Halloween 2009

We went the cheapy route again this year on costumes and I let the boys decide what they wanted to be without any real direction. Riley's costume took the longest to make, about 3 hours, but he loved it and everybody recognized him. Shannon was REALLY easy, seems each year I get away with using one camo outfit. Corey's costume was quick too because I had made it before.

Riley as R2D2. That's a chip bowl on his head. The lid was a noise maker that sounded just like R2D2, so he slipped that under his shirt and gave it a whack every now and then.

Bowl: $1.00, felt: $.88.

Shannon goes Commando. Or Bomb Removal Unit Guy. Or Army Guy.

Hat: $1.00.

Corey wanted to be a traffic light again.
Felt, $.66.


All three.

All three.

Riley and Shannon headed out alone as soon as the other kids started out. 5:30 seemed a little early, but considering the neighborhood went quiet by 8:30 it was a good thing they got out there. While they were out and about I took Corey in the wagon, and painfully watched as he contemplated every single candy choice he was offered.

Once the boys had made their rounds, I offered to take the boys into the adjoining neighborhood for a little bit. You would think I told them that I wanted them to shoot a puppy! Anyhow, they finally consented and we did another two blocks before they declared that they were done.

We arrived home right at 7:30, only to find that Ken had killed all the Halloween and porch lights and had called it a night. I. Was. Furious. What a killjoy! So I kicked them all back on and Riley volunteered to hand out candy until the neighborhood went quiet at 8:30.

I tell ya, Halloween just isn't what it used to be. Nowadays, kids get about two cups of candy and call it good, kids as old as 16 have no problem mooching candy off of people, and everybody goes home before 9:00.

That never would have happened when I was a kid! We walked for MILES, and our pillowcases had better have been 1/2 full before anybody whined about the sleet or snow. You simply didn't consider stopping to pee, either. You went to every house, and if somebody said, "Take your choice," you grabbed a handful. (You certainly didn't play eeney-meeny-minny-mo for ten minutes.) And finally, people didn't run out of candy until at least 10:30, maybe 11:00 at night.

Oh well, I could complain some more, but the kids have finally fallen asleep so it's time to go pilfer the best candy out of the boys' bags. Now that I think about it, some things HAVEN'T changed since I was a kid.

And the Doctor Said...

...that I have bronchitis. Ta-daaaaa!

Mall Adventure

So Friday morning I woke up and Ken was still awake. Casually he asked if we should all hop in the car and get the boys the jeans they are so desperately needing. (The hand-me-downs are all loose-fitting Husky sizes now, not a good match for my little sticks.) Needless to say, I had an opportunity to have another adult assist me in shopping for the boys? I wasn't going to pass this up, so I threw clothes on everybody and we headed out in our grubby morningness.

After dropping off Ken and the boys and parking the car, I met them inside. No more than ten steps inside the door and Ken starts flailing his arms so I stop in my tracks. Ken bends over and grabs a wadded up a twenty dollar bill that I had been kicking around unknowingly. Good luck for us, it was shaping up to be a good trip!

Anyhow, since Ken has never shopped for boy's clothes, I headed toward the cheap, slim fitting CRC's that Sears has a lifetime warranty on. Ken goes off looking at some loose fitting Polo's that have been marked way down. We had a small argument over which style the boys needed, I won, and we grabbed three pairs for each kid. Then we headed for the dressing rooms... the dressing rooms that emitted a loud beep every time you crossed the thresh-hold.

Naturally, Corey did not like this noise and he was gone. He found a rack of clothing that was as far away from the dressing rooms as possible, covered his ears and demanded that we make it stop. Well, we weren't shopping for Corey anyway, so I told Ken to worry about Corey while I dealt with Riley and Shan. I threw them each their 3 pairs of jeans and told them to get to trying them on.

Shannon whined immediately that he couldn't snap the jeans up, and I spent the next ten minutes getting the correct style of jeans for Shannon - the ones that don't snap at the waist. At this point, you would think that Riley would have at least tried on a pair of jeans but no. After I got Shannon to start trying on pairs 4, 5, and 6, I had to physically go into Riley's dressing room to see what the holdup was. Surprise, he just didn't want to try on jeans!

