Happy Halloween!!

Brock in Costume... Big Mouth.


Reece in Costume... a pirate


The Zebbster... Lighting Mc Queen's pit crew.



The Family portrait.

Maybe I will type more after we thaw out.

Thank you George and Erla!

There is really only two things I miss about the old house we had. That is our old neighbor, George and Erla and Reece's friend Jacob. About 10 days ago we had stopped by their house to visit and let Zeb use the little boys room. Erla was so glad to see us and George, who came home later was having a ball chasing Reece and Zeb around his house, even at his age he still was keeping up pretty well with the boys. George has some memory problems, but he is so silly the kids love it. Zeb used to sneak over to their house for gramhn crackers or windmill cookies, which was George's favorite. This time Erla sent us home with some teddy grahms cookies.
They recently lost a daughter-in-law this spring and it was quite hard on Erla. She broke down and cried while we were there. She said she was like a daughter to her. Their youngest grandchild is now about Brocks age, and he lives in Kentucky. I think they miss them. George even keeps a little peddle car for our kids (and any other that may stop by, I'm sure) at there house. It has seen much better days, but the kids love it!
Today while opening the mail, each of the boys had a Halloween card and each had a message just for them. It was from George and Erla. I wish you could have seen the look on Zeb's face, not when I told him he got the money, but when I told him who it was from. He just lit right up and smiled so big "George and ERLA! Wow!" he said.

As you can see all the kids where pretty happy...

Pumpkins Everywhere!

And now....
Can you spot the fake two pumpkins? They all actually turned out pretty good this year.

Here is who's pumpkins were who's...

Brocks is the one front left. (*glasses and Beret)

Reece had 2 one on the front right (smilie) and one back right (pirate) Ok, so I helped a little...

Zebbie had the small one on the way left... the smilie one with huge eye brows.
Mine was the spider pumpkin next to the pirate.

But I am still going to wait to tell you what the kids will be on Halloween! : )

Yep, We carved our pumpkins out this weekend. I have discovered the BEST tip EVER!!!
Cut the hole from the Bottom of your pumpkin!! It saved us so much time I could not believe it!

And when you lite the pumpkin you don't have to worry about the candle tipping over.
Just put a candle on a plate and set it on top of it! Works Great!

I won't reveal the finished pumpkins until a little later.

I also ordered Zeb a costume today from Disney. Hopefully it comes before Halloween!

Food Pantry Day

Today was Boy Scout Food Pantry day. It means I drive around and find food that people have left on their door step for local pantries in the area. Our area was a mix of rental (duplexs, industrial and residential neighborhoods).

I had to empty out the huntin' stuff out of my truck (hopefully Duner remembers BEFORE going huntin' next time). I headed to Duners work and stuffed his trunk with the stuff and left the hatch open on the Durango so the boys could run and grab quickly. Since Brock was at camp Zeb was eagar and very willing to help out. He grabbed all the homes on the right side and Reece had the left. As Luck had it Reece was a busy guy. All the homes with food seemed to be on the left side today. I think Zeb had a total of 4. But he loved to help out.

One house in peticular gave VERY GENEROUSLY! 48 cans of Campbells soup, 16 Green Giant green beans and 8 cans of Campbell Chunky soup! WoW! I had to get out and load in the 2 cases of Soup, they were way to heavy for Reece.

For brief periods of time I had to drive on a slightly busy road, maybe 10 seconds worth, and Reece informed me that we should NEVER do that again because that was embarassing. When I laughed a little long he said "Ok Mom, It wasn't that funny."

He. He. He.

Ok Brock Time Out...

On Tuesday we had the best confrence's ever for Brock. He has had unbelievable grades so far this year and is doing GREAT. All of the teachers had only good things to say about him. One of them said he is always willing to go help out the other kids in class. (aka teachers pet) Ha. Ha. Just Kidding. That was his Tech Ed Teacher (aka Shop Class).

His LD teacher looks like she is a smoker. She looks, to me like my Aunt Beverly used to. She died when I was Brocks' age, so I don't remember her that much. His gym teacher said he was always on time an suited up for gym which is 4 out of 10 points of a daily grade for that class. He is currently getting an A+. His Choir teacher said he was a typical 'please to have in class'. He loves to sing. I noticed that just the other day when he was in the shower he was singing to the radio in the shower.

