Happy Halloween! The kids all had a blast at school today. The 5th graders wore adjective hats today. Here are two of the winners...
Here is one of my personal favorites...
The kindergartners and and 1st graders dressed up as cowboys for Harvest Day. This is Will and Noah's friend Phillip.

The teachers went all out and got the kids pizza, cupcakes, candy, apples, veggies, etc. Donna treated her class to popcorn. Anyone want some???
Some of Donna's kids dressed up as pioneers. (Or, at least that is what I'm thinking they were. They were watching a pioneer movie during lunch.)
Noah enjoying his day with Jakob.
The cutest cowboys in the whole school!!!!

I spent the afternoon in Ethan's class. Unfortunately, none of my pictures from his room turned out. I'm not enjoying my new camera. It seems that only 50% of the pictures turn out. I don't know if it is me, or the camera, but it is awful. I didn't have any problems with the Canon, so I'm guessing that it is the camera! That is what happens when I let Chris pick it out! Ugh...

It is Halloween Eve! If the kids' at school behavior today is any indicator of what is to come tomorrow, I'm quite afraid! They are all so excited and it certainly is showing. Halloween Eve is also Mike's birthday, so, a big happy birthday to Mike. Tonight the boys are at the Boy Scout Halloween party. I stayed home to ride my bike. I am surprised that I didn't get blown away. It is crazy windy here. It made for a challenging ride tonight.

Will and Noah had a game last night. Will was happy to score two goals. He tried his hardest to give Melissa another three, but it just didn't work out for him. Their team won 3-0.

Will working for his G-O-A-L!
Ethan watching his brothers' game. Oh, oops, Ethan goofing off with his friends William and Andy while Will and Noah played.
Since we have basically been living at the fields for the last few weeks, Chris has resorted to eating dinner there!
Oh, imagine that, Noah using his tongue to play soccer!
Here are a couple pictures from Melissa's sweet Halloween party! I wore Chris' costume since he was playing soccer and didn't go to the party Sunday night. Yes, I'm making that face on purpose. I was totally in character!

Ethan had a soccer game on Saturday and I never got around to posting any pictures. They only had 5 kids show up, so needless to say, they played down the entire game. Sadly, they actually performed better than usual! A lot of the kids that normally just crowd the ball and essentially get in the way, weren't there so they had some room to work for once. Above, Coach Chris in typical coach's form. Below, Will watches the game, unlike his brothers!

It looks like Ethan had some tips from Noah on how using your tongue is truly an excellent soccer strategy.

Ethan and Matt look like they are thinking strategy here.

Will and Noah are looking forward to their Harvest Day tomorrow at school. The kindergartners all dress like cowboys. After school the boys will begin assembling their elaborate outdoor trick-or-treating decorations. Good times!

We were home for most of the afternoon yesterday thanks to the continuous rain, so I went into baking mode. Chris and I had not had French onion soup (my personal favorite) since last winter. I made that for dinner and it was delicious! The boys of course wouldn't eat soup with onions in it, so for their treat I made monkey bread. They were at first fascinated by how big it go when it was rising, then they were devouring it! It was really good. Thankfully it takes a long time to make so it isn't something we will be making often.

Will and Noah have a birthday party to go to this afternoon. This evening Chris heads off to soccer and we head off to the Eagney's Halloween party. The boys are looking forward to that, especially after their lame Halloween Bash experience!

The week is over! Wednesday night I went to see the Showdolls. It was totally awesome! Thursday was another depressing loss for Ethan's team! I'm sure we'll have another repeat performance tomorrow morning. The worst part is that we are playing the same team that we played on Thursday! The kids were really down after the game as well. Normally they tend to just brush off their losses, this time not so much. We have a couple strong players on the team, but the weakness of the rest of the team doesn't allow them to do much with their talent.

