this weekend

the cleaning out of the pumpkin, probably the thing i hated most about halloween as a kid. my mom has multiple pictures of me making faces similar to this one.

as most of you might guess...i ended up cleaning out the pumpkin.

saturday was house cleaning day. it was gorgeous outside and i took it as my last opportunity of the season to hang out blankets.

sunday, ken preached as a substitute preacher at kent baptist, i took it as my first opportunity of the season to wear some of my goodwill winter wardrobe. paisley A-line corderoy skirt 3.95, eggplant top with cute french cuffs and just the right amount of stretch, 2.95.

the tights i paid full price for and cost almost as much as the rest of the outfit put together, which is nuts because, if im going to not lie to myself, i MAY get 4 wears out of the tights before they have a run too big to hide.

i also discovered today that my coat needs dry cleaned and 2 buttons are ready to pop off. good to know. i dont want to lose those buttons, the coat only came with 1 extra.

field trip to the pumpkin farm

the K5 tooktheir annual field trip to Montgomery farms on thursday!! fun stuff, they got a hay ride and each picked their own pumpkin

dominic helped daisy in her quest to find the smallest pumpkin

dominic and noah chase eachother through the mini corn maze with sticks...its what they do, they love the sticks, dominic almost cried when i told him to leave the stick at the farm. then he got distracted by feeding the goats and forgot about the stick.

heres the pumpkin i tried to convince daisy was the BEST pumpkin, she wasnt having it. later i convinced Miss Simpson that it was the best pumpkin and it found a home at last.

not MY kid

yep, MY kid. Ken and i had our eyes opened this morning. we went to see Dominics class perform their little sketch and song about the 12 men who spied on Canaan and saw how drastic his behavior change from home to school was.

i knew that he has trouble sitting still, he has trouble with making noises and talking and often doesnt listen and obey....

but the willful disobedience and out right rebellion to his teacher that we witnessed this morning was something i did not expect.

i thought if we could train him to not talk and make noise, if we could channel the need for constant movement he would do better in class.

he told his teacher 'no' when she gave him directions this morning! WHAT??!

we had NO idea! rebellion and disobedience to this extent did not come up in the meetings and e mails with his teacher. i want to know when my kid is acting a fool in class!

in the last 2 weeks we let up a little and tried to think of better ways than nightly punishments to get him to behave in class. we made up reward systems, i offered him a silly band in exchange for a note of good behavior. his teacher offered him stickers and prizes.

The party is over, we are back to nights of extended periods of nosey tosey (time out with your nose, toes and hands on the wall), sitting on the bed, not doing anything fun, having toys taken away, no tv and yep, even spankings.

there has to be a better way, i just havent found it. i am however open to suggestions.

where has the month gone?

since the 14th, when i made my last post i have had a CRAZY wild time, there was good stuff and really bad stuff:

the good stuff included telling our whole family and all our friends that we were expecting, the really bad was that a week later we had to tell them all that i had lost the baby.

also during that time i:

took a trip to Ohio which included a visit to a pumpkin farm, hay ride and all, the discovery of Kettle brand salt and pepper ship (yum), the drinking of a Yeungling (also yum), a caramel latte, carving pumpkins, TRYING to teach Marci how to knit (didnt go so well, im NOT a born teacher).

had lunch with the in laws at Boneyard Grill.

had dinner with prospective core group members who would partner with us during Church In the Grass's BIG change (more on that later)

cut my hair

super cleaned the house and conquered the laundry mountain for all of 3 minutes

took D to a halloween party where he debuted his jedi costume and ran into Cora from Kent Baptist.

went to the library no less than 5 times

went to Walmart no less than 15 times

and oh how could i forget!??

gave a long distance welcome to my brand new nephew Jackson!!!

(and FYI it does not make me sad or otherwise upset to see picture of my new baby nephew just a week after miscarrying, im so happy that he is healthy and surrounded by loving family, and i cant wait to meet him! Lindsay will be a GREAT mom and Chris, if Uncle Sean has faith in your madd Daddy skilz, then so do I))

so thats a breif overview of the last 2 weeks, i hope to be a better blogger this week.

my young padawan

i finally did it! hooray!! i got the jedi costume made.

this little padawan was well pleased and posed for as many pictures as i wanted to take.

the finishing touch will be khaki pants and hopefully boots (if they can be found at the thrift store)

what?

a holiday? noooo..it cant be a holiday, theres no food attatched to columbus day.

someone suggested that maybe we should eat italian, another suggested that perhaps a candy should be synonymous with colombus day. maybe little chocolate ships?

i know some of you lucky, lucky readers get tomorrow off, that makes it a "holiday" for you.

just what ARE we "celebrating"? a dude who got lost on his way to india and ended up on the other side of the world. hmmm...interesting.

i will continue to hold fast to the no food=no holiday rule.

its finally here! fall is finally here!!! actually, 2 days ago when i took this picture it was 80 out...but now, right now, its raining and 50...yes!!!!!!

the first rain we have seen in months.

and im crossing my fingers that its enough to clean up the air so Tricia can come back and visit me :)