Pumpkins

Tiger just wanted an angry vampire.

 Sparky picked his from a pattern.

 The Woo wanted to do it all by herself and she did awesome!

 Voila!  Presenting Mr. Crabs, complete with crabby patties drawn down below.  Quite humorous considering I don't even let them watch Sponge Bob.

Happy Halloween!!

Determination

There is a website my kids like to play on called Poptropica.  Sadly, my poor little Tiger cannot for the life of him pronounce this word.  It usually comes out as Pop-poptrica.  Wrong, but totally adorable.  This is how he has pronounced this word for the last year or so.  Well, for some reason he has got it into his head that he is going to learn how to say this word.  What this really means is that he has been going around the house for the last three days saying this word over and over and over and over again in all sorts of variations, but rarely in its proper form.  I tell you though, his determination has paid off and with a little help he has actually pronounced the word "Poptropica" correctly quite a few times today.  Go little man, go.

Contemplations

If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I just can't keep things inside. I am a sharer. If I don't share, then I find myself feeling extra cranky, extra emotional, and seriously lacking in patience. The side affects are very physical for me. With Doug gone so much these days (although technically this week has been better, but that will end again next week) and with my headache securely in place (sadly, I don't think this baby is going away anytime soon), I have had quite a bit of time to sit and contemplate this fact about myself. Since my head hurts so bad, I don't feel like doing anything but sitting in a dark room. Ohio has helped me out with this by ensuring that the days have, for the most part, been cloudy, dark, and rainy. Since I have been sitting around quite a bit in a dark room, I have had a lot of time to think. Usually Doug is my sounding board and gets to hear all about everything that is going on in this crazy head of mine (he loves it I'm sure), but since he hasn't been around much, a lot of that crazy has been trapped inside my person, desperately wanting to be released. This has once again led me to contemplate my need to share. Lucky for the two of you reading this, I am not going to unleash all of the crazy right now, but a little more here and there might start popping up. I just wanted to give you fair warning.
The crazy in my head today:
I have completely forgotten how to be a fun person. I feel like it started when I had kids and has just been slowly slipping away for the past 11 years. This is not helped by the fact that a lot of time I really just want to be left alone. Anyway, my goal is to figure out what I really like to do for fun. I think this is research that I can get behind.

Today

1.  It looks like my annual fall headache has settled in.  Blah!  I really thought that I was getting out of it this year.  No such luck.

2.  I was right.  My poor Sparky has walking pneumonia.  Microplasma Pneumonia to be exact.  It turns out that it is really going around right now and quite a few kids have it in his grade and in the school.  We still can't get his fever to go away and so he is still home from school.  He's also lost at least two pounds which is a huge amount for him.  He was already skin and bones to begin with.

3.  Sparky is quite bummed because I am making him do homework.  Sheesh.  The kid has already missed 6 days of school.

4.  I am quite bugged because my personal chef and maid have not shown up yet. 

5.  Little Tiger has an extremely sensitive gag reflex and has for several years.  I know it must be pretty miserable for the little guy, but it is frankly driving me crazy.  I can hardly get him to wear clothes since he was sick a couple of weeks ago because he feels like he is being choked.

6.  Tiger is totally adorable running around in his little unders.

Today

1.  I may have mentioned this a time or two before, but I love love love to be in my bed.  It is by far my most favorite place to be.  My ideal day would include being served every meal in bed along with a variety of movies and my computer.  Sadly, our winters are long and dark and so I am often found in my bed more frequently than I should be.  But today, the sun is shining a bit, the window is open allowing a lovely cool breeze to waft through my room, and I am snuggled up in my bed desperately wishing that my headache would go away.  I even have some new sheets on my bed, making it extra snuggly.  Aside from my headache, this is a perfect afternoon.

2.  I thought that I had avoided my yearly fall headache fest, but I may not be that lucky.  It has been three days of one painful head but I am hoping I can break it.  If not, I will definitely be spending more time in this snuggly bed of mine.  My family is all hoping that is not the case.