Today was our "day off." We got some yard work done in the morning and then moved on to cleaning the pool and the pool deck. By the time we got inside it was already noon! After I showered and made the boys some lunch we left for Super Target and Super Wal*Mart. Let me just tell you, not the most thrilling way to spend your day off! The boys were VERY well behaved so that made the whole experience at least tolerable. We came home with all sorts of interesting stuff since the boys were there. The most interesting to me is the candy corn popcorn. I love candy corn and popcorn, but I'm not sure I will like the combination of the two! After putting the groceries away and eating dinner, we headed to the Atlantic Center for the Arts. They had a Halloween Bash. It was sort of artsy, so of course the boys thought it was lame. I thought it was pretty cool myself. They had fiddlers, an artistic pumpkin carver, and story tellers. I will have you know, broken colored glass can do wonders for your Jack-O'-Lantern! I told the boys that they couldn't wear any store bought costumes because we were going to the art center. So, we dug through their dress-up basket and came up with two pirates and a cowboy.

Here we are arriving at the Halloween Bash. This is the same deck that my friend Sam got married on, so I had fond memories of my last visit there.
Here is the pumpkin carver working his magic.
Chef Sophia! I have to tell you the girls are totally hooked up for Halloween thanks to their Nanny! Mike's mom makes them the most amazing costumes every year. You should check out their costumes for this year. In this picture, Soph is wearing her "back-up" costume!

Spooky tree!!!
One of the story tellers at the bash.

Soccer, soccer, more soccer, and other stuff...

Yesterday all the boys had a game. It was the typical outcome, Will and Noah's team won and Ethan's team lost. Tonight Will and Noah played and won. Chris went straight from work to the fields. I dropped the boys off to him and raced off to the Relay for Life kick off. Chris left soccer and headed to Boy Scouts. I picked up Will and Noah after the Relay meeting and brought them home to do their homework. Ethan did his in the car on the way to soccer! Our poor house and poor Hanzie! Tomorrow night I am going to see the high school dance team do their Spooktacular show. I'm excited to go. My friend Sam helps coach the team and I have never been to a show and have always wanted to go. Thursday Ethan has another soccer game. And for the true excitement, NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY! The kids have off because it is a teacher work day. I usually just bring the boys along to school with me on those days. Since I haven't taken any days off this year and the boys have been so busy with their crazy schedules, I decided to take the day off. Saturday Ethan has another soccer game and on Sunday Will and Noah have a birthday party to go to at 2:00 and then Melissa is having a Halloween party at 5:00. Life is never boring around here! Chris took my new camera to the game tonight. I will have him post pictures. I don't even think he has the software on the computer for it yet. Ooh, we got to watch the shuttle launch from school today. The boys' teachers took them out to the front of the school to watch it. I ate lunch outside with the 4th graders so I could see it.

Today has been rainy and yucky out for the most part. We got festive and decided to do a Halloween dinner. First we made Halloween shaped tortilla chips...
Then we turned them into nachos...
The boys assured me that they were delicious. For dessert they will be having Jack-O'-Lantern brownies.

Yesterday the boys all had soccer games. Will and Noah's game was at 8:30.

Here is a team picture with all of the players. From front left... Noah, Emma, Becky, Phillip, Kaley, Anikan, Will, Ian, and Jordyn.
It was raining during the game and I was FREEZING! Here Noah has his tongue out in a possible attempt to lick the ball clean before he sent it back into play.
Will scored one goal during the game.
While Will and Noah played, Ethan, Spencer, and William were singing in the rain. No, really, they were singing! Something about it raining lava. I sort of which that it had been raining lava. It would have least made it feel a little warmer out!

Emma in her place, with a warm smiling face!

