Halloween in the Air and at the House

It's starting to be my favorite time of the year again. Oh how I love fall and everything that goes with it, cooler temps,beautiful colors, football, my birthday and my favorite holidays. With Halloween coming up, we've had some funky stuff going on here at the new house. I think the spooks want to play.

One day last week, I came home in the afternoon. When I went to let the kids outside I saw a dead bird had somehow made itself onto our back porch. It was such an odd place for a bird to die. I have 3 theories, 1. It tried to fly into our glass back door and broke it's neck, 2. a neighborhood cat brought it to us as a prize or 3. it's a deranged housewarming gift from the neighborhood weirdo(whom we've yet to meet)? I called Mike and let him know he was on cleanup duty when he got home and the kids weren't allowed to play out back until it was gone.

We now live across the street from a gas station. Not the greatest view, but it is rather convenient, I must say. Well on Wed night I was craving Sprite (I know, not Pepsi?) and Mike said he'd go get me one. I sent him out the front door and all of the sudden heard a loud "Whoa." I went to see what was the matter and saw his looking at this:

 

A giant tarantula just hanging out in the driveway.Seriously, he was about the size of Mike's palm. Huge.  He was missing a leg and Mike said he was moving pretty slow so most likely a pretty old one. Of course we had to let the boys come out and see and they thought it was the coolest thing, ever! Well being the humanitarians we are, we scooped it up in a zip lock container and Mike took it across the street to the field and let it go. I mean who wants that amount of guts on their driveway?

It's been given instructions to stay on it's side of the street and we'll all get along fine.

 

So I've been teasing Caleb about being Frankenstein with the staples in his head. It was time to go get them out on Thursday and with no prompting from me or statements of the sort at all the Dr. immediately told him they should have been in his forehead like Frankenstein and after removing them, grabbed a marker and did this:



 

I had to laugh since I'd been telling him that for a week. He was a good sport about it, but did ask us to take it off before we left the office.

 

Well later that night Mike took the doggie out for a late night potty break and reported that a pure black cat ran right through the yard. All he could see were the eyes mostly. Spooky.

 

So I guess it really was time to kick off the Halloween activities by taking them to the movie yesterday. The sign in the corner of our yard names this house "Sheffied Manor"........Apparently, it should have been "Haunted Manor". But seriously if this stuff doesn't stop in November, I'm calling a Priest!

A Good Friday

Yesterday was such a good day. It started off with the kids having no school which meant we could take our time in the morning and Mike could go into work early to get some much needed items done. We lounged around, I did a little cleaning and then after some lunch it was time to start the afternoon-busy part of our day.
I first took 3 of the 4 kids to the baby sitters house. Then Zaric and I went off to his ear checkup.  The Dr. looked him over and reported that his ear looks great 3 weeks after his minor surgery. The patch is still in place and it all seems to be healing properly and he doesn't want to see us back for another 3 months. Hooray! Zaric and I then went to meet up with Dad and snag him from work.
Mike, Zaric and I drove to our next meeting, the closing on the old house! Hooray! When we pulled up to the building Zaric immediately started talking about cookies. We were confused for a minute until I remembered that when I stopped there to pick up the key to our new home after closing, they had in fact given the kids each a cookie. I can't believe he remembered A. the building and B. the cookie, 4 weeks later. We were there for less than 5 minutes. What a kid! He sat very patiently and ate another cookie while we signed and signed. So now we can official say:



I ran by the old house to drop off the keys then met Mike and Zaric to do another quick errand and get the water turned off. Then it was time to pick up the other kids.

We had decided earlier in the day that we wanted to take them to see Hotel Transylvania and I snagged some advance tickets just in case it was packed with there being no school in the area and all. Caleb invited his best friend Morgan ( the babysitters daughter) along. And off we went.

It was a super cute (although predictable) movie and the kids all enjoyed it. The babysitter was nice enough to keep Faith for us longer so we didn't have to entertain her during it, so that was nice. After taking Morgan back home and grabbing Faith, we decided to end the night with a little pizza. We stopped by NYPD Pizza and ate some yummy pizza and garlic knots. Then headed back home for baths and bed time.

