HALLOWEEN!!!

Tonight was FUN!!!

Mark and the boys met me at work and we decided to take them to our local Mall for Trick-or Treating! Mackie was sooooooo funny........Mark said "What is Mack supposed to be?" I said "Frankenstein..........he(Mackie) walks all lop-sided,....I thought that it would be cute this year!" Sure enough, Mackie MUST know what we are talking about because he actually kept the Big-Head Frankenstein "Hat" on the whole time and actually walked a bit stiff-legged! It was soooo funny!!

Here's our little Frankenstein!

Bless his little heart.....the things I make for them to wear!

Creston was so cute in his Ghostie Costume! He didn't have to wear

his big coat this time, so he could move a little bit better!

Here are all three of my guys! Ohhhhhhh! Scary!

Creston, Mommy, & Mackie starting to break down!

Special friends of ours, Betty & Gary Redden!

Pa-Paw took this one...................

Now.....can you see why it was off center and that we were lucky to even get in the picture???

It was a good night! We went through all the stores at the Mall! I reccommend this to anyone who needs somewhere "Easy" to take their kids. We were going to also go to the Shops on the Parkway, but decided that we would go the "quick" route and do the Mall instead! After trick-or-treating, we went to Chick-fil-A to eat dinner and let Creston and Mackie play for a few minutes. Then a quick stop at Gary & Betty's and then on to Nana's and Pa-Paws! I think Gary & Betty said that they had about 25 kids by the time we got there! Nana said they had about 12 maybe! That's pretty good for our area!

We wound up with 3 Halloween buckets FULL of candy! Sugar highs for everyone for the next year!!!!!

Hope that everyone had a good Night!

Happy Halloweenie!!!!!!

Carvin' the Punkin's

Tonight we carved the pumpkins!

Mackie was all excited and immediately got a spoon and went to town! Creston, on the other hand, decided that he didn't want to get his hands all slimy and basically refused to pull the punkin' guts out with his bare hands. Mackie felt like the punkin guts were just fine and thus tried repeatedly to eat them! Shew!!!

Playing with friends and our FIRST Trick-or-Treat this year!

My friend Paulette and her two boys came over this morning to play with my two fellers! They all 4 had a GREAT time running and yelling and chasing each other! It was loud, but at least they were all getting along together!!! I can deal with noise if it's the "good" kind!!! Thanks you 3 for the visit!

This evening, Boone had their Downtown "Boo", and Mark reminded me that it started at 4:30...this he tells me at 2:30 just after the boys have gone to sleep for their nap! I got their costumes and warm coats together and waited for them to wake up. We all got to Boone and got the boys costumes on them. Creston got upset before we even got going because the Fire Department had "Sparky the Dog" helping to hand out the handouts and candy. Creston does NOT like anything in a costume!!! It got better, though, and they got several pieces of candy each!!!

As you can see above, Creston was a Ghostie, and Mackie was a punkin'! Granted, they BOTH had on their heavy coats due to the COLD weather and wind. (Mack is supposed to be Frankenstein, but Creston insisted that Mackie wear his "First Halloween" Pumpkin costume today. We'll try the Frankenstein costume out on Friday night!)

The boys and their Daddy!

The boys and Me!!!

Here's the First Snow Pictures!!!

This was the scene from our door this morning as I was leaving to go to the Dentist to get my tooth "ready" for my crown!!

So Pretty!!!

And THIS was the picture across the pond at our neighbor's house as I was coming home!

Amazing!

Our FIRST Snow!!!!!!

FYI to everyone!!!
We got our first Flurries this evening as we were coming home from Boone after Mark's Doctor visit!!!!

Love me some snow!!!!!! (I like snow until Christmas, then I get tired of the COLD!!!)

Yippee.......SNOW!!!!!

Mark's back/neck/shoulder pain...

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to touch base and ask you all to pray for Mark. He's been having some pretty intense upper back pain for the last couple of weeks that involves his neck and shoulder too. I think it finally got the better of him because he actually made an appointment and went to the Doctor this afternoon. The Doc. seemed to think that it was probably just his muscles having spasms, but he went ahead and had Mark get some x-rays done. Hopefully we'll get the word on those in the next few days. Mark thinks that it's Bursitis??? Some kind of inflamation. Whatever it may be, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. His job requires him to do quite a bit with his upper body and this pain is not at all what he needs to be feeling. Please pray that we'll find out what the problem is and that we can treat it so that he'll be as good as new!!!

Thanks, everyone!!!

Martha

It's o.k. to be aggravated...

A horrible mommy! That's what I am!!! There's no other excuse for me...plain and simple...I'm just not cut out for this thing called parenthood!

That's how I feel a lot of the time when I'm here with the kids by myself. Like today, Mark is working, so I've been #1 parent all day long.

My mind goes numb from all of the yelling and hollering and running and screaming.......then there's all the stuff that the kids do!!!!

I read something earlier while I was giving Mackie a Bath that it's "o.k. to be aggravated". It's perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed as a parent. I thought to myself "well whoop-ti-do Mrs. Writer-Person! Now, what do you think I should do about the overwhelm-ed-ness?" Nothing.....just that it's o.k. There was no 12 step plan to get past the feelings of "Oh Dear Lord in Heaven, please remind me why I'm here?".

Life as I see it is a series of events, some unfortunate and some very wonderful! It is all in how we deal with those events that define us as people to ourselves and to others. I'm afraid that I often am seen as a CRAZY NUT who can't ever open my mouth when I ought to. Sometimes, although very rarely, I do rise above my nut-case ways, and do or say the right things. I really hope above hope that I will be able to adjust my mental condition so that I can get my children raised to remember that "Mommy was always so nice and sweet and loved us and baked cookies and NEVER hollered."

I've got a long way to go..........please pray for my nerves, my ears, my husband's mind, and my children's behinds......oh.....and please pray that Mackie will learn to talk so that the constant "uuuugggghhhhh!!!!!!!! EEekkkkkkeeeeekkkkk!!!!!" will stop........Oh.....and also pray that Creston will stop touching/tackling/attacking/arresting/and pushing his brother......OH!!!!.....and please pray that I will learn the fine art of getting Creston into bed at a decent hour on the nights that Mark is working.......he seems to think that he CAN'T POSSIBLY go to bed until mommy goes to bed...........ect., ect...........:o)