Cole and I walk past this house every day as we go to the bus stop to pick up Franny.  He has been absolutely fascinated with it, as well as all the other spooky things related to Halloween.  Skeletons are definitely his main focus, although mummies, ghosts, and frankensteins are big interests, as well.  This particular display has two tombstones with skeletons and then the series of skeleton hands sticking up out of the ground.  He really likes it in the daylight, but tonight he was able to see it all lit up in the dark.   He really got a big kick out of it.  He has such a different perspective and focus of Halloween than Franny does.  I don’t know if it is just the inherent differences between boys and girls or just Cole,  between boys and girls, but it is definitely interesting to see.  When he gets older, I have a suspicion that he is going to really like going to a haunted house!  Thankfully, I think we have a few years of tame Halloweens left ahead of us before that happens!

It was a Happy Halloween for everyone today—from painting pumpkins to making jack-o-lantern pizzas to trick or treating to giving out candy, Franny, Cole, and Delaney had a wonderful time.  It didn’t take them long to get into the trick or treating.  After ‘trick or treat’ and ‘thank you’  Cole followed up at each house with an enthusiastic ‘Happy Halloween, Stinky Face!’ . Some probably didn’t know what to make of it (it’s from his book Happy Halloween Stinky Face) but, really—I can’t imagine anyone could really take offense from such an adorable lion!  And, it was meant in a very nice way, anyway.  In the end, it was a great time for everyone and the perfect ending to a very busy—but, very fun—Halloween week.

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Congratulations to Franny for scoring her first goal of the season!  Great job, Franny!

Franny’s school had their annual Halloween Festival on Friday evening.  One of the fun activities they had was a pumpkin decorating contest.  They provided all sorts of paint and craft supplies for the kids to use.  Franny and Cole shared a pumpkin for the contest.  They both worked with very intense concentration painting, gluing, and sprinkling glitter.  I was surprised at how willing Franny was to share her pumpkin; she was also very sweet in helping Cole find supplies, green paint, and skeleton heads.  I loved their end result—it was not a traditional ‘face’ pumpkin, but it was a great effort.  And, while their creation didn’t win the top prize for the kindergarten group, they definitely deserve a ‘good sportsmanship’ award.  And, in my mind, that is the most important thing of all.   

Cole had his school Halloween party today.  After years of being tagging along to Franny’s parties, he finally had one of his own.  He was very excited about it—he kept asking if it was his party and if Daddy was going to be there.  It was only a little over an hour, but he had a great time.  He had lunch with his friends and then played with his best friend Temny.  But, the best part for Cole was when Rick arrived (he was a little late due to work)—his face lit up and he sat and talked with him and then wanted him to be with him for the rest of the party.   As Franny gets older, and I can see how we gradually have to let her grow up and do more things independent of us and how she wants to things independent of us, it makes me cherish these small, simple parties.  A little routine playtime with a friend, a bagel and a cookie, and his family coming to be with him, and Cole thought this was the best.  And, I think I would have to agree with him.

This month’s school spirit day is Homemade Wacky Hat Day for the Heavenly Hats Foundation., which donates hats to cancer patients all over the world.  Franny was really excited to make her hat, which basically consists of all the leftover supplies from her various art projects over the last year mounted on her pink cowboy hat.  There are stickers, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, ribbon, paper flowers, and a felt ladybug on a popsicle stick.  Franny’s hat won’t actually be donated, but each student can make a $1 donation that will benefit the Foundation.  Although Franny doesn’t really understand the meaning behind her project, I thought it was a great thing to get the kids thinking of others and how they can help and make a difference.

Today has been the second day that Delaney has been sick with a relatively high fever.  She has had a few moments where she has rallied with good spirits, but for the most part she is very unhappy, cries a lot (which is very uncharacteristic of Delaney), and needs to be held almost constantly.  Fortunately for Rick, while I had faces like this all day…

…Delaney gave him lots of smiles (and no crying!) before she finally headed off to bed.  Either the Tylenol finally gave her some relief or she was just waiting and saving them up for him all day.  I’m hoping that tomorrow I get at least of couple of these kinds of smiles!

Our new fence has been in for a number of weeks now, and it has definitely brought us some peace of mind.  The kids were pretty good about staying away from the edge (except Delaney, that is) and we never left them unsupervised, but the potential of one of them falling at just the right spot to cause a fall off the rock wall was great enough to cause of us some uneasiness this summer.  But, the fence is up and we can all relax a little more and enjoy our time outside.  Delaney, however, has now taken to running up the sidewalk, but we’ll just have to deal with that one!

This morning was one of the few Saturdays that we haven’t taken the morning for errands.  Instead, the kids got to play together all morning and I think they enjoyed the novelty of not having to do something or go somewhere.  We try to keep a healthy balance with the kids’ free time and scheduled time, but with three kids the days fill up fast with activities and events.  Amazingly, we even have one more day without commitments before we start another busy week with an extremely busy weekend.  Time goes so fast.  It makes a not-so-special day like today actually seem very special. 

This was Franny’s sixth week of soccer.  She is having a really good time, and her soccer skills have improved a lot since they began back in mid September.  It’s also extra special for her to have her daddy coaching and Grandma and Grandpa watching on the sidelines.  But, I think maybe her favorite part is playing on the playground after it’s all over!