Happy Halloween!!

Here's where we went this past Sunday: Thats right. The circus. Now, first off, Im not a big curcus fan. Circuses and the circus people are creepy to me. Like the lady who served us our snacks. Im not kidding when I say her eyelashes were three inches long and curled up over her eyebrows with a gold rainbow painted on them. Tell me thats not creepy, or weird. And don't even get me startd on her fingernails!! We were given tickets from a dear friend and felt we should go. So, we loaded up and headed Under the BigTop. I have to say, we were pleasantly surprised! The people and atmoshpere were a tad creepy but not too bad. The performances were pretty good for being a small circus. This was a one ring show folks, not the three ring kind!
We started off the afternoon with everyones favorite: COTTON CANDY!! Did you know there are different ways one can consume this airy, fluffy, sugary confection? No? Well, let me share them with you:

First, we have the "Throw Caution to the Wind" technique. This is where you dig in from the bottom with no front teeth, not caring what happens.


Next, we have the "Dainty" technique. This is where you pull ever so gently with your lips from the top beign super careful no to get too much just in case you don't like it.

And lastly we have my personal favorite, the "Whole Hog" technique. This is where you begin salivating at the sight of the pink cloud on a stick then plunge your whole face into it to get the biggest bite possible!

ive tried three times this week to post...pics wont upload...my computer guru did some checking and its definately a problem with blogger and not our satellite internet. so, bear with me...that is all. over and out.

We closed on the old house.
I was so excited all day.
I visited the house twice before the closing and I was so proud of myself for not crying!
Then, at one point sitting at the big ole table in the lawyer's office I succumbed...my eyes welled up and I got a huge lump in my throat.
I was fine until the lawyer read out the address and described it as the home to the new folks.
Silly.

October 2008
Cooper is 6, Davis is 4, and RA is 8 months.
I had taken RA earlier in the morning on this day to take a few pics of just her. Then I got the boys and we all came back. It was still a bit of a challenge but I managed to pull it off!

October 2009
Cooper is 7, Davis is 5 and RA is 20 months.
This was the year it dawned on me to put everyone is "halloweeny" shirts..
You cant tell but Cooper's shirt has sports balls in the shape of pumpkins.

October 2010
Cooper is 8, Davis is 6 and RA is 2
Love, love, love this picture!
Here's the best part, I didn't even try to pose them. They did this on their own!

October 2011
Cooper is 9, Davis is 7 and RA is 3.
Again, I did not pose them. I asked them to sit together and RA grabbed the boys around the neck at the last second before I snapped this one!

October 2004
Our first trip to the pumpkins. Cooper was 2 1/2 and Davis was 1 month old!
You can't tell from this picture, but this trip was quite a disaster.
Davis was screaming most of the time and my sweet 2 year old had been abducted and was replaced with a little monster.

There is no picture from 2005, mainly due to the fact that I didn't want to subject myself to that kind of torture again! In 2005, Coop had just turned 3 and Davis was 13 months...If i didn't get much cooperation the year before I sure wasn't going to get much the next year!

October 2006
Cooper was 4 and Davis had just turned 2.
Cooperation this year was much better due to the fact that I bribed them with suckers.
I am not above briebery if it will get me a decent picture. As you can see, it sorta worked..

October 2007
Cooper was 5 and Davis was 3.
I totally boycotted the trip this year because I was pregnant with Rubye Ann and was miserable most of the time.
Jamie took this one Saturday when we carved our jack o lanterns.
I must have been feeling pretty good this day...

This past Friday I took the natives to the pumpkin patch for our yearly photo shoot.
Wonder how much longer the boys will let me do this with them? The first time I ever took them, Cooper was two and Davis was still so little that he was strapped in his infant carrier for his pics!! I will have to go dig those out and post them... Enjoy the following:

We have had quite the menagrie of pets. We've had canines, felines, rodents, amphibians, and aquatic pets. We now can add fine feathered friends to that list.
Meet Slim:

Slim came with the house. He lives in the back ponds. He's got quite the life.
He walks around the edge of the small pond catching and eating the baby bream.

When he gets his fill he flies to the bigger pond and hangs out. Then comes back when the kids get home. He actually kinda "plays" with them. He lets them get right up next to him then he ever so slowly steps the the side, then they get closer and he side steps again and so on and so on. He even got so comfortable around the kids that he would let them feed him, in a manner of speaking. They would scoop up some fish in a cup then throw one on the ground right in front of Slim and he would walk over and pick it up and eat it!!

Slim has not been around the last few days, so we are wondering if maybe he migrated.. sure hope thats the case.

Cake time! Quite a boisterious group singing (yelling) the Birthday Song.

These last few pics just crack me up..I was cleaning up from cake duty and everyone was back in the gym playing. I ASSUMED everyone went back to kicking the boxes down.
Ummm, not exactly.
I walked in to absolute panderlium..

These little cherubs had totally disassembled the block tower and were running with the boxes on their heads and body boxing with them..

Some were even IN the boxes...
(Jenn F. look in the box behind RA..)
You can paint 'em, cut 'em, and make some really cool thing out of them but it all boils down to one thing..
KIDS. LOVE. BOXES.
Period.
Oh, and they love balls too..