Getting Ready for the Boo-fest

This past week was a bit of a whirl-wind. It passed so quickly that I didn’t really take any pictures until the weekend. In his spare time, Paul has been catching rats and field mice in a live trap (our neighbor doesn’t really take care of his backyard, so it’s literally a breeding ground for them…insert rolling eyes face here). I think he’s up to 6-7 now. He’s started releasing them farther from the house in the hopes they won’t make their way back. Joseph said we need to start painting dots on them so that we can see if the same ones are coming back and getting caught again. This weekend was all about Halloween prep. The kids and I went to Buc-ee’s to get new Halloween shirts on Saturday. Today, we painted pumpkins. I think the thing I’m most excited about for Halloween (other than it being my absolute favorite holiday) is that it’s supposed to actually be decently cold. Like, in the 50s. This dashed Abigail’s hopes of wearing her new pirate costume (it is NOT a cold-weather costume), but she said she be just as happy being Sonic and wearing her much warmer Sonic costume. I’m just glad she’s going to be well enough for Halloween. She popped a fever on Thursday night and was saying her ears hurt. Paul took the day off on Friday and took her in to the doctor. She has a double ear infection and a nasty cough. She ended up with antibiotics for the ear infection and some liquid albuterol for the nebulizer that we luckily already have (we’ve used it with saline to help her with congestion). She’s a different kid already.

The required “pose with the Buc-ee statue” picture. I need to remember to order poor Joseph another set of sunglasses, poor kid.
Abigail just about lost her mind when she found someone walking around as Buc-ee.
The moon was full last night and the wispy clouds made it the perfect back-drop for this time of year.
I think I posted about this collage last week, but man, these three pictures get me every time I walk out the door. Time is a thief!
This is my kid whose love for Buc-ee’s ties with her love of posing for pictures.
She was going for a silly face…what’s funny is that this is very similar to the funny face that Joseph pulls. She really looks up to her older brother. 😉
I. love. this. kid.
Painting her pumpkin (this was the only action shot I got).
I helped her get the shape of the eyes right and the ears…and the mouth. She filled in the voids. Golden Sonic!
Joseph did the Tri-force from Legend of Zelda. He said he was a little frustrated because it didn’t turn out like he had in his head. It opened things up for a nice discussion about how things sometimes happen that way, but we need to decide if it’s worth the energy to hang on to the frustration or to let it go. I also assured him that it was recognizable as the Tri-force and that made him feel better.
I did a simple scene from Nightmare Before Christmas…
…including Zero and his grave dog house.
Paul did Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales. The pumpkin is the perfect shape for it!!

A Little Bit of Everything

This past week help a little bit of everything. Joseph had his first recital/concert, I got report cards finalized and over half of my parent/teacher conferences taken care of, I got a new student, Abigail started attending the Learning Tree program after school (which makes my schedule sooooo much easier), and Paul? Well, Paul got diagnosed with pneumonia. He’s been sick for over a month and waiting it out (thinking it was a cold/allergies) and a round of antibiotics (for what they thought was a sinus infection) didn’t work. He went into Urgent Care again and they did a chest x-ray. They diagnosed him with pneumonia and were able to get him on the right antibiotics. It has taken a few days, but he is slowly getting better. We’re gearing up for Halloween and trying to take deep breaths because once November hits, it’s a whirlwind of holidays. Then before we know it, spring will, well, spring…and then it’ll be summer vacation before we know it. Hooray?

Giving us his “Cheese!” face (he’s fourth from the right).
Getting set up to play. They did just beginning percussion in this recital and had separate recitals for the other parts of the beginning band.
Showing off his awesome sense of rhythm and beat.
I got a multi-pack of some cute Halloween earrings. I think these are my favorite. Also, please take note of how tired my eyes are in this picture. I’ve been pulling 11.5 hour days at work. Parent-teacher conferences dip quite far into my afternoons, so that pushes back my prep time, which then pushes everything back.
Paul improved upon my earlier design by replacing the wreath door hangers with hooks screwed into the door. It’s so much better. Before, it would slide back and forth as we would open and close the door and sometimes even get jammed a bit. This is a vast improvement!

A Somewhat Celestial Event

I think the highlight of this past week was the annular eclipse. San Antonio was right in the path for seeing the complete “ring of fire”, so all we needed to do was make sure we had our solar glasses and then step out onto our front porch and look up. It was partially cloudy, but luckily it was also breezy, so we had plenty of opportunities to see it. I didn’t have a filter for my phone, so I didn’t take any pictures (taking pictures of the sun isn’t a good idea for the camera on one’s phone), but I had friends who were able to take pictures and said I could share them with family and friends. 🙂 Other than that, our week was pretty typical. I just finished up report cards and have most of my parent-teacher conferences set up. Paul is keeping busy at work and both kids are keeping more than busy at school.

I stopped by the store one evening to grab something and was greeted with this sky. We live in a beautiful world!
Abigail kept herself busy one afternoon by asking me to print up a picture of a bat so that she could draw one on my mini whiteboard. I think she did a pretty stellar job!
Checking out the “Ring of Fire”. It will be cool in April when the total eclipse happens. We’ll be right in the path for that one as well.
The shadows looked really cool during the eclipse. Like little crescent moons…
One of my friends was able to get this shot with the clouds and the eclipse. Pretty cool!
Another friend got this shot and the next one.
It makes me wonder what ancient people thought about celestial events such as this one. I learned that the Navajo regard eclipses as sacred events, but it would be cool to know what other groups of people thought when they saw something like this happening.
Last Christmas, I decided to print up some pictures of past Christmases to display. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a really cute Halloween picture (it’s the one of Joseph dressed up like a Pokemon trainer and Abigail is dressed up as Pikachu, sitting in her stroller) and decided I wanted to do the same thing for Halloween. It took a couple weeks before I finally had time to send the photos off to be printed, but once I got that accomplished, it came together pretty quickly. I think I might do this for the kids’ birthdays and maybe for our anniversary as well.