Halloween

Here they are ...

Taylor, a dragon

with purple spikes and a tail like an ankylosaurus

Payden, a butterfly,

and according to her, NO, she is NOT a ladybug

Shelby, a golden fairy from Fablehaven

(sorry the pictures are blurry)

Declan, the Jedi

He fought and cried every time we put his costume on,

 but he proudly said he was a Jedi when a boy asked him what he was.  

Sitting down to eat at 6:30 ... sun still up ... we see people start coming, so we figured we'd better get out there.

Apparently our street is THE street to go to in Gonzales.  The crowds are insane.  Policemen on bikes roam around.  The streets are lined with cars, and the sidewalks are packed with people.  At the end of our street a local church had hot dogs, drinks, and little games as well as candy.  Fortunately going earlier helped us beat the really thick crowds.

This was our street once we came in an hour later.  The few times we walked by the house, the line of people trying to get candy at our house was backed up to the mailbox.  We had 800+ pieces of candy, and it was all gone an hour later ... INSANE!!!!

Weirdly, by about 8:30/9:00 the street was dead quiet.  After an hour of trick-or-treating, we came in, and the kids sat down to check out their stash.  This is Declan's new face when I try to take pictures.

Payden's First!!!!

Tom comes in and tells me he yanked Payden's tooth out, and he had to yank pretty hard.  She comes in a few seconds later to show me and tells me she was sucking a lollipop and it knocked her teeth crooked.  She doesn't even mention Tom getting it out.  Funny girl.  Apparently she bit down on the lollipop, and it twisted the tooth ... badly.  She showed Tom, who grabbed the tooth and yanked it out.  She's soooo excited to have lost her first tooth!  Way to go Payden!!!!

Sleeping Arrangement

Rentals in Gonzales were hard to come by, so when we found this house and it was a reasonable price and size, we snatched it up.  Tom was the one who toured the home, but hadn't paid much attention to any of the details other than "could we make it work."  What a shock we had when we moved in and realized the 3 bedroom/3 bath was really a 2 bedroom/3 bath with a bonus room downstairs.  It was another shock to realize the 2nd bedroom was soooo small that there was no way the kids were all going to fit into it, so Tom and I decided to put the kids in the huge master bedroom, and we would take the 2nd bedroom.   

With the extreme heat of summer, our pour little A/C could only manage to keep the upstairs at a minimum of 78 (on a good day).  By evening, the upstairs was so hot that Shelby couldn't sleep well on the top bunk, so we put her mattress on the floor and this is how we've kept it.  It's not ideal, but it works.  As Tim Gunn from Project Runway says, "Make it work."  It's a good piece of advice for life I've decided.

Each night before I go to bed, I check on the kids.  For my own peace of mind, I have to check on them before I fall asleep, but the bonus is the funny positions I find them in.  

Declan used to fall asleep with a birdie blanket on his face, but that has transitioned to a blanket on his head.  He graduated from a crib to this mattress on the floor when we moved here.  We've found him sleeping above his bed behind the bedroom door, sleeping on his bed with his head on his pillow which is on the floor, or sleeping on the floor using his mattress as a pillow.  He falls off his bed most nights, so I'm glad we don't have an actually bed for him at this point.

Payden cracks me up because she always tends to scoot toward the hard edge of her bed.  I often find her with one blanket under her head, sleeping with her head on the wood edge of the bed.  If not that, her legs are dangling over the side or her whole body is resting against the hard edge.  It can't be comfortable.

Taylor sleeps like a caterpillar in a cocoon ... every night . .. whether the room is 78 degrees or 66 degrees.   She is crazy!  In the summer, when she wakes, she is soaked with sweat.  She is very imaginative, and I think sleeping like this helps her block everything out, so her mind and imagination don't get carried away, which at night tends toward things spooky and scary.

Shelby usually sleeps calmly, but lately I've found her with her blankets scooted down and her legs on top of them, so she looks like she's sitting on a chair with her back on the floor.

It's amazing how the little things like this can bring a smile to your face and a bit of joy and love to your heart.  Love it!