The magic show

Today was Zoe's birthday. We'll be having a party in a week or two, once the house no longer has active construction going on. For today, we kept things simple. Caly invited her best friend Elysha over and the two of them made a cake for Zoe. We read "Happy Birthday To You," by Dr. Seuss aloud (and I do mean LOUD). That's a family tradition on all the kid's birthdays. We even have them shout 'I am I' from the toppest blue space (usually my bed). And at Zoe's insistance, we had a magic show.

When Caly was in the third grade, she and Elysha started putting on magic shows for us. Any time Elysha spent the night, the two of them pulled out the fanciest play clothes, brought in props from all over the house, and put on a show that involved lots of "OK, close your eyes for a few minutes" and "pretend you don't see the string" moments. And, of course, lots and lots of giggles.

Now the girls are 14 and starting high school. Over the years, the show has evolved. Now it always includes their 'lovely assistant Zoe' and even live animals like the goldfish and the cat. But it still includes fancy outfits and not a single trick that actually works.

You can't improve on perfection.

Whoo-hoo!

A while ago I posted about Zaven thinking ahead to college. We'd learned that now was the time to research and choose schools that he'd like to attend even though he's still a junior. Apparently, good students spend that extra year perfecting their application, finding financial assistance, and doing everything they can to up their odds of getting to attend a school that's a perfect match for them.

When I first learned about this, I figured it was kind of overkill. But on the off chance that it wasn't, we started looking at the process. Turns out, so many kids do this that you're at a real disadvantage if you don't. So we started looking around at schools, considering majors and career choices, and Zaven took his ACT. He did good. Actually, he did really good. But then he found a school that he loved. Really, really loved. Kenyon College in Ohio. And for that particular school his ACT scores were just barely good enough. And maybe, not good enough at all. They're as picky as a lot of Ivy League schools.

But a few weeks ago he retook the ACT. And I got the scores today.

He kicked ass.

Kenyon College, you'd better get ready.

Kitty Pie

I call Quinn a cutie pie all the time. Turns out, he thinks I'm calling him a Kitty Pie. He is so freaking adorable sometimes.

Zoe's engagement

This week, Zoe came home from Kindergarten with some news. She's getting married! Last week she met Jacob, her best friend's cousin. Apparently he fell madly in love with her at first site and has already proposed. She said yes. They've decided to wait for the actual wedding until they are grown-ups. For now she's happy just having a boyfriend. She says that when she thinks about him, her eyes sparkle. She's already kissed him (on the mouth!) and is planning to give him a naked barbie as a gift because she thinks it's fun how naked barbies make the boys at school so upset. She's very excited about giving him the gift and says that she's sure he'll be terrified. Wow. Only five and already she knows that having your fiance terified of what you might do is a good thing.

All two of me.

The other day was trash day. For me it's not a big event, but Zoe really likes it. What she likes is that after our trash is picked up, she can take the empty trash can back to the house. Our driveway is about a tenth of a mile long. Zoe loves to walk up from the road to the house and she loves it even more when she can drag the empty trash can with her. It has wheels so it's not too difficult, even on the gravel. But it gives her a big feeling of accomplishment.

This time, we had a lot of trash. We used all three trash cans. So after I'd picked up the kids from school I stopped at the bottom of our driveway and let Caly, Zoe, and Quinn out of the car so they could walk up the drive. Caly and Zoe both carried trash cans. Zoe raced ahead so that she could lead the way. I opened the window of my car so that I could hold on to the handle of the third can a carry it up the house as I drove. I let the kids walk up first, then I drove the van up. When I got out, Zoe asked me if she'd earned extra allowance. I said I thought that all three of them had because they'd all three worked hard. She said, "Well all two of me did, but I was in front so I should get extra."

I can't argue with that!

Catching up

After having spent all last week either sick or taking care of someone who was sick, our house is totally trashed. So this weekend Scott took Zaven and Quinn over to his mom's house. Quinn is right at the age where he makes it impossible to get things done. If you're distracted by cleaning something, he uses that time to make another (larger) mess. Anyhow, the end result of this is that it's only girls in the house today.

Caly and Zoe are 8 years apart in age. Sometimes they don't get along because of that. It's too easy for them to fall into the parent/child roles. And even when they are acting as equals, they don't exactly share interests. But sometimes, every now and then, they get along perfectly. I've got my fingers crossed that today will be one of those days. They need it.

The mess.

