

stitches

Today we had our first adventure with stitches (for the kids). Little Boy Blue climbed into his laundry hamper and Hannah decided it was a good idea to stand the hamper up. Little Boy Blue did not like this and tried to get out and tipped the hamper over and crashed to the title floor. Two weeks ago ish Green Machine had split his head open, so I had just looked up what a cut looks like that needs stitches :-) Little Boy Blues cut was about twice as long as Green Machines, which wasn't horribly long, but Little Boy Blue had a part that was SUPER deep, so I thought two things, one, I didn't want to have to clean him up by myself with three other kids around and two, I thought he probably needed stitches, so I figured I might as well have the doctor clean it up for me at least :-) I think he has two stitches. The doctor told me not to wash his hair or anything until tomorrow and didn't tell me how many stitches he had, so I'm not sure. But before the doctor started he said it would probably be one or two and he stopped at one point and said one more, so that means at least two right?

dreaming

Last night just as I was climbing into bed I heard crying. It wasn't coming from the boys, so I stuck my head in the girls room and found Evie very much a sleep, but crying, like something sad had happened it was a whimper cry with tears streaming down her face. I brought her into my room and held her on the bed and tried talking to her. I asked her what was wrong? Was she having a bad dream? Was she stuck? She told me she was stuck in a tree. I asked what kind of tree? An apple tree? And she said yes, she was picking apples, I asked who she was picking apples with? Daddy. What color were the apples? Green. Can you pick some red apples for me? Yes. Are we going to make yummy things with the apples like apple crisp and apple pie and apple sauce? Yes. She was still totally asleep at this point. I asked if I could move her back to her bed and she said "the pumpkin is too warm." It was quite an amusing conversation with her, I asked her about it this morning and she didn't remember any of it. Nathan said I was being mean, my response was "what color was the snake in the tree?" as at one point early on in our marriage I was dreaming and sat up and said "there's a snake in the tree" my Dad told Nathan he should have asked me what color the snake was. :-)

pockets

Green Machine has discovered he has pockets in his pants. He loves his pockets and thinks they are the best thing ever. I think it's great that he has discovered pockets because that's a much better place for his hands to be than in the back of his pants where he used to put them. It's also super cute when he has both hands in his pockets :-) Ah, the little things in life.