The month of October brought another holiday first for Hannah: Halloween! Also, it's her first Autumn. So many potential photo shoots, so little time (and energy and hard drive space).

To kick off things, we got in the Halloween spirit by carving up our pumpking. I generally design the thing with no fore-thought or technique, and then Peter skillfully brings it to life. I could put a lot of time into coming up with great ideas, but I'll let others have that glory. Also, our pumpkin was already half-rotted when we cut into it, so what's the point? For the first time ever, Peter did not cook and eat the seeds. Good times!

Katy sang her song about Halloween and saying "Boo" to everything. I just love her school and all the little ditties that she brings home. I remember her singing it last year, too. The yummy part is that Allen and Hannah will echo Katy's voice in song for years to come. Ah, tradition!Another first for us this year was that Katy and Allen only had one costume each. Normally I can't decide what they should wear so I string together several choices from gum and toothpaste or whatever I can find. I couldn't let Hinty Baninty have just one costume so she was un-officially Daddy's little vampire and also a brown bear. I've never seen a cuter bear in my life. And that little vampire can bite me anytime. And I'm sure she will someday soon...she's teething.

The real and truly official costumes for the kiddos this year are from the movie "The Wizard of Oz" which Katy just happens to love. One might assume Katy would be Dorothy because she has the perfect hair for it, but I can't do anything normal.Allen's lion suit came from the store, free with the purchase of Katy's dress. Mom and I decided that Mom should add more material for his mane. You can't have a wimpy lion's mane and still be the cowardly lion. C'mon. Katy's Good Witch Glenda crown was made by me and there was even some sewing in it. Same for Hannah's blue dress, but not her white shirt. Her Dorothy wig was made by stitching fancy, shiny yarn to Allen's Astros cap. Peter didn't appreciate how the cap was violated, but after Halloween it was returned to normal. The red glitter got on EVERYTHING so mostly I just tied the ruby slippers around a black stuffed dog's neck for effect.
Allen's lion suit came from the store, free with the purchase of Katy's dress. Mom and I decided that Mom should add more material for his mane. You can't have a wimpy lion's mane and still be the cowardly lion. C'mon. Katy's Good Witch Glenda crown was made by me and there was even some sewing in it. Same for Hannah's blue dress, but not her white shirt. Her Dorothy wig was made by stitching fancy, shiny yarn to Allen's Astros cap. Peter didn't appreciate how the cap was violated, but after Halloween it was returned to normal. The red glitter got on EVERYTHING so mostly I just tied the ruby slippers around a black stuffed dog's neck for effect.On the actual day of Halloween, Katy went to school and partied with her friends in her full Glenda costume. They unfortunately assumed she was just another princess and she didn't correct them. Dang!

I dressed Allen and Hannah up in the costume of their choice. Allen was Cookie Monster (of course) and Hannah was a little brown monkey, Allen's costume from last year. We then visited Peter at work because I'm a fabulous wife. Turns out I should have called in advance because he was in a meeting but eventually he was able to come out and see us. Allen scored some candy there, so he was all smiles.

Later that night we went to the church for a Trunk-Or-Treat and a carnival in the gym. Hannah rode around in her bumbo seat in the wagon and she happily sucked on her Dorothy hair until someone gave her a sucker. Her first sucker! She loved it! Katy and Allen played games and ran through the haunted house and jumped in the bounce house. Cupcakes were devoured and they played with a dancing "skelton." Then on to the parking lot for candy, candy, candy. I can see that Halloween is going to be one of their favorite holidays.

To finish off the big day, we headed over to Jerry and Kathy's house, another tradition. We weren't the only ones, either. Jake and Hillary were there with more of their family and friends. Sean loaned Allen his 70's glam wig. Lovely color for him. Katy had lots of fun handing out candy to the many, many, many visitors that night. The door bell didn't stop ringing until late. Her policy was something like "one for me, one for you, three chocolates for me." We must be related. :o)

All in all, October was a fabulously fun month to live through, but a beast to blog about. Even as I type things up, I am reminded how blessed we are. I still say I need to hire a personal assistant to take care of my blogging. ha! Well, it's after 2am so I'm off to bed. More in November as the year 2009 slowly winds down.

Welcome October! This is a month of fun, festivities, fotos and CANDY!

Since Hannah is seven months old today (Oct 12th for posting purposes but really Dec 8th) then I am posting TONS of Hanny pics! She is simply gorgeous and everyone comments on how much she looks like Allen. I am sure they will both take offense as the years go by. We couldn't have a cuter, sassier and happier baby. She just glows

Katy was at school for these photo shoots but Allen had fun helping out with his Hanny. He never calls her anything else, just Hanny. It's too adorable. He would walk over hot coals for her. He would turn down chocolate for her. He would almost say no to a ride in a fire truck for her. We all have our limits, ya know.

