Mommathon

Colm loves going to art class. I originally signed him up because he wants to paint at home all the time. I don't mind letting him paint, but he just won't stop. So I figured at least with this there is a starting point and an ending point to the class and he will have to stop painting because everyone is leaving. This is a great class. It's not just painting, either. Every week there is a theme that all of their activities are centered around. They also play with play-doh, build with huge foam blocks, use stamps, play dress-up, read books, sing songs...it's great. He also has a great teacher.
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It was chilly today, so we had to bundle up a little before we headed out the door. Colm was a cowboy and Liam was a railroad engineer. They had a great time collecting candy. I think Colm had the best time though because this was the first year that he really got it.


Enjoying all the yummy treats

After we rested for a little while, it was time to go to a few more Halloween parties.

Sean's work had their annual Halloween party for the kids.


Then we went to our neighborhood Halloween parade.

His class Halloween parade


Ms. Tammy helping him with his spider project


Doing the Toody Ta Ta Dance

You know how kids always mess up the Pledge of Allegiance and put words in that don't belong there, etc? Well, Liam was saying the Lord's Prayer tonight and it took everything I had to not burst out laughing. He's got it down, but he has his own version..."lead us into temptation"...He has known Hail Mary for a long time and really has that down pat...we'll need to fine tune the other however.

This book is the ramblings of a man who has led a very interesting life. First of all, he is the brother of Frank McCourt who wrote Angela's Ashes. If you have read that book or seen that movie that tells you a lot about him right there. He has survived alcoholism and cancer and has written several books. He has also appeared in several soap operas, some were bit parts and he was a main character on Ryan's Hope for a while. He has also been in several movies and he will readily admit that none of them the average person has heard of or watched.

We have all heard of a baby boom...well today there was a baby kaboom. I had four people tell me they were preganant today...the neighbor behind me, the neighbor down the street, Sean's cousin and then the gal I teach Sunday school with. Yowsers! That's a lot of babies!

Colm being a scary pumpkin.


Liam investigating his pumpkin with his magnifying glass.

While I was carving the pumpkins, my children were having an Easter egg hunt...don't ask. They decided that the pumpkins were gross so they went off on their own adventures.

Some friends and I went to Let's Dish last weekend and I am definitely going back again and again. It is one of those places where you make your meals there and then freeze them until you are ready to use them. First of all, all of the ingredients were high quality. The staff won't let you lift a finger. Fresh herbs. You don't have to prep anything...everything is already cut up and ready to go. Yummy choices...butternut squash ravioli, brucshetta chicken, porkchops with apples and honey dijon dressing. Huge portions...a made pecan-crusted salmon and the salmon was literally over 18 inches long. I had them cut it in half. Sean and I ate half of it tonight and we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I made the porkchops and it came with 6 porkchops. It says on their website that each meal feeds 6 people. So, I signed up for 4 meals and with my friend's MOPS discount it was less than $75. That's a pretty good deal....a little over $6/meal. And then...the best part...when we were done we sat around and drank coffee and tea and they brought out a huge plate full of their dessert bars for us to nibble on while we chatted. Wasn't that nice?

We made Halloween cookies today shaped like owls, pumpkins, bats and witches. Then we slathered on some orange icing and threw on some pumpkin and bat-shaped sprinkles. Liam stayed home from school today with a cough, so I cooked with both of my children at the same time...it went pretty well.

...eat them! Colm loves lemons. He has figured out where they are at the grocery store so we have to buy one every week. He likes to have them cut up and then he walks around the house sucking on them. If we go out to eat and we get lemon in our tea or water, Colm will fish the lemon out before you have a chance to help him. (We are trying to get used to having a little hand submerged in our beverages.)

Go to www.breastmilkproject.org to find out how you can donate your breastmilk to children who need it. Pass this info on to everyone you know who may be able to help.

...a three-year old picks up a crayon and says, "This is red, just like my dad's BMW." A little girl in my Sunday school class said that while we were coloring today. Too funny!

My aunt made me this dollhouse and all of the furniture in it when I was little. I haven't played with it since I was probably eight years old. It was in my dad's attic for about 23 years and then in our basement for the past three years. It was dirty and dusty and some of the furniture had broken because the glue dried up and stopped working. I had told Liam he could play with it someday and I had kind of forgotten about it when Sean reminded me the other day that it was in our basement. Well, I dragged it out of the basement yesterday and the boys helped me dust it. They have only broken one thing so far (a porcelain pedestal sink) and they really seem to enjoy playing with it. We do need to get some more furniture though and maybe a few more people to live in the house.

Colm is such a big boy and he will tell you he is a big boy, too. He is still my baby, but there are so many things he can do now that he couldn't do just a month ago. Today he put on his pants all by himself, he went potty on the toilet by himself this week, he puts his socks on by himself, brushes his teeth (I still help him a little on that one) and gets himself ready for a bath (with a little help with his shirt). If you try to help him do something that he thinks he can do by himself he will remind you that he is a big boy and then you just have to be patient and let him try it himself. Sometimes he does get it and other times he tries and tries and will eventually give up and ask for help. That in itself shows how big he is getting.

