Halloween/Leaves/standing

Our family is breathing a collective sigh of relief as it feels, for some reason, as if the calendar just let go of the squeeze it's had on us in recent weeks. Now we're just enjoying fall as we recover from colds and rake leaves and sort through candy.

Halloween was a crazy day. Luke missed his school party earlier in the week because he and I were both under the weather. On the 31st, I had Bible study in the morning, so we did our normal thing which meant that Anna didn't get a morning nap (she either hangs out with me,  or Aunt Mel comes and carries her around the office -she works in the building- for awhile while I'm in study). We came home and rushed to get lunch, put David in his costume and took him to school, came home and put Luke and Anna down for "naps." (That's in quotes because Luke hasn't been sleeping hardly at all lately. And I don't know if these two things are related, but we're also just having a hard time in general with lots and lots of tantrums and emotions and tears and just...struggles.)

Anyway...my friend Lynn came over (because she's a saint - and her kids are teenagers plus) to stay with the littles so I could go to class parties. Luke never slept so she ended up playing with him while I rotated between the 2 classrooms and took pictures during the parade.

It was pouring down rain and windy and stormy, so some of the towns were postponing trick or treat, but our town moved it up to 5:30, so it was an even bigger rush to get everyone fed and dressed and out the door. Somehow we did it. With umbrellas and pouring rain, we walked around and visited with neighbors and enjoyed it. A neighbor told us about a "haunted garage" that a house nearby does every year, and Katy REALLY wanted to go, so we went. It was impressively scary, and Katy LOVED it - I think she felt like a big kid.

We also had a new experience this year - going to Oma and Opa's for trick or treat!  That was really fun and she spoiled them with full size candy bars and we visited a few of their neighbors and handed out candy with them before heading home.

I should have known better than to get a Buzz Lightyear costume for him when he insisted (I found the cutest costume at a consignment shop so I went ahead and got it), but he refused to wear it because he wanted to be a superhero like his brother. Oh, well, everyone got a kick out of his huge head.

Also hit the jackpot with this Wolverine costume. David was thrilled.

I was so glad that she wanted to be something like Strawberry Shortcake still.

The ice cream cone did such a great job! She just went with the flow.

Our pumpkins this year - big improvement because we bought those little carving tools.

The big project in our yard this time of year is always leaf removal. At least the kids enjoy it - and anything activity that interests middle school neighbors must be a good one!

And little Miss Anna is on the move! She's getting where she needs to go with an inch-worm style of crawling. Also, she's the first of my children to pull up to stand before she crawled (by a couple of weeks). She LOVES to stand and she pulls up to everything these days and then looks proud of herself and giggles.

But how to get down?

 Finally, if you know me, then you know that I constantly question whether I am doing this parenting thing right. Then once in awhile something comes home from school that helps me feel like maybe we're doing something right. This is pretty much exactly what I would want my kids to say, especially given some of the challenges she's had in 2013.

"My family is the best family because they relley work hard for me. It relley works well. It is so fun being in my family because my mom loves to take us to special places like Young's Dairy. We are very supportive of each other. I love my family!"