Our Wal-mart is remodeling into a super. Woe unto me. Until then, Allen loves watching the diggers and cranes at work. And Hanny loves watching me...or Mom, who is more often pushing Hanny's cart.
I am not creative to come up with this on my own, but one of my favorite blogs to stalk shared this idea for a movie night treat. Blue jello with one eye ball in it to represent "Bob" from Monsters Versus Aliens. How cool is that? I'm good, right? Wrong. Apparently it tasted disgusting and Mom, Peter, Katy and even Allen wouldn't eat it. What a waste. They loved the movie, though. Katy's favorite character was Ginormica and Allen loved the roach...of course.

Allen played on the computer one day. This is the not-so-helpful result. Scary, huh? I had to actually flip the monitor upside down for a while to work.

Allen hasn't met a motorcycle that he doesn't like.

Katy's dance class encouraged her to bring a friend one day. Maggie came along and they had a fabulous time. Kalan is already in regular attendance and Sage lives too far away, so we just had Maggie. The actual dancing was so fun to watch but after class let out, the ladies were brave enough to return to the class room and try out their moves. Allen even join in and peeked over at some older ladies who were strutting their stuff. They may have been eight years old, but he was undaunted. When you're the complete package like that little man, what's to fear?

After a tiring work-out, Wendy's sounds pretty good!

I guess this speaks for itself. Oh, how Allen loves his monster costume. Since it's blue and has googly eyes he insists it's Cookie Monster. Tis the season for dress-up.

One very full and busy day we tackled a visit to Mom's house with bike riding, a trip to the park for Play Group and pumpkin carving, more fun at Mom's and then a trip to the Bounce. Maggie came along for some of our good times, and we LOVE having her. Katy never disagrees with Maggie, which is something I can't say for anyone else she knows. Mom came to the park and kept our Hannah Banana safe from harm. I had my hands full just keeping Allen from breaking something, either on himself or on the park.

Sometimes we need to break out of routine and just hang out with friends. Some time in the first part of October we loaded up and headed down to York & Stacy's house to have a play date. Kate Z. joined us, too with her son Brady. Stacy's Brock was at school that day, which was sad because he sounds like the perfect match for our Katybird.



The highlight of our time was when Stacy let Katy drive the three wheeler. Stevie Wonder would have done a better job. She ran into the pool fence, the patio furniture, the baby trees and the bushes. She clothes-lined herself on the trampoline, and instead of saving her, I took pictures while Stacy held Hannah and saved them. Allen hung on for dear life but he wasn't scared. He loved every minute of it! At one time Katy almost ran over Brady!
I treated myself to more fun with friends when I joined Delma and Angela for our second annual Girls Weekend Getaway. What happens in Seguin, stays in Seguin. It was TONS of fun and Delma had the best possible surprise for us - she is PREGGERS! Since she is 27 and holding, she may never be too old to have a baby. hahaha! Keep 'em comin'!

I complain about laundry quite a bit. Here is an illustration of the all-consuming, life-sucking force that tries to take over my life.

And I'm not talking about Jaxson the cat perched on our purple Kathy Gore blankey. She's going to be ticked when she sees him on it, though. Laundry is the bane of my existence. Even after it's all sorted, checked, washed, dried and folded, someone needs to put it away. Makes me almost want to have octuplets just so someone else will come in once a week and do my laundry.
Here are some random shots of the kids. Katy made her hat for rainbow day. Allen dressed himself and was quite proud. Allen dressing his "man" for church with a tie.

Here is a picture of Hannah drinking her bottle. It was quite a trick to take it while I was feeding her, I'm sure. It's been so long ago I barely remember. I do, however, remember why I took it. Hanny has a little dent in her forehead when she's looking up at you like this. Katy has a dent in her nose. Allen always has some kind of dent in his knuckle head from one adventure or another. I love my dented little kiddos!

Amy's puppies came to visit for a few days and we took them for a walk to the park. We had a picnic and the pups loved it! Of course, Katy and Allen loved it more.

We are finally in the season for black skulls with smoke coming out the eyes. Allen loved it! We were shopping at Half Priced Books and he wouldn't come away from the "skelton." He would say, "Wanna touch it." What a brave boy! Again, Katy was at school.


Well, that sums up the first half of the month. More later.