I've been trying to get rid of stuff. That's part of my 2010 goals. I want to be more organized and as soon as I started trying to organize our stuff, I realized that we have way too much of it. Part of that is natural. We have four kids. Each comes with their own set of interests, likes, and dislikes. So they each have different books, toys, etc. But I'm realizing that a big part of it is my own desire to indulge them. I don't keep a lot of stuff for myself. I regularly purge my own junk. And if I didn't have the ambition to take back up a few crafts (crochet, sewing, painting) when Quinn gets back in school, I wouldn't have any junk at all. But when it comes to everyone else's stuff, I have a much harder time letting it go.

I look at an old toy and I remember how much fun Zaven had with it... and I keep it. I SAY it's for Quinn, but honestly he has no interest in it at all. It's just that I want him to have interest. And the same thing goes for books, clothes, etc. I even find myself doing it with Scott's stuff. I want him to be happy, to have hobbies, to do fun stuff. So I don't make him get rid of the stuff that has been sitting around, unused, for years.

But I've decided that what my family needs is more space and less clutter. So I'm on a big purge. And even though it's going to take a while, I already feel better. Each area that I clear makes me feel a bit more excited and happy. I don't miss the stuff at all.

The elusive Dr. Lisc

I write lists. I could tell you that I developed the habit to help combat the confusion of having four kids around. But in all honesty my mom says I've done it since I learned how to write. It's a good thing, though. I have an awful memory for the mundane details of life like getting milk at the store or remembering to change the sheets regularly. Writing lists of what I need to do, need to buy, need to remember... that keeps me on track. And it keeps me from being an incessant nag. I just write down what I need the kids to do and they're in charge of getting it done. But there is one thing that has been on the list for about 7 months. Dr. Lisc.

Last summer, Zaven turned 16. So I added an item to our family to-do list. Get him a driver's license. Only I always misspell license. I spell it liscense. And when I wrote it down on the list I abbreviated it Dr. Lisc. Caly promptly asked, "Who's Doctor Lisc and why do we need to see him?" And so began the search for the elusive Dr. Lisc.

During the summer months, Zaven was away at Upward Bound. No opportunity to even study for his permit.

Once he was home we kept forgetting to stop in at the courthouse to pick up a manual. But after several weeks we remembered. Only guess what? They don't print driver's manuals any more. You have to download them from the internet. And it turns out that they're a bit thicker than I remembered. The document is about 130 pages long. Printing out 130 pages is out of my budget. So Zaven would need to read it online. The job off capturing Dr. Lisc just got a lot more complicated. We have one computer in our home, several people who want to use it, and only a small window of time that Zaven has free in a typical week. He's on a swim team, in an art club, takes music lessons, etc. Add to that the fact that when you put a teenaged boy in front of a computer, studying for a test, even a driving test, isn't what he has in mind. So the simple job of reading and studying a short manual ended up taking about 3 months. And we began to refer to Dr. Lisc as 'The Elusive Dr. Lisc.'

But eventually Zaven did study the manual and was finally ready to take the written test. Only Dr. Lisc had other plans in mind. First we found out that the courthouse in never open when he's out of school and not in an afterschool activity. In fact, the courthouse in our town doesn't administer the test, so he'd be going to the next town over. So even if he left school and went directly to the courthouse he wouldn't get there before they closed. And going to get your permit is not an excused school excuse. So we waited for a day when he had a dental appointment so he would already be out of school with an excused absence. Then we went to the courthouse... only to find that you can only take the permit test from 8-10:30 AM on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Dr. Lisc slips out of our grasp yet again. He's wily, that Dr. Lisc.

The dentist told Zaven he'd chipped a filling and would need to come back in to have it repaired. He also needed to get an appointment with an oral surgeon to see about taking out his wisdom teeth. I set the filling repair up for the next Friday so that he could also take his permit test while he was out of school. We double checked to make sure he had his social security card, birth certificate, letter from the school, etc. Then we headed to the courthouse. He made it as far as the eye exam. Due to his poor vision in one eye (from a cataract when he was 5), he would need to have a form filled out by an eye doctor before he could take the permit test. They assured us that his vision was good enough for him to get a license as long as he had all the mirrors on his car. But he had to have that form filled out first. I was beginning to hate Dr. Lisc.