Tonight I had told Brock that he will be riding home from school with a friend that he is going to go to camp with and then sat down to eat supper. Brock was working on his homework, then 10 minutes later he says "Mom, I am going to ride home with Jesse?" ??? Hmmmm.???
I think he is working a little to hard, but I think it set in.

Fun with the Camera

It has been a busy few weeks for us...
Family Portrait by Zebbie. Brock is doing his best to hide from the camera, too bad his legs are a little too long.











I forgot to post this picture from our pumpkin picking weekend.













I also forgot to post some apple picking pictures and cool mural by Auntie Sara and Reece pictures.....

Its begining to look a lot like Christmas...

Its going to be cold soon, so....














Zeb has now discovered the winter wear.

Good to be HOME

Today I had to run one of our dogs to the Vet to get surgery on his eyes. He had some eye lids that had grown into his eyeball, causing his eyes to drip and get irritated. He was loaded with energy, even though he wasn't able to eat or drink that morning.

I had to feed Thunder without lighting. That was tough for Thunder since he usually eats before emptying his bladder or any other function in the am. It usually takes him10-20 minutes to eat 3 cups of food.

Lighting will be spending the night tonight due to the hyperactivity, just incase he rips some of the stiches. He has 4 in one and 5 in the other.

Then I came home to get Zeb ready for some testing. He had to go to the public school so they can gage his speech disablity. It took almost an hour and he did really good (paying attention and listening) til about 45 minutes in to it. I had to bribe him with Burger King. I should know more within a few weeks.

I got to clean my bathrooms and was clothes and some much needed rugs from the bathrooms. I wish the smell would stay longer after I clean them but with 4 BOYS, I know it doesn't last long. I try to leave the seat up whenever possible but I am trying to get them in the habit of lifting it to be polite. Ya, I know TALL order there. I probably have better chances with the 4 yr old more than any other.

Right now I am listening to the happy giggles and footsteps of the boys as they chase Duner for some much needed Daddy time. It is nice to see them doing something other than TV or computer. I told the boys I wanted to cancel cable. Duner said ok with him. I will be calling tomorrow to see about that.

Opps, I just heard Zeb scream. He was left in the dark in the basement accidentally.
The fun never stops.

Sun, Not fire... REALLY!

I just could not wait to post these! We had some nasty weather go through the area of the Extreme Home Makeover (to the south of us)... It will be aired the sunday after Thanksgiving. I can't wait to see how it affected them.
The first picture is taken facing the west just after the bad stuff cleared.
This was what the opposite direction looked like. Everything had an erie red color to it, even the rainbow...
Cool!

Fall Cleaning??

This week has been a whirl wind of activity! I got my teeth cleaned on Monday and the hygenist told me about a local family getting an Extreme Home Makeover. How exciting and so close!! Only an hour away! It has been fun reading about it and watching news stories on TV about it.

I took the week off so my mom could have some rest while she recovers from surgery. I was busy painting a wall (twice), first I painted it green (same color as Reece's room) but something was wrong with how that looked, then I painted it a deep (not dark) blue. I love it! It works great on that wall. It really makes the fireplace wall pop.

I checked on my mom a couple of times, she was fine for the most part. The usual 'to much togetherness' with the parents. I grabbed some wood to make some workbenches for our basement. They took 2 days since my drill kept dying. I found other projects to work on while I waited.

I painted some frames that I had been wanting to do for some time now. Zeb had fun helping, but that lasted 10 minutes before he got some on his clothes and I sent him out of the basement.
I couldn't keep him away from the cordless drill. He just loved to help and he even yelled a few times at me! He wanted to do it! Shheeesh.

Yesterday we picked up our popcorn for the 'Great Popcorn Grab' and worked a shift at a spot for Octoberfest... Reece and his friend Jacob were so Awesome! The did their best to get attention to sell some. They were yelling 'Get you popcorn here! It only comes once a year, so get it now! Get it while it lasts! Help a scout, buy some popcorn!!'
They got some smiles but that was it. Bummer they tried.

We had a bike ride today from Medina to Hortonville. It was on a trail. Beautiful! I had no idea that it was even there! I don't know how long it goes but it was fun. We had some horses that passed us on the trail as well. Of course the best part was the dilly bars the kids got when we made it to Hortonville. But then we had to ride back, into the wind. I really didn't want to tell Reece how far we had to go because he likes to be dramatic and the sag wagon was at it's limit. He needed to burn some energy anyway. No major injuries, that is always good.

Well I have to get up at the crack of dawn... Night time for me!