and then, the night before halloween, we carved ’em. in past years, the bulk of the pumpkin cutting, cleaning, and carving fell to us parents as our kids would gag on the smell of pumpkin guts, refuse to stick their hands in the slimy goop, and eventually get bored and run off to play.  they’d only come back once all was done, cleaned up, and smiley jack-o-lanterns were ready for them to claim as their own. well, it appears to be a new day, folks. they were so eager to get started that they jumped in before i was ready for em. and they did most of it by themselves…

it was beginning to look like we weren’t going to make it to the pumpkin farm this year and that was totally bumming me out.  because there’s not that much to indicate fall as arrived around here- no fall leaves, no chilly weather (it’s still in the near 90s!), no fall clothes to bust out.  so the only thing we have to mark the change of seasons is to drive an hour to a real working farm in order to get our fix of fallishness. except life has been very, very busy for us lately.  and adding this one extra trip made both phil and i very, very tired. but…

The bathing suit/ice cream woman is my new personal hero. When I’m out somewhere like Target with my 4 kids, I feel like my thing is to make people realize that their lives could be worse. I literally had a woman with her 2 sons and a baby in an Ergo look at me (with my 2 sons, a baby in an Ergo and another in an infant seat) and say, “I was feeling really bad for myself today. And then I saw you.” Um… thanks?

i mentioned that i was having a certain little problem with reading homework a couple weeks ago.  namely that i was helpless against falling into a complete comatose state every time my little first grader would do her twenty minutes of read-aloud time to me.  the comfy couch… the warm little body pressed against mine… the sweet, haltingly soothing little voice stumbling over the words…  ZZZ. out like a light.  a snoring light. but, my friends!  i believe i have found the answer to my problem.  oh happy day!  and here she is:  a handy dandy little sister! who stays alert and engaged during the reading of the story. awesome. …

while doing spelling words with mikey… me: the next word is ‘wife’.  mikey, will you have a wife when you grow up? mikey: uh, yeah, i think so. me: what kind of wife do you think you’ll have? mikey: um, a pretty one?