Our usual eye doctor didn't have any openings for a month. I called around and found one who could see him in a week, also on a Friday, but in the afternoon. The hunt was back on. Dr. Lisc could evade us for only so long. Realizing that it would be too late in the day to make it to the courthouse before 10:30 after the eye appointment, I called the oral surgeon and set up Zaven's initial consultation for the following Monday morning. If all went according to plan, Zaven would get his eye doctor forms filled out Friday, and still have an excused absence Monday morning that we could use as a cover to stop by the courthouse and finally capture Dr. Lisc.

The eye appointment went well. And it turns out that Zaven's prescription has changed. He will be able to pick up his new glasses Monday after school. Oh, and by the way, he would need to have those new glasses with him when he took his permit test. It says so in the small print on the form they wanted his eye doctor to fill out. So even though he'll have an excused absence on Monday morning, he won't be able to take the test until Wednesday morning (not open Tuesday, remember?) and he won't have an excuse to miss school then. And the school office staff is beginning to realize that Zaven is out of school a lot. They're giving me suspicious looks these days. And I've run out of legitimate excuses to check him out. He's already been to the dentist twice, the oral surgeon, and the eye doctor.

The elusive Dr. Lisc has escaped yet again, and I'm not sure how we'll manage to capture him. But I'm now muttering lines from Moby Dick about stabbing at him from Hell's Heart, so giving up is not an option. Currently I'm thinking we'll fake a case of Meningitis or Malaria or something and try it again on Wednesday. But one way or another, Dr. Lisc is going down.

and a Happy New Year!

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long since I posted anything. Well, I won't waste your time filling you in on the last few weeks. Christmas was fun and surprisingly relaxing despite having a cold, but other than that, it's pretty much been life as normal here.

But there is one nice thing I've been meaning to post about, and I think it will be a nice first post for a new year and a new decade.

Just before Christmas, our school had their annual middle school Snowflake Dance. Caly always goes to the dances and she was super excited to go to this one in particular. She'd had someone ask her to the dance, but knowing that he had stronger feelings for her than she had for him, she declined and decided to go with her friends. She wore a full length dress, brand new high heeled boots, and looked fantastic. After the dance when I picked her up, she was giddy with excitement. But she wasn't excited about a boy liking her or asking her to dance. Instead, she was excited about something very different. You see, every year at the dance, the eighth grade elects a king and queen of the dance. Traditionally, no one campaigns or asks for votes for themselves or anyone else. They just vote for their friends. But this year all the kids were passing word to each other to vote for one particular person. So when the time came for the vote, almost every student there had heard about the plan and they all voted for the same person.

No, it wasn't for Caly. It was for one of her friends, someone she's known since they were in diapers together. He's not a close friend though, because despite being in the same grade at the same school, they have hardly ever had classes together. You see, he's a special ed student who is only mainstreamed in some of his classes. Yes, you read that right. The king of the dance is a special needs student. And in case you were wondering, no, it wasn't a prank, a joke, or even pity. He's just a really nice kid, and the other students wanted to make him happy. They like him.

Caly said, "He was so happy! At first I thought he was gonna yell, and then I thought he was gonna jump, and then I thought his face was going to break from smiling so big." As soon as I heard, I called Scott, because Scott is friends with this boy's grandfather and I knew that Scott would be excited. So I called Scott and then Scott called his grandfather to make sure that he'd heard what happened. And apparently his grandfather had arrived at the dance to pick him up early and was there in the back of the room to see it happen. I'm not sure I can really appreciate what that must have felt like.

But what a wonderful way to end one year and bring in the next.

MeRrY ChRiStMaS!!!

OK. It's not Christmas yet. But I've been SO busy that who knows If I'll remember to post before then. You would think that things would calm down a bit, but not really. Today alone Zaven has a trip to Lexington to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Caly and Zaven both have a swim meet (that Zaven can't attend due to going to the concert), and Caly has a chorus concert (that Caly can't attend despite having a small solo due to the swim meet). And every day is like that! We've got a half dozen multiple overlapping events that we're obligated to attend this month. Plus school goes right up to the 22nd. We usually get more time off, but they shortened the break because we'd had several days cancelled because of the flu a few months ago.

On the plus side, many of the activities we've been involved in have been just wonderful. Zaven had his strings concert last weekend (he plays cello) and it was beautiful. I enjoyed it so much. His teacher has a gift, I tell you. Those kids play better than some professionals I've heard. I've also really enjoyed how excited the kids have been about all their various events. Caly got to go to the Nutcracker with my parents, and she loved it. She's also been attending the youth group at her best friend's church and has been talking about all her new friends non-stop. It's nice to see them enjoying life so much, even if it is hard to organize.

