County Fair

Today, after Katie's All Saint's Day program, I went to Brady's school for his Fall Festival/County Fair. He got to do all kind of fun stuff...a hayride, face painting, pumpkin patch and tons of games. He is growing up so fast...

Brady and Me

Brady getting his face painted

Brady picking out his own pumpkin
He wanted to pick out a BIG pumpkin He is proud of his pumpkin choice!

He had a great time!

I can't believe Halloween is already here! I am laying low tonight, resting up so that I won't be tired tomorrow for all the festivities...Our neighborhood always has an awesome Halloween with a block party, hay ride and plenty of refreshments for the kids AND adults! Pictures to come...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all yall out in the cyberworld! Have a fun and safe night!

All Saints Day

Whew...so glad today is over! It was All Saints Day at Katie and Bren's school...Katie and her 3rd grade class all dressed up as their favorite Saint. Katie's Saint was St Catherine laboure. Now... before you view her pic, let me explain something...St Catherine wore a "habit" that was big and floppy, just like Sally Field in "The Flying Nun". I made one out of foam craft paper. I did the best I could, but let's face it...big floppy habits aren't the most practical form of headdress. Katie and I went rounds and rounds last night with lots of screaming and crying. She did NOT want to wear it. I pretty much had to threaten her life to get her to wear it. Today at school, I almost had a nervous breakdown because she wouldn't walk in her class with it on. She finally put it on and I went to wait in the gym for all the "Saints" to come in. God Bless her heart for wearing it~~ Poor girl...I can't say that I blamed her...it was crooked and sideways because it was hitting the persons beside her in the face! I don't think I will ever let her read this, and I not admit it to her.....but you gotta admit she was a trooper for wearing it!LOL I guess I will be extra nice to her tonight...she will probably have to have years of therapy from this day!!

(Maybe I should have just ordered one from a costume place?)

She is never gonna let me live this one down...
Bless that little Saint's heart!:-)

That is one fine group of Saints~

Everyone looked awesome! It was so much fun seeing everyone dressed as their favorite Saint!

My niece, Morgan

Bren and his buddies

Bren and his buddies again...

I was wiped out after that stressful, emotional morning! Especially while trying to recoup from my sickness...but my morning wasn't over...still had to go to Brady's school County Fair! Pictures from that to come...

Halloween Costumes for School

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days...I got diagnosed with pneumonia yesterday! So, needless to say, the only thing I would have posted about would have been how crappy I feel. Hopefully I will be better by Halloween night. Regardless, life goes on and the kids still must have their fun, even if mommy is on her death bed! Our school is having their Halloween Carnival today so Katie and Bren dressed up. Katie is a Rock Star and Bren is an Ole Miss Football player. Our neighbor, Chase is a Hitmen Baseball player. They looked so cute this morning. I just had to get a picture...I hope they have fun today. I hate I am missing it.:-(

Katie, Bren and Chase hamming it up for the camera!

Look at poor Max peeking out the window! He wants to be in on the action!

I'll post more Halloween pictures in the next few days...Hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween.

Corn Maze

My sister Wendy and her family came to visit this weekend. We had a wonderful time. Saturday night Brian cooked an awesome Cajun Shrimp Pasta and Sunday morning he made homemade Belgian Waffles...My nieces favorite!

We took the younger kids to the Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch in Kiln, Ms. The kids had a blast. We went on a hayride, picked out our own pumpkins, saw the petting zoo...just enjoyed the beautiful day. When we got home we painted our pumpkins. The smartest thing I did was make everybody wear orange. I was thinking about how we'd look in pictures, but actually it helped keep up with everybody in the corn maze. I definitely recommend everybody wearing one color if you ever do go, especially if you are with a bunch of kids!!

My sweet nieces love coming to my house during Halloween. I was happy they were able to come visit during it!


Here they are having a great time at the Pumpkin Patch!

Katie, Brady, Cameron and Nicole

Wendy and Me Katie and Brady

Nicole

Cameron

We had a wonderful time and I miss them already!!

Peppermints or Cond*ms?

My Mother In Law always tries to get me to take the Flu Shot. Last year she took Brendan to get his and he was the only one that didn't get the flu. So this year when she asked me to go, I hesitantly agreed to meet her at the Health Department so we could all get them. Now you would think, that after giving birth to 4 children, I would be used to needles...but I am terrified of shots. It was really hard trying to hide my terror from the kids, but I think I succeeded.

Looking back, my kids didn't really act all that rotten...if it had been me as a kid, there would have been no way I would have sat there and gotten a shot like that. I remember when I was about 10 years old, and my mom let me and my cousin Chris walk up to Dr Bill's office for me to get a tetanus shot. They ended up having to call my mama to come and sit on me in order to give me the shot! Patrick went first, then my brave baby Brady volunteered to be next! Then I went...I didn't even squench! Brendan and Katie were last. They were all very brave and even as stressful as it is taking them all to the Dr, I was very proud of all of them for being so brave.

While we waited for our shots in the public health department, I tried to keep the kids from climbing the walls. Not an easy feat!
I guess they encourage birth control or something, because they had a hanging file holder on the wall labeled "c o n d o m s". In all the chaos, I made a mental note of it and prayed no kids asked me what they were. Well, one of the nurses walks right up to it and grabs a handful of them and walks out. Of course that peaked all the kids curiosity...Brendan (my ten yr old) somehow got it in his head that they were peppermints. Patrick (my 15 yr old who KNEW good and dang well what they were) tells Bren to go get some peppermint!! So Bren walks up there and tries to grab a big ole handful of them!! I almost had a heart attack right there!! Luckily I stopped him in time, did damage control and didn't have to give all my kids the "birds and the bees" talk in the middle of the health department!

