Lexy's party

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Lexy had her Halloween Party this morning. This was the first year in many years that they allowed the kiddos to dress up, I loved it! I was the party organizer, we played a game where I put a spell on the kids "Hocus Pocus Alakazam, turn in to a "ghost" if you can" and then we did orange and black hokey pokey complete with a "BOO" at the end of each verse. After that the kids got all kinds of sugary treats and then their teacher played pin the nose on the pumpkin with them. They all had such a great time! I love this age, they are SO funny.

Thought I would also share a picture of our little visitor, "M". She's hugging Barney on TV!

A new visitor at our house

We got a foster call at about noon today for PPC (police protective custody-72 hrs-well actually with the weekend it will be 4/5 days) for a 2.5 year old little girl, we'll call her "M" for now. I couldn't think of any good reason not to take her and seeing as they seemed to be having a hard time finding a home (probably b/c few people want to take a kiddo the night before a holiday) I told them yes. We were told that this is her third time in the system in the past six months. This morning she was found wandering the streets by herself.

It took until about 4pm for her to actually get here because on the way here the sheriff that was bringing her from a couple counties over almost got hit head on. He swerved to miss them and then swerved again to miss the next car and ended up doing donuts into the ditch but no one was hurt thankfully. They had to wait for a tow truck to pull them out of the ditch but the car was still driveable!

She has done great since she arrived, no tantrums and easily redirected so far! We made a trip to Wal-Mart for some undies, socks and a few clothes since she came with only the clothes on her back. She loved her bath (lots and lots of smiles and giggles to me and Lexy who helped) and settled right down to sleep. She is really taken with Lexy, when Lexy helped her put on her lotion tonight "M" told her thank you and gave her a hug and kiss...how sweet!

Tomorrow will be filled with finding "M" a halloween costume out of our dressup bin, going to Lexy's preschool class party and then an afternoon and night full of trick or treating with Brooke, Kenzie, Lexy and "M"!

A typical night...

So I went to make dinner tonight. I got interrupted by the girls talking to me and then Mike called to say that he was working late. Here's what I found when I got back to the stove....

Ok, so this is AFTER I threw them in the sink. Can you say YYYUUUMMMYYYY??!!!!

Yes, I did remake the grilled cheese, didn't burn the tomato soup and opened a can of pears (I know, I know...WOW what a cook huh?!). Brooke contributed the best part of dinner...

Just thought I'd share so you can get a good laugh on me (and feel better about your own cooking!).

The weekend

This weekend we weren't able to have a family fun day (Mike was on call) but we had a mommy/daughter day. Brooke, Lexy and I went shopping and then went to see a movie (High School Musical 3). We had a great time together! We found a couple more things for Brooke's room to put back for Christmas.

This is where I found Lexy the other day...

Why am I buying presents when I could just wrap up some boxes and peanuts (or number eights as she calls them) and be done???!!!!

I finally got Lexy's costume done for Halloween. She wanted to be "lovey" (yes the one she has always carried around) so I did my best!! Below is (left) what "lovey" looked like new and (right) what "lovey" looks like now four years later...

And here's what Lexy looks like as "lovey". I'll post better pics when she dresses up for Halloween.

Keeping busy...

Lexy and I spent the afternoon today making and filling the treat bags for her preschool class Halloween party next Friday. She was SO excited to share the playdough, mask, toys and candies with her friends. She named each child in her class (12) as she filled the bags and put "special" things in the bags for each person. The ghost bags are for her teachers and the cat bags are for classmates! I get to do the class party next Friday, at least Lexy is still excited for me to come to her school, Brooke would die of embarrassment!!

Now, normally these bags would not have been done until the day before the event (Brooke even asked why they were done so early when she got home from school). I tend to be a procrastinator but I am SO bored with no foster kids and Lexy being at school every morning now! We have had two calls for foster kiddos in the past couple of weeks but the first (22 mo. old girl/4 mo. old boy) fell thru when they found a home closer and the second (4 yr old girl/5 yr old boy) didn't fit our age range (boy older than Lexy) and we don't have space for two more of that age :-(

I know when we do get another foster placement I will be busy as all get out and won't have time or energy for being bored (or doing projects) but right now I can't wait for that! I've even begun exercising in the mornings...now that's boredom!

Our Saturday!

