Halloween Cookies! Yum!

I spent all day Monday baking sugar cookies, and today we had some friends over to decorate them. It was so much fun. Our kids all get along so well, and they have a blast just running around like crazies. I'm so happy to have all you guys as friends!

There... I fixed it!

(If any of you know that website, I think it's hilarious.) Here's my own version. It may be a bit redundant to put a sweater on an Eskimo dog, but at least she's not so silly looking anymore!

Kids Can Be So Cruel

Khursten knew months ago what she wanted to be for Halloween this year. She wanted to be her Grandma Cindy. (don't worry Grandma Cindy. We know you don't really have gray hair and reading glasses... yet) We went from store to store picking out every piece of her costume. Last Friday she had an Activity Days Halloween Party and she got all dressed up.

You can see on her face just how excited she was to go, and how proud of herself she was. (I thought she looked absolutely darling) After being at the party for only about a half an hour, she walked in the door crying. She has such tender feelings, and when she's upset she's really hard to talk to. After about an hour she caved. I guess the girls at Activity Days had teased her about her costume. She was so humiliated and so darn sad.

It absolutely kills me to see her that way. She said she doesn't want to wear that costume on Halloween. My first instinct was to run out and buy her a new costume, but Ryan thought it was a good opportunity to teach her a valuable life lesson. He told her that we don't have enough money to buy her another costume, and that she shouldn't worry about what other people say and wear her grandma costume with pride. If she just couldn't bring herself to wear it, he said we'd try and find something around the house that she could wear. We're still working on coming up with something, but she told me she'd rather not go trick-or-treating than wear her grandma costume.

Why do kids have to be so mean?

It Seemed Like the Right Thing to Do

I usually wake up early so that I can squeeze in a shower in peace before the madness breaks out. This morning I didn't. This morning I was lazy and I slept in. I could hear things slowly escalating downstairs. At first there were just innocent giggles, but before long there were full-on shrieks of joy and crazy maniacal laughter.

That's when I knew it was time to finally drag my butt out of bed. I called the girls upstairs to see what progress they had made toward getting themselves ready for school. It's a typical conversation around here, "Have you eaten breakfast? Are you dressed? Have you brushed your teeth? Your hair?..."

Today I got so far as, "Have you guys eaten breakfast?" The answer I got stopped me dead in my tracks.

"We ate dogfood!!!"

"What?" This completely threw me. How do I even reply to that?

Nicole, with a big huge smile on her face, exclaims with joy, "I ate seven!!!"

"Why? Why would you guys do that?"

"We wondered what it tasted like."

"And so you ate it?"

Khursten shrugs and says, "Well... I don't know. It seemed like the right thing to do!"

The Bloody Door

I have had a few friends ask my where all my Halloween spirit is this year.

This is it folks. This is all the Halloween we're gonna get around here. I have tubs and tubs of decorations in the garage, but to them I say Bah-Humbug!

I do believe this is sufficiently creepy and I'm calling us good.

A Really Bad Idea

So looking back I can see that this was indeed a bad idea. Not only a bad idea, but very possibly one of my worst ideas ever. You see, this is my dog George.


George is a very good dog. I love her dearly. She always listens, she's great with my kids, she would never do anything wrong. Ha ha ha.

My dear George has recently decided that it is her mission in life to dig her way out of the backyard every time she goes out to go potty. I don't always have the time to sit and watch her, and as soon as I turn my back, she's out of here. But what does she do with her freedom? She comes around to the front door and scratches to be let in. Why she doesn't head for the hills, I will never know. Why she doesn't just wait out by the back door, I will never know.

Now you may be wondering what harm could possibly come from a dog that digs her way out and then waits calmly on the porch. You see, it's been raining a lot lately and digging outside makes for one dirty little pup. She has such long, white hair that I have to give her a full bath, comb, and blow dry or she's a matted tangled mess.

I have given her five full baths in the past two days. FIVE!!! This morning was the last straw. I somehow ended up with a Winder Dairy guy knocking at my door with my soggy brown George in tow, a baby screaming his head off because I had to take a break from feeding him to answer the door, and a muddy dog running around the living room while I tried to politely tell the Winder Dairy guy that while I appreciated him for returning my dog, now was not a good time to try to sell me milk!

So after yet another wash and dry, I grabbed the scissors. Not only would this have been a bad idea under normal circumstances, but you when doubled with my anger, it was a recipe for disaster!

These pictures don't even give a hint of what a mess I made, but this can only be described as a hack job.

The worst part was that her hair was so stinkin' thick that my hand started cramping up and I only managed a 7-inch stripe across her back. Poor George. She just wanted to have fun. She didn't deserve this.


But shh... don't tell her. I don't think she has any idea what a silly haircut she has. She still thinks she's as cute and fun as ever.

Crazy Hair Day

Today was Crazy Hair Day at school. The girls were so excited to have their hair done. Here's what we came up with. They couldn't have been more thrilled. I just really hope we didn't mess up and today is actually pajama day or something. That would be embarrassing!