Five Things

1.  Today I made myself a Spicy Thai Chicken Salad (it deserves the capitals) that is beautifully close to my most beloved Thai Crunch Salad from The Marketplace in Arkansas that went out of business. I ate a bowl of it yesterday and knew immediately that it was missing crunchy wontons. So I went today and procured the wontons and I cried tears of happiness over my lunch. It was a big deal to me.

2. I ate approximately 18 mini York peppermint patties today. I justify it because they are kind of like Junior Mints and everyone knows those are like the "least bad" candy to get at the movie theatre.

Okay...I admit it.  I'm eating one now.

19.

So maybe I should save myself the effort and graduate up to the full size Yorks.

The big leagues.

I'll think it over this weighty issue.

3. It took me 4 trips to the school to pick everybody up this afternoon. During the first round, I fell asleep while waiting in my car and kept waking up when my head jerked up in that freaky way.  I would've looked around to see if anyone saw my embarrassing behavior, but I know full well that most of the other moms were asleep too.

4. Everly is doing the official ON THE KNEES crawl, as of about 10 days ago. It is the cutest thing ever and almost makes me sad that she is growing up. Except for that goal I have of not wiping anyone else's behind but my own.

5. I've already nursed Everly to sleep 3 times in the last 30 minutes.  I do it because I have no energy or will power to parent correctly after 6 pm. I officially throw in the towel at 6:01.  So that doesn't bode so well for our immediate future. I'll just keep telling myself that "This too shall pass".

On the other hand, one of the perks of training my baby to only be able to sleep when she is quite literally attached to me is that I get to lay down for nap time. Even if it's only for 10 minutes till she konks out...it is the best 10 minutes.  Add in a space heater aimed at my feet and I call that a little chunk of heaven.

Daughters

Behold...we went forth and we did multiply and replenish this swingset. 

Jordy.

I hate the part where you have to stand on the porch and wave goodbye.

I loved having Jordan and his beautiful family come to visit for a couple days. 

We hung out.

We had Minsky's.

We had Oklahoma Joe's.

We rocked out.

We had our traditional chicken pot pie and spooky drinks. 

We had so much fun trick or treating together. The kids were so excited...Anna laughed out loud from door to door. How could she not?  People were giving her free candy!

Hali sang modified Christmas/Halloween carols to candy givers on the doorsteps. Adorable.

And the funnest thing of all was spending time with my brother and getting to know him as an adult and a fellow parent. I was impressed. 

And now I miss them even more.

So thanks for that. 

Love you, Blanchards!

Family Home Krispies

Trying to spice up the telling of the story of Samuel the Lamanite.

Looking back on it, I should have known that the kids would be paying more attention to the wall than the lesson.

Halloween 2013

So here are the Halloween costumes for 2013.  I would spare you the gruesome details of how we arrived at each child's particular costume decision and the arduous process behind getting it all put together....but what's the fun in that?

Soooo.....Ethan.

He's twelve years old and his voice is changing and he DEFINITELY requires deodorant. He's growing up. And part of him feels he is too old to dress up and go trick or treating. Part of him decided to tell me to just "pick out a pumpkin" for him. WHA?

So that's new.

And a little awesome and super sad too.

BUT!

There's another part of him that is still willing to painstakingly cut out armor from cardboard and spraypaint it silver.  Admittedly because I denied his request to buy a 60 dollar Roman soldier costume from Amazon.

In the end, he did go trick or treating. And he got tons of candy while freezing his Roman tootsies off because there are not many jackets that would fit over this thing.

And even though he was playin it cool, he still did this pose for me:

He loved it when I showed it to him and I know when he gets a tiny bit older, he will be embarrassed...but his kids are gonna love it.



Now Mathew.

Mathew asked to be Poseidon. That's right....this guy:

The God of the Sea....what 10 year old boy wouldn't like to have a deadly spear and lustrous beard?  Not to mention those abs!

In lieu of adopting an intense workout to develop his six-pack (also trick or treating in the almost-nude)...we went for....that's right! Cardboard armor!  So go back up to Ethan's picture and trade out the red cape for a blue one and the shield for a trident made from a big cane of bamboo I picked up at the dollar store.

It was awesome.

But alas, he decided to go for last years arguably much comfier Jedi costume.

I'm almost over it. (The trident was awesome.)


Megan requested a "Hooded Huntress" costume from an expensive magazine that arrived in our mailbox.  It was also muy expensivo....and didn't even come with....anything. No boots, no bow and arrow, no long lustrous braid.

Ah...here she is....cute...a little to "sexy" for my 8 year old, so I figured we could alter it a bit and make it happen.

Here is our final product:

She wanted a longer cape and we found some cheap boots at the thrift store. Made her a tunic out of material we had in our "Nativity Play" pile and knocked out a bow, arrows and quiver with a combination of sticks, twine and duct tape.  

And she still looked 8 years old. All is right with the world.

That brings us to the Laney and Anna....the pumpkin sisters.

We found matching pumpkin costumes. So cute! So classic!

I dug up some old tights and we dyed them a marvelous shade of Kelly Green. Unfortunately, I dyed my hands the same brilliant hue and approximately 20 minutes later....they decided they would rather be cats.

And so they were...

Because I'm so very tired. And my hands are Kelly Green.

And last of all, we have Everly.

It's her very first Halloween and so I need to make it special. We can't use any of the other 5 baby Halloween costumes we have because this is the one time as a Hufford you will not have to share your moment. Unfortunate that she won't remember it, huh?

I thought about perhaps Little Red Riding Hood?

A piñata?

A rainbow?

I promise you....Pinterest had so many wonderful suggestions. But when all was said and done, I settled on an owl hat and a soft jacket with little felt wings pinned to the sleeves.

Because having six kids has taught me many things.  One of which being that babies DO NOT love being dressed up in fussy costumes. No, they do not.

Not even sweet little owl hats.

Happy Halloween!

Scenes from Halloweens

A few miscellaneous pics...

The pumpkin selection

Ethan and Mat head out on their own

Little girls get ready to go.

The Blanchard/Hufford little people.

Grandpa Joe Cool.

Level breech

Things they are a changin.

Gone are the days where we can assume she isn't tumbling head over heals down the stairs.  We will be on high alert until she learns how to go back down.