We've been "Boo'd"

We woke up to find treat bags on the front porch with a note that we've been boo'd. The kids are showing off their vampire teeth in this photo. And yes, they are wearing footy pajamas. It's been getting in the upper 30s and 40s at night, so we're busting out the warm pjs.

We've never heard of getting boo'd. I'm thinking it's a northern/midwest thing. You get a note and a Halloween treat at your door. You make 2 copies of the note and then put your note in the window that shows you've been boo'd. You make treat bags with the note for 2 houses and secretly leave them on their doorstep. The kids thought it was really cool and they loved their treats. Now we are on a mission to find out who boo'd us. It's fun to look around the neighborhood to see who has and hasn't been boo'd yet. The kids loved making treats for some of their friends and then leaving the bags on the doorstep and running off. One of the families we boo'd already figured it out that it was us. Cade would have told his friend at school tomorrow anyway, I'm sure.

Has anyone down south ever heard of this? At Target, Walmart and Michael's today I saw boo bags and kits to boo others. Do they have those things at those stores down there? Sometimes I feel like we are in another country. I also heard that kids start trick-or-treating after school gets out, from like 4-6pm. I guess they can because it gets so dark here so early. Erin, I haven't checked the paper yet to see the official times. I still don't believe there are official trick-or-trick hours, but I hear it will be in the paper....weird.

We got our little fix of the south this weekend and went to Uncle Julio's. It's a bit of a drive, but so worth it. We just can't find Mexican food here like Texas. Thank goodness for Julio's in Chicago to keep us from getting homesick!

Nothing else too exciting this weekend, just lots of dance and soccer and more dance. Did I mention that the whole fam-dam-ily is going to be in the Nutcracker?!? Brett and I are party parents, Maddi is a tumbling jester and a rose petal and Cade is a party boy and a gingerbread. Cade REALLY wanted to be in the Nutcracker and it was hard for us to say yes, but we did. The party boy is not dancing, just playing leap frog, bothering the party girls, etc. The gingerbread is a little more dance, but not so much. So, get your tickets now to see the McDonald's live on stage in the Nutcracker!!! Oh, the things we do for our kids.....

Don't play with fire, matches, or batteries

Leave it my 5 year old son to teach me a new lesson.... Yesterday I was on the phone and Cade was asking me to replace the batteries in one of his remote control cars. I told him to wait until I got off the phone. So Cade went to the junk drawer and got out all of our batteries so when I got off I could quickly change the batteries out. Well, I kept chatting on the phone and Cade was bored and decided to open 2 packages of 9 volt batteries and connected them together. No, I wasn't paying attention to my child, but even if I had been watching him I would not have known that batteries should not be connected.

When I finally got off the phone I sat down to change the batteries. The remote part needed a 9 volt, so I grabbed one and realized that it was connected to another one and felt a burning sensation in my hand. I immediately dropped the batteries and then realized I was burned by batteries transferring heat to each other (I'm sure there is a scientific term for what happened but I must have been day dreaming during that lesson in science or physics or whatever). Then I see that one set of batteries was hot enough that the carpet was melting under them. I never knew carpet could melt! I used a towel to disconnect the batteries and then placed them on the towel to cool off and prevent further carpet melting. An hour later the batteries were still hot. Who knew!?! The irony of it all is that the fire department was at Cade's school yesterday talking about fire safety. I think I need to contact the fire department to have them add don't play with batteries to the list of fire safety.

Never a dull moment around our house.

The Pumpkin Farm

Happy Columbus Day! The kids were out of school thanks to Christopher Columbus and Maddi doesn't have dance on Mondays so we had a whole free day so we went to a pumpkin farm. It felt like going to a pumpkin farm in Texas. It was 84 degrees and we were not dressed for fall, but we did fall activities anyway. The kids really wanted a big pumpkin but I refuse to pay $35 or $40 for a pumpkin to sit and rot on our porch. We took a picture, it will last longer!