'Tis the season to be busy.

Swim season is here. Yes. Swim season. In the middle of winter. The school team has begun having meets. Swim meets are fun, but they aren't like football games or soccer games. Those events don't last six hours. A typical swim meet lasts all freaking day long.

Zaven and Caly went to the first meet of the season today. They left directly from school without coming home. They got home just after Caly's bedtime. Most meets aren't on school nights, but there will a few more that are. And there's a meet almost every weekend for the next two months. There's even one during the Christmas break. Many of them are away meets, which means that you have to add a few extra hours for transportation.

However, there are a few upsides to swim season. First off, Zaven and Caly get a ton of exercise. Not as much at the meets as they do at the practices, though. Most of the time spent at the meets is just waiting for their races. They're actually in the water for only two or three races each, so maybe 15 minutes plus the warm up time. But the daily practices get them a lot of exercise. The other good thing is the showers. We only have one bathroom in our house, so having the two older kids get their showers in the locker room every afternoon is pretty handy.

But all in all, it's just a busy, busy time. And they're in other activities, too. There's their teen mentoring program (they're the ones being mentored), chorus, cello, art club, Upward Bound, STLP (which stands for something unknown but involves Caly making videos every week after school), and of course the city swim team which is different from the school swim team. And for the city team, Zaven volunteers and helps train the beginning swimmers, so that means he stays for two daily sessions, not just one. Plus there's homework, chores, school dances, hanging out with friends, visiting family, and the time teens require to just veg out.

Fortunately for us, most of their other activities are just once-a-week sorts of events. The only thing that really takes up time is swimming. And despite how much time it takes up, I can't help but think that it's really, really good for them. It may kill me... but hopefully it will help them live healthier lives.

The cookie jar

We have... had... a Santa shaped cookie jar. I hated it. First off, it was ugly. Second, it had a sensor that made it say "Ho! Ho! Ho!" incredibly loudly if anyone so much as jostled the lid. Even with duct tape on the speaker and ancient batteries you could hear that thing go off anywhere in the house. And third, it was irregularly shaped both inside and out, with lots of little nooks and crannies that made it almost impossible to clean.

Today, as we were bringing the first of the Christmas boxes out of the basement, I broke it. I broke the hinge on the lid, and apparently I broke the electronics too. And Zoe cried and cried and cried when I threw it away.

I promised her I'd buy her a new cookie jar. A new Santa-shaped cookie jar that talked if we could find one. She was not the least bit consoled. She loves THAT jar. That hideous, annoying, plastic monstrosity of a jar. Sigh.

But I did not dig it out of the trash. I just couldn't. I will find her one that she loves just as much if not more. A nice quiet one with smooth insides that I can get clean so I don't have to worry about putting cookies in it after it's been in the basement for a year. And I will fill it with cookies. I promise.

Literacy night

Last night the elementary school had their annual literacy night. We had such a nice time! Zaven and Caly were at their teen mentoring program, so it was just me and Scott and Zoe and Quinn. The kids and I ate first, because the school was serving chili which the kids won't eat (and I can't have because of my food allergies). So when we got there, we regitered for door prizes then the principal gave each kid a set of those plastic letterst that you put on your fridge. Then we went in and went to the book table. There were dozens of brand new books that they were giving away. It was supposed to be one per student, but they let Quinn pick one out, too. Then we went to the cafeteria. Scott got four bowls of chili since there were four of us. He hadn't had lunch and he ate ALL of it! THe kids and I snacked on raw carrots and cookies while he ate.

Then we went to the Scholastic book fair. Zoe spent her allowance (she gets only 50 cents a week but she saves it up). She had $5 and she bought a book about cats and dogs for herself and then picked out a sale book to buy Caly for Christmas. I thought that was so nice of her. I got a book too, a nice hardback picture book about bats playing in the library at night. I spent $16. Then we listened to a few stories being read.

The door prizes were getting ready to be announced and we didn't want to leave until then (just in case we won), so we walked around a bit. When we passed back by the table with the free books they told us that they had a lot left over and to come pick out any we wanted. So Zoe and I picked out more books. We got some for her to give to Zaven and Quinn for Christmas so now all her shopping is done.