READING FAIR PROJECTS FINISHED!!!

So sorry I have neglected this blog, but I have been extra busy these last few days. I started cleaning Katie's room on Sunday afternoon and didn't finish until Wednesday! Then, talk about waiting until the last minute...Bren and Katie's book fair projects were due Thursday but we didn't find the tri-fold posters until Tuesday! This is for Mississippi Dept of Education Reading Fair and the rules are strict...you must have a certain size poster board, which Walmart did NOT have. Surprising since Walmart usually has everything. We ended up getting it at Hobby Lobby. Needless to say, we were working all day and night on them...I think they turned out pretty good. We had a lot of fun regardless. I'm hoping that my kids inherit my love of reading. The verdict is still out on it. These kind of projects really do encourage kids to read.

Of course I had to take their pictures this morning with their finished projects!:-)

Bren's book was HATCHET...which is kinda scary to google...you wouldn't believe the things that come up if you don't google "book" with it!LOL

Katie's book was named "Katie Kazoo Switcheroo: Girls Don't Have Cooties"! I love that name!

TADAAAA!

"You're A Genius, Mom!"

Who knew? You never know what is gonna come out of the mouths of babes, but I thought this was so cute. Especially after writing about the teenage years and how they go from thinking you know everything to thinking you are the stupidest person in the universe. This is a perfect example...and it makes me thankful that I have a 4 year old too alongside my teenager, so at least I am still smart to someone! Last night after Brady took a bath I told him how important it was for him to stay clean since he was getting his school pictures taken today. He has gotten into a bad habit of drawing magic markers on everything...himself, his toys, the wall...whatever he can draw on...the world is his canvas. I stressed to him not to so he would be clean for his pictures...(he is quite vain so I knew that would make him at least stay clean for the pics) I guess he had colored one of his cars with washable markers that wouldn't dry on metal, so when he picked it up it got all over his hads. Green hands, oh my! He was very upset, not wanting green hands for the pics...we tried to wash them but it wouldn't come off...so I said "just sit here and let the soap "sit" a while, then scub some more"...Low and behold, the marker came off!! Clean hands! He ran up to me and said "you're a GENIUS MOM!!" :-) Soap and water, who knew?!LOL Mommies just know these things...

ALL CLEAN, MOM!!

Halloween Photography

This weekend I painted Katie and my toes orange with black polka dots for Halloween. I played around with some photography , but my camera takes almost "too good" of pictures...you can see every mistake made, every little flaw!LOL And don't even get me started with photographing my toes...I took one look at those pics and hit d-e-l-e-t-e...believe me when I say 8 year old toes are way cuter than "almost 40" year old toes! It's weird when you see something in print how your perception is so different...maybe I need to stick behind to lens from now on!LOL

Here are some cute pics of Katie and her tootsies!

I got a mini-tripod and tried out some pics without any shakes...It really does make a difference.

Here's some close-ups of some of my Halloween Vignettes around the house...

My Halloween Decorations are all messed up outside right now. After a big thunderstorm we had, I brought a lot of them in so they wouldn't fly away...It has been rainy lately and the ground is wet so I haven't been out front to fix it back up yet.

Christie's Creations

Now taking orders! Perfect for Christmas gifts for all ages! They start at $20.00 plus $5.00 per extra disc. I have ordered a smaller font so I will be able to do longer names...will post pics of examples when it comes in!

Blackmail Pictures!

The other day after the Garage Sale, my neighbor Buzz was taking some pictures of Brady. Before he got the camera, Brady was sitting by a tree looking so sweet just gazing into space. It would have been a perfect picture! But when Buzz came out with the camera, in went Brady's finger into his nose. The more I told Brady not to do it, the farther it went up his nose. So when I was showing Brady the pictures I told him I was gonna put them on my facebook...well you'd a thought I'd told him I was gonna cut his hands off! He started crying and screaming "please don't put them on your facebook!" So of course I didn't put them on there, but he didn't say anything about me putting it on my blog!!LOL It has taken me forever to get this posted though, because I keep on having to minimize it whenever one of the kids walk in or they'd roll me under the bus, for sure!!

I was gonna be the nice mommy and respect his wishes, but after the way he acted Friday, I feel vindicated!! First of all, we went to pick Patrick up from school...for those of you that don't know, Patrick goes to an all-boy catholic school. It is ran pretty strict...So we are all waiting on Patrick and I really needed to use the restroom...after 4 kids my bladder is quite weak...so of course all the kids have to go in with me. Poor Patrick, I know we embarrassed him so much, he was like"did you have to bring the whole family in??" They are all running around acting crazy...Brady goes up to one of the coaches and punches him in the leg...I apologized and got on to Brady, then the principle comes in and starts asking Brady questions. The principle picks Brady up and lifts him to the ceiling(the man is very tall)...Brady's eyes get as big as quarters!! Once Brady gets put down he points to the principle and says"you going to jail!" I was like, "good Lord, lets just get outta here before he says something worse!"

And just because I am a glutton for punishment...we then go to the Driver's License Renewal office. We waited over 2 hours, the kids were getting very restless. Brady kept yelling and running around...then the lights start blinking on and off...the woman behind the counter screams"whose turning the lights on and off??!!!" I'll give you one guess of who it was? I wanted to climb under a rock!! But I guess we were good entertainment for all the folks waiting in line...everyone knew Brady's name when they were walking out!!!LOL

I actually think this picture is cute...I will put it in his yearbook when he is a senior!!LOL

My Attempt At Photography 2

Of course I had to take some pictures of my ghouls! I thought these turned out scary!

Boo!

This is my favorite...notice the bat flying in the background...