After a stern warning, I exited the dressing room (BEEEEEEP,) grabbed Corey, and started looking for at some winter coats for the little guy. He had to move closer to the dressing room to try them on and of course Corey fought it all the way. We tried on one coat, and then I ran over to check on the boys. Shannon looked good in his 7 slims, so I asked Riley to show me how his looked.

Riley throws open the door whining, "They don't feel right," after which Ken and I rolled our eyes at each other in frustration. "Seriously, Riley?" I questioned. "Try not putting them on BACKWARDS!" At this point I told Ken to take Corey off my hands, the coat was fine, and I went into Riley's dressing room with him until all jeans were on and approved. 9 slims were Riley's fit, but they still fell off of him so we added a belt to the pile of purchases. Jean shopping was DONE! Now, time for boots...

Lugging three boys, six pairs of pants, a coat and a wayward husband along, we headed for the elevator. (Oh, look, gloves are on sale! Lemme grab SIX PAIRS for Corey while we're at it!) As we neared the elevator, Ken and Riley see the escalator and head that way. "Hello, we've got Corey today!" I holler, assuming this will explain everything. I guess it didn't because they were on their way, and I'm grabbing Corey up onto my hip with one arm as my other arm is naturally full of everything else we'd selected, and up the escalator we go. "Just close your eyes," I whispered to Corey throughout the accent, and he did okay.

We hit the shoe department, loud as can be, and the entire selection of boys' boots fell into view. All 4 styles. Crap. So I'm looking at the boots, and I think that possibly the one style with velcro straps might actually open far enough to accommodate Corey's leg braces with the inflexible 90° angle. As I struggled to force Corey's feet into the braces, Ken yells down at me from the INFANT department, "I don't think any of these are going to work!" Gee, ya think?

Anyhow, I actually managed to get Corey into a pair of boots! This has been an impossible task up to this point, so I was thoroughly excited as we (I) grabbed everything together and head back downstairs. Then I hear it. Ken. "Corey, you're a big boy, you can go down the escalator, and you're gonna do it." "No, no, NO, Daddy!" yelled Corey as Ken took him by the hand and went to step onto the escalator. Oh boy.

Corey collapsed his legs which meant that Ken was holding a dangling Corey in the air by the arm. ("Hey, he didn't get sucked into the steps, impressive," I thought.) "I want off!" screamed Corey most of the way down, "Mommmmmmy, stop Daddy!" I'm staring off to the side, mortified, and finally Riley yells, "Just hold onto the railing, Corey!" (Riley had had enough too.) So Corey rests his feet on the semi-terra firma and grabs the railing and everything falls silent. Just as we get to the part where the escalator disappears into the floor I yell for Ken to help him off and as easy as that, we are done with the escalator.

Naturally I was ready to check out, but Daddy must browse the tools while at Sears, and since I had taken forever to find the six pairs of gloves, I let him. The boys and I chilled in the Christmas aisles which gave me time to nix the big old coat I had lugged around for the past hour; we could find Corey a better one another day. Finally we were checking out and on our way home, thank God! Then Ken says to the boys, "What do you guys want to get for lunch?"

I rolled my eyes and knew we were simply NOT DONE for the day. When will Ken learn? You just don't ask a 6, 7, and 9 year old an open-ended question! We won't bother discussing the various drive-thru window's we met with that day...

School's Out

School is supposed to get out for the summer on June 18, 2010. Our district has cancelled classes due to illness for most of this week, Tuesday through Friday to be exact. I'm guessing that if we have a typical winter, we'll be seeing summer vacation sometime after Independence Day.

I am actually ill with something, Ken went through something a week ago, Corey may be sick or it could just be that he is (and always has been,) a snot factory, and Shannon may be ill or he could just be suffering from the earache-allergy mess that he is constantly contending with. The unifying factor for all of us is snot, chest congestion, coughs, and one day (or more) of headaches and the runs. None of us have had fevers, we are just generally miserable. Riley, though, has been 100% through it all.