Then they called the winners for the door prizes. We didn't win any, but then they said that a few winners hadn't been present so they were going to draw for those prizes again. Quinn won a $10 gift card to a local Mexican restaurant! I went ahead and gave it to Scott since it expires before Christmas, but I'm still counting that as Quinn giving a present to his dad, LOL.

All in all it was a great night. We only spent $21 (including Zoe's allowance) and got back a set of alphabet magnets, 10 brand new books, and a $10 gift card, plus all that free chili that Scott ate. And the money we spent helps earn free books for the school library.

Tired, but happy.

Today has been so tiring. Scott took Zoe and Quinn's to his mom's house this weekend so the bigger kids and I could try to get caught up on some of the cleaning that needed to be done. I spend a lot of time cleaning... but so much of the time it doesn't really get clean. Not like it should, at least. First off there's the usual business of trying to put things away with a toddler around. I pick up, but Quinn follows behind and takes things right back out. Then there's the fact that I am seriously allergic to dust. Housecleaning literally makes me sick. If I do too much at once, I have trouble breathing. Then there's the fact that there are six of us living here. That means that every day I need to do at least a load of dishes and a load of laundry just to keep up. That's not progress, that's just maintenance. Finally, there's the shopping, doctors appointments, errands, and extracurricular activities of a family with both teens and toddlers. I spend a lot of time in the car. So most of the cleaning I do is just trying to keep things from getting worse, not actually making them better.

But today... that was real progress. Zaven and Caly and I decided to pick one room (the kitchen) and spend the weekend on it. We picked the kitchen. Today we cleaned out the fridge, the freezer, the deep freeze, the top of the dryer (where for some reason all the odds and ends collect), under the table (where we tend to shove stuff to get it out of the way), and the pile of laundry in the corner. The kitchen ISN'T clean yet. We still have more laundry to do, a few more dishes to do, the stove top, and a few boxes in the corner. But man it is SO much nicer. Plus I now know exactly what's in the freezer. I have it organized and we got rid of some things that had been in there forever.

So I'm really tired, really happy, and not so exhausted that I can't finish it up tomorrow. Sure it's just one room. But by the end of the weekend it will be one really clean room. And since it was the worst mess of any room in the house, it feels really good to finally get it the way it should be. Hopefully it will be progress that we can maintain and build on.

Meanwhile, things seem to be going well with the meal planning. Weekends are harder to plan for, but I'd expected that. We tend to juggle our schedule a lot on the weekends, so we've not stuck to the plan exactly. But weekdays have been pretty successful. The only weekday that we didn't stick with the play was Thursday. The kids had picked that day for Scott to make a Pork Roulade, mostly because Zaven and Caly knew they'd be at their Teen Mentoring program during dinner and they wouldn't have to eat it. The both tolerate it, but they don't love it. Scott and I think they're nuts, LOL. Anyhow, Scott and I were both super tired Thursday, plus we had a fridge full of leftovers. So we decided to save the ingredients for later and just finish off some of the things in the fridge. Since I'm new to the planning, I forgot to have a day or two each week for leftovers. I'll remember next time. The one thing I really like about the meal planning is that it makes shopping simpler. I can take a copy of the meal plan with me to the store and make sure I have all the ingredients for the next week. Hopefully it will soon mean fewer shopping trips as I'm able to stock up on sale items and save them for the upcoming dinners. That would be a huge plus to me. Another good thing is that because I posted the plan in the kitchen, Scott, Zaven, and Caly are all able to go ahead and start dinner if I'm busy with Zoe or Quinn. We're getting dinner done a little earlier than we used to this way, and we're definitely eating a more balanced diet.

So probably none of that was of any interest to you guys at all. But I promise some really fun pictures of the kids soon. Quinn was dressing up the other day. I got the best pictures, but I haven't loaded them onto the computer yet. I will though. And they'll be worth the wait.

The good and the bad

First for the bad news. The TV isn't worth fixing. The part needed costs more than a new one. So that pretty much means we won't be watching much TV the next few weeks. I do want to get one, and I do want a nice big expensive one. If I have a big one, I'm less likely to go to the movies. Taking a family of six to the movies every other week for a year would cost over $1000 just for the tickets. Add in popcorn and sodas and gas to get there and the price skyrockets. I'd rather take that same money and buy a TV, pay for satellite service, some redbox rentals, and some popcorn I popped on the stove. But it's gonna bite having to come up with the money.

The good news is that Zaven got his ACT scores back and he did quite well. I'm not gonna post them here because they're his to brag about, but I'm happy and proud of him. Hopefully, this will mean the chance to go to a nice school and maybe get some scholarships to help pay for it.

