Maddi's 9, and Halloween 09

Thursday afternoon the kids had their Halloween parade at school. Only pic I got of Maddi, the baby, but there is a big black spot on her. Bummer. I helped with her class party after the parade and it was fun. I was in charge of the "Bozo" buckets game.

Cade with his debut of his Lego costume that Brett and Cade made. It was a big hit with all the kids and parents. It's still so odd to me that in Texas you can't even mention Halloween at school, it's all about pumpkins and fall harvest. In Illinois kids, teachers, parents, everyone wears costumes and goes all out.

Later that night the school had Family Fun Night Monster Mash Bash. They had pizza, soda (pop as Midwesterners call it), games, and a dj for all the kids to dance. It was so fun to watch the kids dancing, doing the limbo contest, and hula hoop contest. If only I had half the energy of those kids. Cade was guessing the weight of this pumpkin in this pic.

Maddi and her friend, Jane. Maddi missed half of the bash because she was at dance, but once she got there all her friends ran up to her and the boys and girls all had fun flirting with each other.

Friday was Maddison Shea's 9th Birthday. They had no school Friday (teacher work day) so we had all day to celebrate the birthday girl.

Cade even got a gift from Omie, some new Dallas Cowboy pj pants. He loved them!

Maddi got all kinds of great new dance clothes from Omie that she loved.

You can see the excitement on Maddi's face when she opened my gift to her, bras! They are just little girl jog bra type things but she thinks they are the best. She's only to wear them to dance because she certainly doesn't need a bra, but all the other bigger girls have them (most don't need them either) and she wants to be big like them. Ugh...

Cade's gift to Maddi...Hello Kitty water dispenser and gumball machine. They were both quite excited about it. She also got the Snow White movie from Emalyn and a really cool friendship bracelet kit from Brett.

Working together to get those gumballs in.

To follow tradition, we made a visit to Chuck E Cheese for Maddi's bday after she got a hair cut and allergy shots. Maddi and Cade look more like twins than 21 months apart!

This weird ape game that I thought might just put me in labor. It would shake and vibrate and you had to hold on to these controllers until the ape had smoke coming from his ears. I think I'll stick to skeeball!

Saturday was Halloween and the kids were making sure Cocoa's pumpkin costume still fit.

We waited until the last minute to carve pumpkins. We just didn't have time to do it before hand.

The yucky seed guts!

Cade's concentration face while carving. He drew his own face and carved it himself.

Maddi's concentration face with tongue hanging out. She chose a pattern and had Brett help carve because it was intricate.

Ta da!

Wa la!

Trick or Treat started at 3:30 and lasted until 8:00. Maddi as a baby, Cocoa as a pumpkin, me with my jack-o-lantern baby (5 days until inducement), and Cade the Lego.






Grace, Jack, Cade and Maddi. I went with them for a few houses then decided it was way too cold and headed home to hand out candy. We had a TON of kids and just about ran out of candy. Then the kids came back and we went through their candy and started handing out their least favorite candies. Nothing like recycling candy. By the time it was dark we were all done trick or treating and we headed over to a friends for a party. These midewesterners love Halloween and it's always a really fun time around here.