Happiness

I've been blogging from my phone, so it's pretty easy to get a blog post written these days. Daylight Savings Time has thrown me for a loop and has gotten Declan waking up at 6 am the past two mornings. I haven't been able to do my yoga/meditation as usual and I'm missing it badly!  Making sugar cookies Carving Pumpkins- Ethan and his giant pumpkin. Declan smiling! All the carved pumpkins! Perfect weather for Halloween!  Halloween Night. 2015. Ethan had changed costumes 3 times- a snake wrangler for the school parade, a zombie for Trunk or Treat and then a Hershey bar for Halloween Night. He barely finished when we were walking out the door. He was hoping on getting more Hershey bars than the other kids- and he succeeded! Asher and his cool mustache. Elizabeth wanted to be Mrs. Frankenstein and after time spent on a skirt, she decided to go without. I had bought a cute lion costume for Declan but he thought it was too fuzzy and would not put it on, so Ethan and Jonah...

Here's our crew of misfits- A Red Guy, a Blue M& M, a Zombie and  a Hobo. Here's our Resident Hobo- Elizabeth. She was kind of sad that she wasn't dressed up as something cute this year- but I had the same exact experience by dressing up as an old woman in sixth grade when everyone else was a cheerleader or a cute fairy tale character. Ethan liked this costume so much last year that he wanted to wear it again this year. I think this will be the last since it is getting frayed and worn! Jonah REALLY, REALLY wanted this red morph suit, so after finding it on sale on ebay, we got it for him. He ended up covering it with a jacket and not putting the face mask part of it on since he couldn't see through it well enough when it was dark outside. He was thrilled with it though! He was a lion for his school parade since his class had an "Under the Big Top" theme and you can still see the whiskers on his face.   Asher was a Mummy for the sc...

 Asher!   One long Sunday afternoon (we have 8:00 Church), the kids decided to create some Gingerbread (aka Graham Cracker) Haunted Houses. Ethan decided to use the glue gun, since it holds up better, although the others decided to just use frosting since they wanted to be able to eat the whole thing.   Ethan   Jonah- needing a haircut!   Elizabeth   Jonah's finished project We normally dole out all of their Halloween Candy, little by little, for a week and then save the rest for car trips, pinatas, etc. This year we decided on Saturday, to let them eat as much as they wanted to that day- in order to get rid of most of it. This is the conversation that followed about 3 hours of candy eating: "Mom, I cannot eat any more candy!" Asher "Wow, that was the most candy I ever ate at one time!" Asher "Why DID you decide to let us eat as much candy as we want to?" Jonah (maybe regretting it) "Wah-ha-ha!!!"...

 Jonah   Carving Pumpkins for FHE at a friend's house.   Asher has dots on his hand to keep track of how many laps he runs during running club.  Jonah.  I let the kids scoop and carve and I take pictures and cheer them on- and maybe help a little. Josh does a lot of the helping of the scooping and carving as well!  Elizabeth seems a little grossed out by this. See those bracelets on her wrist? They are made on a rainbow loom out of rubberbands and are the new fad now- just like silly bands once were! The kids trade them at school and give them away to close friends. Our friends borrowed this cool, homemade train that is pulled behind a four wheeler-an Arizona tradition it seems! No, Jonah did not run as much as his hand shows- he decided to add more dots to it on his own! Happy Haunting, Everyone!!

Elizabeth as a cat girl! Josh was a soccer Hooligan and I was a Twilight fan- on Edwards' side (I'm usually on Jacob's. Ok. I switch back and forth- I'm a fair weather fan!) Ethan as a zombie, night stalker Jonah as a vampire! Asher as Spiderman! All 4 kiddos Along with candy, someone passed out these cool glasses. The kids loved them! They also got mini pumpkin slinkies, a clip on a bag of pretzels, some stretchy mice (which Asher slept with last night!) and some granola bars. I was not feeling so great so I handed the camera over to Josh and he took these great shots of the kids! Halloween went great this year! The weather was warm- 90 degrees so it felt like summer and not really Fall to me. It felt like people were pretending it was Halloween and dressing up and trick or treating for fun. No Hot Chocolate, fire in the fireplace or thick Halloween costumes for us!! Josh took the kids out around 6:15 and they got back around 7:30 pm. I let them eat and then pick out 2...

