Happy Halloween

What a great night for trick or treating - the weather was absolutely beautiful - especially after having snow earlier this week.

We carved our pumpkins this afternoon, since we didn't have a chance to do it all week. We usually will carve them at least the night before Halloween, but I swear we had something going on every night this week. The timing was actually perfect though - it gave the kids something to concentrate on while they waited to go trick or treating. Here are our masterpieces :)

Poor Alli was sick today - she even stayed home from school. She has this nasty cough and has been running a slight fever. We gave her some medicine so she could at least do a little trick or treating.

This year, Emily dressed up as a devil, Alli as a black cat and Joey as Elmo (the girls wanted this). They all looked so cute. I guess Joey had quite a bit of sugar even before trick or treating - that boy was on a sugar high and was just running around in circles whenever I tried to get his picture. It was actually pretty funny.

The kids made out pretty well with the candy. It was so cute, Em & Alli dumped it out and went through it when they got home - I totally remember doing that as a kid.

Hope everyone had a Happy & safe Halloween.

Fieldtrip to Wickham Farms

Today Alli's class went on a field trip to this cute little pumpkin patch called Wickham farms. They have a lot of great things for the kids - hayride, apple picking, pumpkin picking and even a smaller corn maze (it's not actually corn, but I can't remember what they called it). In the warmer weather, they even have a miniature golf course. Alli seemed to have a lot of fun with her friends and I was glad Joey and I were able to meet up with them. I really love seeing her in school - she's adjusting so well and making lots of new friends. The only bad thing was Joey made me carry him the entire time - I thought my left arm was going to fall off. I don't know what's going on with him, but he is constantly wanting to be attached to mommy (even right now as I'm typing this, he is sitting on top of me rather than next to me).

Anyway, back to the field trip...here are a couple of pictures:

Annual Pumpkin Picking trip

Sunday we went to Stokoe farms for our annual pumpkin picking trip with Paul's family. We went with his parents, sister, cousins Steve & Lorraine and their kids Rachel & Pam. It was a perfect fall day - the sun was shining and there was the perfect amount of chill in the air. Stokoe farms is so much fun for kids and adults - we did the corn maze, the bike races, the bee line, the wheel, pumpkin chucking, the slides - pretty much everything they had. It was a fun afternoon.

And as always, we went back to Paul's cousins' Anita & Dave's house for pizza. The girls love playing with their cousins (I think they would be 2nd cousins) and all of Anita's barbies - she has quite the collection.

Happy Birthday Paul!

Happy 37th birthday to the best husband, friend and father anyone could ever ask for. I Love You!

Doing my Civic Duty

Yesterday I was summoned for jury duty. I had to report downtown bright and early at 8:15am. I spent most of the day, just sitting around reading my book - which was nice since I never get so much uninterrupted time to just read. My Uncle Glenn was also summoned the same day, so I had some company in the morning. He lucked out and got to go home at noon though. I, on the otherhand, was one of 50 selected to go to a courtroom in the afternoon. I was a little excited about - it was my first time actually seeing any part of the judicial process (other than what I've seen on tv).

It was interesting to see the inside of the courtoom and listen to the judge and attornies question the jurors. There were way too many breaks though with just more sitting/standing around. I didn't end up getting selected for the jury, which I'm happy about (Joey ended up getting sick the night before so I wasn't going to be able to have Leslie and my sister babysit him afterall - I didn't know what I was going to do).

Someday, I would love to be on a jury and see the whole process from start to finish. It's just so hard right now with the kids so young and me being home with them. I'm now off the hook for at least 6 years, so it should be a little easier the next time I get summoned.

Poor Jo-Jo is still sick with a fever. I hate it when my babies are sick.

Glamour Party

Today, we had a birthday party with all of Alli's friends from kindergarten. She wanted a glamour party, so we asked Auntie Kris if she would help out, since I have no hair styling ability whatsoever (I'm lucky I can get a decent ponytail for the girls).

So, we had about seven girls over and my sister did fancy up-do's for the girls with some glitter spray in their hair and then put some light make up on. My mom and I did the girl's nails - my mom painted and I put on some little flower decals my sister had found. The girls all seemed to have fun getting glammed up.