Why is it so much easier to get kids, atleast my kids, to try new breakfast foods? Our newest additions are bagels with jelly and cream cheese and the other one is yogurt with granola mixed in. Both good for you, so I am not complaining...but how about some salmon with green beans for dinner? Not gonna happen! :)

This book is a sequel to The Bean Trees which I really liked. I liked this book, too. I felt like it dragged on a little too long, but it was still a good read. It continues on with the story of Taylor Greer and her daughter who was handed to her outside a bar in Oklahoma after her natural mother died. This is the story of the discovery of the daughter's real family and how to reconcile her new family with the only family she has ever truly known.

I've been tagged, so I thought I would share...

Five Things You Will Always Find in My Refrigerator:
1. Yogurt
2. Vanilla Soy Milk
3. Cranberry Juice
4. Applesauce
5. Cottage Cheese

Five Things You Will Always Find in My Freezer:
1. Vegan Chicken Nuggets
2. Fish Sticks
3. Frozen Yogurt
4. Waffles
5. Breaded Shrimp

Five Things You Will Find in My Pantry:
1. Macaroni and Cheese
2. Cereal Bars
3. Kashi
4. Raisins
5. Peanut Butter

We're in trouble! Colm has figured out doorknobs. On a side note, he also went on the potty for the first time today.

This was a good book, but it reminded me a little bit of Lovely Bones, if you have read that book. It was good in that I thought I had the problem in the story solved a couple of times, but as I kept reading I realized that I was wrong so I needed to keep reading to solve the mystery. I hate it when books are so predicatble that it is almost a waste of time reading it. I found out about this book because it is on Target's book club list.

We weren't planning on being cowboys for Halloween, but the boys found a bunch of props and costumes I used for a play my class did about seven years ago when I was still teaching. They found boots, vests, sheriff badges and all the cowboy essentials. I am not sure if they really want to be cowboys for Halloween or not, but they sure did look cute.

I highly recommend this book. It is the kind of book that made me smile when I read the last line. It is the story of a woman who has polio and gives birth in an iron lung. Her husband promptly leaves her and offers to have the baby adopted out. She will have none of it and manages to raise her daughter even though she is paralyzed from the neck down and needs a respirator to breathe. This book chronicles the ups and downs of their lives as they try to make the best of their situation.

Fishing with Papa


Colm helping Papa steer the boat

We went and had dinner at my in-laws this evening and they live on a lake. The boys love to "fish" (there aren't any hooks on their poles) and to help Papa steer the remote control boat around the lake.

This morning while Liam was eating his breakfast he said, "Mom, I can feel myself growing, but the gravity keeps pulling me down."

Well, I finished it. This was the book I lost and was determined to finish even though it had words in it that no one, and I mean no one, uses on a daily basis. Seriously. I have a librarian friend who has also read this book because she is a librarian and she has to and she wasn't a big fan of this book either. She did say, however, that this author has written another book that is very good...maybe I'll try that one.

It was a beautiful day for the pumpkin patch!




Liam and some of his classmates riding on the wagon to go get their pumpkins.




King Colm...king of the haybales!



The perfect pumpkin

Have you ever lost something and nearly drove yourself crazy trying to find it? That happened to me last night. I lost a library book I was in the middle of reading. I remembered reading it while I was waiting in line to pick Liam up from school and then I thought I remembered reading a little bit of it while I was waiting for Liam to have his violin lesson. I looked EVERYWHERE! I looked in Liam's violin bag at least 10 times, I looked in his school bag, I looked in our Sunday School bag, I looked in the car numerous times, I looked all over the house...nothing. So today we drove all the way to the violin shop where Liam has lessons, which is not close I might add, and they did not have it. Then I called church because we had gone there briefly after preschool yesterday to prepare for Sunday school, they didn't have it. I was going to call Liam's school today to see if it somehow fell out of the car and I didn't see it, but they were gone on a field trip. What is so funny about me losing this book is that I have thought about not finishing it several times. This book is like a book that you would read for an honors English class in college. It is not an easy read. I am not sure where I found out about it, but since it is that kind of book it has won a gazillion awards and I guess I should somehow feel smarter since I have read it. But now that it is lost I am frantic. I must finish it...I can't even imagine not finishing...I MUST finish it!!! So tonight, I had an epiphany. Liam's violin bag has a little pocket on the side that I had failed to look in previously and guess what, VOILA, there it was with the wrapper I had stuck in it to save my place. As soon as I saw the wrapper, I remembered exactly what had happened. When we were at Liam's violin lesson, I only had about two minutes to read and I didn't have a bookmark, so I fished around in his violin bag and found an old wrapper to use as a book mark. Now my book is sitting on the desk beside my computer, but I can't read it right now because Project Runway is on.