We ate ghosts for dinner earlier this week:

We tried on wigs:

…and liederhosen:

The best part is that Engineer has been talking for the past couple of days about the wedding slideshow he will have at his wedding.  (My sister just got married and had a slide show of her and her husband as kids.) He said in passing earlier this week, "I’m going to have a slide show when I get married.  It’s going to have pictures of me when I was a kid.  And it’s going to have pictures of Audrey R when she was a kid too…"  When we snapped the shot of the liederhosen, he said, "this one’s going to be in my wedding slide show."

"Mom, I don’t want to wear the duck boots anymore because they  have holes in them…"

And they did.  Saddest day ever.  He wore the boots almost every day and they were the subject of many "conversations with strangers."  (One lady even took a picture!)  But there comes a time in every young man’s life when he must bid his boots farewell.

(Enter funeral music)

Put them on one last time, buddy…

As it turned out, no one wanted to accompany me on the procession to the trash.  Maybe it was too painful…

They’ve gotta go.  (Yes I put gross pics of me on the internet)

Don’t look down.

R.I.P

Back to business as usual…

Until, I remember the lady bug boots….  They’ve been trashed since the inception of their hand-me-down-ness.

One more funny face on a not showered mommy.

R.I.P Ladybugs (Does this make anyone else think of Quasimodo clutching Esmerelda’s dead body in the grave?)

And as I showed the pics to Charming on the camera, Spider came to the realization: "You threw away MY boots?" (Best pic ever, totally not staged, I promise).

Oh, I feel your pain, sweetheart.  But as you get older, you’ll see that tossing stuff is liberating.

Jennifer Tai is amazing!

Ever get the feeling you are being watched?

75 googly eyes don’t go as far as I thought they would.

We saw Santa, it snowed and since we skipped church on Sunday due to inclement weather, we reenacted the nativity.

Santa was not so much of a big hit.   My kids actually really don’t know who he is.  We asked Sugar if she wanted to go and she was like, "uh, sure."  Spider said no until we told her he had candy…

Which is why she is now smiling.

The chickens did not know what to think of the snow.  They’ve been staying in their little house a lot.

Daddy insisted we do something "spiritual" on Sunday.  It was fun anyway.   

Yep. Spider was sick.  But her cranky face made a pretty good Mistress Meriweather, don’t you think?

I tried teaching them the song, but they were too busy being silly:

Of course here’s what Charming and I went as:

Being a nun for Halloween wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.  I don’t know how they get anything done with the habit flowing all over the place.  Oh well.  On to the next Holiday! 

Yesterday was a good pre-Halloween day.  I am going to tell you what we did, but first, this picture, because my children are artists.  They did this to their pumpkins and then they photgraphed it.  I think they did a pretty good job, don’t you?  They’re still in trouble for nicking my camera but…

So like any crazy preschool teacher, I decided we would take a field trip to see the great pumpkins yesterday.  I would be alone with the children and we would be walking along a semi-busy street.  Fortunately for me, I had only four children instead of six and a very clever idea for keeping them all together.

But first, since we are finishing a unit on spiders, we decided to eat our snack the way that spiders do– by drinking it.  Some were thrilled.  Some were not.  It turned out to be more of an ordeal than I had anticipated.

But c’mon how could I not take pictures of that?

So then we rounded them up and made the trip to see the big pumpkins.

They did not want to leave.  For me, this was not that entertaining of a place.  Just a stop on the road with some hay bales and big jack-o-lanterns (which are cool, don’t get me wrong.)  But for them it was endless fascination and delight.  After much whining about it being time to go, they finally trudged home like a chain gang.

And then preschool was over and Halloween Eve festivities ceased until I realized I had some costumes to hem.  Beautiful costumes made by my dear and talented mother.  The pattern had made them too long and so like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, I found myself surrounded by pink and blue fabric, a dangerous pair of scissors in my hand, making a mess of things. 

Where the heck did I put that magic wand? 

Engineer, a normally slow to dress himself child, bounded into my room this morning around 7:45 and exclaimed, "It’s the first day of kindergarten!"  By the time I rolled myself out of bed he was fully dressed and asked if we could get in the car.  For the next hour and a half all I heard from the child was, "Is it time to go yet?"

Kindergarten is going to so totally rock.

He met with his teacher today for 20 minutes and he couldn’t understand why he had to leave so soon.  He had a hard time answering the teacher’s questions because he was so distracted by all the letters and numbers around the room.  He kept looking around and making observations.  "Where’s the Z?  Oh, it fell down?  The U is going to fall down too…"  The child was in his element.  I don’t think he would have had a bigger high if he’d eaten cotton candy for breakfast.

While I was in the hall, another mom (realizing this was my first to go to school) asked me how I was doing.  I said I was great.  No qualms, no issues.  Feeling fine.  It wasn’t until (like Kathyrn) I was filling out some paperwork that I got a little fazed by it all.  The last question on the page was somewhat to the effect of, "what makes your child a special person?"  And how do you answer that?  I mean, he’s special because he’s mine?  He special because he’s my first born, chubby cheeked baby boy?  I wanted to write all about his sweetness and his brilliance.  How he calls me into his room when he can’t sleep and says, "Mommy, will you just talk to me?"  How he still gives me random hugs.  How even though his knowledge has increased, that nearly everything his teacher quizzed him on today he could have answered when he was still this boy: 

I can hardly believe my drinking milk from a straw cup, sleeping with his letters j & k, baby boy is entering the public school system.   Am I a little emotional?  No.  Nope, not really.  No.  Not at all.

Okay.  A bit.  Just a little bit. 

My sweet little Spider,

In my prayers last night I told Heavenly Father how thankful I am for you.  You are our little act of faith– an unexpected blessing.  You are the child that brings balance to our family.  My little snug a bug and my source of endless smiles and laughter.  You just continue to become more of a delight the older you get, and that makes me glad.

I can’t believe that you are two!  I love watching you grow and hearing you learn to talk. You are so teachable and a quick learner.  Yesterday we got to put all my eyeshadows and cheek colors away and I found joy in hearing you repeat all the color names with me.  How many other people get to hear their two year olds say "sunny spice", "sweet plum", or "ivory 1"?

I love your love of animals both real and inanimate.  If I could give you a real dog, I would, because I know you would be best friends.  As it is, watching you tote around all your pluffies makes me smile.  I love that you need them to sleep.

I love your general cuteness.  You are going to be the end of me!  It is so hard to resist when you pull me hand and say "Come wis ME!" and lead me to the fridge where you tenderly ask for a "pockle" (popsicle.)  It’s so hard to say no to you!  And even when you get mad you are cute. I could just give you kisses all day long.

And I love that on your birthday, you and me had some special time.  You sat and played with me and my sunglasses (and my earrings and necklace…) and we got to take crazy pictures together.  I love you, Spider.  I am so glad Heavenly Father gave me you and that I get to be your mommy.

Happy Birthday baby!