Happy Halloween!!

As promised...

The boys and I getting ready to head into our homeschool group Halloween party earlier tonight. (Micah was trying to get us all to stand on one foot.) Yup, three little robots and a "robot repair and documentation specialist"...well, technically, Micah still thinks he's Diego. We wrote "UltraDiego" on his costume and apparently that's sufficient. (Nathan opted not to make a costume, lol.)

On the costumes...we used shower liner from Home Depot for the main body (a rectangle with a head hole) and then attached old computer parts and stickers and colored electrical tape (each boy decorated his own). Noah and Asher have duct vent arms, and each made/designed their own "helmets" with stuff from the Dollar Store. Along the sides, I used my handy Crop-A-Dile to punch holes and then used zip ties to hold them together (yes, we had to cut them out of their costumes). We didn't use them tonight, but Noah and Asher also have jet packs for their backs...will see if we can figure out how to attach them tomorrow. :) (They're made from duct tape covered shoe boxes with plunger jets and decorated with more computer parts and electrical tape.)

So. Those are our costumes. :) The boys had a blast at the party and are looking forward to trick or treating. I'm bracing myself for the sugar rush and crash, LOL! Since I probably won't post again until this weekend...Happy Halloween!!

Teeth.

Oy. This week has been a doozy. Nothing huge or anything...just very busy. I won't bore you with the details. But. I did want to share with you that we appear to be all about lost teeth of late. In the past week or so:

- I've had one pulled (that wisdom tooth that I told you about...finally all healed and the cough is starting (knock on wood) to subside);

- Noah lost his first one (the first that came out on its own...during music/drama class on Monday...the other four he's lost were all pulled because the permanent teeth were already coming through); and,

- Asher had one pulled Tuesday morning (something about a pulp infection...the dentist assures me it's rare and was frankly baffled about why Asher had encountered this...nevertheless, out it came...making two pulled teeth for Asher, both due to poor dental health...he doesn't appear ready at all to lose teeth for natural reasons).

Yup, all about the teeth around here. :) Here's a pic of my sweet, toothless boys...aren't they cute?!

Noah's got another couple loose (on either side of that big gap) so we'll see how he's looking by Christmas, eh? :) Of course, that one he lost Monday is already growing in...unfortunately, Asher's permanent tooth probably won't be ready to come in for a good bit yet, so this may be his "look" for months to come. Good thing he's so adorable, right? :)

Oh. Question for you. What do your kids think the Tooth Fairy looks like? Until this morning, I thought both Noah and Asher believed the Tooth Fairy to look like "The Molinator" character on Santa Clause 2 (the middle aged guy with little wings who wanted to change his name to "The Molinator"). Strange but true. I'm pretty sure that's still the picture Noah has in his head, but Asher's suddenly thinking the Tooth Fairy is a girl. I just find the whole thing interesting. We've never really described the Tooth Fairy in any specific way, so it's fascinating what they come up with. :)

Tuesday's Tool. A new weekly challenge of sorts!

Meant to post this earlier today so that it was properly Tuesday and all, but had internet issues (don't get me started, lol). So. This will have to do. :)

I've decided to start a weekly challenge. Feel free to play along, though mostly it's just an extra push for me. I find that I have a great number of scrapbooking tools that I simply "had" to have yet have barely touched. I'd guess that many of you can relate. ;) So. I'm going to pick a tool each Tuesday and push myself to actually use it. Simple as that.

For this week, I picked the Crop-A-Dile by We R Memory Keepers. I have the pretty green one, having waited until they finally came out with a model that wasn't pink, LOL! I've had it for ages; but, until this past weekend, I think I may have used it once. Really, though, it is a pretty cool little tool. Sunday I used it for the boys' Halloween costumes:

(Don't worry...I'll post pics of the boys in their costumes by the end of the week!) So. My two favorite aspects of the Crop-A-Dile as of right now:

- It punches through all sorts of materials!! For the costumes, I punched two layers of shower liner (heavy duty vinyl), and I'm so happy with how it punches chipboard.

- I can set eyelets without a hammer. This was the main thing that convinced me to buy this tool. Of course, after buying it, I stopped using as many eyelets for some reason, LOL! Guess I'll have to remedy that...I already have some Christmas gift tags in mind that will be so much better strung on a ribbon through a nice little eyelet.