This was the coolest pumpkin farm we've been to. They had so many activities like a 3-D haunted house, a kids blow up haunted house, pig races, a magic show, a pumpkin eating dinosaur, a small hay maze, a medium hay maze, a cornstalk maze, tractor rides to the pumpkin fields, pumpkin launching, a store with fall plants, decorations, and to die for food. We had roasted sweet corn, yummy apple cider donuts, caramel apples, and we bought a caramel apple pie. We stopped by the store on the way home to get ice cream to have apple pie a la mode for dessert. It was so good.
This was a fork in the road in the cornstalk maze. We got lost several times and really got a workout after going through it twice. The kids thought it was really cool.
Cage dancing. Well, it's actually a car on a train that the kids were playing on. Maddi and Emily love to shake their hips and it looked more like cage dancing (remember back to the dance clubs in college...). Notice Emily is toothless in the front. Maddi's two front teeth are very loose too and she'll be looking like a goof ball soon. She almost lost it last week, but I tried to hold her off because she thinks the tooth fairy is carrying around High School Musical singing toothbrushes. I went all over town looking for the silly thing so she won't be let down. I finally found one, so the teeth can come out now!
I don't quite get the point of it, but this is a pumpkin eating dinosaur. Every hour he comes on and eats (smashes) pumpkins and makes a lot of noise. Notice a storm brewing in the background.
We rode the tractor out to the fields. Look behind Cade and you can see the skies were about to open. I have a fear of getting wet in my clothes, so I made my poor kids find their pumpkins in about 90 seconds so we could get back on the same hay ride and not wait out there for the next tractor to pick us up while getting soaked. We barely made it back and made it into the store and it poured down rain, but only for about 5 minutes. Some of the others we were with did get soaked out in the fields, but they didn't mind.
Maddi and her pumpkin on the hay ride back. I was quite proud of Maddi finding her pumpkin so fast. My Maddi girl has a very hard time making decisions, so a very short time frame to choose worked nicely for her.
Cade with his big old pumpkin on the hay ride. Cade was not a happy camper that his mommy is such a lame-o and won't get wet. But when we were in the store and heard the rain pounding on the roof, he was happy to be there instead of out in the rain. The rain is going to cool things off for us and it should start to feel like fall. Wednesday it will struggle to reach 50 and it might freeze.

Today after dance and soccer we went to St. Charles for the Scarecrow Festival. It was really hot today, upper 80's, maybe 90 which I hear is odd for this time of year, but it was a lot of fun. The kids painted pumpkins with glitter glue. Good thing they let us leave them there to dry because Cade globbed a whole bunch of green on top for the hair and I'm not even sure it will be dry tomorrow. We picked them up on our way out and carefully carried Cade's back to our car without incident.
Next stop was making our own scarecrow. We knew this wasn't a good idea, but the kids REALLY wanted to do it. So, we got some panty hose for the head (I pray they weren't used) and some old clothes that were donated. Then we followed the directions to stuff and assemble our scarecrow. All the while Brett, Maddi and I are sneezing and itching from the straw/hay (is there a difference?) we are handling to stuff the guy. We tried to talk the kids out of continuing, but to no avail. So we finally get to the last stages and realize the head is falling off and one of us is going to haul this guy around with us.
The kids took a picture with their scarecrow and we informed them we are leaving him there and if he's still there when we are walking back to our car we'll bring him home. Cade reminded us to go get him 4 or 5 times before we finally let him know that we couldn't bring him with us because we were all allergic and he'd be in pieces by the time we got to the car because he wasn't sturdy enough. He was ok with it, but we promised we'd get some other decorations for our house and decorate tomorrow. People in the midwest sure seem to get into fall and Halloween, so I guess we're giving in to the peer pressure and getting our house up to par!
There was a scarecrow contest with 100-150 entries. Some of them were really cool like this Wizard of Oz entry. The heads were all pumpking that were painted.
This was another favorite from the Colonial Cafe which is the restaraunt with the kitchen sink ice cream that I wrote about previously. If you click on the picture, it will fill the whole screen and you can see the kitchen sink and notice his arms are boxes of ice cream.

Cade loves the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and these scarecrows are the main characters. Jack is the guy with the white head and I don't remember the girls name. It's a pretty cute movie. I could have posted a lot more pics of the scarecrows, but these were some of the favorites.

The kids are already asking to go back next year. It was a really nice festival with so many activities, food, games, rides, crafts, a craft show, paddle boat rides and much more. Another fun filled Saturday for the fam. Tomorrow it's Nutcracker practice and a birthday party. The kids are out of school Monday for Columbus Day and we are supposed to go to a pumpkin farm if it's not raining.

Happy Birthday to all of our friends and family in the last week. Every day since September 27th, it's been someone's birthday. Many more to come the rest of this month!

The Whole Story

So today at soccer Cade took the Pokemon cards to return to the little boy he got them from. His dad said that the little boy actually gave them to Cade because they were all doubles of other cards. I was relieved to know I don't have a thief on my hands and felt bad that Cade was in trouble all week for nothing. We talked to Cade about how the whole thing could have been avoided if he had just told us the truth in the first place. Our other troubles this week with sneaking food, etc. are still odd, but hopefully this stage will end soon too. He is till grounded from Pokemon for his other Pokemon issues like taking the cards back and sneaking them while I was getting the mail, but he's only grounded for a week.

TAGGED - My Man

So I was tagged to answer these questions about my man (sorry Brettley)

1. Who is your man? Brett Forrest

2. How long have you been together? In September is was 12 years that we met at the Tap in College Station, TX!

3. How long did you date? 1 1/2 years before getting engaged and then were engaged for 13 months.

4. How old is your man? He just turned 35.

5. Who eats more? At a meal, Brett. Throughout the day, probably me. He doesn't eat like he used to.

6. Who said "I love you" first? Brett, but it was mutual. I was just afraid to admit that I was falling for him.

7. Who is taller? Brett. I'm not that tall, but I definitely had requirements when I was dating that my man must be taller and heavier than me.