Everyone I know seems to keep their digital photos organized in a different system. Some people just dump them into one folder, some people never clear them off their camera’s memory card, and some do it by occasion. I choose to keep them in date order, and the average folder (by month) contains anywhere from one to two gigs of photos. This means that I take a TON of pictures, all the time, any time. It is my absolute PASSION. Since this past March (seven gig) I have taken an average of four to five gigs per month. When I sit down to do my monthly blog entry, it can be a little overwhelming. For this month’s entry I have required one full night, plus several mornings from 4:00am until the kids wake up, plus many hours here and there to edit photos, collage them, and upload them unto blogger. Peter probably thinks I am crazy. He’s a smart man and he doesn’t say it aloud. However, I am sharing my laborious blogging efforts here and now so that someday when my kiddos read this entry, they will know why the house wasn’t clean and why Mommy didn’t make them homemade meals…ummmm…I mean they will know that Mommy loved them SO MUCH!

OK, here goes the long-awaited month of September. So many wonderful things happened for us this month! This is not one of them.

Katy and Allen seem to be playing more together these days. They still fight, but their play is fun to watch. I find myself complaining that the only time they get along is when they’re getting into trouble together. This is somewhat true, but at least they’re doing it with laughter.

Hannah has so many different facial expressions! Last month she started eating solid foods and now she’s trying people food. She always looks like she wants to spit out whatever we put in her mouth, and often she does. Chocolate pudding, as it turns out, was a big hit!

School, school, school. I joined all the other moms shopping for school supplies. I didn’t have an official list because Katy’s pre-school actually provides everything, but we wanted to freshen up our home supplies and what better time? We took our un-official” school photos just the night before Katy’s first day. I couldn’t stop pushing the button – they were so cute! And Peter was there to help me so it was awesome! I even sent an invitation to the local grands so they could see Katy go to her first day of class. Allen also wanted to go in and it was so sad to see him without his best friend. Katy always kisses him goodbye and tells him that he can go to school next year. Allen doesn’t know what that means but he looks up at his idol with trust shining in his eyes, and he believes.

Here is some random cuteness. We were late to church because I had to take their pictures, but c’mon…we all know they won’t look like this AFTER church!

Could Hannah be any cuter? I think not. She’s sitting up completely on her own. She’s also crawling around in a jerking motion where she gets up on hands and knees and throws herself forward, onto her chest. It looks painful but it gets a lady where she needs to be…which is mainly closer to artwork that was abandoned on the floor.

Oh, and speaking of artwork…why does the rest of the family look like they are orbiting around Mommy? Like she has a gravitational pull that is sucking them in? And why is Jaxson Kitty’s tail so long? Inquiring minds want to know.

Caught sneaking into Daddy’s sprinklers…

More random cuteness…

My sister Amy had a big move this month. She now lives in Hawaii. Guess we’ll just have to go and visit her. For some reason she picked living with her hubby over living closer to her family. Go figure. And technically Sarah is living in Louisiana because that’s where she is five days a week for work, but luckily she comes home to Texas every weekend. What is up with my sisters trying to move away from me? I miss them!

Here is Hannah learning to feed herself baby food. If she sees the spoon coming at her, she tries to wrestle it out of your hand. You can already feel her asserting her independence. Guess she’ll be borrowing the car when she’s about four, at this rate.

The months since we received Hannah in March have just flown by. She turned six months old on the 12th and Peter and I keep telling each other that we can’t imagine our lives without Hannah in it. There was a hole there that she has filled that Peter didn’t know we had. I knew it, but he didn’t. Hannah has many nicknames, just as the older two did: Hannah Banana, Hanny Bananny, Hinty Bininty, the Banana, Herself, Baby Sister and TGO are the ones that come to mind. Between you, me and the world wide web, TGO stands for “The Good One.” We try not to compare our kids to one another but c’mon…the older two are testing our boundaries hourly and Hannah just smiles, cuddles and gives us a sweet little laugh. She sure does light up with smiles when she sees her loved ones. Katy and Allen are her special favorites to watch, and they love to tickle her and proudly declare that they made her laugh.

One fun evening turned out to be our parent / teacher conference night at Katy’s school. We swapped babysitting with some friends and the kiddos all played on the school playground. Allen is always asking to do this, so he was especially excited. Lilly is going on payroll because she immediately takes over Hannah’s care. And Maggie and Katy can’t get enough of each other. We caught some photos before the rain came down, at which point we moved the party to the dvd player in the van. I love our van!

Katy’s hair has finally grown long enough for a pony tail again. We had to chop it after her eye surgery because it was so thin and wispy. Here’s Miss Bird with her new back pack. I was going to have her use the same one from last year, but I couldn’t find it when school was starting and I had to rush out and get her a new one. Of course, we found the old one the next day, but Katy loves her kitty back pack.

Here is a glimpse of our ice cream social from church. They had a paper air plane contest and the ones I made for our kids flew like they were made of lead.

Peter took Katy and Allen over to his dad’s garden for some tilling or something. I don’t know exactly what all they did, but I know I’m going to be happy when the final product springs up. Originally Katy didn’t want to go but when she saw her Juicy brother toting some awesome gardening tools in a bag, she jumped on board. If I can make the bathroom cleaning tools look cool, maybe I’ll get some help there, too.