Since the time when I bought mine, of course, WRMK has come out with the Big Bite version that allows you to reach further into a page or whatever material you're punching. I'm still debating whether that's worth it to me, but am definitely intrigued. :)

So, have you used your Crop-A-Dile lately? Any tips or cool finds to share?

Happy (and busy) Monday!

Totally meant to post on Saturday but had internet issues all weekend. Sigh. I suppose it didn't do me any harm to be unable to get online, but it's definitely a reminder of how much I've come to rely on the internet, lol!

So. It's Monday already. Almost the end of October. Not quite sure where it all went, but happy today. Why? Well...join me, please, in celebrating the END of soccer season!! ;) Yup. I've just regained three hours of soccer practices and two hours of soccer games each week (not to mention the travel times associated with those). Wooooohoooo! Both Noah and Asher had their final games Saturday, with Noah's end of season party following his game. It was such a beautiful day (for more reasons than just the end of the season...hee hee)! In celebration, here are a few pictures of the boys on Saturday:

Asher's game was first. (They won, which always helps.) I just love watching Asher play...he's simply joyous when he's on the field...such a sincere smile and always practically skipping and dancing to get to where he needs to be. Immediately after Asher's game...it was off to Noah's:

Noah is much more serious in his approach to the game (and life in general, lol). His team really worked well together for the last game and managed a win (one of only two for the season). It's wonderful to me to watch Noah and see how far he's come and how dedicated he is to learning more skills...he's really a pretty good ball handler!

And, not to forget my sweet littlest one...who's totally and utterly ready to be old enough to be allowed to play (which will happen next fall):

For now, he's had to be content with kicking the ball around on the sidelines, cheering his brothers and managing to sweet talk himself into an end of game snack at both brothers' games each week (not to mention the cupcakes at both parties, lol). Tough life, eh?

Well, I need to go whip up a little gift, make an exchange, do my usual lunch duty at the boys' "school," eat lunch myself, have my hair cut, try to find a birthday gift for Noah, have a parent/teacher conference (and pick up the boys), get and carve pumpkins, eat dinner, and go to my monthly local homeschool group planning meeting...whew.

So. What are you happy about today? See you tomorrow!

The Love Berry.

So. We were running errands today and one of them was to stop at the library to pick up some dvds for the boys. As we were arriving, Micah started talking about how he likes going to the "Love Berry." Noah, Asher and I busted up over this, of course. :) We can see how he'd get "Love Berry" from "library" but it's still just so dang cute. I think I'm going to call it the Love Berry from now on. :)

Today was also Asher's end of season soccer party (last game is Saturday but we were getting a jump start on things). His coach awarded little certificates to each boy and Asher's reads "Mr. Titanium"..."Way to stand strong and take on on-coming traffic!" He's so proud. :) In particular, all season, he's prided himself on being one of the team's best defenders, and it's probably true (though I didn't keep stats or anything) that the opposing teams scored against them least when Asher was on defense. Really, too, that's saying something considering how tiny Asher looks compared to the other boys out there, but he never flinches when they're coming at him...just goes straight for the ball and kicks it away. Such a trooper.

As long as I'm rattling off random things, I had a wisdom tooth pulled Tuesday. Oddly enough, I never had any wisdom teeth (at least none that broke through) until I started having kids. With each boy, I gained one more wisdom tooth. Yes, this means I don't have the complete four (or that fourth one just hasn't broken through)...and, no, I'm not having another kid just to even things out. :)

Turns out now, that the dentist thinks they should probably be pulled but is hesitant because they really should have been pulled years ago and it'll be tougher now. Oh joy. This one that was pulled Tuesday was rubbing against my bottom teeth and causing sensitivity issues so they took that one right away. The others will have to wait. Unfortunately, thanks to this stupid hacking cough I still have, the recovery on this one extraction isn't going as well as it could since the list of things not to do after an extraction includes things like cough incessantly or drink hot liquids (which help the cough but inhibit healing at the extraction site apparently). Fingers crossed that dry socket doesn't set in. More importantly, let's just hope the stupid cough goes away. :)

In any case, the whole deal with the unexpected wisdom tooth extraction, the crazy weather we've had lately, my cough, the repeat trips I've had to make to a couple different places this week due to mix ups and broken equipment, end of soccer season, start of religious ed classes for Noah and other stuff...means that I haven't really been getting much done yet this week. Oy. Here's hoping the rest of the week goes smoother. Maybe I should just go hang out at the Love Berry. ;)