If this is H1N1, I have to say it's not too big of a deal. I guess we'll never know because Ken's doctor didn't even suspect it, other local doctors won't test for it, and none of us are sick enough to necessitate a trip to the doctor. Now, if all of us were to start spontaneously and simultaneously barfing for a week straight and refusing food like we did a few years ago when Grammie came for her unfortunate visit, I might consider a trip to the doctor. But for now, a trip to Walgreen's for some allergy meds, pain killers and kleenex is the only excursion in my future.

Nebraska Born but not Raised

Riley had a Midwest States assessment today and he had to label all the states and their capitals. He got them ALL right! Well, he got them all correct except for one capital. You know, the one he was born in! Riley for some reason constantly eyeballs Lincoln, NE, somewhere just south of Yankton, SD.

He did okay with the question and answer section, only missing two insignificant problems. I still think he should have gotten 100% on the test considering his wonderful answer to #9.

(Technically, I'm not too sure he got #2 correct now that I think about it, do they still make cars in Detroit?) Hmm...

How's Tricks?

The set up: Ohio State, (my husband, Ken's, team,) is beating the snot out of Wisconsin, (my neighbor's team.) What to do?

1. Ken puts our Ohio State flag in our neighbors yard.

2. Neighbor puts up a tailgating scene in our yard, complete with a Wisconsin flag, two stadium chairs and a grill. Our Ohio State flag is place in the grill as if being cooked.

3. I return tailgating scene to the neighbor's yard, but add some Husker and Buckeye apparel to the scene. I also...

4. ...took their flag and taped it to the side of their house along with a few letters. This says "PWNED," which is a current way of saying 'owned.'

5. The neighbors then take the letters I made, and spell out this little diddy on the side of my house.

6. Finally I broke out the Christmas lights, and this is what the front of their house looked like by the end of the night.

Fall is Here

It's been a little busy around here with Fall barreling in; school, CCD, and Corey's doctor appointments fill our days. All I have to share with you from the past week are these pictures:

Riley makes the first cut.

We pulled in our first watermelon after the frost, it was extremely good! Riley (and mom and dad,) did a great job watering these all summer long. We ended up with four good sized ones and a bunch that weren't able to grow to maturity. The smaller ones may become Jack-O-Laterns, stay tuned...

A whole box of EXIT SIGNS!!!

As we got on the elevator at one of Corey's many appointments, a maintenance man was getting off. He had his hands full so he told us to take the elevator and he would call it back to get this box of equipment. If only he knew Corey, he wouldn't have left this box unattended. We made it out of the elevator, after much excitement, without pilfering a single sign.

Oooookay...

My husband, Ken, was being exceptionally sweet today, and while I have my suspicions as to why, (hunting and snowmobiling right around the corner, staying out half the night last night, or maybe the poignant homily at Mass this morning about strong marriages,) his attitude was bound to expire at some point.

We had a great morning and this afternoon I ran the boys around in search of Halloween costume ideas. As we headed out the door, Ken pointed out the hole in the rear of my (one pair of GOOD) jeans, and suggested I take the time to go buy some new ones while I was out. He also recommended I get a new pair of boots, as the sole was flopping around on the pair I was wearing. Ooooookay...

After a few hours of scouting out stores for costumes, I returned home empty handed save a few pieces of junk from the dollar store. Noticing the fact that I hadn't bought myself a thing, (and the fact that it was raining sporadically so hunting was out,) he told me to head out by myself and not to return without some new clothes. Oooookay...

I returned home a few hours later with two pairs of jeans and a pair of boots but minus $250, and we had supper and got the boys to bed. Ken decided to run to the store for his hunting license and I hinted that if he arrived home with a bag of Dove Chocolates today would just be too good to be true.

Ken returned home shortly thereafter but I noticed right away that there were no Dove Chocolates on his person. I asked him if he'd forgotten about my request and he looked at me and smiled. "You just spent $250 on two new pairs of jeans, and now you want me to buy you MORE chocolate so you can get even fatter and rip the butt out of those new ones too?" he asked.

Just before I smacked the crap out of him he ran to the car and grabbed the hidden bag of chocolates. And I'm not mad, just so you know, but sometimes the truth stings a little.