how do i talk my 4 year old out of

wanting me to sew him a transformer/vampire/skeleton costume at the last minute??

I pulled out the old costumes out of storage and it was easy.

One of the benefits to having an entourage of older brothers and sisters and a cheap frugal mother:

He can go as Darth Vader,

Buzz Lightyear,

Pikachu,

Pokémon Trainer Ash Ketchum,

a lion,

a leopard ( hood not pictured),

or Sheriff Woody all from the comfort of his own home.

He decided on a lion at school, Pikachu at the mall, and Darth Vader in the neighborhood.

Now I don't need to learn how to sew a transformer/vampire/skeleton costume at the last minute.

And that makes me smile.

I hope the kids share more than just Mounds this year.  Happy Halloween!

Candy Buyback

A local dentist is offering to buy back Halloween candy at a rate of $1 per pound. Check out this article for more details.

Happy World Toilet Day

George and I just happened to have scrubbed the toilet this morning before I heard but, November 19th was declared World Toilet Day in 2001.

I'm speechless...

Easter Dinner

It was a quieter Easter for us. We had George but all the other kids were away at their other parent's. The Easter Bunny hasn't even stopped at our house yet, I think he's waiting for the day-after-Easter sales!

After church we drove out to my hometown to have dinner with my family at the Grange. I think there were 47 people in attendance.

We had a nice dinner. Someone in the family was thoughtful enough to even bring a pan of fish sticks. Lo and behold, some of them appeared to be cross-shaped too! This clever person even set up a "silent auction", which was won by Judas who bid "a small bag of coins". He didn't pay up either.

After dinner (and after waiting about 3 hours) I went on a long run with Keith.

On our way home, we stopped at WalMart and did some shopping for the week.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween for us started on Saturday when Brooke, Rachel and I went to the trick-or-treat party at the local community college. Basically we waited in line for about 45 minutes before parading through several campus buildings where students passed out candy in the halls. At the end the girls colored pictures for a coloring contest, then Brooke got in line for a balloon animal while Rachel showed off her pirate costume on stage for the costume contest.

Later on Saturday we carved pumpkins. We take our pumpkin carving seriously at the "family of 9", using patterns and special pumpkin cutting tools. Below are this year's results:




Victoria did an awesome job on this skeleton fish!







Nathan carved a pirate face.








Brooke made a wise owl.








Jacob made his pumpkin into a lizard.







And Rachel, with her dad's help, made a scary wolf.

Luke didn't carve a pumpkin this year since he spent most of Saturday at a friend's birthday party.

On to Wednesday. Dad rearranged his parenting time schedule so that he could pick up the girls and bring them trick-or-treating. Luke stayed and went to church with his mom, and Nathan was ill with asthma. Jacob went with his cousins D & D.

Rachel again wore her pirate outfit, while Brooke was a dead princess and little George dressed in a warm Tigger suit. Even Dad got dressed up, walking along with the kids in his Anderson Varejao wig.





One of the houses we stopped along the way was local radio personality Bob Frantz, who moved into our neighborhood about a year ago.

We had a talk before we started and the kids followed my rules:

1. Stay on the sidewalks, don't walk on people's grass.
2. Say "Thank you" when someone gives you a treat.
   
3. Say "Trick Or Treat", don't just hold out your bucket.

It took us the full hour and a half to walk our neighborhood, including both sets of clusters off our main road. The weather was nice and everyone was friendly. By the end, the kids baskets were overflowing into the little green wagon that George rode in part of the way.

George's basket was so heavy he could hardly hold it, but he wasn't about to let go of it!

As you can see from the final picture, the kids made out pretty good.

Sticks And Stones ... And Car Trunk Lids?

Last weekend started off with a bang! While I was at my fantasy football draft, Emma broke her hand. She had went to a high school football game with her cousin. Apparently she bent over to pick up something, putting her hand on the edge of the open trunk for balance. Meanwhile someone slammed the trunk shut. Ouch!

Victoria took her to get an X-Ray and they didn't get home until almost 3 AM.

Saturday morning we (all 9 of us) were up at 7 AM and soon on our way to the Firelands 5K. Brooke ran the 1 mile fun run, while Luke and I (and several other uncles and cousins) ran the 5K. Following that, we went out to my mom's for lunch.

Next it was back in to town to watch the parade. Emma stayed at Chris's to rest. The rest of the kids picked up more candy than they could eat in a month! Victoria begged, pleaded, and cajoled, to get as many boxes of Dots as she could.

After the parade we went to the festival. For only $5, you get in to the festival and can ride all the rides. This is a great bargain! The kids rode a few rides, we played a few games of Bingo at the Ruritan pavilion (where my dad always used to work when I was younger), and the kids each got $5. Most of them used it to play a dart game and win a blow-up toy.

George used his to play the duck game. He didn't really care about the prizes, but he loved watching those ducks go around in a circle and sticking his arms in the water!

Saturday night was a feast at Chris & Todd's, featuring hot dogs, brats, pizza bites, and best of all, dirt dessert. Then we spent the night back at Mom's (less 2 kids that stayed at Chris & Todd's).

Sunday morning we got up and headed to the cottage to visit Victoria's parents and celebrate her sister Dawn's birthday. After the Pizza Hut fiasco, we got lunch at McDonald's. We spent the afternoon fishing and swimming in Lake Erie, before having dinner and cake and then driving back for another night at Mom's.

Monday, Labor Day, we got ready and went to yet another picnic, this one at Dick & Debbi's. I grilled the hot dogs, reminiscent of my days working for my sister Sharon at the Flower Hospital company picnic. Lunch was followed by a few games of cornhole.

Finally, we dropped my kids off at their mom's and made it back home, just in time for me to make it to my pizza delivery job.

It's a good thing we didn't have soccer this weekend!

George's First Easter Egg Hunt

We went to an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday put on by our parks department. It was in the skating rink. There is no ice at this time so there was a carpet down. They spread straw over a large area and then scattered the eggs on and under the straw.

Kids went by age to find the plastic eggs. Most eggs had candy inside, Tootsie Rolls, Hershey Kisses, and Nestle eggs, and other small candies. A few eggs had papers inside that could be turned in for a "prize."

Luke has won numerous prizes in his egg-hunting career but this hunt was for 3rd grade and younger so Luke and Nathan had to watch and cheer for their siblings.

George was in the first group, ages 2 and under. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, but neither were most of the other kids his age, so there was no real disadvantage. George got a dozen or so eggs and put them in his pretty yellow basket.

The next group was preschoolers. Amazingly we have no children at this age!

After that came the kindergarteners and first graders. Rachel was ready, hoping to fill her pillowcase with plastic eggs. She gathered as fast as she could, and when they were all popped open, she had found 2 "medium basket" certificates!

Brooke and Jacob teamed together in the final group, 2nd and 3rd graders. The plan was for Jacob to hold the pillowcase open and Brooke to grab the eggs, but neither let go of the pillowcase and they quickly resembled an entrant in a 3-legged race. Nonetheless, they got a good quantity of eggs and found 2 "jelly bean tube" certificates.

As is customary at local park events, we saw Brad from the Tuesday night running group, who was there with his girls, Jamie and Brooke, as well as his wife, sister, and several other family members.