Meal planning

Well, I've never been a big believer in meal planning. At least, not for our family. In the first place, our lives are very unscheduled. I try hard to keep things organized, but Scott doesn't work a nine to five job, and even when he did he always had a variety of other obligations that meant that I never knew exactly when he was going to be home at the end of the day. And even more difficult than that to overcome is my crazy 3rd-grade taste buds. I have the dietary cravings of an 8 year old. I want the same lunch every day (and HAD the same lunch every day for about 12 years or more), don't like veggies at all, can't stand my foods touching each other... It's nuts. I'm trying hard to expand my choices, and over the years I've been somewhat successful. But even so, I am insanely picky. Add to that that I have a four page list of foods I'm allergic to and you have a real problem with menu planning. So when I look at the monthly meal plans you see in magazines, they're always filled with things that I can't imagine ever wanting to eat.

Of course the problem is that I have a family and even if I can't stand a wide variety, they need it. Scott will eat anything. ANYTHING. 'Possums, skunk, groundhog, rattlesnake, alligator, buffalo, octopus... the list goes on. Whenever our kids were scared of monsters, we'd always reassure them that if a monster did show up, Daddy would put a pat of butter on it's head and swallow it whole. And they always accepted that as a reasonable solution to the problem. Problem solved. Daddy will eat the monster. He eats everything else, so why not?

The kids don't eat quite the same variety that Scott does. Who does? Yet they're much more open to new foods than I am. But whenever life gets hectic or I get sick (and I've been sick all week) somehow we end up having spagetti every night for dinner. It's the fall back food. Zero variety.

So last night I finally caved. I made a list of everything that I like to eat. Then I had Scott and the kids add anything else they could think of to it. I was surprised to realize that there is a lot more variety in our diets than I realized. The problem is not that we don't have any options. There were dozens of things on the list. The problem is that we don't keep the ingredients for those options on hand all the time, or we run out of time to shop or cook. Spagetti is fast. Dinner is ready in 15 minutes. But with a tiny bit of planning we can have other things ready nearly as fast.

So I typed our list onto a spread sheet and broke the foods down into the basic food groups (plus an extra list of casseroles and one course dinners), then printed it off. I also printed a blank monthly calendar and we've spent the past couple of evenings picking out dinner for each weeknight for the next month. Right now, I'm not bothering with breakfasts or lunches because usually that's just Quinn and I. The older three kids all eat at school and I never know if Scott will be home for lunch. Plus Scott is a great cook and more than able to whip himself up a better lunch than I can manage. I'm also not making any weekend plans because I never know if we'll even be home on the weekends. Our extended families both live in the same town about an hour and a half away. We never know which weekends we'll be visiting until the last minute so I feel like it's OK to wait on those plans until we have a little more info.

All in all, I'm happy with the progress. None of the meals are very fancy, and right now I'm happy if there's at least one veggie served and I'm not worrying about keeping it perfectly balanced with low saturated fats and whole grains and organic foods. Anything's got to be better than spagetti 4 nights in a row, right? For me, the goal is to just try to do a bit better than we have been. The rest will come in time.

Happy Halloween!

We had such a lovely weekend. The weather didn't want to cooperate. It had rained all Saturday morning. But it cleared off in time for trick-or-treat. We had to have the kids wear some extra layers under their costumes, but it all worked out.

This was an exciting year for our kids. Zaven was away for the weekend with Upward Bound. They went to Columbus, Ohio for two days, to an amazing science museum, and to a live production of Young Frankenstein. Zaven was excited to see the musical because the movie is one of his favorites.

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed to Somerset to visit with relatives and trick-or-treat there. Scott's sister was visiting with her family, so Zoe was thrilled to be able to trick-or-treat with her cousin William, who is just a few years older than she is. It was also a treat for Caly because William's older sister Heather was there. Heather is 20 this year and she and Caly have just started to make a real connection. After they'd helped take the little ones trick-or-treating, we let the two girls walk downtown for some festivities going on there. Caly was really excited to be off on an adventure on Halloween. Because we so often trick-or-treat out of town, she doesn't get to wander with friends and she's missed that feeling of independence and playful mischief that so many of us associate with being a young teenager at Halloween.