Here I sit, in an arm chair next to the door, breezing through blogs and passing out snickers and pixie sticks to little mummies and tiny princesses and scary teenagers who really shouldn't be trick or treating. i was such a meanie and made a group of laughing ones (teenagers that is) actually hold out their bags and say trick or treat. goodness. I was reading cJanes fictional non-fiction stories and was in pure heaven. You see, I am a READER. I would rather read than watch tv- although Frasier on netlix has been tempting me a lot lately. Josh and I have androids and I love using mine as my portable reader- scriptures, facebook (that's reading right?), blogs. My new lust is a tiny laptop that just gets wireless or maybe an ipad with a portable keyboard? The wolves are howling, the moon is not really full, my kids will soon come back, flushed with the rush of even the thought of so much sugar, and I will close down my phone and listen to their stories, piled on top of each other...

I, who love sugar, could barely finish one of these! Massive overload! Elizabeth, enjoying her treat! Happy Halloween! We have scored the jackpot by moving into a neighborhood of newly constructed homes built one on top of the other! Every other house has fun/sometimes slightly weird Halloween decorations (bones sticking out of a rock covered yard anyone?) and the kids have been having fun riding their bikes and checking out the new decorations put up daily. Hopefully their bags won't break with the amount of candy they get! And hopefully I'll get them to let me take some of it (and eat some too!) This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

We made baby ghosts with salt dough from familyfun.com. The kids loved it! Elizabeth made hers into a girl ghost, although no picture was taken. I even had to run to the store for more salt to make a second batch so the boys could use the Halloween cookie cutters and make some bats. Scary! Jonah really, really wanted to paint his pumpkin. He chose a white one this year and it seemed destined to be painted instead of carved. I asked him if he wanted to paint it or carve it. He said both. I said "You can pick one." "Paint it." he replied after some hesitation. It turned out really cute! Here's Asher painting something. That boy loves to paint. There are 3 things that will guarantee squashing an uprising tantrum for this kid. 1. gum. He will always take a piece- or a half a piece I should say- and become happy. This comes from the kid who had a binky until he was 3 1/2. Yep, 3 1/2. He is so orally stimulated. I won't be doing that again though! 2. TV. I don...

Here's to a Happy Halloween!!! We love you guys!! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

A friend did a blog entitled "Happy" where she posted all the pictures in the month that made her happy. Last month I took 150 pictures. That's right! 150! I never do that. I did it in anticipation of posting a picture a day on my blog. As it turns out, my blogger service has a hard time connecting with my picture storage on my computer. Actually, my computer is kind of sick. I may be calling in some Computer Dr. to help! I have to go- Ethan's crying- I'll be back. In blog news, I have accepted the blogging design help of one of my on-line friends (www.thesparrowsnest.typepad.com)- so if you like what she will do with my blog and want it done to yours, she will be helping others more after Christmas! I am excited for a new face for Pink Panda. Also, I love my blog. It is my forum of expressing who I am, how I feel, etc. Unfortunately, others in my life are concerned about the impact it may have on our family, especially posts inclu...

I wanted to post a picture of the kids, but blogger is experiencing problems. I tried to do it yesterday and it was experiencing problems also! Thus, a post with no pictures. This weekend I am taking a weekend away! Ok. It's only for one night, but it's starting Saturday at 3 pm, when I can check into a local hotel and ending Sunday at 11 am, when I can check out of the hotel. I am very excited. I've needed a break (ie. a solid night's sleep) for a while now! The boys are used to waking up at night and me putting their blankets on. Through my therapy, I've learned that I struggle with setting bottom lines- that's where in relationships you say- I'm okay with this, but I'm not okay with that. Thus, I haven't been able to say "I'm not okay waking up in the middle of the night for the past three months." or with Asher "I'm not okay with you sitting on the sink and eating my chapstick." Last night I told the boys that...

This morning I went to the MVA this morning to register our van and get a new Maryland license. Aunt Ellen- Auntie Em- as her family calls her- graciously watched the kids for me. I was in and out in about two hours and got the van's plates and my new license! Everyone was happy- I think they had a little two much chocolate last night- besides a few disgruntled applicants. Happy Halloween, by the way! Overall, my visit to the MVA- not DMV went very successfully and ended with a "Welcome to Maryland" by a sweet MVA worker. I had never had someone say that to me and felt very welcomed! The kids went to trunk or treat last night and a good time was had by all. We will be going out again tonight and I hope to post pictures tommorow. In other news, I may be blogging only on Mon, Wed and Fridays (poor crazy picture day Thursday get left out in the cold!) I have been busy with Halloween and my therapy. New issues that I am dealing with seem again too much for a blog. Let me just...