Who looks so cute in the bath tub? Who’s our happy girl?

September was also a milestone for Hannah because her adoption was finalized by the court system. Yup. It’s legal and final. We took her to the temple, and then our traditional Pappacito’s luncheon. Kathy G. flew down from Minnesota (also tradition) for the big celebrations that weekend. We were surrounded by people who love us, and it was fabulous. Plus, Pappacito’s has the best chips and dip – yum!

The next day Kathy, her sister Amy # 2, and Amy’s hubby Aaron joined us in taking Katybird to her first Aggie football game. Katy has been to many other sporting events, but with ticket prices that amount to a fancy hair appointment (which I’ve been neglecting) we have skimped on our kids’ football experiences. Immediately after kick-off Katy started eating, and she pretty much continued throughout the game. Amy fed her cheesy nachos, we did the kettle corn thing, candy (sneaked it in, of course) and Coke Cokes. We won, but Katy didn’t care because she had a blast playing with Kathy G. and Amy, who are now some of her favorite peeps.

We also took the gang to Double Dave’s for some yummy pizza rolls. Out-of-towners always miss those once they’ve moved away. On the way in I noticed the children’s boutique store was doing face painting. Turns out they were handing out cupcakes, too. SCORE!On Sunday Hannah was blessed and even more family came to support us. I didn't catch Jason & Kristin before they left, so I had to photo-shop them in. If Jason's shirt looks a little casual here, that's why.
We were sad to put Kathy back on the plane. I even called her hubby and tried to convince him that she and her kids should move back here and he wouldn’t even have to pay child support. We could just form a commune and I would handle scrapping, easy crafts and photography. Kathy would be the working wife, plus she would do the cooking and cleaning. Dave didn’t go for it, but I’m not giving up just yet.

Whew!! We’re almost to the end of the month. Katy has a little piglet that she named Kalani (after her good friend Kalan, presumably) and she loves to role play with it. She pretends the pig is “Wilver” from Charlotte’s Web and she is Fern. I get to be the dad and Katy runs to me as I’m about to kill Wilver shouting, “It’s not fair! Don’t dead my piggy! You are a bad daddy!” I have tried to explain the scene to her, and to help her see why he’s not trying to be bad. She doesn’t get it, but she still has fun with the drama. She also makes me be Count Olaf from that Lemony Snicket movie, but she calls me Mrs. Colox for some reason. Or MacLeach from Rescuers Down Under. Maybe Katy will do Broadway?

Allen had his first official play date at the end of this month. He has patiently played alone while Katy attended school or dance class, but I thought it was high time for him to cultivate his own friendships. Turns out he’s just not ready. We picked up Gavin who is a bit older but the same size, but Gavin preferred to play with Katybird. It was still so cute to see! My Juicy boy is growing up! He’s even peeing in the potty just before bath time. I might have to do a Potty Party like we did for Katy. One in diapers? Yay! Until then, I guess I have to put up with him experimenting. For example, he pooped on the floor one day. I thought that was bad until the day he pooped on my cell phone. Yes, when you call me I’m talking on the poop phone. Thank you, very much. Phones don’t grow on trees, ya know.

And finally, on the last day of the month we attended Katy’s Hot Dog picnic for her school. She ate with Mary Grace and her little sister, new friends from this year. Grammy and Papa came, and Mookie and Peter, too! The kids played most of the time while I chased them with the camera, so I didn’t get to visit with the folks at all. And Katy just ate chips and bun, no dog. Oh well!

I have collected some more recent “isms” that the kiddos have been spouting. Here goes:

Katy
*lizard = zizard
*surprise me = prize me
*Mommy, I want to grow up to be just like you = I love you
*I’m sorry, it was an accident = please don’t punish me
*After watching the Wizard of Oz with Mookie = What happens if you don’t have a howt? Or a bwain? Or a couwage?
*When the tin man is rusted = busted (b instead of r)
*My front name is Katy
*E.O.S. That spells piggy.
*Can I have a quarter for dat? = give me quarters for all those games and gumball machines (although she has been doing chores for them lately)
*Do you know how much I love you? Dis much! (with arms wide open when we’re good, and if I’ve been bad she just pinches her fingers together)

Allen
*Want somping else = get that healthy food out of here and give me fruit snacks
*More Daddy go? = Where did Daddy go?
*ba-berry = strawberry
*chunky arms = Lucky Charms cereal
*Don’t stay!! = Don’t leave me
*Bring Katy one = he wants me to give Katy’s vitamin to him so he can eat it for her
*Awen helping = taking wet wipes, wetting them in the sink or toilet and then wiping down the walls or my clean laundry

And I’m spent!