Happy Halloween!

I’m glad Halloween fell on a Saturday this year.  That’s because John just started his new job and he has been training in Torrance in the LA area all week long.  He’s only home for the weekend, and will be in Torrance training for two more weeks.  If Halloween had fallen any other day of the week, John would have missed out on the festivities.

Our church had a small fall festival, so we decided to take the boys to that.  Micah wanted to be Spiderman again this year, and we had a spider costume for Caleb that a friend had given us, so it worked out perfectly.  If you know me, you know that I love it when it works out that the boys are coordinating.  It doesn’t work out often, but I take advantage of it when it does.  So that’s how we got Spiderman and his spider.

We got to church just as my sister-in-law and our nieces arrived.  Madison was Sharpay from High School Musical and Taylor was a leopard.  Group picture time!

There was a bouncy house and quite a few games.  There was a cake walk and face painting.  The boys loved the bouncy house and all of the games.  The boys ended up leaving with a TON of candy. 

                         

Micah, John and I all got our faces painted.  I’m surprised that Micah sat still long enough to get his face painted.  And I was a guinea pig for one of our youth who hadn’t painted faces before.  But she did a great job, and she also painted John’s tiger face.

We also decided to take the boys trick or treating for the first time.  There is a really nice subdivision where a few of my bunco friends live, so I thought that would be a nice area to take them trick or treating.  Our nieces also went trick or treating with us.

The boys were super excited to go trick or treating.  All day long, they were practicing saying, “trick or treat.” 

This house was our last stop for the night.  It was getting cold, even though we had dressed the boys in warm clothes underneath their costumes.  Everyone had  a great time. 

Oh!  I just remembered a funny story about Micah’s costume.  We had gotten him another Spiderman costume because last year’s costume was a little snug.  His costume came with muscles sewn into the fabric.  When we tried it on, Micah asked me, “Are these boobies?”  He was pointing out the pectoral muscles.  It was too funny!  After we contained our laughter, (Micah doesn’t like to be laughed at) we told him that those were his Spiderman muscles.

Things that go bump in the night

The boys and I just returned from a very quick trip to Fresno.  My Uncle Paul was getting ready for bed on Monday night when he started having chest pains.  My Aunt Lori took him to the hospital where they immediately took him up to Thoracic to clear a 100% blockage, and they also put in a stint.  He came back home on Tuesday afternoon. 

My dad called to let me know that he was planning on flying up to check on my uncle.  Today was a staff development day at school, so I had the day off.  So the boys and I ended up driving up yesterday afternoon.  We got to Fresno in time to have dinner with Uncle Paul, Lori, Jacob, Alison, and my dad. 

Uncle Paul looked good.  He is taking it slow and supposed to be resting a lot.  I’m glad that God was watching over him and that he hadn’t just thought about going to sleep thinking he would feel better in the morning.  He said he was pretty sure that if he had gone to sleep that he wouldn’t have woken up.

We stayed with my dad in his hotel room last night.  Micah slept with Grandpa in his bed, and Caleb and I slept on the sofa bed.  About 12:30 this morning, I hear a thump and a muffled cry.  Caleb had fallen in the space where the mattress and the sofa meet at the head of the bed.  I tried to get him to stand up so that I could pull him out, but he couldn’t understand what I was trying to do.  There is more space in the corners, so I ended up having to pull Caleb up by his feet.  He and I both went quickly back to sleep.

About 3:15 this morning, I get woken by a HUGE thud.  Micah had fallen off the side of the big king bed.  I think he landed on his head because sometimes when I check on him at home, he is hanging off the side.  He started crying, so I went to go lay with him and comfort him until he fell asleep.  I planned on just laying there until he fell asleep, but I ended up dozing off.  At least….I dozed until there was ANOTHER thud!  It’s an EPIDEMIC!!!

That thud was Caleb falling off the foot of the sofa bed!  By now, I’m thinking that the hotel’s floors are obviously not level, thus making my children roll off the beds.  So I go to get Caleb and climb back into the sofa bed.  But by this time, my dad had gotten up to get a drink of water.  And Caleb decided that he wanted to be in bed with Grandpa. 

I tried to get Micah to move over closer to Grandpa so that I could lay Caleb down next to me, but Micah was having none of that.  So I ended up putting Caleb next to my dad, and in order to prevent another thud from occurring to one of my sons, I laid down on the teeny-tiny portion of the bed that was left.  King sized beds look pretty big until you have 4 people in one.  And two of those people don’t sleep in normal positions.  I spent the rest of the night trying to keep the boys from pushing each other around.  Micah didn’t like being touched by Caleb and vice versa.  I’m pretty sure my dad had feet in his face and shoulders the rest of the night.

I know that many enquiring minds have wanted to know what kinds of things go bump in the night, and now you have your answer!

The best part of all of this is that since the boys didn’t get the greatest night’s sleep, they took GREAT naps on the way home today! 

2009 Pinewood Derby

We took Micah to his first Pinewood derby today.  About a month ago, we purchased a pinewood derby car kit and John and Micah started working on their car.  Our friend had a table saw and cut out the shape that John drew for the car.  Micah helped do a lot of the work on the car.  He helped to sand it down.  He wanted it to look like the Transformer Bumblebee, so he painted it yellow.  John drew the racing stripes and colored one and then Micah colored the other.  You be the judge on who colored which one.

The car has been finished for a few weeks, and Micah had been so patient waiting for race day.  So today we went.  The cars all had to be 5 ounces, so we had to add some weight to the car.  They had washers and glue guns there. 

Micah was in the 6 and under division.  He lost his first two races.  But he had about 4 or 5 more races, and he won all of those.  So he ended up in first place.  It was fun watching his car even though it lost the first two races.  But in the other races, his car would come from behind to win.  And THAT was fun to watch!  Here’s some video. 

Micah had a blast.  They raced other divisions, and since Micah won first place in his division, he got to stay behind and race the winners of the other divisions.  In that race he came in third place out of three.  But he didn’t care one bit.  John told me that after I left to take Caleb home for his nap, that Micah kissed his plaque.  We all had a lot of fun cheering on Micah and Daniel and the other cars.  We will be doing this again next year, and next year Caleb will get to enter a car as well.  Here are some more pictures.