Happy Halloween!

The annual carving of the pumpkin:

Twin Creeks neighborhood Fall Festival:

Logan's preschool Halloween Party:

FYI...Logan is wearing a monkey costume to his party because the amazing homemaker that I am burned a hole in his Robin costume that morning when I tried to iron it. Classic. So I ran to Hobby Lobby in between Halloween parties to make a patch for the hole that said Pow!

William's preschool Halloween Party:

Below: A super hero fight club broke out during the party. It ended with one Spider Man in tears. Batman held his own though...a chip off the old block. ;)



Trick-or-Treating:

We had a great time trick-or-treating Monday night. There were a whole bunch of kids out and we ran into a lot of our neighbors along the way. The kids lasted about an hour and then got a kick out of handing out candy the rest of the night. I have to say they made a pretty cute crime fighting team...Batman & Robin! (notice the amazing Pow! patch on Logan, I was very proud of myself)

Bye, Bye Pacifier

Logan is one week pacifier free! A major milestone for a paci lover like Logan. It all started last week when we went to a playdate with some friends. One of the moms saw Logan with his paci and started telling me about her daughter's paci obsession. She is 4 years old and still has to sleep with a paci. The mom tried to take it away one night only to find her daughter chewing on an electrical cord because she couldn't fall asleep. Yikes.

I then realized Logan was about the same age William was when we took his paci away. If you wait until after they turn two years old, it only gets worse. I started thinking about the holidays coming, Logan's birthday, then moving Logan to a big boy bed, then potty training and the clock in my head almost exploded. I panicked and threw all the pacifiers away when we got home that day.

Poor Logan, he kept asking for his "ba" and I would just tell him, "Paci all gone. Paci go bye-bye, Logan is a big boy now, No baby paci." He would give me a real confused look and then just stare at me. After about two days he stopped asking for it. Our biggest problem has been sleeping. The first couple of nights and naps were filled with lots of crying. Things are starting to get better and I'm hoping one more week and it will all be a distant memory.

There are lots of methods for getting rid of a pacifier...paci fairy, tying it to a balloon, giving it to the dentist or in our case cold turkey. A mom today told me about a cute way she got her daughter to give it up and I wanted to pass it along in case there are some other parents of paci addicts out there. They took their little girl to Build-A-Bear and put the paci in a bear for her to sleep with. So clever!

Baby Sam

I just downloaded these pictures from Angie's visit a few weeks ago. Here is William and baby Sam hanging out. Logan had already gone down for his nap so he missed the pic.




Sorry about William being in his underwear. I can't remember why he doesn't have pants on in the picture. Oh well!

Pumpkin Patch

This past weekend we took the kids to a pumpkin patch by our house. It was a little bootleg, but luckily William and Logan are extremely easy to impress. It had a hay ride, pony ride, hay maze, petting zoo, bounce houses and a mini pumpkin to take home. You would have thought we took them to Disney World.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure...

We have been trying to get our garage organized so we can start parking Jonathan's car in with my car. The Honda is not as young as she use to be and has a hard time in the cold Dallas winters. Saturday, Jonathan loaded up the car with a bunch of boxes and trash and took it to a dump/transfer station by our house.

As he was unloading the trash, the dump attendant came over to help him. Jonathan was carrying a box full of old beer and wine when the attendant stopped him. (Backstory: when we moved from Houston they packed up about 16 beers and a few bottles of wine. It all sat in the moving trailer for a few weeks in the August heat and then we left it in our garage in Waco and now it has been sitting in our garage here so the booze was about 2-3 years old.) The dump attendant looked at Jonathan and goes, "Whoa, Whoa, Whoa there...wait a minute! What do you have in that box?" Jonathan answered, "it's some really old beer and wine that we've had through two moves and it's been sitting out for a few years." He came over to Jonathan and picked up one of the bottles of beer, looked at it, smiled and said, "Nah, Nah, Nah...I'll take this box off your hands! I can put this to good use." Jonathan responded, "It's all yours, enjoy." He laughed and said, "Man, you're my best customer all day!" We laughed on Saturday night thinking that there was some dump attendant out there having a good time getting either really drunk or really sick.

Girl Trouble Cont....

Yesterday, on my way into preschool, one of the moms from William's class stopped me. She proceeded to tell me how her daughter, Sophia (this is a different Sophia than the one from gymnastics and my previous post), wants William to come over and play some time. I put on my cheesy mom smile and said how nice that was and maybe we could meet at the park one day. I knew William would not want to play with Sophia alone. At the park you can casually invite other friends to show up too.

Once we got in the car I told William about my encounter with Sophia's mom. "I don't want to play with Sophia," was his answer in a real put-out tone. "Why don't you want to play with Sophia?" I asked. He responded with, "She's already 4 and she looks old!" I was trying not to laugh, "What do you mean she looks old?" I asked. "Mom, she just looks old and I don't want to play with her." What's really funny is I kind of know what he means. She's a sweet girl, but she always looks like she's been put through the ringer. You could just picture her at a bar with a cigarette in one hand, a scotch in the other, shaking her head saying, "Let me tell you about the day I had." I gave William the PC mom answer, "We are nice to and play with everyone! No matter what they look like." He just shrugged and looked out the window.

Now I'm starting to think all of this girly attention is not just a coincidence anymore. The only thing I can figure is that he's grown up playing with my two nieces, so maybe he acts more comfortable around the girls than some of the other little boys his age. I always ask him if he plays with any of the girls at school and he always says NO. It's a mystery, I guess it's just his sparkling personality! As an unbiased mother I'm going with that. ;)

All's Well That Ends Well

We got a car yesterday!!! As I mentioned before, we were starting to get worried that we had been sucked into an insurance black hole. Originally, we just wanted our money back so we could go somewhere else to get a car. But I started to panic a bit! I told Jonathan to ask if the dealership would just credit our money towards another car on their lot and we could be on our way. The GM at the dealership was more than happy to sell us another car, as long as we signed something from the lawyers saying we wouldn't sue, talk badly, yada, yada, yada.

The first car they wanted to sell us was only 6 months old. He would have given us a fabulous deal on it BUT... I thought it was too flashy. Lets call a spade, a spade...I'm a suburban mom, not a rapper. Then he told us the guy who had owned the car only drove it for about a month before he had a stroke and died! Like this was a positive, which I get for most people that would be good news...I guess? We are way to skittish to be buying a car associated with death...know your audience guy. That's major bad juju in my book!! The second was a simple, silver Yukon that had been a demo for the head coach of TCU for about 6 months. SOLD!

I really love the car and plan on driving it until William goes to college some day. Best of all...no bad juju! After this experience, I don't want to get another car for a VERY long time.