We had a very eventful Saturday (family fun day) this week! It started Sat. morning at 9am at the Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome at Arrowhead Stadium. We were there to help raise awareness/funds for our friends with Down Syndrome, PJ & Maggie. They are both so cute and dear to us! The girls loved that Radio Disney was there and there was even Chiefs players there to give autographs (Brooke has no idea who that is signing her shirt but he sure is BIG!).

After the Buddy walk we went to US Toys (a big toy store) to just look around and kill some time. Who knew we would see so much excitement there. About two minutes after we left one of the rooms all the shelving fell down (on people) in that room...the sounds of the crashing shelving and halloween merchandise as well as all the screaming was deafening. Fortunately there was only one woman that was hurt...still not sure how there was no injuries to all the children milling around! Needless to say that gave us all a shock and we were speechless for quite some time.


After changing clothes in Burger King (not as comfortable or easy as you would think) we went to my nephew, Billy's wedding. Billy is only 9 years younger than me...it was so weird seeing him get married. The wedding & reception were wonderful and Lili was such a beautiful bride!!

The gorgeous bride and groom...

The groom's mom & dad (my brother)...

Our family at the wedding...

My beautiful niece, Amanda & her hubby...Maamaw & Grandpa Tom at the wedding...

A cold night for cheer!

On Tuesday night Lexy and I braved the cold to watch Brooke (who was probably much colder than us!) cheer at the last football game of the season. She'll be cheering at the boy's basketball games beginning in Jan. For now she will be focusing on Drama practice (plan on coming to one of her performances on Dec. 5th or 6th in the evening!!) and Choir (she has many performances coming up).

Alright Robin here's your picture debut! Robin with Lexy and Robin with Molly...

Pumpkin Carving

Since I was spending all day today at the craft festival with Robin and her family, we had family fun night last night. We carved our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, had pizza and strawberries, marshmallows and bananas (ghosts) covered in almond bark and then watched tv together.

This was the first year for us to carve pumpkins. Brooke sure thought the inside of the pumpkin was GROSS but she did it! Lexy decided to write a face on hers this year but she played in the pulp that was on the table.

Here's how our jack-o-lanterns look in our garden (Lexy choose two so Brooke says it looks like we have a baby)...

Here's our almond bark covered "ghost" bananas...

Rah Rah Rah!!!

Brooke had her 3rd game of cheerleading last night. She did great, we are so proud of her! Grammy and Papa came to watch (and freeze) with us! We were a little late in getting there (the van didn't want to start!) and were SO disappointed when Brooke told us that we missed hearing her and a few of the other girls sing the National Anthem before the game began...I'm sure they were absolutely wonderful, I sure would have liked to video tape that!

Brooke and Kenzie being silly...
Another surprise tonight!!! Brooke got to be a flyer because one of the other cheerleaders was hurt. She did great...I about had a heart attack everytime she went up!! She said that while practicing the other girls almost dropped her, SO glad I wasn't there to see that!

Here's a video of one of the dances that the girls have been practicing. They got to do it at half time (after the band finally realized they were waiting and stopped playing!). Brooke is the 4th girl from the right.

More pics...

More pics from the weekend...

#1 - The girls are playing in the "corn box" much better than a sandbox!!
#2 - Don't we look cute, Lexy loved that it looks like she's driving!
#3 - Picking out the pumpkins.
#4 - Our little scarecrows - notice Brooke is wearing a dress, belt and hat!

Saturday Fun!

This weekend for family fun day we took the girls (Kenzie too!) to a pumpkin patch. Grammy and Papa joined us and we all had a GREAT time!! The weather was perfect, can you believe it was in the 80's in Oct.?!! There was SO much for the girls to do, here's some pics...

This was the favorite activity of all the girls, they went on the zipline a million times...they'd love one in the backyard!

Grammy and Papa with the girls...

A new month...and bored!

Well here we are in October already (only 2 months and 24 days until Christmas!). I do truly love this time of year...the trees, the leaves, the crisp fall air (although we haven't had much of that yet), the festivals and pumpkin patches.

Even though it is my favorite time of year I have found myself bored and a little down. I am SO not used to having any time to myself (haven't in 12 years!) and I just don't know what to do with myself. Brooke goes to school all day, Lexy is in school for 3 hrs every morning and there's no other kiddos here. Yes I have plenty of projects that I could be working on but I'm one of those people that only gets motivated to do things when I'm terribly busy and in the middle of chaos. I just can't get motivated when there is no time constraints.

So here I sit getting nothing done wondering what is the next thing to come...