8. Who sings better? Neither one of us can carry a tune. We are really bad, and we both love to sing. I'd say I'm better, but at least he knows the words to songs, because I just make them up.

9. Who is smarter? Brett....he married me!

10. Who's temper is worse? Mine...ugh. Brett is so even tempered for the most part.

11. Who does the laundry? Me. He'll do it if I put it on the bed or couch where he wants to lay down and the only way he can lay down is to do the laundry. He does learn from his mistakes. He actually moved the laundry off the bed to the floor once and witnessed my temper!

12. Who takes out the garbage? DEFINITELY Brett. I refuse to do the trash even though it's probably mostly mine and the kids.

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Laying in bed, I'm on the right. It worked out well that I've always slept on this side of the bed and he the other for our whole lives. Made for each other, huh?

14. Who pays all the bills? Me. He doesn't need to know how much retail therapy I required each month!

15. Who is better with the computer? Brett - hands down! But I use it for fun way more than he does.

16. Who mows the lawn? Brett. My dad never let me mow because he thought I'd get run over by the mower or something. Brett wouldn't let me either, but now he would let me if I wanted to. Now that I can, I don't want to.

17. Who cooks dinner? When we actually have a real dinner, it's my cooking, but usually not too fancy. Otherwise Brett makes himself a pizza, cereal, sandwhich, etc. I bet you want to come to diner at our house!

18. Who drives when you are together? Brett.

19. Who pays when you go out? Usually Brett, but it all comes from the same place.

20. Who is the most stubborn? That would be me. Ugh.

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Not easy for either one of us. Probably a tie on this one.

22. Who's parents do you see most of the time? Probably pretty even now that everyone is in Texas (except us).

23. Who kissed who first? Brett kissed me.

24. Who asked who out? I asked Brett to a sorority date party to Six Flags.

25. Who proposed? Brett. I would never ask a guy to marry me. I'm pretty old fashioned. He told the whole world that he was proposing before hand so he must have been pretty confident in my answer.

26. Who is more sensitive? Brett. He's not overly sensitive, he just has a good heart. I think all of my sensitiveness skipped me and got passed to my Maddi girl.

27. Who has more friends? I probably do, but Brett can make friends with anyone.

28. Who has more siblings? Brett has two younger brothers and a younger sister. I have an older and a younger brother.

29. Who wears the pants in the family? That would be me. Sometimes I say I'd like Brett to wear the pants, but then I realize I'm sort of a control freak. All of my great qualities are shining through in these questions!

So everyone who reads this is now TAGGED. But, most of my friends and family reading this are lame and don't have a blog. Get with it people! If I can do it, anyone can do it. I'm serious!

Where is Cade?

This picture was taken at the Children's Museum tonight. They had a member party to celebrate the opening of a new exhibit. Maddi came from dance and is showing off her leg extension that she does 593 times a day!

This is a mirrored maze that the kids just love. I was looking at all the reflections of Cade to try and find our real son and bring him back home. Cade has been quite the challenging child this week and I'm ready to get our sweet boy back. It all started last Saturday when Cade had a big pile of Pokemon cards at lunch (Pokemon is some weird trading card game). Turns out he took some cards from a boy at soccer. I put the boys cards in a bag for Cade to return to him and today I found Cade had taken the cards back out of the bag and added them to his cards so he was trying to take them again! I grounded him from Pokemon until Halloween and this meant he could not play with others kids cards, talk about Pokemon, buy Pokemon, etc. 10 minutes after grounding him I went out side to get the mail and saw a neighbor out the and talked with her 10-15 minutes about the troubles Cade has been giving us. I come back in the house and see Cade sneak something behind his back only to find it's POKEMON CARDS!!! He is now grounded from them until Thanksgiving. Ugh....he doesn't get it. Some other trials we've been through this week with Cade are: lying about eating gingerbread, lying about sneaking a fruit by the foot, telling a boys mom at dance that I said he can play in the parking lot, sneaking a quarter to buy candy at dance only to be found hiding by the fridge with a mouth full of candy (he was specifically told not to bring a quarter for candy), and many others I can't even list them all. He is now grounded from all sorts of things that I can hardly keep track. Maddi asked him how many things he's grounded from and he said 628. How can you stay mad a kid who is so funny, stubborn, explosive, apologetic, etc? I can't wait until this stage passes and I can stop being mean mom. He's testing the boundaries and he's finding that mom is more stubborn and smarter than he is.

On the other hand, he has been great in kindergarten. We went to celebrate tonight that both kids have gone 4 weeks without getting in trouble at school. We had ice cream at Cookie Dough Creations. Maddi's teacher gives them little cards if they stay on green all week. Maddi was working on collecting 4 cards and then getting ice cream for a treat. Tonight was the night to celebrate, so even though Cade is on the list, he's done something right by behaving at school. Thank goodness! Both Maddi and Cade are always so good at school and behave well and are very successful academically. We are very fortunate. I guess they save all their antics for home, lucky Brett and I.

Tomorrow we are off to dance, soccer and the Scarecrow Festival. Pictures from the festival coming soon!