A pretty cool visitor came to the game to cheer on the red and white team! He/she is very patriotic, so I am quite certain that he/she wasn't cheering on the orange team. Mr. Will in goal.
While it rained during Will and Noah's game, it poured during Ethan's game. There are no pictures of his game because it was just raining too hard to get the camera out. Unfortunately, Amazon is very slow to ship and I haven't gotten my cute green waterproof camera yet. But, I assure you, if it rains during next Saturday's game, I've got it covered. The boys have a full soccer schedule this week with games on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

After soccer Chris took the boys camping for Boy Scouts. It was the Halloween camp-out. They were all excited when they left yesterday. Chris called at 7:30 to say that they were on their way home so I haven't gotten the full details yet. They should be home shortly.

Tonight was soccer night! Emma and Will were powerhouses this evening. Will said that he promised Melissa three goals before the game started and he delivered. Emma scored two. Here Will goes after the ball.
Noah, Emma, and Ian are lined up for the kick-off after half time.

Here red is all over the ball. I'm not sure where the green team was, but it certainly wasn't near the ball.
Okay, here is what people say... "Noah is really cute, funny, and smart BUT, he always sticks his tongue out!" (Well, you have to watch How I Met Your Mother to get that reference.)

Ethan going after the ball.

The team wraps up after the game.
"Good game" time.
The boys all played at the same time. Luckily, the fields that they play on are side-by-side. I was able to sit in the bleachers between the two games and watch both of them. I have not been feeling well for the last few days. It turns out that it wasn't just the spinning that made me feel sick the other day. For the last couple of days I have had a fever, headache, and have been a bit nauseous. Luckily, I haven't gotten sick yet. After a dose of medicine, I feel fine for a few hours. Hopefully tomorrow it will be gone. I didn't bike tonight thinking that it might help me get better faster. Last night I went thinking that it would boost my immune system and help me get better faster. Hmm.... I wonder which theory is correct!

Weekend update...

Friday night the boys went to their friend Spencer's birthday. They seemed to have a lot of fun. Will was excited that he won one of the games and came home with some cool Tony Hawk stuff. I opted to spend some time with Hanzie and go for a bike ride. Hanzie and I went for a nice walk in the gorgeous weekend weather and then I was off for my ride. I am happy to report that I didn't see a snake once this weekend while biking!

Saturday morning was spent giving our house some much needed attention. We spent the entire morning cleaning. We did a little shopping and then went to our friends', Aaron and Colleen's, house. They had a baby girl just about three weeks ago. Sydney is absolutely adorable and let me hold her the entire time we were there. The boys stayed outside doing what boys do with their son Kyle. (No pictures of Sydney because I totally flaked out and forgot my camera!) Last night we watched 28 Weeks Later. We all thought it was awful, but Melissa seemed to LOVE it! She loves those zombie flicks!

Today we went to the park in the morning. Melissa was impressed with Paige's choice of outfits so I had to share her modeling it for me.
Sophia crossed this very wide balance beam with great care!
The older kids were acting like spies the entire time they were there. Certain kids at the playground got labeled as the enemy and they spent their time hiding out and running away from them. Noah and Ethan brought their walkie talkies to be sure that they could keep in contact at all times while monitoring the enemy. Here Noah and Paige try to make a quick getaway.
I spent most of my time with Sophia. She convinced me to get on the tire swing with her. Well, after about a minute of spinning I thought I was going to get sick. Normally stuff like that doesn't bother me. I think that I was dehydrated from riding up there and since Noah downed my water, I was suffering. Sophia had some sound advice... "Just get off then Jen!" So, I did.

After some playground action they moved on to soccer and racing...
What's this, ninja soccer?
Or wait, is it ballet soccer?
After the playground, Chris and I spent the afternoon in the backyard sprucing up. I worked on the front last week so the back needed to be done. We had slacked off with the oppresive heat in the summer. The yard got mowed, but the flower beds were sadly ignored! Chris just left to play soccer. The boys and I are making pumpkin cupcakes with the pan that Grandma Pat sent us. Somehow, we had no orange food coloring so we couldn't make them orange! Lame!! I guess we'll just have to make them again, darn!