Of course the biggest treat this year was Quinn's first fully-aware Halloween. He's dressed up every year but he didn't have any idea what it meant or that there was candy involved. This year he knew that people were doing unusual things and that he was wearing a costume, and he was able to say trick-or-treat and understood that doing so got him candy. He was in seventh heaven. He was not the least bit scared of all the costumes and decorations, and he loved the walking at night and going door to door. He was even patient about waiting until we'd gotten home to dip into his pumpkin basket of candy, and he only took a little prompting to say thank you at each house, although sometimes he said it in Chinese (a trick he learned from the TV show Ni-hao Kilan). At one point in the night he started shouting "Awesome!" after he got his candy. But the kicker was today. He came to give me a tight hug and then stopped to look in my eyes and told me, "I love." Then he hugged me again. "I love." Then he hugged me one more time for all he was worth, stopped and looked in my eyes, "I love Halloween."

Pumpkin shortage

Am I the only one who never heard about the nationwide pumpkin shortage this year? And am I the only one affected? Apparently. But despite the fact that the farm we normally buy from did not have pumpkins this year, we managed to still get a few. But because of having to hunt for a farm with pumpkins we got there much later in the day and by then the sky was overcast. Our pictures are mostly blurry. But the kids had fun and that's what counts, even if we don't have the photos to prove it.

I don't know if you can see it online, but way off in the top of this picture is a little blob. That's Zoe. When they got in the fields, they just took off running and there was no stopping them. Gotta love pumpkin farms!

Cheap Candy alert! and it's Fall Break all over again

Quick! CLICK HERE for $2 off coupons for 24 oz. or larger bags of Nestle candy and Wonka candy. There are two different coupons that can each be printed twice. That should cut a nice bite out of your Halloween budget.

Meanwhile, we had a bit of interesting news today. Week before last was Fall Break for our school. That's how Caly got to leave town for a week with my mom. Not all schools do Fall Break. It's basically just like Spring Break - a week off of school. But no one goes to Florida or the Carribean.

Last week was regular classes. This week is supposed to be regular classes, too. But I just got a phone call from the school. Classes have been cancelled the remainder of the week due to a large percentage of the students being sick. So we get to do Fall Break all over again. The problem is... Zaven and Caly were among the students who missed school due to being sick today. So far, they're not too sick. Just a low-grade fever and coughs and sniffles. But I imagine that we'll all get it before it's through. Not my idea of a vacation.

But I'm crossing my fingers and trying to think positive. We won't get sick. Of course not. That would be silly.

Alas!

This is the first week of really cold weather this year. Technically, it's not even "really cold" yet, but it's cold enough to have a fire in the wood-burning stove. Because we live in an old house, the change of seasons means a lot more to us than it does to most people. Our insullation is so-so, our heat is a wood-burning stove, and being the only heated building on an 86 acre farm, the change of season also means an invasion of all manner of living creatures. Typically, we get a few mice at this time of the year. We also get bugs.

Bugs are designed to lay eggs in the late summer and those eggs are genetically programmed to hatch if the temp drops low for a while and then comes back up. Nature's plan is that they would lay dormant for the winter and hatch in the spring. But because of how we heat our house, waiting until the nights are more than just a little chilly before bothering with putting in a fire, that hot/cold/hot thing also applies to our house. So things hatch. And this time, what hatched was not something like ladybugs. We had a nest of hornets in the attic apparently. And they hatched in Zaven's room. He got stung on the arm once. We attacked them with chemicals and killed what Scott estimated as a hundred. We moved Zaven and Caly downstairs for a few nights until we were sure they'd all been found and killed. But today Zoe disobeyed Scott and tried to sneak upstairs to play. She got stung on the sole of her foot. Ouch!

Bad as it is for her, it's no picnic for the rest of us. She is a major drama queen, so she's been laying in my bed whining about her foot for hours. It's not that I don't have sympathy. But I can't give her more medication yet or do anything for her. And she isn't hurting so bad that she can't be distracted from it. She's been out of bed to eat pizza, pet the cats, get crayons, tell me a joke, etc. Each time she is fine until she remembers that she's hurt. Then it's the end of the world all over. I'm not too sure how bad it really feels at this point. She's been known to cry for 20 minutes about a cut on her hand but not even be sure which hand is the injured one.

I'm hoping she'll get bored and fall asleep. We gave her benadryl as well as ibuprofen so she should be able to nap.

***edited to add that I was right. She quit whining completely as soon as Zaven and Caly got home and I told her they could decorate the porch for Halloween.