3.  My poor little Sparky has had a fever for a good solid week.  He also has one nasty cough and an ear infection.  I think he is working on a walking pneumonia.  Perhaps not, but I am pretty sure he is.  I am crossing my fingers that his fever breaks today because I just want him to feel better (and to be able to go back to school).  Also, I would love for his cough to go away.  Not just for his sake, but frankly, I am exhausted because his sad cough keeps me up all night long.  On the flip side, I am totally amazed that Tiger has been able to sleep through the coughing each night.  Kids are truly amazing.

4.  My love has been working so incredibly hard for quite a while and especially this month and we haven't seen him much.  This has just solidified the fact that I don't do well when he isn't around.  It just makes me grateful that he has never had to travel much.  The kids may go days and days without seeing him, but just knowing that he is coming home at night makes it much easier on me.

5.  I love Netflix.  That's all.

A picture I found

This summer when we were up in some Amish country we ventured into a general store that had hundreds of different kinds of sodas.  As soon as I saw this root beer, I knew my boy had to have it.  The best part was that the root beer was actually really good.

We've had a bit of illness around here

School has started and with that has come a lovely selection of illnesses.  Fortunately nothing too horrible, but unpleasant nonetheless.  First Tiger was down for a week with a fever and bronchitis and he is still coughing (dang those coughs last forever).  Now poor Sparky has been down for a week with a fever, bronchitis, and now an ear infection.  Yay for antibiotics.  Sadly nothing is helping with his cough, but he's a tough boy (insert snicker here) and seems to be hanging in there.  I have also been hit with a cold.  Fortunately it has been nothing like what the boys have had, but it has still taken everything out of me and had left me feeling like a bit of a zombie.  All I know is that Moms really should not be allowed to get sick.  Also, my love has been working lots of insane hours the past month or so and I miss him.  I know he misses us too and so that's OK.  Sometimes life is a little harder than you want it to be, but it could always be worse and so I'll take what I've got.

Lots of pictures featuring apple picking

It is no secret that this is the time of year when I start dreading winter, however one thing I do love about Fall is picking apples and lucky for us our cousins came up to pick apples with us as well.  Once again we had ourselves a fabulous time and the weather could not have been better.  Here are two boy cousins.  Can you tell which one is mine and is used to being told to smile for the camera?  Tanner was having none of my picture taking on this day.

Tiger left the pirate costume at home and seemed to bring the weird with him instead.

A kid pose

My girl and I

Captain weirdo and myself

A Sarah in a tree

Next to the apple trees was a pumpkin patch, I don't know if we were really allowed to pick the pumpkins, but that didn't stop this girl from picking one and boy was she proud to show off her treasure.

What trip to the orchard would be complete without the throwing of  rotting apples?  Truly a sport for boys.

And here we have what I like to call "The Sleeping Series".  These two crack me up!  Here we have Tiger and Mary "sleeping."

Still "sleeping"

Oh my, it appears as if sweet Mary has arisen from her blissful slumber.  I wonder, pray tell, will Tiger soon follow?

"Tiger.  Tiger.  Wake up."

Sorry Mary, no dice.  Although you gave it a good try.  You might as well just give in and join him once again in his make believe trip to dreamland.  You see, when Tiger commits to a pretend situation, he REALLY commits.

Finally, with "naps" and picking aside, it was time to get out a bit more energy and what is better for that then running up and down a big hill?  Or, in Tanner's case, rolling down a big hill.

Outside of the little market was an Amish woman selling various goods.  I believe this was probably her buggy, but I can't be sure.  Little Mary could hardly resist climbing inside and since no one said anything, I decided to get a picture of it. 

Here's a full picture of the buggy.

It really was a great day and we were quite sad that it had to come to an end.  Thank you cousins for driving up to spend the day with us.  We loved every minute and are already planning on inviting ourselves down to your neck of the woods soon!

I remember a time long, long ago

There was a time in my life when I could sleep.  All. Night. Long.  I would lay down, close my little eyes and drift off to dream land.  I wouldn't even move because I was so asleep.  Occasionally I would turn over, but very rarely would I have a night when I would toss and turn, or heaven forbid, not sleep.  I miss those days.  However, I wouldn't go back to those days because those were also the days when I did not have a husband or kids and those additions have made my present life so much better.  But every now and then, when I find myself totally exhausted and wanting nothing more than to sleep, I remember those days and think about how nice they were.