I love Friday afternoons/evening spent with the family. And we are so excited for the sale of the old house and having one mortgage payment instead of two. It turned out to be a great day indeed. :)

Staple Head

 

Last Thursday night we sent Caleb upstairs to get his shower in. He loves our new shower so always begs to shower in Mom and Dad's, so since the twins were currently taking up the kid's bath tub I decided to go ahead and let him. Well after about 5 minutes of him showering, I decided to walk in the bedroom and make sure he had taken a towel and the soap and whatnot he needed to get the job done. As I got closer to the bedroom I heard him wailing about something. It had been a long day and quite frankly I had really had it with whining children so I agitatedly said something like, "seriously Caleb what now?".  And he just kept wailing. I decided to go on in and when I turned the corner to the master bath I was met with a boy stepping out of the shower covered in blood. It was running all down his face onto the floor and the shower looked like a battle zone. I asked a bunch of questions and finally got out of him that he had hit his head on the tile corner shelf. I got him back in the shower to rinse off and yelled to Mike that I needed his assistance. He took over with Caleb and I went to get the twins out of their bath. Once I got them out Mike told me what I was already thinking. He needed to go in. Meanwhile Grandma Braska had been Skyping with him and was listening to all this occur from Omaha. Mike had to come down and tell her goodbye and that we needed to go tot the Insta care.

 

After we looked up the closest one (hey, we're still new here), Mike and Caleb set off while I stayed back with the twins and baby girl to get them in bed. They got in quickly and Mike sent me a text right away that they couldn't do stitches, they were doing staples. About an hour and a half later they came home with 4 shiny new staples in his noggin.

 

 

We later got the story from him and asked how in the world he hit his head on the shelf. Only to be met with "I was jumping up and down." We then asked, "Why would you be jumping up and down in the shower?" And because he's 8 and we should have expected it he replied, "because I thought it would be fun."  Oooi

 

 

 

 It sure hasn't slowed this kid down any though. He's just as wild and rough as he was before and when I picked him up from school on Friday he informed me that he didn't tell anyone that he had staples in his head and even played soccer at recess.  Again, I say Oiii.

We will get them taken out sometime this week. Here's a couple other pics I snapped of him over the weekend one of him messing around with a pipe cleaner mustache and another of him being a great big brother and reading to his siblings. We sure do love this kid, staple-headed and all.

School Days

So I am incredibly late on posting these but they are too funny and cute not to share. These are the pics I took of the first day of school for the boys this year. What handsome lads we have. Caleb is loving the 3rd grade and the twins can not get enough of preschool. They go 3 times a week and just eat it up. 

With school in session and the new house our schedules are hectic to say the least. MWF Mike drops off C at his school while I take the little's to theirs and Faith to the sitter. Then Mike take a lunch to pick up the little's and get them to the sitter's house. A few hours later, I am off work and pic up the little's and Faith from the sitter, then head over to pick up C from his school. Whew, that was exhausting just writing it.  It's not the ideal situation, but it is what it is right now and we are accommodating it. So glad they are loving it. It makes it a little less painful to see their faces and hear their stories when they are done each day.

Ladybug Party

For Faith's party we stuck with the ladybug theme. Mike made these cute invites to send out (I blurred out the address for obvious reasons).
And I decorated it up sticking with the red/black/white and polka dot lady bug theme.

We even stuck with the red/black and white theme for the snacks and had a little candy bar. Red and black jelly beans, red and black licorice, ladybug wrapped mints and chocolate covered strawberries.

And her cake was to die for. Mike had a co-worker make it for us and she did such a great job and yes, it tasted as good as it looks......even better.

We sang her Happy Birthday which she was none too impressed with.

And she kept checking to make sure it was ok to eat her little "1" shaped smash cake.

Once she was sure it was ok, she went to town on it and even tried to share with Dad.

When she realized everyone had been watching her for the last several minutes, she got shy and put her head down.

But still kept nibbling.

And this is what was left of the cake when she was done.

Then it was time to open presents.

And play, play, play!

She got loads of cute clothes, jammies, some shoes, a jewelry box, a play vanity and her first little doll house by Little People's. She loved it all. And once the party started to die down, so did she.

It was a super great party and a packed house. Pretty much everyone we invited was able to come. Thanks again to everyone.

Thanks also to those far away that couldn't make it and have been sending her gifts in the mail. We love that they party keeps coming and we'll get to go pick her out some more goodies with the cash that has arrived. :)

1 Year Photo Shoot

Faith is 1 !!!! I can't believe how quickly this last year has been. It has been jammed packed to say the least. I did a little photo shoot myself in the back yard in her Bday outfit. They turned out great!! Thanks to Mike and the boys for helping me get smiles out of her. Enjoy the pics.

New Digs!

We've officially been in the new house for 2 weeks today! I can't believe it's gone by so fast already and we still have boxes to unpack. We still keep commenting that it doesn't feel like "home" yet and reality hasn't set in. Hoping to hang some family pictures and unpack more boxes this weekend to try and help that along.

Long story short, we are now on our 3rd potential buyer on the old house and should be closing the beginning of Oct if all goes right. Cross your fingers it doesn't fall through again.