Afterwards, some of the girls did a little fashion show for us and then Paul took them all on a hayride. That has become a tradition at Alli's parties. It was a fun afternoon - and not too exhausting for Paul and I :)

Happy Birthday Alli!

Today my baby girl turned 6 - I can't believe it! She has been so excited the past few days and was on cloud nine today. It was fun seeing her so animated!

Birthdays are a big deal in our family, so we tried to make her day extra special - we started out with breakfast in bed and daddy even stayed home a little longer than usual this morning so he could see her. It was an absolutely gorgeous day here, so we all went to the park to play for a bit late this morning and then my mom treated all of us to Burger King for lunch (Alli's choice). They just opened a new one in our town and she's been asking to go there for weeks. Then tonight we had a birthday party with my side of the family - she wanted tacos for her birthday dinner and cookie cake for her cake.

Alli Celebrates at School

Alli's birthday is tomorrow, but out district is off for the Holiday weekend, so she celebrated with her class this morning. Our school doesn't do a party per se, but the birthday girl or boy gets a special crown and their parents come in if they're able and read a book to the class.

Paul, Joey and I went in and Alli wanted me to read the book we bought to donate to the class - It was a little Golden book - The Shy Little Kitten. I really enjoyed reading to the class until Alli's teacher said that the kids could ask me questions about the book............huh???? That totally took me by surprise and did I get some tough questions - why did the kitten jump in the lake, I thought kittens didn't like water? why did the puppy and the kitten get along? how could the kitten do a somersault? how did the squirrel see the puppy and dog running? Oh boy, I started sweatin' - I think I was only able to answer one of the questions confidently. At home, with the kids, when they start asking questions like this, I distract them with something else, try and get them off the subject, but that wasn't going to happen here. I managed and thankfully the questions finally stopped :)

Alli seemed to really enjoy her celebration at school. The class sang happy birthday to her too - without any cha cha cha's - per her request and she got to be the special helper and line leader all morning. She is SO excited about her birthday tomorrow.

Daisys

Tonight was the kindergarten registration night for girl scouts - it was actually the 2nd one - the first one was held in September, and I was the only kindergarten mom to show up. I volunteered to be a co-leader - well, actually being the only mom to show up sort of forced me to, but it was ok - I was planning on helping out anyway.

It looks like we're going to have a troop of about 12 girls and thankfully another mom offered to help me co-lead. The girls that were there tonight got along really well right from the start, so I think we're going to have a great troop. There was even a girl from Alli's class, so she was excited about that. Now, I just have to figure out where we're going to hold our meetings.

Our Famous Sister Katie

On Saturday, my sister inlaw Katie participated in the Special Olympics Fall Games here in Rochester. She played soccer and her team played other teams from all across NYS. We were able to watch her 1st game, but unfortunately, had to leave at the start of the 2nd game for Joey's nap. Her team ended up coming in 3rd place. Well, this morning, we woke up to see a picture of her in the sports section of our local paper. In case you missed it, here's the picture:

We were so excited for her!!

We also had Emily's soccer this weekend - only 1 more week for this session. She is really enjoying it so much more this year. Here are a couple of pictures of her in action:

Girl Scout Cookie Sales started this weekend too - so we spent part of the day yesterday hitting up our neighbors. Emily had so much more confidence this year asking people if they wanted to buy cookies. I was really proud of her. Alli, will hopefully be a Daisy girl scout this year (if we can get a troop together) but she won't start selling cookies until next year.

Then today, we were finally able to take Paul's parents out to dinner to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. We went to this great Italian restaurant in Gates - I'm going to have to ask my mother in law the name of it - I'm totally forgetting it right now. Great food though. Isn't this a cute picture of them?

A Night Out....Finally

It's been SO long since Paul and I had a night out together without the kids. Since a date night was long overdue, we asked Paul's mom if she could watch the kids, and we headed out to our favorite restaurant - the Plum Garden. It's one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook everything in front of you. Afterwards, we went over to Phillips European for some decadant dessert. Yum!!!

While we were there, I realized we were sitting with a guy I used to know in high school (he was actually better friends with my sister and cousin). It took me most of dinner to make the connection - he looked different - it was actually his voice that sounded familiar to me. It's been over 15 years since I've seen him.

I was looking through some pictures recently and realized there are very few pictures of Paul and I, so before heading out tonight, I had Paul's mom take a picture of us.